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breakinglight11Scene twelve of The Wicker Man, and a long and important one that introduces Lord Summerisle. Definitely not totally happy with this. I used the original as a grounding point, but I really haven’t sufficiently inflected it with my own themes. Definitely going to need real editing work, since I think this scene is going to bear a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to making the true danger of the cult clear.
Day #30 - "Lord Summerisle"
From The Wicker Man
By Phoebe Roberts
EXT. LORD SUMMERISLE’S ESTATE – DAY
Elise sits beside Benjamin Cairn on the bench seat of a wagon pulled by a single chestnut horse. He drives her up the main cobbled path of a handsome manor house, surrounded by lush gardens and adorned with colorful stained glass windows.
INT. LORD SUMMERISLE’S MANOR – DAY
Elise follows Cairn into the foyer.
CAIRN: Wait here, if you please.
Elise waits as he goes deeper into the house, taking in the elegant surroundings. While other places on the island are fairytale-quaint, this house is grand and expensive-looking, all polished hardwood, gleaming antiques, and oil paintings in gilt frames. She pauses on an enormous portrait of a gentleman styled almost like a Greek philosopher, holding an apple aloft in one hand and cradling a sheaf of barley in the other.
LORD SUMMERISLE: (OS) Ah! Detective Sergeant Elise Woodward, I presume.
Elise turns to regard the entrance of LORD SUMMERISLE, an elegant, well-preserved man in his late forties. Unlike the laborers and bohemians that populate his domain, he is stylishly dressed in a modern linen suit, with heavy signet rings across his knuckles.
Elise steps forward to take his extended hand.
ELISE: Yes, sir. And you are Lord Summerisle.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Indeed; welcome to our beautiful island. I trust you have enjoyed sampling our culture and hospitality so far.
ELISE: In truth, sir, I have not.
LORD SUMMERISLE: A shame. We have been a refuge for so many over the ages.
Elise stares in distaste; Summerisle is unruffled and releases her.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I understand you’re looking for a missing girl.
ELISE: Yes, sir. And I believe I’ve found her.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Indeed? Excellent.
ELISE: In her grave.
A look of concern replaces Summerisle’s bland smile.
ELISE: I understand you are the local justice of the peace, so I require your permission to perform the exhumation. I would like to have the body transported to the mainland for a proper exam.
LORD SUMMERISLE: You suspect foul play?
ELISE: I suspect murder. And conspiracy to commit murder.
LORD SUMMERISLE: In that case, you must go ahead.
This was not what Elise was expecting.
ELISE: Your lordship doesn’t seem very concerned.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I’m confident your suspicions are wrong. Our faith calls for us to nurture the young growing things on this island, not harm them.
ELISE: Your faith? The one that calls for women to dance naked in the night, and dismisses the disappearance of children on the expectation they’ll be reborn?
LORD SUMMERISLE: You sneer at the holiness of women? At the idea of reincarnation?
ELISE: Forgive me, lordship. I’ve little patience for nonsense when a little girl’s life is at stake.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Nonsense, sergeant? How can you be so certain of such a thing?
ELISE: I’m a Catholic, sir. Your ways do not speak to me.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Do you Catholics not believe in the power of ritual, the immortality of the spirit?
ELISE: Not when it’s an excuse for the suffering of young women.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Ha! And from what tradition do you come?
Elise presses her lips together.
LORD SUMMERISLE: But I see you don’t understand how we’ve come to these ways. You see, in the last few centuries, the islanders were starving. Scratching a bare living from scrawny sheep and what they could pull from the indifferent sea. Then, in 1868, my ancestor bought this barren island and began to change things.
He indicates the portrait of the man in philosopher’s array.
LORD SUMMERISLE: A distinguished Victorian agronomist and free thinker who became the first Lord Summerisle. How formidably benevolent he seems.
The lord leads Elise over to a shelf of books and from it pulls down an aged leather volume. He opens it to show her photographs of farmers of bygone times, along with the notes and diagrams of an agriculturalist breeding new varieties of crops.
LORD SUMMERISLE: What attracted my forefather to the island was its undeveloped productive potential. The unique combination of volcanic soil, the warm Gulf Stream that surrounded it, and a hearty populace that boasted handsome, fertile women.
