Lucid Dreaming - The beginnings of a screenplay

Lucid Dreaming1

[The story begins with a shot of a young man, around seventeen, holding a gun to what appears to be a person’s head. We see the young man and his gun from below at an angle as well as some curly brown hair at the end of the gun, so the specifics aren’t exactly clear. The young man spews numerous expletives and taunts the victim. He appears frantic, his face red, and he has a hellish smile on his face.]2

YOUNG MAN:3

“I hate you! I HATE you! I hate YOU!” I played around with the stresses. “I’m sick of your crap. I’m sick of it, and I’m not gonna take this anymore. You stupid ****. You think this isn’t real? You think this gun is imaginary? You think this is surreality? B****!”4

[The young man lifts the gun in the air and fires, then the camera cuts to him sitting up in bed holding his gun-shaped hand toward the ceiling, making a bch! Sound . He seems disappointed that it was only a dream. He falls back onto the bed.]5

YOUNG MAN:6

“S***.”7

[From here there is an extensive voiceover accompanied by various clips of the young man, as well as visual interpretations of his words juxtaposed with the occasional pause for dialogue.]8

YOUNG MAN (V.O.) (dryly)9

“I had fantasized about killing Mrs. Pulitzer for well over a semester, and sometimes I wonder whether or not a murder-suicide would’ve been feasible.”10

[We see him get up and walk to the bathroom, lazily. We see a shot of the young man’s face, apparently looking in the mirror. He looks down and we hear him fumbling through a drawer of some kind.]11

“Of course, it had to be murder-suicide.”12

[He pulls out a gun and holds it nonchalantly to his head for a brief moment, then his arm falls to his side in boredom. He looks a bit puzzled and mildly thoughtful, looking to the side and furrowing his brow.]13

“Why the **** do I have a gun in my bathroom?”14

[He shrugs, and the camera cuts to him sitting in a desk in class, eyes closed, talking to himself slightly. The surrounding students look extremely bored, with only a few paying strict attention. The few appear to be very goody-goody. Some are fiddling with various objects. We see his eyes move through his eyelids and the camera slowly zooms in on his kind-of smiling face.]15

“My high school career was complicated enough without having to deal with premeditated murder charges.”16

[We see a yearbook shot of Mrs. Pulitzer, smiling fakely.]17

“Quite honestly, I didn’t hate Mrs. Pulitzer. Sure, she was a b****…”18

[A shot of Pulitzer in a b****y pose.19

“…and a practicing Jew…”20

[Still shot of Pulitzer with Jew curls in her hair, smiling sickeningly.]21

“Two walks of life I will never tolerate.”22

[Still photo of Barbara Streisand looking lame, followed by Pulitzer teaching her class, looking sour, and a slow zoom toward her.]23

“She was a real Jew.”24

[The expression on her face turns to extreme pain.]25

“And I killed her.”26

[She falls. Cut to Pulitzer’s viewing. We see a woman sobbing by the side of the casket, obscuring our view of the body. A man escorts her away, and we get a glimpse of the corpse and the flowers in her hand. The young man’s face is seen, and there are people visiting behind him. He looks indifferent, then his expression changes to a faint smile, a suppressed giggle. He stops and sarcastically rolls his eyes. We see a full shot of the body, and he approaches from the side of the screen and stands by the side of the casket. Her face is scowling.]27

“She wore that scowl to the grave. Poor woman.”28

[He kisses her cheek.]29

“Stupid b****.”30

[The screen goes black, and the title appears.]31

“I had finally mastered the art of [title appears] lucid dreaming.”32