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LAST DAYS
a treatment for film
Although angels live very long lives, they are
not necessarily immortal. Unless an angel takes safeguards to remain chaste and pure, he falls victim to his own vanity, shallowness
and jealousy. Indeed the very nature of things angelic is one of vapidity; of an absence of soul. If an angel becomes discompassionate
toward the duty with which he is charged, if he becomes callous towards what he considers the triviality of human suffering,
his relative immortality becomes vulnerable to the physical laws of nature. This is the story of the last day in the life
of one such angel.
A radio alarm clock sounds. A nude man rises from
his bed. He dresses, brushes his teeth, drapes the strap of a camera bag around his neck, and exits his apartment. Cut to
opening titles, over images of the same man taking an L train to work. Title theme is "The Black Angels Death Song"
by the Velvet Underground. Throughout the title sequence, the camera alternates between shots inside the train car, and shots
looking out the car window. The mans reflection can periodically be detected in the glass of the window. He studies himself
intently, oblivious to the city awakening before him. He exits the L train at the close of the opening titles. He checks his
watch. Cut to a shot of a middle-age, professional man seated on a bench. He reaches for the back of his neck as if to rub
a sore muscle, then collapses to the sidewalk in spasms. A crowd of onlookers nervously gathers. A woman screams. The man
from the L train steps forward and takes the convulsing mans photograph, then disappears into the crowd. A man asks, "Is he
breathing? Did he stop breathing?" Another answers, "Hes dead." He has died of an apparent stroke.
The man from the L train is an angel. Specifically,
he is an Angel of Death. There are, presumably, many others like him. These spectres do not don black robes and reap with
scythes. It is the camera which actually "steals the soul" of its victim. Throughout the entire story, a consistent theme
is established employing visual inferences and incidental dialogue references to the ancient superstitious belief that the
camera, "steals the soul." For example, the angel may be taking a taxi to his next "shoot," and during the ride the cabbie
tries to start a conversation about his own superstitious distaste toward having his picture taken.
A woman is seen at the wheel of an automobile,
her driving distracted by a heated cell-phone conversation. She hangs up the phone, lights a cigarette, then reacts violently
to an impending collision with another vehicle. A crash is heard. The angel takes a photograph of her mangled body wedged
within the smashed front seat of her car. He idly walks off as sirens roar to the scene.
An obese, middle-age man sits in a recliner, smoking
a cigar as he watches TV. He grips his chest, the cigar falling from his lips onto the carpeting below as he collapses lifelessly
in his chair, his head hanging slack and his face white and dripping with sweat. The angel enters and takes the obese mans
picture. He notices the cigar smoldering on the carpeting, but exits without extinguishing it.
The angel is seen walking near a Roman Catholic
cathedral. Images of piety (i.e. altar boys attending to their chores, choir members practicing Barbers Adagio, parishoners
praying intently before entering the Confessional) are interspersed with images of the angel studying his reflection in the
stained glass, and staring at traditional caricatures of other angels in the same stained glass.
Abby is a 25 year-old white woman from Wisconsin.
She commits suicide, though we are not privy to the precise means she employs in doing so. We first see Abby on a television
screen. She is sobbing, talking about a man who she feels has betrayed her, and about how she wont allow herself to be used
by anyone else, ever again. It is a "suicide note" video tape. Abby shot it just prior to taking her life. It rolls in the
foreground as the angel roams from room to room inside Abbys apartment, looking for her body. He finds her and takes her picture,
just as the video tape ends.
· · · · · ·
The point of the "death sequences" is to draw
the attention of the viewer to the contrast between the gravity of the separate and very unique death experiences encountered
by the victims, versus the callous and indifferent attitude of their angelic photographer. Attention must be given to visual
and other non-verbal elements which convey the angels shallowness, his vanity, and his lack of compassion for human suffering.
Much is made of his obsession with his own reflection, from the opening "tooth-brushing," and throughout.
