
Math
The Passion of Alan Turing
by dl willson
Opening Scene
open to :
A hand… an apple is picked up from a pile. It is held. It is injected with a syringe. It is slowly about to be placed on an old kitchen table. Diane Birch’s “Magic View” plays
( http://open.spotify.com/track/7IoGPqAKsP5ItCqO8ZfVG6)
Ext. Turing Home – Sunrise
We open on a house, in the words of Joyce’s Araby, “at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground.” Tracking in slowly we hear a mumble
V.O.
Morcom.
…and the year,”1954″, appears on the screen. Like pings of noise, or Brad Pitt in Fight Club …there are flashes of frames of the violence of WWII, the holocaust, the great strike, upheaval in India, computer keys being typed, the noise of the city, the iPhone, computers, city streets, celebrations of D-Day, gay pride, Iran twitter feeds, etc.
…and silence, again, as the tracking stops,… framing the lonely English house.
cut to:
Int. Bedroom – continuous
We cut inside to a partial view of a man mumbling in his sleep as the sun is trying to creep around the pulled shades. We see a glimpse of what may seem like a breast…but it is definitively a man’s voice whispering a man’s name.
Alan
Morcom…Please Morcom….please.
We see his shadow wake and exit.
cut to:
Int. Kitchen – moments later
Apples sit on the table in a disorganized kitchen. The figure passes them.
We see running shoes packed behind others and the figure passes them and steps back into frame looking at them.
Ext. Turing House – soon after
The sun is just rising as Alan Turing, 41, is exiting in proper running clothing, the shape of what seems like breasts show through his thin running shirt. As he is walking to the road a day worker comes around the corner. Turing sees him and stares for just a moment before heading back into the house.
cut to:
Ext. Turing’s House – later
Turing is about to run from his front yard, when a worker comes walking up the road. Turing turns to head back in. He drops a large sweater he was carrying but decides not to retrieve it. The worker notices Turing drop the sweater and retrieves it.
Worker
Sir?!
Turing stops and half turns. Smiling large like that of a man who helped his country defeat the biggest evil the modern world had ever seen.
Worker
You dropped your sweater, it’d be big enough
you’d think yo…
The man notices Turing’s small breasts… …and stares before his reaction changes. Turing sees his reaction but ignores it.
Turing
yes. Well, …I am getting older
Turing chuckles to the man staring in disgust.
Turing (cont.)
I seem to forget things… Well thank you
Worker
What the bollocks is wrong with your…
Turing turns to enter back to his house.
Turing
Thank you.
He heads back toward the house as the man continues on his way.
Int. Turing Kitchen – moments later
The apple is in Turing’s hands as he places it down on the table near the pile from which he had gotten it. He goes to the window to see if anyone is now in sight. He puts on the sweater.
cut to:
Ext. English Roadside – Late Morning
We see him running sweating profusely from wearing a large over-sized sweater in the middle of the summer. His feet get louder as poem rolls over in his head.
Turing (V.O.)
Hyperboloids of wondrous Light
Rolling for aye through Space and Time
Harbour those Waves which somehow Might
Play out God’s holy pantomime
He repeats this over and over to the rhythm of his feet. As we watch the feet…
fade to:
Ext. Railroad Tracks – Day
…they become a child’s over railroad tracks. We hear Indian dialects shouting like a market merging and fading from his poem. We see Turing at 8 years old running along tracks with a note in his hand. It is a telegraph from his parents… He falls.
Superimposed image. of the scene his mother is describing in the telegraph- India in the 20’s and we follow a man arguing with a group of Indian men to place the railroad ties correctly…as they sit watching. It is Julius Turing…