Making History

MAKING MOVIES

TIM.

FADE IN:

EXT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE — MORNING

A GARDENER is mowing the court of the lawn in Hawthorn Tree Court. A bell chimes the hour.

CUT TO:

INT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE, OUTSIDE LEO’S ROOMS — MORNING

MICHAEL stands outside the Professor’s door, thumping on the oak eagerly. He is carrying two large Safeways carrier bags.

LEO (O/V: Come in!

MICHAEL laboriously puts down the bags, pushes wide the door, picks the bags up again and enters, hooking the door closed behind him with his foot.

LEO looks up from his computer in surprise.

LEO: Michael!

MICHAEL (nervously): Professor, I have to talk to you.

LEO: Sure, sure. Come in, come in.

INT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE, LEO’S ROOMS -MORNING

MICHAEL is blushing, nervous and out of breath. He moves to the centre of the room but seems unable to know what to say. LEO stares hard at him.

LEO (continuing): Sit down, I get you a cup of coffee.

LEO disappears into the gyp-room. HOLD on MICHAEL.

We hear, as before, coffee cups rattling and a kettle being filled, OFF.

MICHAEL walks over to the bookshelves and looks at them once more. He is restless. He taps his teeth nervously with his fingernails. He is coming to a decision.

MICHAEL (raising his voice): Professor…

LEO (coming out): How many times do I have to tell the boy? My name is Leo.

MICHAEL: Leo, like I’m no scientist, you know, but isn’t it true to say that when Marconi invented the wireless the first thing he did was make a broadcast?

LEO: What do you mean?

MICHAEL: Well, he couldn’t only receive, could he? I mean, there weren’t any signals to receive, were there? So he had to transmit and receive.

LEO nods his head slowly.

LEO: That makes sense.

MICHAEL: Cool. So what I’m saying is, the discovery of…what do you call it…wireless telegraphy?

LEO: Wireless telegraphy, sure.

MICHAEL: The discovery of wireless telegraphy meant the ability to receive and to broadcast. Otherwise it would have been pointless, yeah?

LEO: Quite pointless.

MICHAEL: And you said that your machine…what you showed me yesterday…(breaking off as a thought strikes)

…what’s it called, by the way?

LEO: Called? What do you mean?

MICHAEL: Its name. What’s its name?

LEO (puzzled): Name? It doesn’t have a name.

MICHAEL Oh. Maybe we should call it (thinking)…we should call it Tim.:

LEO: Tim?

MICHAEL: Yeah, as in ‘time’. Or…hang on! Yeah, it could stand for…er, what was it you said? ‘Temporal imaging…’ So, Tim stands for Temporal Imaging Machine. Cool! Tim,. Tim. Like it.

LEO: Tim. Okay, we call it Tim.

MICHAEL What was I saying?:

LEO (with a shrug): Something loosely connected with Marconi.

MICHAEL: Right, right. You told me that Tim was like a radio set that could only tune in, but couldn’t transmit.

LEO: That’s what I said.

MICHAEL: Well, what I’m saying is, any half-way competent engineer could take an ordinary radio, muck about with it a bit and turn it into a transceiver, right?

LEO: An ordinary radio, yes. But who’s talking about an ordinary radio?

The kettle starts to WHISTLE angrily in the background.

MICHAEL: It’s the same thing! The same principle.

(beat)

You can do it, can’t you? You know how to!

LEO meets MICHAEL’S eager stare.

LEO: I get the coffee.

MICHAEL (calling after him): You can! You can do it!

MICHAEL follows LEO into the gyp-room. LEO is pouring boiling water into a cafetiere. MICHAEL watches in a state of suppressed excitement.

MICHAEL (continuing): It’s true, isn’t it? It is.

LEO holds up a finger for silence and with calm deliberation assembles, on a tray, a jug of milk, a little bowl of sugar and a mug for his own hot chocolate. He picks up the tray and goes out: MICHAEL follows close at heel, still bubbling with excitement.

LEO puts down the tray, watching MICHAEL’S energetic pacing out of the corner of his eye.

LEO: Now I know why they call you Puppy. You follow people about, you pant, you yelp. For all I know you piddle on the floor as well.

MICHAEL: I just want to know…

LEO (interrupting): Listen. Sit down and listen.

MICHAEL drops sulkily into a chair.

LEO (continuing): While I pour your coffee, you listen. You know nothing about the device I have constructed, this Tim. You know nothing about the physics behind it, nor the” technology behind it. I described it as being like a radio set because I thought that was something…a model, an analogy…that you could understand.

(handing him a cup of coffee) But that does not mean that this device, that Tim really works like a radio set. Such an analogy falls down in all kinds of ways.

MICHAEL (defiant): But you can, can’t you? You can!

LEO picks up his chocolate and leans back. He closes his eyes.

LEO: Yes. In theory it is possible.

MICHAEL (triumphant): I knew it! What did I say? We can go back! In time.

LEO: Not go back. I can, as you put it, transmit. At least I believe I can. It is possible. In principle it is possible.

MICHAEL: So we erase him! If we wanted to, we could liquidate Hitler.

LEO (violently): No! Absolutely not!

MICHAEL: But…

LEO: You think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind? You think the idea of being able to rid humanity of the curse of Adolf Hitler isn’t something I think of every minute of my waking life? But listen to me, Michael, listen to me. The day I was first told what happened to my father, what happened there in Auschwitz, that day I made myself a promise. I swore before God and the Universe that never, ever, would I involve myself in war, in murder, in the harming of another human being. You understand me?

MICHAEL: Respect.

LEO: So don’t talk to me of killing.

MICHAEL: That’s cool. I read you. But if that’s all true then tell me this. Why were you so wild to read my thesis? And why did you invite me to your lab and show Tim off to me? When I asked you yesterday, when I said, ‘Why me?’ you remember how you replied? ‘A feeling, ’ you said. Remember that? A feeling. What did you mean ‘a feeling’?

LEO: I’m not sure. I — I don’t know.

MICHAEL: Yes you do, Leo. You thought I could help you, and I can. I can help you wipe the memory of Hitler from the face of the earth.

LEO is agonised.

LEO: I told you, Michael! I said to you. I cannot kill. I have sworn.

But MICHAEL is ready for this. He replies with a pleased smile.

MICHAEL: Who said anything about killing?

LEO stares at him. MICHAEL beams triumphantly and takes out his wallet. He scrabbles around inside and holds up, between forefinger and thumb, a SMALL ORANGE PILL.

CLOSE on the orange pill.

MICHAEL (continuing: smiling wickedly): We just make sure the motherfucker is never born. Know what I’m saying?

CUT TO:

EXT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE — DAY

CRANE up to the window of LEO’s rooms. At the same time we see the outline of LEO, drawing the curtains shut.

MUSIC: SAINT-SAENS ORGAN CONCERTO.

CUT TO: A MONTAGE of shots in various locations at different times of day.

INT. LEO’ S ROOMS — DAY

LEO and MICHAEL pore over an old street map of the town of Brunau-am-Inn in Upper Austria. MICHAEL is pointing to a particular street. LEO nods and makes notes.

CUT TO:

EXT. NEW CAVENDISH LABORATORIES -AFTERNOON

High establishing shot, moving from the Royal Observatory over the road to the huge tanker of Liquid Nitrogen, the forest of satellite dishes and the Physics Laboratory.

CUT TO:

INT. LEO’S LAB — AFTERNOON

MICHAEL is sucking from a litre bottle of Coke. He is perched on a stool and watching LEO as LEO tests part of ‘TIM’, LEO’s device. TIM has its casing stripped off, and various probes attached to the circuitry inside.

CUT TO:

INT. MICHAEL’S NEWNHAM HOUSE — MORNING

JANE wakes up and sees MICHAEL sprawled, fully dressed on the bed beside her. She gives him a nudge. He rolls over and, with his back to her, continues to sleep.

JANE frowns: puzzled.

CUT TO:

INT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE, PORTER’S LODGE -MORNING

MICHAEL, yawning, is inspecting his pigeon-hole. He pulls out a small yellow parcel. He turns it over in his hand and sees that it bears an Austrian postmark. He rips it open excitedly. We see that it is a bundle of schematics, facsimiles of blueprints or plans of some kind. MICHAEL is very excited.

MICHAEL walks out of the porter’s lodge, his head buried in what he is reading. He barges straight into DOCTOR FRASER-STUART, who is wearing a fetching kimono. MICHAEL apologises hastily and instantly goes back to reading.

FRASER-STUART looks back towards him, mystified.

CUT TO:

INT. ST MATTHEW’S COLLEGE, LEO’S ROOMS -MORNING

The furniture is pulled to one side and the floor is covered with the schematics MICHAEL received from AUSTRIA.

LEO watches from his chair, his fingers hovering over the keyboard of his COMPUTER, while MICHAEL, lying on his stomach, carefully traces a line of conduits with a highlighting pen on the schematic. He stops, takes a pair of dividers and measures a section against a scale on the side of the schematic. He calls out to LEO, who taps a number into the COMPUTER.

CUT TO:

EXT. NEW CAVENDISH LABORATORIES — NIGHT

Establishing shot of the physics lab by night. We move in on a burning light on the first floor.

CUT TO:

INT. SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM — NIGHT

A hi-tech palace. Television monitors in a row are labelled ‘Met. Sat IV, vGeo.Sat.II’ and so on. The screens show thermal-imaging pictures, weather systems, spectrographic analyses and similar images. Below them desks of knobs, lights and keyboards. Dazzling and expensive.

MICHAEL is perched on a bench, pulling a wedge of pizza from a box. There is a security badge pinned to his T-shirt.

LEO, also equipped with a security badge, has TIM open on a stool under a satellite comms desk. Cabling is connected from TIM to the control array.

MICHAEL watches, faintly bored. The TV monitor above TIM shows an area of Central Europe at dusk. Underneath is given the time.

Suddenly MICHAEL jerks upright and looks at his watch. LEO looks up with horror.

CUT TO:

INT. THE NEWNHAM HOUSE — EVENING

JANE is sitting at the kitchen table, elegant in a beautiful black evening dress. A half finished bottle of wine is beside her.

The door flies open and a panting MICHAEL stands there. JANE gives him a murderous stare.

CUT TO:

INT. ST MATTHEW’S SENIOR COMBINATION ROOM -NIGHT

JANE and MICHAEL enter the S. C. R. in evening dress. MICHAEL’S collar is awry, he is pink, shiny and panting, Jane is pale and angry.

The S.C.R. is filled with chattering FELLOWS and GUESTS, also in evening dress. JANE grits her teeth and beams apology at the MASTER of the college, who does not look pleased.

MICHAEL stares across the room at the immaculately dressed LEO, who shakes his head, tut-tutting and looking at his pocket-watch reprovingly.

CUT TO:

INT. ST MATTHEW’ S OLD HALL — NIGHT

A formal banquet is taking place at High Table. College STEWARDS, white-gloved, are pouring wine and serving soup. JANE and MICHAEL are sitting next to each other, JANE has her back pointedly to MICHAEL.

An OLD PROFESSOR stares at MICHAEL’S ineptly tied bow-tie. MICHAEL attempts to improve the situation by adjusting the bow-tie in the reflection from a large silver epergne in the centre of the table. The result is comically worse.

MICHAEL sinks back frustrated and bored. He shoots a look at LEO who raises his eyebrows. MICHAEL looks a question back at him.

LEO winks. MICHAEL smiles as LEO rises from the table and bids farewell to those sitting either side of him clutching his temples as if he had a terrible headache.

MICHAEL waits for him to go and then does the same thing: rises, clutches his temples and grins a boyish and apologetic grin.

JANE slaps him hard across the face.

Soup spoons are dropped, eyes pop. MICHAEL leaves the room.

CUT TO:

INT. SATELLITE COMMS ROOM — NIGHT

LEO, jacket off, bow-tie undone, smiles as MICHAEL, also rid of his jacket, ruefully strokes his cheek.

LEO turns to TIM, rubs his hands and throws some switches.

FADE TO:

INT. SATELLITE COMMS ROOM — NIGHT

CLOSE on MICHAEL as he starts awake. LEO is gazing down at him, shaking his shoulder.

MICHAEL: What time is it?

LEO: Six. We should be gone.

MICHAEL sits upright. He has been lying along a bench, his dinner jacket bunched into a pillow under his neck. He springs down to the floor.

LEO: Youth. It would take me ten minutes to stand up after lying in that position. Come. Breakfast.

CUT TO:

EXT. KING’S PARADE — MORNING

We crane down from King’s College, past the chapel and porter’s lodge and onto the exterior of The Copper Kettle, a tea-room. Through the window, we see the profiles of MICHAEL and LEO, sitting at a table. We hear their dialogue, over.

MICHAEL (over): Well?

LEO (over): I prefer the eggs a little less runny.

MICHAEL (over): You know what I mean. How close are we?

CUT TO:

INT. THE COPPER KETTLE — MORNING

LEO is taking a sip of hot chocolate. Over the mug he looks gravely at MICHAEL.

MICHAEL (continuing): A week? Ten days? What?

LEO: A few more tests.

MICHAEL: What kind of tests?

LEO: It is difficult. Like the ring-pulls on soda cans.

MICHAEL: Say what?

LEO: The only way to test a ring-pull is to use it. But when it is used it is destroyed. You see the problem? It is the same with a folded parachute. Or a crash barrier. Impossible to test.

MICHAEL: What are you saying?

LEO: I’m saying that I can go over the math so many times. I can check the programming so many times. In the end, the only real test is the use.

MICHAEL: (leaning forward in an urgent whisper) WHEN?

LEO: Next week, I think. Thursday. But Michael…

LEO touches MICHAEL’S sleeve.

LEO (continuing):…you have to understand what we are trying to do here.

MICHAEL: I understand.

LEO: I don’t believe that you do.

Nothing will be the same. Nothing.

MICHAEL: But that’s the point!

(excited)

Everything will be better. We’re going to make a better world.

LEO nods and stabs an egg with his fork. The yolk squirts out all over the plate.

LEO: Maybe.

CUT TO:

EXT. NEWNHAM — MORNING

MICHAEL bicycles to his house. He passes the NEWSPAPER DELIVERY GIRL, who gives him a wide berth, swerving dramatically to avoid him. MICHAEL smiles to himself. He lets himself into the house and closes the door behind him.

CUT TO:

INT. MICHAEL’S HOUSE — MORNING

MICHAEL wheels the bicycle into the hall quietly and tiptoes towards the bedroom.

The bed is empty. MICHAEL stands and stares. He goes to one of the closets and opens it. Bare.

He goes to the study. JANE’s desk is swept clean. There are boxes piled up. He stares at the labels.

PLEASE LEAVE: TO BE COLLECTED

MICHAEL hurries to the kitchen. On the table, propped up against a teapot, there is a NOTE. We move onto the note at speed. It reads, in a strong, feminine hand: THIS TIME I MEAN IT

FADE OUT