Great Characters: Jack Sparrow (“Pirates of the Caribbean”)
One of the most memorable Trickster characters in recent memory is Jack Sparrow, played brilliantly by Johnny Depp in three Pirates of the Caribbean movies (screenplays by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio).
Here is how the character is introduced in the screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl:
EXT. PORT ROYAL — HARBOR — DAY
The skeletal remains of four pirates, still clad in buccaneer
rags, hang from gallows erected on a rocky promontory. There is
a fifth, unoccupied gallow, bearing a sign:
PIRATES — YE BE WARNED
The top of a billowing sail passes regally in front of them.
On the landward face of the sail, apparently high in the
rigging, is a man for whom the term ‘swashbuckling rogue’ was
coined: Captain JACK SPARROW.
He gazes keen-eyed at the display as they pass. Raises a
tankard in salute. Suddenly, something below catches his
attention. He jumps from the rigging —
— and that’s when we see that his ship is not an imposing
three-master, but just a small fishing dory with a single
sail, plowing through the water — the Jolly Mon.
And it leaks. Which is why he has the tankard: to bail.
http://www.youtube.com/v/qFG6KAd2ITI?fs=1&hl=en_US
INT. ISLA DE MUERTA — MAIN CAVERN — NIGHT
Will, guarded by pirates, glares at Jack.
WILL
You’ve been planning this from the
beginning. Since you learned my
name.
Jack takes the opportunity to move toward him.
JACK
Oh, please — did I really seem
that clever?
Before Will can answer, Jack smoothly slips the sword from a
Pirate’s scabbard — tosses it to Will, who catches it despite
his surprise.
JACK (CONT’D)
Use it well.
But even Tricksters have a world view and in this scene where Jack and Elizabeth are stranded on a desert island, we get a glimpse of what drives him toward his goal: getting back his ship the “Black Pearl”:
They hoist their bottles, but only Jack drinks. He drains the
bottle, then tosses it away.
JACK
When I get the Black Pearl back,
I’m going to teach it to the whole
crew, and we’ll sing it all the
time!
ELIZABETH
You’ll be positively the most
fearsome pirates to sail the
Spanish Main.
Elizabeth salutes the idea with her bottle. Jack doesn’t have
a bottle to salute back. She hands him hers. He drinks, then
settles shakily to the ground. Elizabeth sits beside him.
JACK
Not just the Spanish Main. The
whole ocean … the whole world.
Wherever we want to go, we go.
That’s what a ship is, you know.
Not just a keel and a hull and a
deck and sails. That’s what a ship
needs … but what a ship is —
what the Black Pearl really is …
is freedom.
Jack is devious, devilish, surprising, smart, and awfully funny. The makings of a great character.
Why do you like Captain Jack Sparrow?
And for a treat, bloopers from the first Pirates movie:
http://www.youtube.com/v/i4D7yXmiWfw?fs=1&hl=en_US