Avril 1997
1
1. EXT. PARKING LOT OF THE ICE RINK - DAY
Trucks are parked on the parking lot of an ice rink. Flemish technicians, grips and electricians, talk together while unloading the equipment, lamps, cables, tracks. They spread it out on the parking lot, take some lamps into the rink. The four technicians all wear the same black T-shirt with an inscription in Dutch.
A few cars arrive, belonging to the film crew (cinematographer, sound engineer). They get out, say hello to each other, wait around on the parking lot.
An old broken down bus, very East European looking, with curtains in the windows, parks in the parking lot. Twenty or so men get out with sports bags, hockey sticks, helmets. They enter the ice rink guided by two production assistants who GREet them and show them the way, walkie-talkies held to their ears.
A small convertible enters the parking lot, carrying the director and his assistant.
The car stops. The director and his assistant get out of the car, shake a few hands. A TV reporter precedes them, filming them with a hand-held camera.
Escorted by assistants, they go over to a limousine which is parking on the lot.
The director's assistant tries to open the door of the limousine, is unsuccessful.
An assistant, very much in a hurry, runs back into the ice rink while another shouts orders into his walkie-talkie.
Outside the limousine, everyone tries to open the door, knocks on the windows. The occupant of the limousine, the star of the film, an American, wearing dark glasses, a white teeshirt, and a leather jacket, puts his head out the window. Everyone says hello to him respectfully. They signal to him, ask him to try to open the door from the inside. The grips approach, try to unjam the door. Nothing works. Finally the grips set up a small platform in front of the window. The star of the film climbs cautiously out of the limousine window.
Escorted by the writer-director, the star of the film enters the ice rink, preceded by the TV reporter who films them.
2. INT. CORRIDORS OF THE ICE RINK - PROVISIONAL PRODUCTION AND DIRECTION OFFICES - DAY
The writer-director guides the star of the film into the changing rooms of the ice rink. They cross several rooms, preceded by the TV reporter who films from the shoulder while walking backwards.
Thoughtfully, almost as if he was talking to himself, the director explains to the actor the idea of the scene they are going to shoot: the actor sees the actress for the first time and says her name: Dolores.
He explains that, as usual in his work, nothing is completely finalized yet, that he doesn't want things to be rigid, that he wants there to be room for improvisation when shooting takes place, that the film must always remain open.
The American actor, not really listening, responds in monosyllables, yes, no, don't understand, to the director's explanations.
While the director explains, the assistant talks non-stop over the walkie-talkie with the make-up room. ("Make-up, do you read, make-up? We're coming, get ready, we're coming..."). The conversation between the assistant and the make-up artist continues moreover in the room where the provisional production and direction offices are set up, so that the assistant and the make-up artist keep talking over the walkie-talkie while standing in the same room.
The director finishes talking about the way he sees the scene and leaves the room.
An assistant runs up with a bathrobe, which he gives to the American actor.
The actor puts his jacket on a chair, takes off his teeshirt.
Stripped to the waist, he walks unselfconsciously about the room, looks over a secretary’s shoulder.
Everyone looks at him.
The secretarie blushes, stops typing on her computer, (she can hardly contain herself, it looks as though she might giggle or pee in her pants).
She slowly, timidly, looks up at the actor.
The actor smiles at her.
A young woman with a superb figure and an alluring cleavage enters, timid and uncomfortable, wearing a mini-skirt, a small notebook open in her hand. She walks up to the actor as though about to ask for an autograph.
The assistant (shouts)
What are you doing here?
The young woman
I'm the interpreter.
The actor turns round, looks at her, notices the cleavage.
The actor (smiling warmly)
I beg your pardon?
The interpreter (embarrassed, in a low voice)
I am the... the...(to the others) how do you say interpreter in English?
The assistant does not know.
The assistant (very loud, to the whole room)
Does anyone know how to say interpreter in English?
3. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
The director and the cinematographer talk on the ice rink. They make large gestures, mimic frames. The director looks through his viewfinder.
Technical discussion.
