excerpt from

THE FALL OF HERCULANEUM

Track 1

SCENE 1:

EXT. RURAL ITALY - NIGHT

Wide shot of hillocks in rural Italy. Dark lighting. A nighttime landscape with a rich blue-grey sky. Wind flings a tree back and forth on the far right.

Suddenly, in bright red serifed capitals on the screen:

THE FALL OF HERCULANEUM

The title slowly fades. A shepherd with a staff, in a brown shawl, comes across from the left, head down. He is a small shadow in the landscape. Lightning strikes far back in the left field.

Slowly, the picture fades to black.

VESPASIAN (ill, V.O.)
Vae, puto deus fio...
Subtitles: I think I'm becoming a god...

SCENE 2:

INT. ROMAN FORUM - DAY

Dull, sorrowful yet eventful music fills the theatre. It is a harmony of pomp and regalia. Roman soldiers and governors come from the right into the forum, in a procession. Bells ring in the distance. The camera zooms in on several side profiles in the crowd; there is an air of hushed mourning. Standards brush past the screen. Obscuring the scene for one moment, the black screen serves as a place to write:

TEXT ON SCREEN:
79 AD. On the death of Vespasianus, Imperator.

More people pass, more profiles, and then more standards obscure the screen.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
By decree of the Imperial Cult, he is to be posthumously deified. His eldest son, Titus, is to succeed him.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
May Rome be saved.

The last of the standards pass. View change: now above the forum on a balcony. A muscular yet plump middle-aged man in imperial clothes - this is TITUS - stands. Beside him, his concubine, BERENICE. Several important old men and women stand behind and next to them. Titus looks over the procession with saddened eyes. Guards flank the emperor.

View change to a lower balcony. DOMITIAN, the brother of Titus, stands distracted, talking to an old man. On the other side, a young man, TITUS FLAVIUS SABINUS, and a woman, the wife of Domitian, DOMITIA LONGINA. She seems unhappy. Domitian seems irritable.

View change back to the procession. A coffer comes forth; it bears the body of Vespasian, the dead emperor. The people carrying him have tears in their eyes. Wide shot: a full view of the procession around the Roman Forum. We can now see this is an immensely grandiose occasion.

SCENE 3:

EXT. HERCULANEUM - MIDDAY

A messenger on a horse rides through the town and into the main square. (Fisheye lens here?) The equestrian statue of MARCUS NONIUS BALBUS stands in the centre. Centre to the screen, directly in front of the statue, is the messenger. A stableboy brings the horse to the side. The messenger reads from a papyrus scroll.

MESSENGER
There is news from Rome.
(unfurls papyrus, clears throat)
The Emperor Vespasian has ascended, at Cutiliae. His son, Caesar Titus, will replace him.

SCENE 4:

INT. GREAT PILLARED BUILDING - DAY

People in togas stand in the background. One by one, members of the crowd come forward to pay their respects to Vespasian, who is laid in the middle of this grand room. We see a lanky young man, an older woman, and then Domitian, who seems sad but almost angry. He mumbles something as he passes. Finally, Titus. He stands there for a second. We see Vespasian’s dead face: powdered, collapsed, aged. Titus is worried but still-faced. A tear drips from his left eye. He doesn't pay attention to it.

SCENE 5:

EXT. STATUE OF VESPASIAN - NIGHT

A laurel wreath is thrown over a statue of Vespasian. People give blessings to it.

EXT. MARKET - DAY

Crushed flowers are shoved into the mouth of the statue. Old women kiss denarii and throw them at his feet. Baked goods with his name imprinted are sold at market stalls.

SCENE 6:

EXT. TRAMPLED FIELD - DAY

Armies trek across a trampled field, holding standards, ambling on.

SCENE 7:

INT. LONG, FADED, FRESCOED ROOM - DAY

A long, faded, frescoed room, extending far back, with a black gated window at the very far end. On the right, halfway set back, JULIA ONNIA DECIA, a noblewoman in her forties, looks worried at a papyrus she reads from, and then places it down, looking to the right with concern. Suddenly, from the immediate left, sharply in profile, comes GAIUS CANNILUS DECIUS, her husband, his lip slightly quivering. He also seems worried.

FADE OUT.