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Title card:
New York City
1961
The card fades out. We hold in black.
Hard cut to a singer accompanying himself on guitar, performing “I’ve Been All Around
This World.” He is Llewyn Davis. He is spollit, seated on the small stageof a New
York club, maybe The Gaslight.
He finishes the song to applause.
Llewyn
‘Thank you. You've probably heard that one before, but
what the hell.
He rises to go but dips back into the mike:
If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a
folk song.
As the applause abates something catches Llewyn’s attention:
Nick Porco, the owner of the club, Greenwhich Village Italian, nods Llewyn over. He is
broadly smiling.
Nick
Boy you were some mess last night,
Llewyn
Yeah, sorry, Nick. I'm an asshole.
Nick
Oh I don’t give a shit. I even agree about the music.
Funny to hear you say
Yeah, I'm a funny guy.
Nick
S'very true. Anyways, someone wants to see you out back. Llewyn
Who?
Nick (
Guy ina suit? |
A clatter offscreen attracts Llewyns attention:
Backlit in the smoky spotlight someone with a battered guitar is just sitt
stool onstage.
BACK ALLEY
ing down on the
The steel door of the club swings open and Llewyn emerges. A thin, angular man, older
than Llewyn, in a suit a size too big is leaning against the far wall of thel
cigarette. He studies Llewyn for a beat, then, in a Kentucky accent:
Man |
‘You a funny boy, huh? |
Llewyn |
What? {
‘The man tosses the cigarette away and pushes himself off the wall.
Men
Had to open ya big mouth, funny boy?
Llewyn
Had to—what? It's what I do, For a living, Who're—
Man i
What ya do? Make fun a folks up there, Folks up there
sangin?
Llewyn
I'm sorry, what? I'm—oof!
The man has just socked him in the mouth,
Man
‘You sit there in the audience last night yellin yer crap?
ley smoking a Llewyn is holding his mouth.
Llewyn
Oh for Christ’s sake. You yell stuff, it's a show.
Man
Ain’ta fuckin fag show!
He hits him again.
- - Wasn’t your show!
He hits him again and Llewyn goes down in the slush of the alleyway.
Llewyn
It’s not the opera, jackass!
He kicks. Llewyn curls into a defensive ball and bellows from behind protective
forearms:
Llewyn
It's a fucking baskethouse!
‘The man kicks again.
Man
We leavin this fuckin cesspool. You kin have it, smartass.
TRACKING
We are pushing forward at floor-level along a hallway dimly daylit from the room in the
background that it opens into.
Musie enters at the cut, an Italian tenor, singing opera. The music has some perspective:
a record playing in another apartment, perhaps, down an airshatt.
A.cat’s feet enter frame and it leads the continuing push in.
The cat enters the background room, camera keeping pace. The cat veers to one side
bringing into frame the bottom of a sofa. The arm of someone above frame asleep on.
the couch lolls down onto the floor. We can hear the sleeper’s heavy breathing.
‘The cat leaps up, leaving frame.