The film crew takes its first steps on the ice. They put on ice skates, start to make their way onto the rink. Their steps are slow, uncertain.
The sound operator carries his nagra and his boom, his advance over the ice is shaky. He almost loses his balance several times and keeps upright by swinging his arms around like a windmill. The script girl, with her pink notebooks and her stopwatch, after taking off her thick anorak and putting on her skates, wears what resembles a figure skater's attire, a sort of Diana's hunting dress with imitation suede fringes. She pushes out onto the ice with a certain grace, a certain assurance, slowly, one leg lifted in the air behind her. More prudent, much slower, are the cinematographer, the electricians and the grips. After getting into their skates they walk on the ice and cluster together at the center of the rink. The cinematographer gives some instructions to the electricians. They listen, then get to work. They start installing the lighting on the rink, yelling to each other in Flemish over the ice. The script girl has installed herself on a small folding stool in the middle of the ice rink, her script and her notebooks on her knees, her stopwatch around her neck. Behind her the electricians continue installing the lights, set the first lamps on their stands.
4. INT. MAKEUP - DAY
In the makeup room, the leading actor is being made up.
5. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
The director heads over at a good pace to the edge of the rink, preceded by the reporter, who films him while walking backwards.
The director puts on ice skates and moves onto the ice.
The director proGREsses very slowly, very cautiously, preceded by the reporter, wearing skates as well, who walks backwards on the ice, nearly falling every step.
The electricians continue to install the lamps, turn them on and off.
The director crosses the rink, going towards the director's chair.
He sits, opens his script.
Suddenly, just like two professional hockey teams making their way into the rink, twenty or so men emerge onto the ice, armed with helmets and hockey sticks.
They circle the rink several times at breakneck speed.
Violent music accompanies their entry on the scene.
The director (yells)
Veronique! Veronique!
At the side of the rink, the assistant removes her jacket and her scarf, lifting up the rubber hood of her speed skater's outfit. She wears a full-body black synthetic rubber speed skater's suit which makes her look a bit like a spermatozoon. She bursts out onto the ice at top speed, bending forward, one hand behind her back like a champion speed skater, and comes to a clean stop in front of the director's chair after a superb controlled skid.
The assistant
Yes?
The director (in a low voice)
A megaphone.
The assistant (yelling into her walkie-talkie)
Hello, hello, do you read, megaphone called for, megaphone called for...megaphone on the way, roger, over and out.
A production assistant, very prompt, very agile on the ice, skates over at full speed bringing the megaphone to the director.
The director (into the megaphone)
Stop, gentlemen, stop!
The players, helmeted and armed with their sticks, don't listen to the director and continue to careen around the rink.
The members of the film crew flatten themselves against the sides of the ice rink to avoid the hockey players.
A few members of the crew, more courageous, place themselves in their path to try to get them to stop, wave with their arms in the way that one tries to intercept galloping horses, but the players will have nothing to do with them. They dodge and escape, evading the technicians blocking their way, and make off even faster on the ice, skating at top speed.
The assistant finally reaches the sound booth and manages to cut the music.
She comes back onto the ice with the microphone from the sound system at the end of a very long cord.
The assistant
Silence, gentlemen, silence!
The players eventually stop and gather haphazardly around the assistant.
The assistant
Your director is going to say something to you.
The director (into the microphone)
Go get the interpreter.
The assistant (into the walkie-talkie)
Interpreter called for, interpreter called for... interpreter on the way, roger, over and out.
The interpreter runs out onto the rink, shoes in hand, escorted by an assistant. Skates are hastily put on her feet. She advances onto the ice, her balance very uncertain.
She joins the assistant, who gives her the microphone.
The director (into the megaphone)
Good day gentlemen.
The interpreter (into the microphone, in Lithuanian)
Good day gentlemen.
The players (in chorus, in Lithuanian)
Good day sir!