He lays down the book and proceeds onto the terrace, urging Elise to follow.
EXT. MANOR TERRACE - CONTINUOUS
LORD SUMMERISLE: His experiments had led him to believe that it was possible to grow here certain new strains of fruit that he himself had devised. Of course, he would need a labor force to put his vision into practice. So, with typical high Victorian zeal, he sought to rouse the people to productive action by giving them back their joyous old gods.
He leads her to his garden, populated with peach and pear and apple trees in unseasonable bloom.
EXT. MANOR GARDEN - CONTINUOUS
LORD SUMMERISLE: And through the reawakening of this spirit, this barren island would burgeon and bring forth glorious fruit.
He plucks an apple from a branch and hands it to Elise. Tentatively she takes it.
ELISE: It sounds as if his new cultivars were suited to the local terrain.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Of course, but that was only part of his genius. He won the populace by feeding and clothing them, and once his trees bore fruit, it was only natural they should return to the worship of the land that sustained and enriched them.
ELISE: And you… genuinely believe in this? The… fertility rituals and earth worship?
LORD SUMMERISLE: What my ancestor began out of expediency, my fathers continued out of love. To reverence the old gods for the power of life and death they confer. To love nature and to fear it, to trust in it, and to appease it if necessary.
ELISE: But you’ve no proof any of your rituals have anything to do with it. It’s all superstition and the reading of tea leaves.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Could one not say the same of the purported miracles of your Jesus? The son of a virgin, impregnated, I believe, by a ghost.
Beat.
ELISE: Lord Summerisle, I am not interested in debating comparative theology with you. I am only interested in carrying out the law. Of which you are still the subject, even here in your little domain. Now, sir, if I may have your permission to exhume the body of young May Morrison.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I was under the impression I’d already given it to you. If you do find her body, do what you will— it is only the earthly shell, after all.
He comes close again to touch the outside of her shoulder.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Now, if you’ll excuse me, sergeant, I have other business to attend to. It’s been a great pleasure— meeting a Christian copper.
He turns and goes back inside the house, leaving Elise in the garden. She throws the apple to the ground.
Day #30 - "Lord Summerisle"
From The Wicker Man
By Phoebe Roberts
EXT. LORD SUMMERISLE’S ESTATE – DAY
Elise sits beside Benjamin Cairn on the bench seat of a wagon pulled by a single chestnut horse. He drives her up the main cobbled path of a handsome manor house, surrounded by lush gardens and adorned with colorful stained glass windows.
INT. LORD SUMMERISLE’S MANOR – DAY
Elise follows Cairn into the foyer.
CAIRN: Wait here, if you please.
Elise waits as he goes deeper into the house, taking in the elegant surroundings. While other places on the island are fairytale-quaint, this house is grand and expensive-looking, all polished hardwood, gleaming antiques, and oil paintings in gilt frames. She pauses on an enormous portrait of a gentleman styled almost like a Greek philosopher, holding an apple aloft in one hand and cradling a sheaf of barley in the other.
LORD SUMMERISLE: (OS) Ah! Detective Sergeant Elise Woodward, I presume.
Elise turns to regard the entrance of LORD SUMMERISLE, an elegant, well-preserved man in his late forties. Unlike the laborers and bohemians that populate his domain, he is stylishly dressed in a modern linen suit, with heavy signet rings across his knuckles.
Elise steps forward to take his extended hand.
ELISE: Yes, sir. And you are Lord Summerisle.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Indeed; welcome to our beautiful island. I trust you have enjoyed sampling our culture and hospitality so far.
ELISE: In truth, sir, I have not.
LORD SUMMERISLE: A shame. We have been a refuge for so many over the ages.
Elise stares in distaste; Summerisle is unruffled and releases her.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I understand you’re looking for a missing girl.
ELISE: Yes, sir. And I believe I’ve found her.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Indeed? Excellent.
ELISE: In her grave.
A look of concern replaces Summerisle’s bland smile.
ELISE: I understand you are the local justice of the peace, so I require your permission to perform the exhumation. I would like to have the body transported to the mainland for a proper exam.
