We pick up in hospital, with establishing shot: L is feeble, his leg raised high and strapped in some contraption so that it doesn’t rest on bed, or even have sheets drape on it. It just hangs there in air, lathered in white goop, monstrously big thing. He is surrounded by medicine drip bags of many types that are needle-syringed in multiple places on his body.
Closeup. He is with the nurse, but we can’t hear, with benefit of subtitles, we read, “Where’s Sam?” Nurse touches him in a motherly way. “He’s gone. This morning.” L exhales, head back heavily on pillow. “Gone. Where?” We see a touch more of the hardened look that we saw at the opening.
(If there was a love interest, it develops it here. A docudrama would demand it, otherwise it’s just too slow. Where’s the tension? Even a documentary needs relationship tension. Especially one about a young man who has lost his looksk . . . and his way.)
Flash forward. Beautiful sunny day. Sound of seabirds. L with a cane coming up to the door of a man with an apartment to rent. His house is romantically located on the shore of the majestic St. Lawrence River in a the quiet town of Prescott, Ont. L raps on door. No answer. Notices that door is slightly ajar and pushes it open. Stairs ahead, and we see him struggling with his oversize leg. Grunting, obviously in pain and discomfort, taking one step at time. After one, two steps, jump-cut to top of stairs where L., adjusting to sudden gloomy interior, sees a shadowy figure, standing in the middle of the room. The owner, Mr. Night, is a sight, think gentleman’s club, “Howard’s End,” in sear sucker suit, spats, hand-woven expertly fashioned thin blood-red bow tie, straw boater and ebony cane with ivory knob, the shape of the lion, king of beasts.
Camera slowly pans the room, heavy furnishings with ancient-looking leather bound books on every surface, skin of dust on all, except for those in standing cases, dark wood with glass doors and more books, rows and rows of vintage titles, the spines we see are the complete Dickens and seafarers adventures and Melville and Conrad, the camera pans back to Mr. Night, we see him sitting in what seems an easy chair twice as large as he needs, he is every inch a Henry James, from the tip of his toe to the cane of his lap, except when the camera lands on his face, and this time, in is obv. L’s POV, we don’t see the face of Mr. Night. Rather it is Sam’s, again. His exact expression of alarm and concern that we saw in the opening scene and we hear a thud, as L lands hard on the thick Persian rug of Mr. Night.
L and a couple of college buddies on their way out West the summer after the hospital. L in the back seat, lying down, his bad oversized leg elevated to the passenger seat. He takes a swig from a canteen, pops pills as he winces in pain. Rubs leg with free hand. Sighs. General hilarity in the car. Hubbub of conversation in background, but L’s POV is hollow as if in a tunnel, the words English but he hears them as a foreign language. It is cramped in the back with luggage and junk food bags, half-empty sodas, and L is having trouble moving so to get the attention of the driver he takes his cheap cane and raps the headrest of the driver’s seat.
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Can you pull over soon?”
“Yeah, will do.”
Outside shot. Beaten up hatchback sedan comes to a stop, noisily in gravel. We see L struggle mightily to get out of the car. Then loud step in thick gravel. L walks around the car. We follow each step, but at a distance, as the camera follows L around the car we see two guys in front seat, paying him no attention, laughing at something. A million miles away.
Closeup on L’s pained face as he resumes his place in the car. Big sigh. Slowly comes back to the same position he started in, grabs the cane and taps the headrest this time.
“Where to, sir,” the driver says, turning back to face L.
“The Rockies, Rick,” L says. “And step on it.”
“Righti-O, sir.”
Flash forward. L on a Rockies trail, snow-capped mountains, blue jays in pines, squirrels. He is alone on a steep stony trail. Wearing shorts, wife beater, sneakers. Very pale and skinny. Terribly unhealthy looking. But he is running. Hobbling really. Think Chester in “Gunsmoke” chasing down Marshall Dillon in an emergency. But for L there is no emergency. Or none that we can see.
Next: Running for Your Life: The Fall Ahead
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