TO THE WHITE SEA Screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen Based on the novel by James Dickey August 13, 1998FADE IN Cobalt blue. A dark speck is just visible in the center of the screen. It resolves itself into a sea bird, flying toward us. As it passes we hear the propeller engines of a B-29 and a title burns in: TINIAN ISLAND March 8, 1945 From just below us the aircraft looms into frame and roars off into the distance, leaving only the sound of the wind. Voice Fire, We are going to bring it to him. CLOSE On the weathered face of the Colonel. Extremely close. H¢ is the speaker. We are pulling back slowly at the cut «Fire. This is what you've got to look forward to. This is what he’s got to look forward to. We're going to bring it to him. To the enemy, you know. Up yonder, friends. Up yonder to the north. . He points his finger up North and fire FLOATING High, high up in an empty airplane hangar. Down below us, laid out like a grid on a bombing plan, are rows of folding chairs. In the chairs are khaki-clad airmen. Standing at the front is the Colonel, just lowering his hand. We are going to put him in it. That's saying friends that we're going to put itall around him. Al! around him. We're going to put it over him and undemeath him. We're going to put it down on him and on fo him, DISSOLVE TO: . OVERHEAD TRACK Closer, looking straight down on the seated rows of airmen passing beneath. . We're going to put it in his eyes and up his asshole, in his wife’s twat and in his baby's diaper. We're going to put it in his pockets where he can’t get rid of it. White phosphorous that will hold on, DISSOLVE TO: FORWARD TRACK. From the back of the hangar tracking forward, just skimming the heads of the airmen as we approach the distant Colonel. . We're going to put it in his dreams, Whatever heaven he’s hoping for, we're fixing to make a hell out of it. Soon, good buddies, We just got the good word this moming. White phosphorous and napalm. That’s our good stuff for the little yellow man and his folks. We're going to make him a present of it in his main city. Bestow it. Give it away. With three hundred airplanes. With both hands. ‘They're going to remember us. Within a week, I clue you, That’s all I can tell you now. But we're going all the way with incendiaries, We have arrived at the Colonel and come to rest on the extreme close up with which we began. ‘No ammo, no gunners, All bombs. All payload. All fire. WIDE REVERSE (On the rows and rows of assembled airmen staring mutely at the Colonel. He continues: Colonel The firebomb strike is going to be gravy. But that’s not tonight, Tonight it’s the same as always, gunners and all. One more time with frags and two-thousand pound G.P.’s. We rendezvous at angels nine, at sixteen three seven. Your course is three-five-six degrees true. The target is Tokyo,