The director
I am very happy to be working with you and I hope that all will go well. I don’t think what I will be asking you to do will be very difficult for you, considering your experience. I would simply like to add, so that it’s clear, that this is a movie and I’m not necessarily concerned about whether what we are doing is credible. Without a doubt some of the things that I will ask you to do might seem unrealistic, improbable, even illogical, bizarre and exagerated. But, I repeat, this is a movie. And, in the movies, to make it look real, you often have to do unrealistic things. In his Notes on the cinematographer, - I don’t know if you have read them - Bresson explained how, if you film an actor who pretends to be afraid on the bridge of a
real ship, in a real storm, in the end, no one will believe in the actor, the ship, or the storm. (To the interpreter) No, don’t translate that, just translate that it’s a movie. (To the players) What I’m going to ask you to do, for the shot that we’re going to do now, is to play as if it were a real game. As you can see, there’s only one net on the ice, - we are going to set up the camera there (he points to the parallel) - I ask that you remain as much as possible in that part of the rink, and to play normally, without paying attention to the camera. Do you understand?
The interpreter translates in Lithuanian into the microphone, which gives a slight echo that amplifies and renders her words more solemn.
From time to time, with a single voice, the players cry out YES or NO, in chorus, banging with their sticks in short bursts on the ice.
The assistant (discreetly, into her walkie-talkie)
Hello canteen, do you read me, hello canteen, Veronique here, you'll have to be ready in half an hour from now, half to three quarters of an hour... what's for lunch today?... chicken... chicken with what... chicken chop-suey, roger, over and out.
6. INT. PROVISIONAL PRODUCTION AND DIRECTION OFFICES - DAY
In the production and direction offices evening dresses, stage costumes, cans of film are being delivered.
In one corner a production assistant irons a hockey shirt on an ironing board.
The director and the assistant come back into the room.
The assistant leaves again, then pops back in. Sticking her head round the door, she asks the director if she can bring in the actors she has convened to cast the replacement for an actor who is unavailable.
In a low voice she adds that she has mostly retained theatre actors.
Preceded by the assistant twenty or so men from twenty-five to sixty years old dressed elegantly in street clothes, a scarf around the neck, enter the room and spread themselves out in the space, moving along the walls and placidly rubbing their hands together to give themselves the right bearing.
The director welcomes them.
He walks among them, asks them a few questions about their careers.
The actors, in turn, evoke their career, the last productions they have been involved in, a marquis in Moliere, a halberdier in a play by Shakespeare, a walk-on along the same lines in a play by Musset, Lear in King Lear.
Some of them present him with a sample of their talent, declaim a monologue from Britannicus, recite a poem by Verlaine, Vigny, Aragon.
The director hesitates, nods his head, asks the assistant if he can see them in costume before making his choice.
7. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
Everyone waits on the rink. The director reads in his director's chair. The script girl prepares her notebooks, sorts her first Polaroids. The interpreter stares into the distance, leaning against the protective barrier at the edge of the rink. The hockey players skate slowly around the rink, exchanging a few words with the interpreter leaning on the barrier.
Suddenly, preceded by the assistant who guides them with a walkie-talkie in her hand, the actors for the casting appear on the ice dressed as hockey referees.
They take a few steps on the ice in their zebra suits.
One or two break away and skate elegantly.
Others hesitate, stumble.
A group of landlubbers stay packed together near the entrance, awkward and unbalanced. They form a compact, oscillating conglomerate. They hold on to each other, their arms on each other's shoulders, stumbling on the ice, just managing to keep from falling.
The director looks at all the referees, perplexed.
The director (to the assistant)
I'll take the small guy with the moustache who can skate, and King Lear as a back up, just in case something happens to the guy with the moustache.
8. INT. MAKE-UP ROOM - DAY
In the make-up room, the make-up girl is making up the main actor.
Behind him on chairs, like at the barber's, wait the two selected referees. They talk shop, swap theatre stories, a few dress rehearsals they have experienced.
The voice of the assistant is heard from the walkie-talkie on the dressing table of the make-up room. ("Make-up, make-up, do you read, only do the small guy with the moustache, King Lear is just a back up, don’t make him up... and the small guy with the moustache, you'll shave it off, of course")
9. SEQ.
CANCELLED.
10. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
The camera is brought out onto the rink. Two grips venture onto the ice, carefully holding the camera at arms' length.
Walkie-talkie in hand, the assistant pirouettes before them over the ice, skating ahead and coming back to them again.
The camera is mounted on the parallel, fixed onto its tripod.
The cinematographer turns on all the lamps in the rink, takes readings with his light meter.
The writer-director leaves his seat and gets up on the parallel, takes a look through the camera, adjusts its position a hair.
Everything seems to be in order.
The director
Yes, that looks good. I think we can do it. (He looks at his watch) (To the assistant) Do you think it’s ready?
The assistant
Yes, yes, it’s ready, they are waiting for us.
The director
Good, so, let’s go. (Shouting) Lunch break!
SEQ.11
CANCELLED.
12. INT. CHANGING ROOMS AND SHOWERS OF THE ICE RINK - DAY
A small cocktail party has been improvised in the changing rooms of the ice rink. Gathered together are financiers, bankers, and the film's main backers.
The producer, very elegant, watches over the gathering of the upper crust.
She sips a glass of champagne.
The producer
This will be, I believe, the best picture I’ve ever made.
Everyone raises their glass.
The producer
To Dolores!
Everyone clinks glasses.
Preceded and filmed by the TV reporter, the director enters the changing rooms. He is GREeted by the producer, who introduces him to a few carefully-chosen people.
The producer (to the director, while introducing)
It went well this morning?
The director
Yes, the lighting is almost done.
The producer
How many shots did you do?
The director
None. As scheduled.
The director and the producer go off in a corner.
They talk softly together, filmed in close-up by the reporter that has stopped in front of them.
All the while smiling hypocritically to the camera, his champagne glass in his hand, the writer-director, a little put out, complains between his teeth to the producer about being filmed non-stop by the reporter.
The producer (between her teeth, also smiling at the camera)
Yes, yes, I understand. I understand perfectly. But unfortunately it’s too late now to do anything.
The director
We could perhaps try limiting their shooting time. Only give them an hour a day, for example...
The producer
No, no, it’s impossible, you know very well, it’s in the contract that we have with the TV co-producers. I already talked to you about this. But, you know, it’s quite unusual that they take such an interest, we’re lucky to have a channel that is so interested in the picture. Come on, if that’s you’re only problem... (She clinks glasses with him) It’s sometimes difficult to be liked so much.
The director (dejected)
You think that? That I’m liked that much?
The producer
Over exposed, over admired, over idolized.
The director (maliciously)
Maybe.
A somewhat stiff fellow with glasses, impeccably dressed, who smiles the whole time with an important and self-satisfied air, looks at the producer and the director.
He lifts his glass from a distance to them.
The producer responds to his raised glass with respect.
The producer
You see, once again.
The director (in a low voice, between his teeth)
Who's that?
The producer (between her teeth, with respect)
Taquin. That's Taquin. He's extremely important for us. He's the manager of the ice rink. He's also a town councillor. I'll introduce you. It would be nice if you could have lunch with him today... I've got to go now...
13. INT. CANTEEN - DAY
In the canteen tent the technicians and the players eat lunch. The players are practically fully dressed, they have removed their shirts but they have kept their different pads on as well as the diverse straps that hold them in place. A few helmets and sticks lie beside them on the tables, among the bottles and plates of chop-suey.
The players talk animatedly in Lithuanian.
A couple of Vietnamese waiters serve them, passing between the tables with plates of rice and Chinese noodles.
A little to one side, in his bathrobe, the star of the film eats with dark glasses on.
The director and the manager of the ice rink eat together, filmed close up by the TV reporter.
The manager of the ice rink is very talkative, very precise, very technical, very clumsy with his chopsticks.
He explains to the director in the finest detail the conditions of conservation of the ice at a fixed temperature.
He is very slow, very methodical.
He hardly eats at all.
The director listens politely, nods thoughtfully, sadly.
The cinematographer, seated a little way off, listens idly to their conversation, turns his head to them now and again.