The angel ultimately arrives at the home of a
dying aristocrat. He enters and takes the ailing mans picture. As he prepares to leave- and without his knowledge- a security
camera snaps the angels photograph. After the angel leaves, the aristocrats home nurse steps into the shot, staring at the
door through which the angel has just exited. The nurse looks down at a still-developing insta-matic photo in his hand. It
is the security cameras picture of the angel.
The angel is next seen in a montage of L train
shots, similar to the opening sequence, but this time at sundown. Intersperse L shots with a montage of several reactions
at the scenes of earlier deaths (i.e. Abbys suitor finds her, firefighters battle the flames issuing from the heart attack
victims blazing carpet, etc.). Cut to the angel on the L train. He cuts his hand on something and absolutely breaks down emotionally,
as though hes never seen his own blood before. He stares at it for a while, then wraps a sock or rag around it. He is quite
visibly shaken throughout, obsessing over the very slight cut as if it signified the end of his life. The music for this sequence
should be the Adagio from Mahlers 9th Symphony, with visual emphasis on the firey red sky at sundown, unlike
the crisp blue morning sky of the previous L ride.
The angel frantically enters his home. He turns
on the radio, then opens a satchel containing his prints for the day. Angel reacts with horror when he realizes that all his
pictures are over-exposed blanks. He keeps hearing references to cameras and souls while dialing through the radio. Upon reflection,
he recalls an uneasy feeling in the aristocrats house- as though he had been photographed. He jumps up and grabs his
coat, stopping at his writing desk to produce a handgun from the desk drawer. He places the gun into his coat pocket, then
bolts out the door.
Cut to a shot of the victim of the earlier car
wreck, roaming through the streets like a zombie, her brains falling out through her massive (fatal) head wound. Cut to a
shot of the businessman/stroke-victim, lumbering around in a similar state. Cut to a shot of angel racing up the block, toward
the aristocrats home. He is encountered by both the stroke victim and the auto wreck victim. After several poor misses, he
successfully shoots them in the heads, and they die like good zombies. The music for the zombie sequence should be something
by Yakuza; appropriate for the scenes sudden and furious shift in tempo.
The angel presses forward to the aristocrats home,
and enters. There is no sign of the home nurse, but he finds the security systems main housing and pulls out a strip of negatives,
as well as the original security photo. Cut to a close-up of the negative of the angel. Angel pockets the photo and negative
and begins to leave. Suddenly, the zombified aristocrat jumps out at the angel, who instinctively pivots out of the way. This
throws the old zombie off balance, as his momentum continues to carry him forward. He topples head-first and decapitates himself
on the fireplace.
Cut to a shot of the angel proudly walking down
street, with photo in hand. Not looking, he walks right into traffic, and in front of a truck. Sound effects of a horrible
wreck. Cut to a shot of the home nurse discovering his photo missing, but then somewhat relieved to find it still stored on
his personal computer. He prints another copy. Cut to the picture in the angels hand. It has changed into a photo of the angel
dead, his body under the wheels of a truck. His eyes stare up blankly, and a photograph is in his hand. Slowly zoom out of
photo close-up to medium wide-shot, revealing the same image of dead angel under the truck, holding the photo. Fade out, with
Nick Lowes "Cruel to be Kind" as the closing credits theme.
· · · · · ·
Traditional Judeo-Christian (particularly Roman
Catholic) imagery is to be employed thematically, but not to the exclusion of other, non-Christian traditions (see earlier
comments regarding "soul stealing" incidental dialog with cabbie). In one sense, the Black Angel is a metaphor for the modern,
de-sensitized, American man-- he is prisoner to the technologic advances and devices of his day, stripped of his individualism
and sense of compassion by the "advantages" of modern convenience, and left bereft of the spiritual core to which he is heir
by the mundanity of a daily, working-class routine.
ã 2002 H.T.I Productions
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