Unbroken Page #8

story in Life magazine? Him and his

crew ran out of fuel over the

Pacific. They were drifting in

rafts for twenty-four days.

LOUIE:

And they made it, right?

PHIL:

They made it. But most of them lost

their minds.

LOUIE:

We gotta keep our minds sharp.

Gotta keep talking...

Mac looks distressed. He looks out into the water. Louie

realizes he needs to distract him. He needs to keep talking.

LOUIE (CONT’D)

You know what you’re really going

to love? Mama’s gnocchi. Nobody

makes gnocchi like her. So light,

like clouds. She uses lots of eggs,

maybe twelve.

The others listen, absorbed by the image he conjures up.

MOVE AWAY from the raft as he speaks, his voice growing

fainter as the raft grows smaller.

LOUIE (CONT’D)

First, she makes the dough out of

very fine flour. So fine it’s like

talcum powder. Then she beats up

the egg yolks, and she drizzles

them over the flour...

108 EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY #18 108

They heat of the sun pounds down on the men. The tins of

water are all empty.

The condition of the three men has drastically changed after

weeks at sea.

Their upper lips are burnt, cracked, ballooning so

dramatically that they almost obscure their nostrils. Their

bodies are slashed with open cracks, after exposure to the

elements.

The men are emaciated. Mac’s breathing is louder, raspier.

58-59

Louie pulls out the picture of his family. It fills him with

deep sadness. He has to put it away before he cries.

110 EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT 11EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT 110

Louie, Mac and Phil are gazing up at the stars.

LOUIE:

You believe God made the stars,

Phil?

PHIL:

Yes, I do.

LOUIE:

You think there’s some kind of a

grand plan? Like why’d we live and

others didn’t? Why are we here now?

Phil considers.

PHIL:

Here’s the plan.

(beat)

You go on doing the best you can.

You try to have some fun along the

way. Then one day it’s over. You

wake up and there’s an angel

sitting at the edge of your bed,

the angel says, you can ask me all

those dumb questions now, because

I’ve got the answers.

LOUIE:

That’s what you believe?

PHIL:

That’s what I believe.

Moments pass in silence.

Mac stares out into the darkness.

111

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY #21 111

30 foot swells. The men are now all in one raft, white

knuckling it to hold on and not get tossed. The second raft

is tied further from them in the distance.

Phil closes his eyes in silent prayer.

LOUIE:

(to the heavens)

If you answer my prayers...you get

me through this...I swear...I'll do

whatever you want. I'll dedicate my

life to you. Please...

Waves of water splash across his face.

112

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - TWILIGHT 112

The storm rages into the night. The men hold on tight as the

rafts are swept up and down on the huge swells.

113

EXT. RAFT - PACIFIC OCEAN DAY #22 113

Drops of water wake Louie.

As if an answer to his prayer, the heavens open and rain

pours down. The men throw back their heads, spread their

arms, and open their mouths. The rain falls on them. It

soothes their skin, washes the salt and sweat from their

pores, and slides down their throats. A sensory explosion.

They pull out the empty tins to collect water.

Louie and Phil:
they are frantically trying to slide a pump

out of its canvas sheath.

Once the pump is clear Louie takes the sheath and rips one

seam open down most of its length.

It is now a triangular piece of canvas that dips down to its

center where the seam remains intact. It is, in effect, a

large bowl.

The men hold it open to collect rain, trying to steady

themselves and the receptacle against the tossing action of

the raft.

Phil begins to pull in the second raft.

Later - the men cleaned, hydrated and silent. Each man with

his own private thoughts.

114

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - MID DAY - DAY #24 114

The canvas.

Days later:
the canvas receptacle, now dried out and two

closed water bottles knock around in it. Hard sun beats down

on it.

Moments later a small sound...and a shark appears. Louie

looks down at it.

116

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY 116

Finally, the shark comes close. Louie pounces. He grabs its

tail, Phil grabs Louie and together they pull the shark out

of the water, into the raft.

Phil and Mac jump on it as it twists and thrashes. Louie

stabs its eye with the screwdriver until the thrashing stops.

Panting, the three men lie on the dead shark.

Moments later - Phil and Louie and Mac eat the shark’s liver.

118

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY - DAY #33 118

Burning sun. DOWN to find the rafts, the men deteriorated

further. Full beards, skeletal faces.

Louie is removing Phil’s bandage.

PHIL:

How is it?

LOUIE:

It stinks. But that’s the bandage,

not you.

He throws the bandage over the side.

PHIL:

We beat Rickenbacker’s record. Four

days ago.

LOUIE:

You keeping count?

They hear a small noise in the water and realize a shark has

been drawn to the bloody bandage.

Then, in the distance, they hear a distant plane engine. Look

up to the sky.

THEIR POV:
A moving spot in the sky.

Mac comes to life, seeing the plane.

Louie loads and fires a flare. Phil finds the mirror and uses

it to reflect the sun towards the plane. Louie shoots off

another flare.

The look of all three men travels straight overhead with the

plane, which makes no acknowledgment.

The plane passes, far off, and fades away.

A couple of dark shapes are rippling up. Sharks.

All three men are looking down at the shapes in the water

when we hear a change in the engine noise.

The men’s eyes rise back to the plane.

It is no longer receding: it is starting to turn. . .

banking. . . returning. . . dropping in altitude.

Louie resumes waving.

As the plane approaches it drops, lower, lower.

The men wave.

Just as we see the Red Circle, its guns start firing.

Water kicks up in a line from each gun, walking toward the

raft.

The shark-shapes wriggle, reacting.

The men bail out into the stained water.

119

EXT. UNDERWATER 119

Fizzing bullet-trails cut between the three men fighting to

stay submerged. The water is a confusion of murky color,

flailing limbs, the sun through the pale yellow of the raft

just above.

65

The bullets and firing noises stop; the muffled engine noise

is receding. Dark shapes are approaching the men in the

water.

120

EXT. RAFT, PACIFIC OCEAN 120

The plane flies on past.

The sharks are back, almost on the thrashing bodies of the

men. Desperately they haul themselves back into the raft.

Louie is the first to flop back onto the raft; he helps Phil

and Mac in; all panting.

They hear the plane again. It’s coming back.

LOUIE:

Get out!

PHIL:

I can’t.

He’s just too weak to move. Louie slides back into the water.

Bullets shower the ocean around the raft.

121

EXT. UNDERWATER - CONTINUOUS - DAY 121

Louie struggles to stay under the rafts. We can see the

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