Love Hurts: Scene One

Image borrowed from Bing


Love Hurts: Scene One

Cinemagenic One

Stranded

1. desert midday (wide angle shot);
acrid, dusty, windblown with thick sagebrush
stretched out from foreground to horizon,
disappearing in a gray-brown haze
at the base of dark distant foothills,
towered over by peaks of the Sierra Madre.
Sky electric robin’s egg blue, cloudless.
2.(sound cue) cricket song, wind,
an Indian flute softly.
3. tall thin jackrabbit appears out of
the brush and thorns (medium shot)
hops to center of frame,
sits on its haunches
4. rabbit’s face (close up), long ears
twitching, duet with nose and whiskers.
5. (sound cue) car engine cranking over
in the distance, not starting.
6. rabbit rushes out of frame (camera begins
to track toward background--medium shot)
tops of the sagebrush scrolling to bottom
of frame, humped/bent over
like frozen clay figures.
7. (sound cue) hawk’s cry
8. lens focuses long shot on
stranded automobile
9. (sound cue) engine cranking more slowly
as battery gets low, overridden by a bar
or two of six-string slide guitar blues
and just as a harmonica riffs--
10. (helicopter shot, zooming toward the car,
blending to Loman crane shot--medium)
yellow 70’s four door sedan with hood up.
(traveling shot to windshield)
11. woman with long straight hair
struggling to get car started--
5 year old girl in passenger seat.
12. (sound cue) guitar chords strum
in cadence with the sporadic cranks
from the starter, then it stops dead
as harmonica wails long.
13. (medium shot) woman pounds on dash
and steering wheel.
14. little girl’s face (close up)
tears streaking her pink cheeks.
15. woman’s face (close up) frustration
masking terror, gazing at the emptiness
of the horizon; small band aid over one
eye brow, that eye blackened, purple bruise
showing through her make up on her cheekbone;
shadows moving on her face, in her vacant eyes.
16. woman opens driver door (tight medium shot)
and steps out; white frilly scooped neck peasant
blouse, hair ribbon and short skirt yellow
to match the car.
17. little girl moves over to driver’s seat
(tighter shot through open car window)
woman on edge of shot.
18. (close up) girl is holding stuffed tiger,
missing one eye, says “Tony” on its bandana.
19. woman leans over awkwardly into the
(medium) shot, hugging the child
through open window
20. revealing back seat, covered with piles
of clothes, some packed in grocery bags;
no suitcases.
21. camera dollys backward as woman stands up,
pointing past open hood
to a dust cloud.
22. someone, something is approaching.

Glenn Buttkus March 2011

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