Suddenly, preoccupied, he gets up and goes over to the electricians to ask them if they have turned off the lamps in the ice rink.
The electricians get up quickly, leave the tent with the cinematographer. They rush over to the ice rink.
14. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
In the ice rink, under the shining lamps, the ice has completely melted. Clothes and boxes of material float over the water, groups of wooden blocks drift slowly on the surface.
The camera alone is preserved on its parallel in the middle of the rink, enthroned above the water among the lamps.
Donning plastic boots, the cinematographer and the electricians advance slowly through the water, turn off the lamps, start collecting everything that has been soaked by the flood.
15. INT. CANTEEN - DAY
In the tent lunch comes to an end, coffee is brought.
The Lithuanian trainer gets up and starts making a small speech on cinema in general, at the same time art, poetry and industry.
16. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
In the middle of the flooded rink the cinematographer and the electricians advance side by side with huge squeegees to get the last water off the surface of the ice. The assistant watches them from the side of the rink, her walkie-talkie to her ear, to ensure that the refreezing process is under way.
17. INT. CANTEEN - DAY
In the canteen tent the Lithuanian trainer's speech is coming to an end. He is applauded, and in the general merriment the Lithuanians start singing Lithuanian songs.
18. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
The technicians come back little by little into the refrozen ice rink.
The camera is still on the parallel, covered with a barney.
People sit on crates, boxes.
Everyone waits.
A song by David Bowie comes on (I’m not losing sleep).
The script girl does a few figure skating manoeuvres, a triple loop, a double axel.
Scattered applause.
The players come back in their helmets and uniforms, and do a few Arabesque movements on the ice.
18b. INT. CORRIDOR. ICERINK. - DAY
In one of the corridors, the director and the assistant walk by quickly, still preceded by the reporter who films them, walking backwards.
Suddenly annoyed at being filmed all the time, the director picks up the pace and trips up reporter, pushes him, and throws his equipment on the floor.
He heads off, arriving in the rink on a lighter note.
18c. CANTEEN - DAY.
In the canteen, the Vietnamese do the dishes, finish cleaning off the tables.
19. INT. PROVISIONAL PRODUCTION AND DIRECTION OFFICES - DAY
The star of the film comes back into the make-up room with a coffee.
He takes off his bathrobe, sits back down in front of the mirror.
The make-up artist takes up her work again.
20. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
In the ice rink light checks are being done.
The lamps are lit up, shut off.
The cinematographer takes readings with his light meter.
The cinematographer.
Well, I'm ready...
The director
Veronique!
The assistant shoots like a rocket over the ice and, in a perfectly controlled skid, halts before the director.
The director
We're going to start.
The assistant (shouting into the walkie-talkie)
Make-up, do you read, make up... main actor called for, main actor called for.
21. INT. MAKE-UP ROOM - DAY
In the make-up room, the make-up artist carefully removes the paper towel from around the actor’s neck.
A production assistant accompanies the main actor, and brings him to the dressing rooms.
The make-up artist calls the small referee over, sits him down, and shaves off his moustache in double time.
22. INT. CHANGING ROOMS AND SHOWERS OF THE ICE RINK - DAY
Stark naked in the changing room except for a G-string and his dark glasses, the main actor stands unperturbed between two assistants who dress him from head to toe in a goalie's uniform. The full costume, with wire mask and enormous shin guards, hangs on a hanger behind them.
The main actor lets himself be dressed, lifts his arms or his legs when needed, allows pads to be fitted to his legs or to his shoulders, but never makes a single move on his own initiative. He concentrates on practicing his diction exercises (In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen).
23. INT. ICE RINK - DAY
The main actor, dressed as a goalie, makes his entrance onto the ice.
The director welcomes him, invites him to sit on a chair with his name, installed at the base of the parallel.
The cinematographer sits at the camera, on top of the parallel.
The players are in position in the center of the rink, leaning forward, sticks in their hands.
The assistant explains to the short referee, now clean-shaven, that he should just pretend to drop the puck when he is given the signal.
The director (shouting into the megaphone)
Go!
