The Invisible Man script
Image: door close, blinds close
Title: The Invisible Man
Suitcase, screen door, door opens, night sky (super boy fade in/out, boy looks back fade in/out)
Man v/o: “It sounds funny to say but I was born an old man. Everyone said so, who is that old man they asked, even while I was in my diapers. Each year I got a little younger, every time my birthday came around I’d take another candle off my cake, the lines on my face and hands started to disappear, as if I hadn’t lived at all.”
Foggy drive
Title: in a beginning
Track shot unmoving people winter exterior
Title: “you were the place”
Interior car pan dissolve to children at school desks dissolve to boy running
Man v/o: “You were the place my thoughts began, the place that words came from, my first school.”
Farmers pass car
Man v/o: “I came back to find you, and found I didn’t know where I was.”
Lumiére boat docks
Boy v/o: “I remember the day you left home, you didn’t stop to wave like the others, I guess you were afraid to look back and see me there, already plotting your destination, the person you would become. I am your writer.”
Boy with flashlight, light in clouds, clouds, boy with flashlight
Car pass on road, road super with violinist and 2 men dancing
Man v/o: “Everything here feels so familiar. Even though I’m not able to remember what lies beyond the next corner, the next turn in the road, as soon as I arrive, I know I’ve been here before.”
Man gets out of car
Car at night
Boy v/o: “When I was eight years old, you were my book. I wrote you, your story, knowing that you would never know me.”
Light shaft, boy in misty door, snowball fight
Man walks to house
Man v/o: “It’s still here.”
Man in house, house windows
Men v/o: “Lost your way again?” “I’m back. I’m stiff, frozen. The wind’s cut all the lines on the border zones. Some of us will have to work all night to fix them. Our home is your home. Our home. We’ve crossed the border and we’re still here. How many borders must we cross to reach home?” “It’s late. I’m expected somewhere. Good-night.”
Lumiére film: wall pushed down
boy run to school, freeze frame boy
teacher’s v/o: “You’re late.”
Diver, whale, diver and whale, diver supered with boy at window
2 men on bridge
boy v/o: “You believe, you imagine, that you are moving closer to me, but you’re not. You’re always moving away. Away from the one who has already written your story. Away from the understanding that I am your writer.”
Boy writes at desk
Title: There is no literature here
Boy writes at desk negative
Title: only writing
Silhouette figures up ramp, man through hole, man in fog, man in abandoned cinema
Man v/o: “I was searching the only way I knew how, through the small hole of my personality, which I used to look out into the world, though I knew that it wasn’t enough, that it would never be enough to find you.”
Man in bathtub rips pages from book, looks out window, night street, open door
Man rips shirts
Boy v/o: “The only thing I didn’t write, the only that that still belongs to you is your forgetting. That’s why you cling to it. And that makes you angry. Though you’ll never know why.
Man and blinds
Title: you are not yourself
Boy walks in cafeteria, boy in class super with diver
Boy v/o: “As I write I realize that I am becoming blind because there’s no one left to see me.”
Time lapse: ships rise and fall
Night boat in water super with fish, boy runs
Boy v/o: “I wrote this story, your story, because I knew as you grew older you would forget everything. So when you come back you would recognize nothing.”
Family gathers for photo
Boy walks to window
Tracking shot people with umbrellas, man takes off layers of clothing
Man v/o: “I’m beginning to forget myself here. It seems the closer I get to you the more I feel I’m floating in an ocean of personality, any one of whom could be me or none of them. I feel myself becoming different people over the course of a day, like you for instance, but also many others. I’m not losing my mind, this is different, I’m losing myself.”
Lock door montage
Snow ball, snow scene, man walks in snow, footprints, snowball breaks
Negative invisible man enters house and closes drapes
Invisible man takes off his clothes
Boy on stairs, invisible man washes face, boy in bed touches wall, rain shadow on ceiling, boy in bed hands approach him
Man hand switches on light, shoes, briefcase, car ignition, stick shift, garage door, foggy drive, traffic light, car crash
Tire spin loop
Boy v/o: “Who could have thought that forgetting would have come so easily to you?
Boy at window
Boy v/o: “That you would have extended this forgetting to everyone you met…”
Man holds boy walks into sunset
Boy v/o: “and finally mistake it for happiness. When you die you’ll have a smile on your face. I know. I know because I wrote it myself.”