TEE DREAMERS A Film 3y Orson Welles
z*
53
^
/ &>\
Or.
a BLACK SCREEN:
OK
is heard as
narrator OW
On a full moon night in 1870, a
dhow
was on its way
zo
Zanzibar.. FADE IN:
EXT.
THE DHOW UNDER SAIL - NIGHT 1 A small lantern is hung up over the deck. Three persons are grouped under it.
OW
(cont.
os) Her freight was ivory and rhino
horn.
But the ship held also a secret, human cargo— Sa'id Ben Ahamed, the young Arab chieftan, was about to stir
ana }
raise great forces of which the slumbering world did not yet dream... SA'ID, a fierce and strongly beautiful young hero of his people, sits on the deck cross-legged, bent forward, his
hands
loosely folded and resting on the planks before him. Through treachery, he had been made a prisoner in the North; he was now on his way to take revenge
uoon
his enemies. With him there was a person once
;
of great renown: the storyteller,
,•*
Mira
Jamal.
MIRA
sits,
like SA'ID, with his legs crossed. His back is to the moon, but the night is clear enough to show
[.
that he is dressed in
rags.
i.
The third in the company was the
•
young Englishman, Lincoln Forsner.
£•
I
•
LINCOLN lies flat on his stomach on the deck.
Ke
wears an Arab shirt and Indian trousers.
;
They sail for a
-ime.
{,
Then LINCOLN changes his position: he sits
u?
and makes r. himself comfortable.
£•'.'
i..
k
2.
/^Sv
LINCOLN The night is very still... bewildering in its silence and its peace. It is as if something had happened to the soul of the
world.
As if some magic... turned it UDside-down. Pause, Mira... The old storyteller turns to him. You once had many tales to tell us— Good tales for a hot night... and for people out on great undertakings. Tales to make the blood run
cold.."
MIRA
Yes,
such stories were once my stock in trade...
Ah,
how the world loved me in those
days
LINCOLN And now? MIRA
Alas,
how can
you
make others afraid when you've forgotten fear yourself? When you have learned what things are really like— when you've had talk with ghosts and had connections with the devil, you're more afraid of your own creditors. (he smiles) And that is why you see me here in
rags—
the follower of
Sa'id,
in prison and in poverty. LINCOLN turns and looks thoughtfully at the young chieftan. He does not yet
know
how to dream...
^
But he will learn. SA'ID lifts his hawk's eyes at
this,
and smiles a little. 3ut he does not speak.