Memento Leonard’s condition. Transcript. Pdf script. INT. DISCOUNT INN OFFICE - DAY Leonard enters , confident, smiling at the man behind the desk, BURT (fat, sweaty, 40's). Burt smiles back. BURT Hiya. LEONARD I'm Mr. Shelby from 304. BURT What can I do for you, Leonard? LEONARD I'm sorry... um... ? BURT Burt. LEONARD Burt, I'm not sure, but I may have asked you to hold my calls - BURT You don't know? LEONARD I think I may have. I'm not good on the phone. BURT (nods) You said you like to look people in the eye when you talk to them. Don't you remember? LEONARD That's the thing. I have this condition. BURT Condition? LEONARD I have no memory. BURT Amnesia? LEONARD No. It's different. I have no short-term memory. I know who I am and all about myself, but since my injury I can't make any new memories. Everything fades. If we talk for too long, I'll forget how we started. I don't know if we've ever met before, and the next time I see you I won't remember this conversation. So if I seem strange or rude, that's probably... He notices that Burt is staring at him as if he were an exotic insect. LEONARD (cont'd) I've told you this before, haven't I? BURT (nods) I don't mean to mess with you. It's just so weird. You don't remember me at all, and we talked a bunch of times. Leonard shrugs. BURT (cont'd) What's the last thing you remember? Leonard looks through Burt, thinking. LEONARD My wife. BURT (fascinated) What's it like? LEONARD Like waking. Like you always just woke up. BURT That must suck. All... backwards. Leonard raises his eyebrows in enquiry. BURT (cont'd) Well, like.. you gotta pretty good idea of what you're gonna do next, but no idea what you just did. (chuckles) I'm the exact opposite. LEONARD (focuses on Burt) How long have I been here? BURT Couple days. LEONARD So you're holding my calls? BURT As requested. Leonard reaches into his pocket and pulls out his Polaroids LEONARD Okay, but this guy's an exception. Leonard places the Polaroid of Teddy on the counter in front of Burt. Burt looks at it. LEONARD (cont'd) Know this guy? BURT Your friend, right?

LEONARD What makes you think he's my friend? BURT Seen you together, that's all. LEONARD He's not my friend, Burt. But if he calls, or if he turns up here, then you give me a call in my room, okay?

The Zero Effect "The case of the man with the mismatched shoelaces". I love the direct juxtaposition of what's being said in the two locations because even that defines Zero as a character. Pdf script. ARLO (VO) It's his uncompromising standard. He never meets his clients. He doesn't speak with them or communicate directly. It's his policy... INT. STARK'S OFFICE - DAY ARLO I'm his sole representative, he's my only employer and as such I have full authorization to speak on his behalf on all his business. I have with me a signed letter to that effect. He doesn't negotiate his fee. He works at a flat rate. Under some unusual circumstances he'll work pro bono. Never in between. STARK I suppose I don't qualify for the latter category. ARLO I haven't heard your proposal yet. STARK I have a feeling that mine is not a charity case. ARLO Most aren't. STARK Mr. Arlo, you realize this is all...very strange. I mean, nobody in your field asks the kind of money your employer does and nobody communicates via a messenger. It's all very unusual. ARLO Let me tell you about the case of the man with the mismatched shoelaces. Years ago, when I first came into his employ he was contracted to find a man. I can't give much detail but believe me, if this man had not been located our country's good diplomacy with a certain economic superpower might have a different face today. Federal, state, local authorities all over the world searched for a face whose significance they couldn't fathom. He'd vanished without a trace. Stark is hanging on every word, but trying not to show it. ARLO (CONT'D) On the eigth morning, a non-political third party contacted me with an unrelated private agenda. My employer had never heard of this missing man, knew nothing about him. After just one hour of desk work, just an hour after accepting the case, he picked up the telephone and placed a call. Guess who answered the phone. STARK The missing man. ARLO The man with the mismatched shoelaces. Without ever leaving the house. INT. BAR - NIGHT As [Arlo] talks to someone just off-screen he occasionally massages the headache his speech is giving him. ARLO I'm telling you, he never even leaves the house, okay? I mean, he's like some kind of recluse. A complete freak. No social life. In fact, no social skills. Fucking strange. When he works -- the smoothest operator you've seen. Brave, slick, cunning...do anything. Soon as he gets off work it's all gone. Afraid to go to the dry cleaners. Literally. Too uncomfortable in his own skin to go out and eat. Tactless and inept. Rude too. Just an asshole.

