小鬼当家”英文剧本.doc

“小鬼当家”英文剧本
Home Alone
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OPENING SEQUENCE
Blue Moon against a black sky.
Blue house silhouette against a black sky.
The house recede into the background, getting smaller and smaller.

EXT: LARGE HOME: NIGHT

Upper middle-class home with Christmas decorations. Very noisy. Sounds of
many people talking at once. "Where's my suitcase?"

INT: LARGE HOME: NIGHT

A policeman, with his back to the camera, stands in the hallway. He tries
to get someone two pay attention to him, but everyone ignores him. Two
small girls walk down the staircase. A third girl walks up, a fourth girl
walks down. They all walk past the policeman as if he didn't exist. He
stands alone, with his hands on his hips, expressing exasperation.

[ Rejection of authority generates humor. This allows the audience to
vicariously experience superiority over policemen, and releases repressed
feelings of resentment that expresses itself in laughter. The policeman is
a "traffic cop" that is being ignored; a deviation from normal patterns of
behavior. The policeman becomes frustrated. The audience finds the
exasperation of an authority figure to be amusing. ]

INT: PARENT'S BEDROOM: NIGHT

Kevin's mother is on the phone, talking to a friend. She packs clothes on
the bed, while her husband is in the bathroom. A small boy, KEVIN, walks
into the room.

"Mom, Uncle Frank won't let me watch the movie. But the big kids can. Why
can't I?"

"Kevin, I'm on the phone," responds his mother.
"It's not even rated R. He's just being a jerk."
"Kevin, if Uncle frank says no, then it must be really bad."

[ Common empathy structure of a young child being ignored by his parents or
guardians. Elliott in E.T. and Dorothy in WIZARD OF OZ. ]

Kevin jumps on the bed. His mother tells him to get off, but he ignores
her. Kevin picks up a book that is a travel guide to France. "Hang up the
phone and make me, why don't you.

[Resentment at being ignored]

Kevin's father, wearing a blue shirt, walks into the room. he talks to his
wife.
'Hey, by any chance, did you pick up a voltage adapter thing?"
"No, I didn't have a chance."
"How am I supposed to shave in France?"
"Grow a goatee."

"Dad, nobody will let me do anything?" says Kevin.
"You want to do something, you can pick up those micro-machines in the
hall. Aunt Leslie stepped on one and almost broke her neck."

"He was in the garage again playing with the glue gun," says the mother.
Kevin makes a grim face and signals to his mother to stop talking by
cutting his throat with hand.
"Didn't we talk about that?" says his father.

Kevin replies, with an attitude. "Did I burn down the joint? I don't think
so. I was making ornaments out of fish-hooks."
"My new fish-hooks?" replies the father.
"I can't make ornaments out of the old ones, with dry worm guts stuck on
them."

[Humor generated from the clash of two opposing points of view, each
understandable or expressing a truth from their perspective. Kevin's
behavior is appropriate from his perspective, but inappropriate from the
father's perspective. ]

Kevin's dad picks him up and starts to carry him out of the room.

Aunt Leslie enters and says "Peter, Kay, do you guys have a voltage
adapter?"

[ Effective way of naming father and mother, with a repetition of the
voltage adapter request. Incompetence factor. No one has thought of getting
the tool that they will need to use their appliances in France.
Incompetence generates laughter. ]

"Here's a voltage adapter," says Peter as he places Kevin in Aunt Leslie's
arms.
"Oh, you're getting heavy. Go pack your suitcase."
"Pack my suitcase?"

[ Terror strikes Kevin. He is incompetent, helpless, vulnerable. He can't
take care of himself. This generates empathy for him, especially when his
sisters and brothers refuse to help him, and instead ridicule him. ]

INT: DINING ROOM: NIGHT

A girl walks by a young boy sitting at the dining room table.
"Do you know where the shampoo is, Fuller?"
"I don't live here," replies Fuller.
"I don't believe that in a house with this many people there is no
shampoo."

The policeman stops her.
"Pardon me, are you're parents home?"
"Yeah, but they don't live here," she says, as she walks away.

[ Humor generated by a literal response to a question which states a truth,
but doesn't give the answer that the questioner desired. This is a
deviation from expected patterns of communication. The norm is that if a
person asks a question, you should attempt to satisfy his information
request, not make a true statement that is irrelevant to his needs. An
instance of miscommunication. ]

A girl, wearing a Northwestern tee shirt, comes down the staircase. She
speaks with another girl. "Tracy, did you order pizza?"
"Roz did."

"Excuse me, Miss. Are your parents here?" asks the cop.
"My parents are in Paris. Sorry."

The policeman grabs a little girl by the shoulder. "Hi, are your parents
home?"
"Yeah."
"Do they live here?"
"No."
"No. Why should they. All kids, no parents. Probably a fancy orphanage."