LORD SUMMERISLE: You suspect foul play?
ELISE: I suspect murder. And conspiracy to commit murder.
LORD SUMMERISLE: In that case, you must go ahead.
This was not what Elise was expecting.
ELISE: Your lordship doesn’t seem very concerned.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I’m confident your suspicions are wrong. Our faith calls for us to nurture the young growing things on this island, not harm them.
ELISE: Your faith? The one that calls for women to dance naked in the night, and dismisses the disappearance of children on the expectation they’ll be reborn?
LORD SUMMERISLE: You sneer at the holiness of women? At the idea of reincarnation?
ELISE: Forgive me, lordship. I’ve little patience for nonsense when a little girl’s life is at stake.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Nonsense, sergeant? How can you be so certain of such a thing?
ELISE: I’m a Catholic, sir. Your ways do not speak to me.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Do you Catholics not believe in the power of ritual, the immortality of the spirit?
ELISE: Not when it’s an excuse for the suffering of young women.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Ha! And from what tradition do you come?
Elise presses her lips together.
LORD SUMMERISLE: But I see you don’t understand how we’ve come to these ways. You see, in the last few centuries, the islanders were starving. Scratching a bare living from scrawny sheep and what they could pull from the indifferent sea. Then, in 1868, my ancestor bought this barren island and began to change things.
He indicates the portrait of the man in philosopher’s array.
LORD SUMMERISLE: A distinguished Victorian agronomist and free thinker who became the first Lord Summerisle. How formidably benevolent he seems.
The lord leads Elise over to a shelf of books and from it pulls down an aged leather volume. He opens it to show her photographs of farmers of bygone times, along with the notes and diagrams of an agriculturalist breeding new varieties of crops.
LORD SUMMERISLE: What attracted my forefather to the island was its undeveloped productive potential. The unique combination of volcanic soil, the warm Gulf Stream that surrounded it, and a hearty populace that boasted handsome, fertile women.
He lays down the book and proceeds onto the terrace, urging Elise to follow.
EXT. MANOR TERRACE - CONTINUOUS
LORD SUMMERISLE: His experiments had led him to believe that it was possible to grow here certain new strains of fruit that he himself had devised. Of course, he would need a labor force to put his vision into practice. So, with typical high Victorian zeal, he sought to rouse the people to productive action by giving them back their joyous old gods.
He leads her to his garden, populated with peach and pear and apple trees in unseasonable bloom.
EXT. MANOR GARDEN - CONTINUOUS
LORD SUMMERISLE: And through the reawakening of this spirit, this barren island would burgeon and bring forth glorious fruit.
He plucks an apple from a branch and hands it to Elise. Tentatively she takes it.
ELISE: It sounds as if his new cultivars were suited to the local terrain.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Of course, but that was only part of his genius. He won the populace by feeding and clothing them, and once his trees bore fruit, it was only natural they should return to the worship of the land that sustained and enriched them.
ELISE: And you… genuinely believe in this? The… fertility rituals and earth worship?
LORD SUMMERISLE: What my ancestor began out of expediency, my fathers continued out of love. To reverence the old gods for the power of life and death they confer. To love nature and to fear it, to trust in it, and to appease it if necessary.
ELISE: But you’ve no proof any of your rituals have anything to do with it. It’s all superstition and the reading of tea leaves.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Could one not say the same of the purported miracles of your Jesus? The son of a virgin, impregnated, I believe, by a ghost.
Beat.
ELISE: Lord Summerisle, I am not interested in debating comparative theology with you. I am only interested in carrying out the law. Of which you are still the subject, even here in your little domain. Now, sir, if I may have your permission to exhume the body of young May Morrison.
LORD SUMMERISLE: I was under the impression I’d already given it to you. If you do find her body, do what you will— it is only the earthly shell, after all.
He comes close again to touch the outside of her shoulder.
LORD SUMMERISLE: Now, if you’ll excuse me, sergeant, I have other business to attend to. It’s been a great pleasure— meeting a Christian copper.
He turns and goes back inside the house, leaving Elise in the garden. She throws the apple to the ground.
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