Script To Screen: “The Usual Suspects”
From The Usual Suspects (written by Christopher McQuarrie), the final sequence in which all is revealed.
Setup: Dave Kujan, U.S. customs officer, has just released Verbal Kint. And uh-oh!
INT. RABIN’S OFFICE
Kujan still stares at the bulletin board.
SUDDENLY, Kujan’s face changes. He leans in closer to the
bulletin board and squints his eyes. His face changes again.
First a look of puzzlement, then confusion — finally
realization.
The coffee cup tumbles from his hand. It hits the floor with
the SMASH of cheap porcelain. Coffee splatters everywhere.
Rabin snaps out of his droning and looks up in surprise.
KUJAN’S P.O.V.
Kujan is staring not at what is on the bulletin board, but at
the bulletin board itself.
His eyes follow the aluminum frame, mounted firmly to the
wall. One might note it’s sturdy construction and it’s
convenient size. Big enough to hold a lifetime of forgotten
and disregarded notes and facts. Years of police trivia that
has been hung and forgotten with the intention of finding a
use for it all someday. One might want such a bulletin board
for one’s self. One would look to see who makes such a
bulletin board.
Kujan’s eyes are locked on a metal plate bearing the
manufacturer’s name.
It reads: QUARTET — SKOKIE, ILLINOIS
Kujan’s eyes flash all’ over the bulletin board. He finds a
picture of Rabin in the far corner. He stands beside a scale
in fishing gear. He proudly holds a hand out to his freshly
caught marlin. His eyes skim quickly over and stop on an
eight and a half by eleven inch fax sheet of what must be a
THREE HUNDRED POUND BLACK MAN. Kujan glazes over his name, it
is irrelevant. His aliases stand out.
Slavin, BRICKS, Shank, REDFOOT, Thee, Rooster…
KUJAN’S EYES WIDEN with sudden realization. He runs for the
door.
His foot crushes the broken pieces of Rabin’s coffee cup. The
cup that hovered over Verbal’s head for two hours.
Kujan is in too much of a hurry to notice the two words
printed on the jagged piece that had been the bottom of the
cheap mug.
KOBAYASHI PORCELAIN.
EXT. HALLWAY
Kujan is sprinting wildly down the hall for the stairs.
EXT. STREET
Verbal looks behind him and sees ANOTHER COP standing just
inside the doorway, lighting a cigarette. The cop notices
Verbal and watches him in the way that cops look at people
they cannot place in the category of idiot citizen, or stupid
criminal.
Verbal smiles politely, meekly at the cop and walks down the
steps into the moving throng.
INT. DEPOT
Kujan runs up to the desk where Verbal had only moments
before picked up his belongings. Rabin is right behind him, a
look of absolute confusion on his face.
KUJAN
WHERE IS HE? DID YOU SEE HIM?
COP
The Cripple? He went that way.
The cop gestures towards the door.
Kujan runs outside looking around frantically.
EXT. SIDEWALK
Verbal limps his way carefully across the sidewalk, avoiding
people as best as he can.
He looks over his shoulder, getting farther away from the
police station. He can see Rabin and the cop on the steps,
looking around with strange, lost expressions on their faces.
He does not notice the car creeping along the curb beside
him.
INT. CAR
DRIVER’S P.O.V.
The driver’s hands tap the wheel patiently. His eyes follow
Verbal as he fumbles through the crowd.
EXT. SIDEWALK
Kujan pushes and shoves, looking this way and that.
EXT. STREET
LOW ANGLE on the feet of dozens of people.
Verbal’s feet emerge from the crowd on the far side. They
hobble along the curb.
SUDDENLY, the right foot seems to relax a little, the inward
angle straightens itself out in a few paces and the limp
ceases as though the leg has grown another inch.
CRANE UP VERBAL’S BODY
Verbal’s hands are rummaging around in his pockets. The good
left hand comes up with a pack of cigarettes, the bad right
hand comes up with a lighter. The right hand flexes with all
of the grace and coordination of a sculptor’s, flicking the
clasp on the antique lighter with the thumb, striking the
flint with the index finger. It is a fluid motion, somewhat
showy.
Verbal lights a cigarette and smiles to himself. He turns and
sees the car running alongside.
INT. DISPATCHER’S OFFICE
Jack Beer pulls the sheet out of the fax machine and turns it
over, revealing the composite sketch of Keyser SOZE.
Though crude and distorted, one cannot help but notice how
much it leaks like VERBAL KINT.
EXT. STREET
The car stops. The driver gets out.
IT IS KOBAYASHI, or the man we have come to know as such. He
smiles to Verbal. Verbal steps off of the curb, returning the
smile as he opens the passenger door and gets in.
The man called Kobayashi gets in the driver’s seat and pulls
away.
A moment later, Agent David Kujan of U.S. Customs wanders
into the frame, looking around much in the way a child would
when lost at the circus. He takes no notice of the car
pulling out into traffic, blending in with the rest of the
cars filled with people on their way back to work.
BLACK
And here is the scene in the movie:
Questions to ask to analyze the scene:
* What elements in the movie scene are the same as the script?
* What elements in the movie scene are different than the script?
* Regarding the differences, put yourself in the mindset of the filmmakers and speculate: Why did they make the changes they did?
* How did the changes improve the scene?
* Alternatively are there elements in the script, not present in the movie, that are better than the final version of the scene?
* Note each camera shot in the movie version. Which of them does the script suggest via sluglines or scene description?
* How does the script convey a sense of the scene’s tone, feel, and pace through scene description and dialogue?
* What ‘magic’ exists in the movie that is not indicated in the words of the script? How do you suppose that magic emerged?
I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this terrific scene from The Usual Suspects.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
[Originally posted November 16, 2011]
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