Thunderheart
- R
- Year:
- 1992
- 119 min
- 1,321 Views
FADE IN:
EXT. THE GREAT PLAINS SOUTH DAKOTA - DAWN
Something is rising from the Black Hills. A sphere of light,
too red to be the sun. A sphere of contained fire, undulating
in crimson and ochre, and rising slowly, majestically, to
the pulse. To the DRUM. It is the sun. But it is a Paha Sapa
sunrise. A Black Hills sunrise. And it is spectacular.
The DRUM, pounds deeper, bigger, as the sun gets higher.
Stronger. Igniting a vast landscape of gentle slopes and
foothills; throwing shadows on the plains that look like, as
the Indians say, an old man dancing. The grass is golden.
And high. The wind moves through it, snakes through it.
Slowly.
BEGIN CREDITS.
Voices; a TRADITIONAL INDIAN SONG (Lakota), summoning Wakan
Tanka - The Great Mystery.
And now, rising up over one of the small land waves, a head
comes into view. Shoulders. A man, running in ghostly SLOW
MOTION, his long black hair trailing in the wind. The INDIAN
MAN wears only buckskin pants and a bone choker around his
neck.
Legs and arms churning, the man runs with antelope grace,
backlit by the sunrise, bounding toward us. Running... his
heart pounding. SONG RISING... DRUM POUNDING... FIVE MORE
VOICES in high-pitched tremolo join the song.
And then the runner soars, like an eagle from a bluff,
airborne, flying over a small dip, arms outstretched, and it
would be a wondrous thing if there were not a fine, crimson,
mist all around him and if slow motion was not suddenly
overtaken by LIVE SPEED, revealing the brutal force of gunfire
which has slammed the Indian into the air, throwing him.
Slamming him hard into the grass. And it is over as quickly
and violently as a deer shot dead.
LAKOTA SONG ends abruptly.
the sun burns like lava at the horizon. DRUM beats like a
heart. And Somewhere off in a distant cottonwood, an OWL.
Then Silence. Deep, disturbing stillness.
EXT. CAPITAL BELTWAY - WASHINGTON. D.C - DAY
ROCK N'ROLL shatters the silence.
Cars -- a multicolored metallic criss-cross reflecting off a
building made of mirrors -- races past an electronic billboard
that blinks in red skyhigh digital: PRUDENTIAL LIFE INSURANCE.
7:
59. 73 degrees.The D.C. Superhighway. And off behind it, in the distance,
Capital Hill holds imposing vigil, the massive cast iron
dome of The Capital, catching the sun. But everything is
soon smothered by a METRO BUS, hogging the far lane of the
Beltway, leaning on its HORN.
Good morning.
And the rock n'roll is everybody's radio, everybody's tempo.
CARBON MONOXIDE WAVE
shimmers across the beltway hugging then releasing a solitary
vehicle that we stay with... move with... A black Nissan 240
SX, hard-waxed.
INT. 240 SX - TRAVELING
Behind the wheel -- an intense young man with close-cropped
black hair, eyes hidden by sunglasses. Whatever he does for
a living, he does in a suit (not expensive but well-fit. But
we might also note that any extra suit cash has gone instead
into the silver-plated watch on his left wrist). Lean as a
rake, sallow in the cheeks, there is something insatiable
about him -- a hungry energy that won't let him go.
RAY LEVOI, late 20's, early 30's, pulls out of a threatening
traffic jam and races on the narrow right between thirty
cars and a cement girder.
EXT. T STREET - OUTSIDE WEST-CENTRAL
The black SX has jumped off an exit and has entered the light-
industrial section of Washington. It pulls up near a loading
dock behind an old gray building and several parked cars and
vans. Ray steps out, smooths his jacket, locks and SETS HIS
CAR ALARM.
Another young man -- chubby, clean-shaven; in a nicer suit
than Ray's -- steps out from a parked Miata, and approaches
Ray. CARL PODJWICK balances a coffee, a U.S.A. Today and a
black eel-skin briefcase.
CARL:
Hey.
RAY:
Hey. Nice tie.
CARL:
Don't get too attached.
They start walking briskly toward the loading dock.
RAY:
Ya got the paper?
They mount steps.
CARL:
Yeah.
RAY:
You're my hero, Carl.
CARL:
Heroes ain't supposed to shake. I'm
shakin', man, look at me.
RAY:
Breathe, Carl. Four, nice, deep ones.
They stop at the door of a service elevator and Carl breathes.
Expanding his chest, exhaling. Ray adjusts Carl's tie for
him, his collar. He speaks quietly. Quickly.
RAY:
Anyone stops us going in, we're with
the Bowen-Hamilton Textile Company.
We have rug samples.
CARL:
Rug samples.
RAY:
We are one-dimensional, boring
peddlers of fine carpet, Carl.
Carl nods. Ray hesitates, adjusts his own collar and enters
the service elevator. Carl follows. Door closes.
BEGIN CREDITS END.
INT. GRAY BUILDING - FENCING OPERATION
Carl follows Ray into the big sparse room of unfinished
sheetrock walls. There is nothing in here but cardboard boxes,
and two people; a bearded HISPANIC MAN standing behind a
counter, writing on a clipboard. The other is a middle-aged
BLACK MAN in a purple silk shirt sitting in a chair with a
newspaper held open. He barely looks over the top of the
Wall Street Journal.
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"Thunderheart" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/thunderheart_415>.
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