CHAPTER 1
FADE IN:
EXT. LOS ANGELES BASIN (AERIAL) - DAY
We're FLYING NORTH above a receding layer of maritime clouds, skirting the Pacific COASTLINE, approaching that huge bowl of sediment and sand that is the Los Angeles Basin. ANGLE ON - The COASTAL PLAIN, DESCENDING SLOWLY between the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Transverse Range of Santa Monica Mountains, thinly covered with patches of fog and green. The Los Angeles SKYLINE comes prominently into view.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.)
No one is innocent ... not in this town. In this town, the apocalypse has come and gone, lifting the veil of innocence like a great velvet curtain in an old movie house, where the only victims that don't return for the sequel are the gods themselves, struck out long ago by the big blue pencil ...
ANGLE ON - DOWNTOWN LA, shimmering in the morning sun.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
In this town, every man, woman, and child takes the limits of his or her own field of vision to be the limits of the world ...
We're ANGLING toward the COAST again, overlooking the foggy veil of Malibu, the Palisades, and the Santa Monica Mountains, where STYLISH HOMES are seen peppering the hilly landscapes.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Without the lamplights of fate that flicker in a constant state of anxiety through yonder movie reels, the collective vision would be blacker than the slate of a director's clapboard.
We're FLYING LOWER now, ARCING INLAND over Beverly Hills toward Hollywood Hills. ANGLE ON - UNIVERSAL CITYWALK, crawling with flocks of tourists.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
No one is pure ... not in this town. Sadly, that immortal instinct that senses the beautiful as it aspires to the divine is viewed nowadays as the desire of the moth for the star ...
ANGLE ON - the iconic HOLLYWOOD SIGN, which is literally DRIPPING with bloodred STAGE PAINT. CLOSE ON - we see the SCAFFOLDS and BOOMS and a team of PAINTERS busily returning the "bloodstained" letters to a pristine state of whiteness.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
In this town, the boundaries that separate real life from mere living death are, at best, shadowy and vague. No longer is there any wild effort to reach that elusive beauty above, only a cool satisfaction with the garish beauty that is flashed before us.
We're DESCENDING SLOWLY, ANGLE ON - STREET SIGN "Hollywood Blvd.," throngs of tourists traipsing over the WALK OF FAME. ANGLE ON - SIGN "Sunset Blvd.," then on to the SUNSET STRIP, congested with traffic. CLOSE ON - a flatbed TOW TRUCK bearing an ASTON MARTIN DB9 coupe, which we FOLLOW along Western Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard, Hollywood, to a seedy, whitewashed OFFICE BUILDING.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Some might call me cynical -- but I'm a philosophical counselor, not a cynic. I do not carry a lantern in the daytime, nor am I looking for an honest man -- just a paying client with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
ANGLE ON - The flatbed TOW TRUCK pulls up outside the seedy OFFICE BUILDING, and the REPO MAN proceeds, methodically, to off-load the DB9 coupe. FOCUS ON - A SHARP-DRESSED MAN (ZILCH), who STORMS BY and then ENTERS the seedy three-story OFFICE BUILDING.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.) (CONT'D)
From the lonely captain of industry, to the aging starlet, to the gambler who is plumb out of luck, philosophical counselors like me are time-honored physicians of a troubled culture. We offer applied philosophy as a medicine to ease the suffering of our clients, who, like this sharp-dressed man here, are experiencing very serious distress.
The LONG SHOT, which started high in the sky and then moved to the Repo Man depositing his load, now moves up to an OPEN WINDOW of the seedy OFFICE BUILDING and then THROUGH the OPEN WINDOW, seemingly inside the room, becoming an EXT.-to-INT. SHOT.
INT. METROS'S OUTER OFFICE - DAY
Zilch (robust, middle-aged, dapper, intense, headstrong) READS ALOUD the NAME and the TITLE stenciled in GOLD LETTERS on the outer DOOR of the office.
ZILCH
(brusquely, out loud) "Dr. Joseph Metropolis, PhD, LPC, Philosophical Counselor! No Shit!"
The MAN BARGES IN, passes rudely by an attractive SECRETARY with a practiced "talk-to-the-hand" gesture, enters the INNER OFFICE, where Dr. Joseph Metropolis is seated at his desk, and SLAMS the door behind him.
ZILCH (CONT'D)
You must be Joe Metropolis. I'm Zero Vaynilovich, and I need to speak with you immediately, if not sooner.
Without offering his hand or waiting for an invitation, the impatient man pulls up a nearby armchair and seats himself. Dr. Joseph Metropolis, METROS (in his late thirties, handsome, professional, academic, and yet fashionable) offers the man a seat.
METROS
Please have a seat, Mr. Vaynilovich. What can I do for you today?
ZILCH
You can call me Zilch for starters, and don't get smart with me; I eat guys like you for breakfast. I'm here because I want you to do something for me ... something personal.
METROS
Go on.
ZILCH
I'm a very important man in this town. Several thousand people are on my payroll. And when I snap, they jump so quickly they don't even think first!
FREEZE-FRAME, ANGLE ON - Zilch, focusing on his facial expression: that dull glimmer of helplessness that stands defiantly in the furrows between the blackness of his pupils and the dull metallic gray of his muscular irises that constrict with the emphatic intensity of his gaze.
NARRATOR, METROS (V.O.)
When a prospective client is talking to you, you listen to what he is saying with his eyes. It might seem strange to say, but the luminous world is a nearly invisible world ... it is a world we do not often see. The demands of luminosity, like the demands of truth, are severe -- she has no sympathy for pretense. To find true luminosity, we must become, in a word, perspicuous!
UNFREEZE - LIVE ACTION CONTINUES.
ZILCH
I need for you to find something for me -- a beautiful woman, actually -- and I need you to understand that this is a very private matter.
METROS
Perhaps what you need is to hire a private detective to find this woman.
ZILCH (EYES BLAZING)
I could hire a hundred private eyes to find anything I want. In Hollywood, we do it all the time. We hire detectives to dig up dirt on our adversaries, and a sleazy reporter or two later, we find ourselves in a ...
(purses lips smugly, eyes flashing) ... more favorable position of negotiation.
METROS
(trying not to yawn) I know. I read the newspapers.
Noticeable FLAKES of ASH from a previous client's cigarette FLOAT UP out of a brass ashtray and crawl deliberately across the shiny top of the desk in the draft from an open window.
Zilch SWEEPS the diverting ash trail off the desk and onto the floor with one swift movement of his empty hand.
ZILCH
Then you know I could hire a hundred private detectives to find her -- and maybe I will. Meanwhile, I want you to do something for me that I can't do for myself, something that only the likes of you and your ilk can do.
METROS
Why me? There are lots of well-qualified therapists, shrinks, and life coaches in Hollywood. There are those who specialize in grief counseling, illness and loss, even anger management -- which, in your case, might be advised. You strike me as a man who knows what he wants...
