SCENE 5 (after John switches from back-seat to front seat)
INT. SYDNEY'S CAR - MOVING - MORNING/LATER
Sydney driving, John in the passenger seat. HOLD. They drive for a while in silence, then:
SYDNEY
My Uncle died in 1949. He was a policeman in Boston. My Uncle worked as a policeman in Boston for thirteen years and he was fired upon twenty three times in the line of duty without being hit.
(beat)
One morning: He woke up, got dressed, walked outside and down the street. He went to buy his coffee and his paper. He walked fifty yards from his house...he was fifty yards from reaching the store. He slipped on a patch of ice, fell down and cracked his forehead open on the pavement.
BEAT.
SYDNEY
There are thirty-six possible combinations of numbers on a pair of dice. There's one way to roll a two and six ways to roll a seven. That's the math. That is what can be proven. If you want to roll a four, how can you do it? What are the combinations?
JOHN
...Combinations...
SYDNEY
What number plus what number equals four?
JOHN
Two plus two.
SYDNEY
What else?
JOHN
Three and one.
SYDNEY
What else?
JOHN
...That's it.
SYDNEY
One and three.
JOHN
I said that.
SYDNEY
There are three ways to make a four, John. Two and two, three and one, one and three. That's the math. It's the only given in the situation. Only thing is: we can't control how they come up. In walking down the street to buy a cup of coffee, we relinquish the control to what? Maybe, to who? I don't know. But it doesn't matter to what or who or why, because that's the way it is. We've got nothing to do with any of it.
(beat)
All we can do is bet on it.
HOLD. They drive for a while in silence, then:
JOHN
Can I get a cigarette from you?
This is great! It's really insightful to read these scenes that didn't make it into the picture. I mean, everything that ended up not going in I think helped the picture work, because it seems to clear up a lot of the mystery regarding Sydney's past. Despite now knowing that PTA envisioned the charatcer having children, the flashbacks etc; I think the film worked best when it left the audience filling in the blanks. Nevertheless, it's great to catch a glimpse of his original intentions. I've been struggling for years to find a copy of the Hard Eight screenplay (it's not even online) so finding these little samples is wonderful.
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