Gattaca De-gene-erate. JEROME I got it. EUGENE Of course you got it. JEROME (VO) And that's the way it was. Each day I would dispose of as much lose skin and fingernails and hair as possible to limit as much of my invalid self I would leaving the valid world. At the same time Eugine prepared samples of his own superior body matter so that I might pass for him. Customized urine pouches for the frequent substance tests. Fingertip blood sachets for security checks. And vials filled with other traces. While Eugene supplied me with a new identity I paid the rent and kept him in the style which he'd become accustomed. Eugene never suffered from the routine discrimination of a utero -- a faith-birth or invalid, as we were called. A vaild, a vetro, a made-man. He suffered under a different burden -- the burden of perfection. I was now a member of a relatively new and particularly detested segment of society, one of those who refuses to play the hand that he was dealt. I'm more commonly known as a 'borrowed ladder', or a 'de-generate'.

Terminator "It will not stop." SARAH (weakly, plead- ing) Just let me go. REESE (slow, but intense) Listen. Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear... and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead. Sarah slump in utter resignation. SARAH (quietly) Can you stop it? Reese doesn't look at her. REESE Maybe. With these weapons... I don't know. Casino voice-over scene everybody-watches-everybody. The Pelican Brief Darby explains the brief. The Matrix what is real? (The Matrix clip also has an interactive transcript.)

The Terminator -- This is a long one -- The difficulty with the exposition in this film is there is a TON of it. From setting up the future world, to Sarah giving birth to the savior of the future, to the future being overran with machines, to time travel and how it works, to two men being sent back to kill/protect her... The interesting thing is to see all the different techniques used to ease over the exposition. Not to mention, Cameron and Hurd also feel confident letting tension and suspense create questions with the audience before answering them. We start with two guys coming out of electricity bubbles. This immediately creates a question that we want to know who these guys are, why they are there, and where they came from. And instead of giving us everything, they give us bits to piece together ourselves. REESE What day is it? The date... COP Thursday...uh...May twelfth. REESE (viciously) What year? A SHOT whines off the metal side of an escalator behind Reese's head. He vaults the escalator rail, leaving the amazed cop lying on the floor. We've seen this before. It's almost cheesy how often we've seen it. However, what is smart about this exposition is instead of dwelling on the question they IMMEDIATELY transition out of the scene once the exposition is given. And in Cameron style -- it's a transition to action -- a chase. Second piece of the puzzle -- EXT. STREET/NEARBY - NIGHT Reese enters a telephone booth. Harsh light rakes across his face, outlining the long scar. He opens the directory, leafs through it. ANGLE - MACRO ON PAGE, Reese's finger slides down a column. Stops beside the following listings in the big metropolitan white pages: CONNOR, SARAH CONNOR, SARAH ANN CONNOR, SARAH J. This scene was completely non-verbal exposition. But now we know who they are looking for. This scene is mirrored by The Terminator looking up the names in the phone book as well and then -- TERMINATOR Sarah Connor? WOMAN No, she's upstairs. Who shall I say is-- Terminator breaks the chain and pushes past her as if she didn't exist. --- In the script, this is an extended scene. In the film the Terminator simply kills the woman who answers yes to being Sarah Connor. From this scene we understand that the Terminator is here to kill someone named Sarah Connor. This technique is literally the application of SHOW, DON'T TELL. There's one other technique used here. Dramatic irony. We know there is another Sarah Connor and because we are familiar with movies and the other Sarah Connor being presented to us as the protagonist, it's safe to assume she is the Sarah Connor The Terminator is after. This little scene did a lot. It setup stakes and pretty much handed us the protagonist just in case we weren't sure at this point. So now we've set the stage, but we don't really know -- WHY all this is happening to Sarah. But aren't we dying to find out? Teasing it to the next post--