[ Humorous, because this is a unexpected, yet plausible, interpretation of
the situation. ]

INT: BEDROOM: NIGHT

Kevin sits with one of his brothers who is packing a suitcase. "I don't
know how to pack a suitcase. I have never done this once in my whole life,"
says Kevin.
"Tough."
They walk out into the hallway.
"That's what Marie said."
"What did I say?"
"You told Kevin tough."
"The dope was whining about his suitcase. What am I supposed to do. Shake
his hand and say, congratulations, you're an idiot?"
"I'm not an idiot!" says Kevin.

[ Empathy is generated for Kevin because he is being ridiculed. ]

"Oh really. You're completely helpless. Everyone has to do everything for
you."
"She's right, Kev."
"Excuse me puke breath. I'm a lot smaller than you. I don't know how to
pack a suitcase."

Another girl walks down the hallway. "Hey, I hope you didn't just pack
crap, Jeff."
"Shut up, Linnie."

"You know what I should pack?" Kevin asks Jeff.
"I already told you, cheese face. Toilet paper and water."

"Listen, Kevin, what are you so worried about? You know that Mom is going
to pack your stuff anyway. You are what the French call Les Incompetent!"
says Linnie.

"What?" says Kevin.

[ Characterization of Kevin as incompetent; completely helpless ]

Jeff throws a packed bag down the staircase. "BOMBS AWAY!" The bag lands at
the feet of the policeman.

[The audience laughs because of the near-miss of a disaster. The built up
tension is released through laughter. This is an instance of a relief
theory of laughter. ]

Linnie continues talking to Kevin. "P.S. You have to sleep on the
hide-a-bed with Fuller. If he has something to drink, he's going to wet the
bed."

[ This is the most babyish of all actions, and Kevin will have to sleep in
the wet bed. Disgusting situations also generate laughter.]

Kevin stands alone on the balcony. "This house is so full of people it
makes me sick. When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone. DID YOU
HEAR ME? I'M LIVING ALONE!!!" Kevin shouts as he jumps up and down.

[Humor generated be the contradiction of "being married" and "living
alone", plus the exaggerated reactions of Kevin jumping up and down in a
tantrum. ]

The policeman, in amazement and with mouth agape, watches Kevin as he jumps
up and down.

[ This character's reaction is how the director wants the audience to
respond. ]

INT: BUZZ'S BEDROOM: NIGHT

A young boy wearing glasses taps on a glass aquarium that contains a large
tarantula. "Whose going to feed your spider while you're gone?"
"He just eat a load of mice-kettes," says Buzz. "He should be good for a
couple of weeks. Is it true that French babes don't shave their pits."

[ Gross, coarse characterization of Buzz. Deviant character type. ]

"Some don't."

A picture of a nude playgirl hangs on the wall, near a rifle and a poster
of a baseball player.

[ Standard images associated with an adolescent male. ]

"But they got nude beaches," says Buzz.
"Not in winter."

Kevin enters the room and timidly approaches Buzz. "Buzz."
"Don't you know how to knock, phflemwad."
Buzz is ferociously antagonistic.

[None of the other children either help or seem to like Kevin, which
generates empathy for him, because he's just a small child who needs help
to pack his suitcase. ]

"Can I sleep in your room. I don't want to sleep in the hide-a-bed with
Fuller. if he has something to drink, he'll wet the bed."
"I wouldn't let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my ass,"
replies Buzz.

Suddenly they hear rustling outside their window.
"Check it out! old man Marey," says Buzz.
The three boys run to the window.

"Who is he?" asks the boy with glasses.
Outside they see an old man drag a metal garbage can down a snow covered
walk. He carries a metal shovel in his free hand.

"You ever hear of the South Bend Shovel Slayer?" asks Buzz.
"No," responds the boy with glasses.
"That's him," says Buzz. "Back in'58 he murdered his whole family and half
the people on the block with the snow shovel. Been hiding out in this
neighborhood ever since."
"Well, if he's the Shovel slayer, how come the cops don't arrest him?"
"Not enough evidence to convict. They never found the bodies, but everyone
around here knows he did it. And it will just be a matter of time before he
does it again."

The old man shovels snow off the path, then uses the shovel to spread salt
on the walk. Kevin is frightened.

"What's he doing now?" asks the boy with glasses.
"He walks up and down the street every night salting the sidewalks."
"Maybe he's trying to be nice."
"No way. See that garbage can filled with salt. that's where he keeps his
victims. The salt turns the bodies into mummy's."

Kevin becomes terrorized. "Mummies," he says.

The old man looks up from his work and sees the three boys watching him.
They quickly pull the drapes across the window. The old man continues to
stare up at the window.

[ Buzz creates a story about that old man that causes him to become the
source of terror and an antagonist in the mind of Kevin. This fear Kevin
must overcome before he confronts the real villains of the story. This also
setups the audience because it misdirects their beliefs and expectations.
They, like Kevin, believe that the old man is the real villain of the
story. ]