Titanic (Scriptment) Page #3

He sees the lab techs placing the papers from the safe in a tray of water to separate them safely. Some letters are lying over a much larger sheet of heavy paper. A tech coaxes the letters to one side with a tong... revealing a pencil (conte crayon) drawing of a woman.

LOVETT:

Hang on a second.

He looks closely at the drawing, which is in excellent shape, at least in the center, though its edges have partially disintegrated. The woman is beautiful, and beautifully rendered. In fact the drawing is quite remarkable, having a feeling of life and light. The woman seems to be in her late teens or early twenties, and she is nude, though poses with a kind of casual modesty, one arm covering her breasts. She is on what appears to be an Empire divan, in a pool of light that seems to radiate outward from her eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner is the date: April 14 1912. And the cryptic initials JD.

The girl is not entirely nude. At her throat is a diamond necklace with one large stone hanging in the center along her breastbone.

Lovett grabs a reference photo from the clutter on the lab table. It is a period black-and-white photo of a diamond necklace on a black velvet jeweler's display stand. He holds it next to the drawing in the water tray. Though the artist's lines are open to interpretation, it is clearly the same piece... a complex setting with a massive central stone, darker than the others, and cut like an inverted teardrop with a flattened top... almost heart-shaped.

LOVETT:

I'll be damned.

CUT TO A CNN NEWS STORY: It is a report on Lovett's find, including footage from the Keldysh of the safe being brought up from the depths. Apparently Lovett's salvage operation is at the center of a storm of controversy, with historical groups protesting the "pillaging of a gravesite" and legal battles raging in courts in several countries over salvage rights.

Grandstanding for the camera, we see Lovett defending his position, saying the wreck is in international waters and is fair game. He goes on to say that with worldwide interest in this greatest of all shipwrecks, the artifacts that he brings up will be of enormous educational value. They will be preserved in museums and traveling collections, not corrodiing into nothingness two and half miles down in the Atlantic.

WE PULL BACK from the screen, showing the CNN report playing on a TV set in the living room of a small rustic house. The sound of the report carries over as we establish this environment. The room is full of ceramics, figurines, folk art, the walls crammed with drawings and paintings of all kinds. There are shelves crammed with books, and more books piled against one wall. Everything is a wild jumble of colors and patterns... things collected over a lifetime, from all around the world.

PANNING to show a glassed-in studio attached to the house. Outside it is a quiet morning in Ojai, California. In the studio, amid incredible clutter, an OLD WOMAN pauses in her work to listen to the TV in the next room. Around her are various ceramics pieces in various stages of completion.

She looks a hundred years old.

A hundred and one, actually, next month. This is ROSE, and you will come to know her very well.

Rose has white hair so fine and wispy it is like a little puff of smoke around her head, her pink scalp visible through it. Her face is a wrinkled mass, the skin so pale and translucent that the veins can be seen underneath. Her body is shapeless and shrunken under a one-piece African-print dress.

The two things which stand out are her eyes and her hands.

The hands, though gnarled and age-spotted, are surprisingly strong and supple. And her eyes are just as bright and alive as those of a young girl.

Rose gets up and walks into the living room, wiping gray pottery clay from her hands with a rag. A Pomeranian dog gets up and comes in with her.

She puts on her glasses, finds the remote, turns up the sound, takes her glasses back off.

CUT TO SCREEN showing an ancient man, his voice high pitched and quavery, who is identified as one of the 6 living survivors of the Titanic disaster.

SURVIVOR:

These people should just leave the ship alone. Let it rest in peace... and let all those poor souls rest in peace.

ROSE:

Get a life, Milton, you old fart.

The announcer goes on to point out that despite his claims of a noble purpose, Brock Lovett is primarily a treasure hunter. He is most famous for finding the Maria del Catalonia, a Spanish galleon, over a mile down in waters south of Bermuda. Using deep-submergence technology he recovered half a ton of gold from the wreck.

She says that so far Lovett has not announced exactly what treasure he is after at the Titanic, but whatever it is, it wasn't in the safe he recovered from the wreck yesterday.

Now they show images of the safe, empty. Then the drawing of the woman is shown FULL FRAME.

Rose is galvanized by this image, and shuffles to the TV set so fast it's surprising. The camera zooms in on the date and the signature, with the announcer commenting that although the artist is unknown, the drawing appears to have been made on the day the Titanic sank.

Rose's mouth hangs open in amazement.

ROSE:

I'll be damned.

CUT TO KELDYSH. The Mir subs are being launched. Mir Two is already in the water, and Lovett is getting ready to climb into Mir One when Bobby Buell runs up to him.

BUELL:

There's a satellite call for you.

LOVETT:

Bobby, we're launching. See these submersibles here, going in the water? Take a message.

BUELL:

No, you want to take this call.

CUT TO LOVETT talking on the Inmarsat handset. The call is from Rose and we see both ends of the conversation. She is in her kitchen with her nurse/companion, LIZZY AFTERGOOD.

ROSE:

I know what you are looking for, Mr. Lovett.

LOVETT:

Tell me, Mrs...

BUELL:

Calvert.

LOVETT:

Mrs Calvert... what are we looking for?

ROSE:

It's right there in the picture, isn't it?

BUELL:

(off Lovett's shocked look)

I told you you wanted to take the call.

LOVETT:

(to Rose)

You have my attention. Do you know who the woman in the picture is?

ROSE:

They're wrong you know, about the number of living survivors, Mr. Lovett. There are seven. The woman in the picture is me.

CUT TO the middle of an argument between Rose and Lizzy. The latter is in her forties, forthright and intelligent, and devoted to Rose. But at this moment Rose is acting crazy. Lizzy is telling her all the reasons she can't just go flying off to the North Atlantic at the age of a hundred and one.

ROSE:

Lizzy, dear. You have been my companion for 12 years, and we are quite good friends. However, I must remind you that I sign your paychecks, and if you want that sort of thing to continue, you had better start packing.

Lizzy, more mystified than hurt, goes to the hall closet to get a suitcase.

SMASH CUT TO AN ENORMOUS SEA STALLION HELICOPTER thundering across the ocean. PAN 180 degrees as it roars past. There is no land at either horizon.

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