Titanic (Scriptment) Page #13

ROSE:

(laughing)

Stop! No, it's just Rose. A simple little flower without a thought in its head.

JACK:

No... roses are complex... you ever pull one apart? The petals just get smaller and smaller down to infinity. And they're the only flower that can draw blood.

Rose is starting to be as fascinated by Jack as Jack obviously is by her. She notices his sketchbook and asks to see it. They sit on two adjacent steamer chairs and Jack opens the sketchbook, handing it to her. A couple of loose sketches fall out and are taken by the breeze. Jack scrambles after them... but they are gone, over the rail. He laughs it off. He can always make more.

Rose looks at his sketches... each one an expressive little bit of humanity: a smile, two hands, a sleeping man, a father and daughter at the rail. The faces are luminous and alive. His book is a celebration of the human condition.

While she looks through his sketches, Jack says he worked his way to France on a freighter to see what all the fuss was about with the art movement there, and found out he didn't understand what these cubists and dadaists were doing. He says anyone can make such scrawls. He liked the impressionists though, because they saw light in a way that made sense to him. He even hitchhiked down to Giverny to see Monet, but all he saw was his back through a knot-hole in the fence around his garden.

She comes upon a series of nudes. Rose is transfixed by the languid beauty he has created. His nudes are soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They feel more like portraits than studies of the human form... almost uncomfortably intimate.

ROSE:

These were drawn from life?

JACK:

Yup. That's one of the great things about Paris. Lots of girls willing to be models. Even a starving artist gets some respect. Even an American one.

ROSE:

You liked this woman. You used her several times.

JACK:

She had beautiful hands.

ROSE:

I think you must have had a love affair with her.

JACK:

(laughing)

No, no! Just with her hands.

She studies one drawing in particular, the girl posed half in sunlight, half in shadow, lying on a divan with her head toward us, face and eyes upturned straight toward the artist. Her hands lie at her chin, one furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful. Her eyes seem to gleam in a half-shadowed face. The drawing is like an Alfred Steiglitz print of Georgia O'Keefe, intimate and real rather than romanticized beauty.

ROSE:

Some of her soul is in this one.

(looking at him)

You have a gift, Jack. You see people.

She turns the page to the drawing he did of her. It doesn't occur to her that the girl in the picture is herself.

ROSE:

You see? How sad the lines are.

JACK:

That's you.

(off her surprised look)

Yesterday. You were feeding hats to the fish.

ROSE:

(studying the drawing)

It is me! So that's why you were staring at me so rudely! Well you're forgiven.

She tells him she sometimes thinks about chucking it all and becoming an artist, living in a garret. She romanticizes poverty in a way only a sheltered rich girl could.

Jack laughs and tells her she wouldn't last two days. There's no hot water, and hardly ever any caviar.

ROSE:

Listen, buster... I hate caviar! And I'm tired of people dismissing my dreams with a chuckle and a pat on the head.

He apologizes quickly and sincerely. She tells him that no one understands what is going on inside her. They don't see, and they don't listen.

ROSE:

As long as I play the role of the china doll everything's fine, but if I open my mouth to express an opinion on something that matters, they look at me like my hair's on fire.

Rose is desperately tired of being told what to do, what to want, what to feel. She's tired of being dismissed, of her decisions being ignored.

He asks if that was why she figured she'd go down to the fantail and practice her high-diving.

ROSE:

(recreating her state of mind)

Oh yes. I'll show them all. Teach them not to listen. They'll sure be sorry.

JACK:

They'll be sorry... you'll be dead.

ROSE:

Oh, God. I'm such an utter fool.

She had romanticized the idea of suicide, which combined with too much champagne, her passionate nature and her trapped, hopeless feeling, had led her to the back rail. Now she feels foolish in the light of day.

She realizes how he must see her, the poor little rich girl feeling sorry for herself when she has the best life has to offer. How can she explain it to him?

JACK:

So this Cal guy, he's your boyfriend?

ROSE:

Fiancee.

She shows him her engagement ring. A sizable diamond (though peanuts compared to what's in the safe in B-53).

JACK:

Look at that thing. You woulda gone straight to the bottom.

This gets a laugh.

IN THE RECEPTION ROOM on D deck, Ruth is having coffee with the Countess of Rothes. She sees someone coming across the room and lowers her voice.

RUTH:

Here comes that vulgar Brown woman. Let's get up before she sits with us.

Molly Brown walks up, greeting them cheerfully as they are rising to go. Ruth, attempting to disengage, says that they are going up to the boat deck for a stroll.

MOLLY:

That sounds great, girls. Let's go.

Ruth grits her teeth as the three of them head for the grand staircase to go up. TRACKING WITH THEM, as they cross the room, the shot hands off to Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith at another table.

Ismay is discussing the posted runs for the first two days of the voyage, which so far equal the Olympic's first crossing. The Titanic can still increase her speed and beat her sister ship's crossing time. Ismay is confident it can be done, and he is emphatic how important it is. They must have something superlative for the papers to print when they arrive in New York. His tone becomes dictatorial and he catches himself.

ISMAY:

Of course, I'm just a passenger. I leave it to your good offices to decide what's best.

We see the subtle but very real pressure Ismay is bringing to bear on Captain Smith to steam full speed. Smith nods.

Ismay slaps his hand down on the table and declares:

ISMAY:

We'll do it! We'll beat the Olympic and get into New York on Tuesday night! Surprise them all. And what a fine way to end your retirement voyage, Captain.

ON THE BOAT DECK, Jack and Rose are walking past the shuffleboard court.

JACK:

So is he a good guy? I mean he must be, you're marrying him and all. I mean, what's he like?

ROSE:

You can see for yourself at dinner tonight. You are coming aren't you?

JACK:

I assumed he didn't really mean the invitation.

ROSE:

He probably didn't. But come anyway, please. Please say yes, Jack--

(her smile falls)

Oh no.

ROSE'S POV:
Ruth, Countess Rothes, and Molly Brown are coming toward them.

ROSE:

Well, now we get to see how brave you really are. You're about to meet my mother.

RUTH:

Oh, Rose, look at you out in the sun with no hat. Honestly!

Rose introduces Jack as the man who saved her life. Ruth is polite but subtly condescending and dismissive. Molly Brown asks Jack where he's from and Jack tells her, a small farm in Wisconsin. Molly feels a kinship with him... a poor boy out of his element with these snobs.

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