[Quick Summary: During the chaos of a cholera epidemic, a heroic Italian officer hiding in France offers to help a young wife find her husband.]
Is romance dead?* The scripts have been scarce.
However, this script restored my faith with one of the most romantic lines of dialogue I've ever read.
First, I have to give credit to the story which leads up to that moment. There are a few elements that really work well together:
- Angelo, the hero, is honest, brave, and trustworthy.
- He's attracted to mysterious Pauline, who barrels about, looking for information.
- There are real stakes and conflict that builds and builds the tension.
- The drama is heightened by the situation, i.e., in the middle of a cholera epidemic.
Second, this line of dialogue comes at the end of a great build up (last 1/3 of script):
- Pauline is jailed and Angelo gets inside the prison to rescue her.
- For the entire script, he's been delaying getting back home to help her.
- He continued to help her, even after finding out she's been looking for information about her husband.
- Also, notice the transition out of this very romantic moment. It reminds us that despite this very important moment in their lives, life goes on.
INT./EXT./ TOWER WINDOW; VAUMEILH - DAY
PAULINE: I came over here a little while ago, before you arrived. I looked down...I thought that it would be so easy to die, so swift, just a second or two, you just let yourself go...
ANGELO: Stop that!
PAULINE: There's nothing we can do, you know it as well as I do. The illness is out there, everywhere. I'm not even afraid of it anymore. Maybe it's already in us.
ANGELO: That's not true!
She sits on the stone ledge inside the opening.
PAULINE: What I see, what I do, nothing makes me want to live...
ANGELO (sitting beside her): Go and rest some. Go sleep.
PAULINE (looking up at him): Aren't you ever hesitant, or flustered?...Are you always sure of what to do?
ANGELO: I think it over and do the best I can.
PAULINE: It's as though the illness were your battlefield.
ANGLEO: You could say that.
PAULINE: Why are you always following me?
A beat.
ANGELO: Because I don't feel lonely when I'm with you. [My emphasis. This is an elegant expression of what all of us seek: someone putting us above them, and wanting that connection, togetherness. Also: note what happens after this important line.]
PAULINE: I don't even know your name. [This is a reminder that they hardly know each other. It makes everything previous to it more romantic because he did this for her, not her status.]
ANGELO: Pardi. Angelo Pardi.
PAULINE: My name's Pauline.
Just then, the drape is pulled back REVEALING the HANDSOME MAN who looks like a horse dealer, his notebook in hand. [Notice how the writers pull us back to the present. Romance does not happen in a vacuum. Life goes on.]
HANDSOME MAN: I beg your pardon, colonel, and I hate to disturb you thus...I'm Alexandre Petit, dealer in seed and feed!
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I really liked how the peak of this romance happened in the middle of normal life, and not in a vacuum. It felt even more real.
Also, I was swept away by the couple's aching and longing, which I think the writer Jean-Claude Carriere writes very well.
The Horseman on the Roof (1996)(10/20/93 draft)
by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and Nina Companeez & Jean-Claude Carriere
Based on the novel by Jean Giono
* Also, I wonder if the lack of good romantic stories is the reason Gen Z is valuing friendships over romance: "An inability to find quality romantic relationships could be one reason Gen Zers want more friendships, or commitment-free romantic relationships."
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