After the fight at the Tech Noir and Reese saving the day, we still don't know why The Terminator is after her. Nor what Reese's plans are. But man, don't we want to know? REESE Are you injured? Are you shot? No response. He reaches over and runs his hands over her arms, legs, chest. Sarah flinches. She feels the BLIND PANIC BOILING UP WITHIN HER. She pushes his hand away and opens the door. Reese slams her back in the seat and slaps her. Hard. REESE (continuing) Do exactly what I say. Exactly. Don't move unless I say. Don't make a sound unless I say. Do you understand? As he speaks he is locking the door and fastening Sarah's seatbelt over her, cinching it very tightly, like you would for a child. She doesn't answer. REESE (continuing/shouting) Do you understand? SARAH (a whisper) Yes. Don't hurt me. REESE I'm here to help you. Reese, Sergeant/Tech-Com, DN38416... Sarah stares numbly at his outstretched hand. With zero strength she automatically returns his handshake. REESE (continuing) Assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination. CUT TO: And so begins the explanation. But how does this work? How has this scene given us permission to let our guard down and believe all the exposition that is about to fall into our laps. Aside from the intercutting, look at how this scene starts. "Are you injured?" Up until this point, we are still not quite sure why Reese is here. He was following Sarah around, as was The Terminator. Yes, we did see him stop the Terminator from killing Sarah and say "Come with me if you want to live." But what's his agenda? "Are you injured?" Doesn't that give us a huge clue as to why he is here? He then belts her in for safety. And finally says the on-the-nose -- "I'm here to protect you" -- but it works. It works because the scenes built up to it. It's really what Sarah needs to hear to let her guard down. What's great is the juxtaposition of a hardened soldier "taking care" of someone. He's very methodical and commanding in his talk, but it's all to take care of her. It also hints at the world he comes from. Don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself. Scene and expo dump starts @ 7:00 and actually continues into the next clip.

http://youtu.be/YiusdLqSHPQ

The next scene is really heavily intercut between a chase and the explanation of the world. It's cut a little different int eh film than in the script. As shown in the clip above -- the use of action alongside bits of exposition being given out is incredibly effective. Hey, you're being chased by a killer robot -- here's why. There's one more big exposition dump in this film that employs a slightly different technique... Believability and other character's perspective. After they are captured, Reese is interrogated by both the cops and a shrink at the same time. Sarah watches. Again, this is dramatic irony being implemented. We know at least half of what Reese is saying is true. This gives him the ability to fill in a couple gaps in plot, while still maintaining conflict, because no one believes him and he's pleading his case. Starts at 5:45 http://youtu.be/U3GHmZFnn_0 From this point on, we know everything we need to know.

James stole mine. One of the best bits of intense exposition I've ever seen. Cameron is a master at that. Fantastic analysis, too :)

You get away with so much, I think, if you just make it funny. From Being John Malkovich: ************* CRAIG There's a tiny door in my office, Maxine. It's a portal and it takes you *inside* John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes. And then after about 15 minutes, you're spit out into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike! MAXINE Sounds great! Who the fuck is John Malkovich? CRAIG Oh, he's an actor. He's one of the great American actors of the 20th century. MAXINE Oh yeah? What's he been in? CRAIG Lots of things. That jewel thief movie, for example. He's very well respected. Anyway, the point is, this is a *very* odd thing. It's supernatural, for lack of a better word. I mean, it raises all sorts of philosophical-type questions, you know, about the nature of self. About the existence of a soul. You know, "Am I me"? "Is Malkovich Malkovich"? I had a piece of wood in my hand, Maxine -- I don't have it any more. Where is it? Did it disappear? How could that be?! Is it still in Malkovich's head? I don't know! Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is? I don't see how I could go on living my life the way I've lived it before. (Maxine motions out the window) ********** Not a perfect solution to the exposition "problem," but one that might work when you're writing a comedy that requires a character to do some lengthy explaining (whether it's to the audience or to another character).

Now I want to see Terminator again. Great exposition, SOTL comes to mind: "School's out, Starling." So distilled, it's both subtext revealed and exposition. And we've been considering SOTL all week, so how about something fresh, Dirty Harry (still so fine after 40 years): Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? http://movieclips.com/asrW-dirty-harry-movie-do-you-feel-lucky-punk/