The Manchurian Candidate Page #13

MARCO:

I don’t keep up with Al Melvin. He found

me.

RAYMOND:

Why did you ask me about Kuwait?

MARCO:

(pleasantly:
)

I didn’t. I asked you about your dreams.

At the fundraiser -- why did you say you

needed to talk to me?

MIRELLA:

(covers the phone)

Mr. Shaw, excuse me -- they want to know

if you’ll do an interview with Larry King

at six.

RAYMOND:

No.

(to Marco)

What do you want from me, Captain?

MARCO:

Major. Forty minutes of your time.

MIRELLA:

No to the interview, or no to six?

RAYMOND:

He wants to talk about my mother. No.

He looks at Marco -

MARCO:

Private time.

RAYMOND:

Well, we’ve got about five minutes, right

now. And this is as private as it gets

for me anymore, so ...

Beat. He waits. Anderson staring at Marco.

8/18/03 63.

MARCO:

There are these dreams that ... some of

the men in our unit have been having.

RAYMOND:

Including you?

MARCO:

It’s a question of what actually happened

the night our patrol was attacked --

RAYMOND:

That’s easy.

(almost automatic)

RPG incoming. Mortar fire, we’re

ambushed. Total chaos. I can’t locate

Baker or Mavole. You’re knocked

unconscious -- I find you and pull you to

safety and then -

MARCO:

(cuts him off)

-- Yeah, that’s how I remember it, too.

(beat)

But I dream something else.

The limo pulls to a curb --

118 EXT. ARTHUR/SHAW N.Y. CAMPAIGN OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON 118

Through the windows SEE a crowded clutter of desks, phone

volunteers, stacks of pamphlets. A giant SECURE TOMORROW

logo looms above, flanked by beaming likenesses of Robert

Arthur and Raymond Shaw. Anderson comes out and opens the

limo door for Raymond. Marco struggles out behind him:

RAYMOND:

Am I in your dreams?

MARCO:

Yeah.

RAYMOND:

Doing what?

MARCO:

(evasive)

-- You know.

Raymond steps just outside the entrance to his office.

RAYMOND:

Saving everybody?

PEDESTRIANS pass between them on the crowded sidewalk.

8/18/03 64.

MARCO:

It’s more complicated than that.

Marco reaches into his folder, pulls out one of Melvin’s

notebooks --

MARCO:

People just don’t have the same dreams

accidentally --

(holds out the notebook)

-- Melvin made drawings, he wrote down

what he dreamed, this is one of his

notebooks -- it’s all in here.

-- and Raymond’s staring at the notebook without taking it,

the way Marco once did with Melvin. Anderson and Mirella --

the staffers in the office -- are all staring at Marco the

same way the Boy Scouts once stared at Melvin.

RAYMOND:

I don’t have dreams, Captain.

(then, gently:
)

Maybe you should ... see somebody -- talk

to somebody who specializes in this kind

of thing --

MARCO:

I’ve been to doctors.

... which is exactly what Melvin said to him.

MARCO:

Okay. Okay, I’m sorry.

Marco nods again, numb, makes a vague resigned gesture.

MARCO:

I’m not crazy, Shaw.

He jams the notebook back into his folder, starts to walk

away.

RAYMOND:

(calls after)

Captain -(

then)

-- Major.

(then)

Ben.

Marco stops, turns.

RAYMOND:

Are you hungry?

8/18/03 65.

119 INT. RAYMOND’S PRIVATE OFFICE - CAMPAIGN HQ - DUSK 119

Huge posters featuring Raymond’s face, emblazoned with

SECURE TOMORROW, stacked against the wall. A desk covered

with papers and enough take-out Chinese food for ten people,

and Raymond sits behind it, nursing a glass of wine, and

pointedly ignoring Melvin’s notebook, while:

RAYMOND:

I kill Mavole?

MARCO:

It’s a dream --

RAYMOND:

No.

MARCO:

-- could mean something else.

RAYMOND:

No.

MARCO:

-- could be I’m just supposed to think

you did.

RAYMOND:

-- I killed the enemy. I didn’t know

them, either. So it was okay. And,

anyway, I remember what we did in Kuwait,

I remember it perfectly. But now that

you mention it, I don’t remember doing it

... exactly.

MARCO:

Maybe you didn’t.

RAYMOND:

NO. What a thought.

Now he picks up the dream book. Marco watches. Raymond

flips through the pages for a moment, dismissively. Then

stops at something Melvin has drawn. Frowns. Raises his

eyebrows. Closes it, sets it down:

RAYMOND:

Life is so bizarre, isn’t it? This

absurd campaign, the sordid world of

politics, my whole public life and

persona -- sometimes, occasionally, for

an instant, the fog clears and I look and

I think, what am I doing? I mean, what

the f*** am I doing? Posing and grinning

like a goddamn sock puppet, shaking hands

with total strangers who must be blind if

(MORE)

8/18/03 66.

RAYMOND (CONT’D)

they can’t see what I am, at the core.

What my mother has made me.

Raymond looks steadily at Marco ... who nods, interested:

RAYMOND:

A Prentiss. Ferociously, a Prentiss --

but not a Shaw, God forbid -- I was

molded by cold hard hands, every detail

of my existence preordained. Can you

even imagine, Ben, how it would feel

never to have a say in what your life

would be? I was twenty years old before

I had a friend -- no, worse, a girlfriend

-- well, almost -- but, yes, a friend, or

I thought so -- outside my mother’s

circle of approved encounters -- and it

didn’t -- she wouldn’t -- precipitating

my one act of rebellion, storming off and

enlisting --

(grimaces)

-- in the Army. Which, ironically, only

served ultimately to pad my gilded

Prentiss resume. You know: "fluent in

five languages, Phi Beta Kappa,

Congressional Medal of Honor, blah blah

blah."

(beat)

And after the war I came back to her.

And the family legacy. This. Mother

calls it, "fulfilling my Manifest

Prentiss Destiny."

MARCO:

Why did you come back, Raymond? What

happened?

RAYMOND:

What?

Seeming startled, Raymond’s reverie is broken. His eyes

harden as he refocuses on Marco.

RAYMOND:

Weren’t you listening? Mother happened.

(then)

You know, the truth is, I hate it. I’ve

always despised it.

MARCO:

(lost)

Which?

RAYMOND:

The medal. The cloying adulation of the

little people. Your pitiful jealousy --

8/18/03 67.

MARCO:

Who said I was jealous?

RAYMOND:

I don’t have the dreams, Ben.

MARCO:

How can you not remember saving the unit?

RAYMOND:

I do. I said I did.

MARCO:

You said you don’t remember doing it.

RAYMOND:

Ha ha, don’t mix me up, I’m tired, and --

Fine. It’s like this. It’s as if I know

what will happen, Ben, but I never get to

the part where I feel that it actually

did happen. But I think that’s probably

perfectly normal.

MARCO:

Did you ever talk to anybody about this

little discrepancy?

RAYMOND:

What? No. Who would I ask? My old Army

"buddies," who love and adore me for

saving their pathetically unimportant --

present company excluded -- asses?

MARCO:

No. You ask Army Intelligence.

(getting excited)

Look, we can go together, tomorrow. You

tell them what you just told me,

everything you do remember, what you

don’t "exactly" remember, about Kuwait,

let ’em run some tests on you --

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