Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

as the Doomed Man climbs up a decayed, rickety, iron fire escape. At the top, he uses his elbow to break open a window. He climbs inside the movie theatre.

For three years, since he arrived in America, Jakob has used the world of film to shield himself from, at times to obliterate all together, the ugly questions of what his cousin has called real goddamn life.

Right now, the question Jakob wants to avoid is— If I have to, can I kill cousin Felix? The reason for the avoidance is that he hates both possible answers. If the response is Yes, then he’s become that thing he’s resisted from birth. A gangster rather than an artist. A wheezing mirror of Papa the mobster. A moral vacuum that knows only the creed of acquisition and power. And the joke would be that he’s become this creature by virtue of the resistance itself, as if in marshaling all his strength in opposition to the Family mold he somehow damaged any chance of immunity from an inherited brutality.

MED SHOT-EXT CINÉ DADA

as a police car screeches to a stop in front of the boarded-up doors of the theatre. (Favors from Papa’s friends on the force?). ERNST “THE INSECT” BROD steps out of the squad car into the horribly quiet street. He is followed a moment later by his gunmen, POLLAK and WERFEL. The police car drives away. The Insect removes his gloves, pockets them, snaps his fingers. Pollak and Werfel draw long-barreled guns from their coats, move to the theatre entrance and kick in the doors. Their weapons extended before them, they rush inside.

TIGHT SHOT — BROD

alone, the movie theatre backing him, he removes a spool of piano wire from his overcoat pocket and begins to twine it about both his hands. He turns and walks boldly into the theatre.

But if the answer is No, then there’s still no hope of breaking away. Papa and Felix won’t allow it. It’s a version of the future they’re incapable of accepting. Papa will never stop pushing for an inheritor who will grasp the Schonborn with pride and ceaseless ambition. And Felix will never stop pushing until there’s a definite vacancy at Papa’s right-hand side.

MED SHOT — THE BALCONY

as the Doomed Man crawls on hands and knees toward the rear wall of the theatre looking for another exit. The balcony is jammed with broken seats, projectors, electrical cables, film canisters. Suddenly, a few lights in the theatre snap on with a loud, echoing, mechanical noise. A moment later, the sound system is activated and the cinema fills with the heavily accented voice of Ernst Brod.

He edits the questions, looks at it from a different angle. What if this was a movie? What if this time in his life was transformed into 170,000 frames of film? How would he conceive the resolution to the central conflict?

Obviously, he’s the hero, Jakob as protagonist, the audience’s identification figure. He’s the icon whose job is to carry all the desires and fears the audience can squeeze into two hours of passive observation.

Doesn’t the ending have to be the hero’s triumph, that moment of swelling music and dam-breaking emotional satisfaction when the audience’s boy overcomes every inner and outer weakness and plot-wrenching long shot to capture his heart’s dearest wish?

BROD (O.S.)

(in a singsong chant)

Come out, come out,

Wherever you are.

(speaking)

We will not hurt you, little man.

(awful laughter)

You won’t feel a thing! Babykiller!

The Doomed Man panics and begins to scramble for the far wall, knocking over a klieg light, which ignites and fills the balcony with brilliant illumination.

Not in noir. Jakob knows the makeup of the noir film too well, maybe better than he knows himself. In noir the hero can be crushed. The audience’s boy can turn out to be the audience’s enemy. In the noir film, you just never know if you’re going to get the resolution you’ve been trained to want.

LONG SHOT — INT. THEATRE PROPER

as Pollak and Werfel wheel around, aim their guns high and begin blasting an assault at the balcony.

Jakob looks up from his notebook. He pushes his dumpling away and runs his hands over his face. Things were so much easier back in Maisel. Growing up back home, he and cousin Felix had managed to overlook their innate difference, had been able to care for each other despite yearnings that were perfectly opposed.

It’s as if in coming to America everything became too defined, overly manifest, as if on the day he and Felix stepped off the boat and onto the American shore their vision became hyper-focused, instantly and painfully sharpened to the point where neither of them can now fail to see the threat the other has become. This new country has turned the Kinsky cousins into an either/or proposition.

MED SHOT-THE BALCONY

as a rain of bullets explodes around the Doomed Man, ripping up seats, ricocheting off metal. The Doomed Man, a frantic animal, scrambles, clutching at the velvet curtain that lines the rear wall. He yanks the curtain back to reveal Ernst “The Insect” Brod, framed in the exit doorway, holding out the garrotting wire and grinning maniacally. The Doomed Man reacts instinctively, tackling Brod around the waist. The two men fall to the ground and the surprised Brod begins to wildly maneuver the wire around the Doomed Man’s neck. Doomed Man shifts weight and the two roll down the balcony stairs to the railing.

Jakob grabs hold of the notebook and begins to tear out random pages, crumples them, jams them into his suitcoat pocket.

He swallows the last of his kakao and wonders what Felice Fabri would say. The love of his life, his mentor and his protector and his initiator into the mysteries of flesh and of film, what would Felice advise?

And he hears her voice, from the dark of the Kierling, that throaty, buttery whisper.

“Remember Jako, it will be your film. Yours alone. Not the studio boss, not the producer, not the investor. Not the bullying method actor and not the spoiled and sulking starlet. You don’t let any of them touch your work. Your eyes. Not even the audience, Jako. Not even the fickle, hateful audience.”

But Felice , he thinks, this is not a film. This is my life.

He picks up the red pen, turns to a fresh page in the note-book and begins to write.

TIGHT SHOT — BROD AND THE DOOMED MAN STRUGGLING ON THE FLOOR.

Brod manages to right himself, climbs on the back of the Doomed Man, leans forward and secures the piano wire firmly around the victim’s throat.

TIGHTER SHOT — FACE OF THE DOOMED MAN

as he begins to choke, his eyes bulging in agony and terror, color draining from his skin.

MED SHOT — BALCONY FLOOR

as, with his last burst of will, the Doomed Man rears up, his skull crashing into Brod’s nose, blood exploding. Brod, shocked, lets go of the garrote, staggers to his feet, at the same time pulling a gun from a shoulder holster inside his suitcoat. A bullet from below catches him in the chest, wheels him around. He drops his pistol to the floor.

POLLAK (O.S.)

(screaming)

Hold your fire! You’ve hit the Insect!

The Doomed Man pulls the garrote free from his neck. Stunned, close to blacking out, he tries to stand, grabs at the legs of Brod, pushes him forward. Brod loses balance, screams, falls over the railing. CAMERA follows body’s path as Brod crashes to the floor far below, breaking his neck.

Jakob feels a hand on his shoulder and immediately jerks and wheels around in his seat, pulls the pen into his fist and raises it like a makeshift dagger.

Carlo, the shift manager, jumps backward and yells, “Jesus, what the hell—”

“I’m sorry, Carlo,” Jakob says, “you startled me.”

“I was just going to clear your table—”