Titanic (Scriptment) Page #17

Rose, who has by now had too much to drink herself says to Jack and Tommy.

ROSE:

So, you think you're big tough guys? Let's see you do this.

In her stocking feet she assumes a ballet stance, arms raised, and goes up on point, taking her entire weight on the tips of her toes. The guys gape at her incredible muscle control. She comes back down, then her face screws up in pain. She grabs one foot, hopping around.

ROSE:

Oooowww! I haven't done that in years.

Jack catches her as she loses her balance, and everyone cracks up. Rose is a hit with the steerage folks, who've never had a lady party with them. Even Tommy, the curmudgeonly despiser of the upper classes, is charmed, begrudgingly.

And Rose is having a great time with this lively steerage crowd, so different from her stuck-up peers. She sees them, for the first time in her life, the way Jack sees them in his pictures.

Demanding equality with the male race, she takes a cigarette from Fabrizio and takes a big inhale, feeling cocky... a long pause where she looks totally cool, then way after we think she's got it knocked, she doubles over coughing. Everybody cracks up.

The door to the well deck is open a few inches as Lovejoy watches through the gap. He sees Rose with Jack, laughing. Her hair is disheveled, and she is soaked with beer.

He closes the door.

JACK ESCORTS HER BACK TO HER ROOM via the darkened BOAT DECK. He says he wants to make sure she won't fall overboard again. Through the doors the sound of the ship's orchestra wafts gently. They are playing the barcarole from the "Tales of Hoffman" by Offenbach, evoking languid romantic Venetian nights.

He asks her if she loves Cal. She says she did when she agreed to marry him, or thought she did. It was what love seemed like it should be, from all the novels she'd read. But now she realizes that she was willing to do anything that would release her from the iron grasp of her mother, even if it meant giving herself up to the grasp of another.

The stars blaze overhead, and the night air is bracing after the smoky haze of the party. They sit on a bench and talk, looking at the stars.

Rose asks if he knows this writer, HG Wells? His stories are about the moon, and the planets, and actually traveling to them, and meeting other races there... or going into the distant future to watch the sun die. It's all so big, and these people, my people, are so small.

She says she looks around her and sees people who think they have conquered the world, when all they have done is shut it out, ignoring its vastness, and over-cultivated what's left inside their walls like an English rose garden. Our dreams of glory, meaning, permanence... are nothing, our whole world is a silly champagne bubble in the big black night.

And the life we do have, we waste. In Edwardian society, people are stoic and proper. They don't talk about their feelings. They just look at each other and assume.

With Jack, she feels like she can say anything.

Rose tells him the story of a time, right after she met Cal, when she was talking to him once at the stable and right in mid-sentence a fly flew into her open mouth.

ROSE:

I didn't know what to do: spit it out, cry for help, faint. No well brought up girl could spit in front of a man... and I was so embarrassed... so I swallowed that fly, alive and buzzing... in the name of propriety.

Jack promptly gets her up on her feet and holds spitting class. He shows her how to hock up a good one, get it poised right in the middle of the tongue, and launch it. He uses the shuffleboard court as a target to score her for distance and accuracy. A pipe-smoking gentleman walks by, giving a wide berth to this bizarre behaviour. Rose is practically peeing herself, she's laughing so hard.

Rose has never met anyone like Jack. He is not afraid to get in there and talk about what is going on inside her. He is not like anyone she has ever known. It is exciting and scary. She opens to him. And, unlike everyone else in her life, he is a good listener.

And Jack has never met anyone like Rose. She astounds him and fascinates him. He flashes between wanting to save her and protect her to realizing just how intimidatingly awesome she really is. Jack is so smitten by her at this point... this enigmatic beauty who is so vulnerable and yet somehow so strong.

She thanks him for coming to dinner. She wanted him to see her world before he judged her.

Jack's hand grips the edge of the bench between them, and hers is next to it, only an inch away. They look at the stars in silence for a few moments.

ROSE:

I read that the stars are so far away, the light coming from them takes years or maybe even centuries to get down here.

JACK:

I wonder how they figured that out.

Her hand moves next to his, touching it, but just resting next to it. It is the slightest contact imaginable, and all either one of them can feel is that square inch of skin where their hands are touching.

ROSE:

I wonder if they'll ever figure out the speed of a wish. If I wish for something right now, how many years will it take to get there and back?

JACK:

What would you wish for?

ROSE:

Something I can't have.

CUT TO OUTSIDE ROSE'S STATEROOM. It is the promenade deck door. They stand in the shadows a moment, she on one side of the threshold and he on the other.

It is an awkward moment. It looks like they are about to kiss. The longing is clear, but she is reeling from the very concept. She pulls back, instinctively.

Rose gives him a quick peck on the cheek and closes the door.

INSIDE HER ROOM, she sags against the wall, reeling from her newfound emotions. She tests it again and again in her mind and she can't deny what is happening to her. She looks at her hands and they are shaking.

She laughs at herself. Is this really happening?

She curses herself for not following her feelings... takes a deep breath and runs to the door, flinging it open.

The promenade deck is empty.

She begins to run.

Along the promenade, in the dark, to the door leading in to the head of the grand staircase. She runs into the magnificent room and looks around. It is deserted, except for two stewards. She crosses to the railing, her shoes clicking rapidly on the marble tiles, and looks down, breathless.

Her POV, a figure one floor down, descending away from her.

ROSE:

Jack!

He turns, looking up at her.

A thin-lipped face with a large handlebar mustache.

Not Jack. Puzzled, the gentleman turns away and goes on.

But she has acknowledged what she feels, if only to herself.

Rose looks crestfallen, turning away and is startled by LOVEJOY, standing right behind her. "Are you alright, Miss?"

She nods and he opens the door for her as she goes back to her stateroom.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes