TODAY'S NUGGET: Meet Joe Black (1998) - Setting Mood of Doubt from Pg. 1

[Quick Summary: In exchange for a few more days with his family, a media owner makes an agreement with Death to be his guide on Earth.]

I read this script this week, in my quest to read as many Bo Goldman scripts as possible.  (He's listed as the last of four screenwriters. Maybe tough adaptation?)

I remembered this film did not hang together for me, despite great performances (which critic Roger Ebert explains much better here). 

Thus I was surprised how much the script captured my attention from p. 1.

I really liked how little phrases set the mood with hints of doubts about the protagonist when he becomes aware of Death as a being (I've bolded them below):

INT. PARRISH'S BEDROOM - 4:00 AM

MOVE THROUGH the doorway to reveal a master bedroom furnished with exquisite simplicity, revelatory of its sleeping occupant, WILLIAM PARRISH, 64, a warm but commanding face, a man of maturity yet who exudes a glow of enthusiasm.

Although asleep, there is an uncommon restlessness to him. Parrish grips his upper arm as if in pain. Now the severity of the pain wakes him, he squeezes his arm. The wind comes up, through the wind a VOICE is heard distantly, or is it the wind itself:

VOICE (V.O.): ...Yes.

Parrish blinks, has he heard something, has he not, he is not sure, he releases his arm, his grimace of pain fades, the discomfort seems momentarily to have subsided.

He rises now, crosses to the bathroom. As he pees, a breeze outside the window, the wind again, but then the Voice comes up:

VOICE (V.O.): Yes...

It is unmistakably a Voice, it is not the wind, Parrish has heard something, he looks around, but no one is there. He can't finish peeing, turns back to his bedroom. All bewildered, Parrish looks around once more, climbs back into bed, trying to trace the source of what he has heard or hasn't heard; he is not sure.

He pulls the covers up now, not a SOUND, tries to close his eyes.

VOICE (V.O.): Yes.

Parrish sits up again, frightened, but still there is no one there, he seems fraught with indecision, should he get up, should he not, what is happening? He looks out: absolute stillness and silence, CRICKETS chirp down by the river, a light FLICKERS from a shadboat, Parrish closes his eyes but then they flutter open, he glances up at the ceiling and finally, exhausted, falls back asleep.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: The writer's job is to engage the reader. This first page made me feel the doubt and spiked my curiosity: What is this about? I must turn the page and find out.

Meet Joe Black (1996)(Bo Goldman draft, 10/4/96)
by Ron Osborn & Jeff Reno, and Kevin Wade, and Bo Goldman
Inspired by the earlier screenplay, Death Takes a Holiday (1934), by Maxwell Anderson and Gladys Lehman
Inspired by the play by Alberto Casella and Walter Ferris