1492: Conquest of Paradise
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1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE On screen the words: GRANADA - SPAIN - 1500 SANCHEZ Your Majesty would wish to know the true facts concerning the island of Hispanola, our first settlement in the New World, and the activities there of your servant, Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Governor of that Island. You will remember with what hopes and promises he beguiled us -- the truth is that he now presides over a state of chaos, degradation and madness beyond imagining. SANCHEZ punctuates each word carefully. SANCHEZ From the beginning, Columbus proved himself incapable of managing the affairs of the island. He appointed his brothers to important positions, at once injuring the pride and dignity of the nobles who had gone with him. He promised to build a city, the City of Isabel, named after Your Majesty. What he actually built was nothing but a collection of huts, and that in the wrong place, for all of it was easily swept away by rain and mud. Is that not so, Brother Buyl? The PRIEST nods. BROTHER BUYL Yes, Your Honor. SANCHEZ He promised gold. Not finding the easy quantities he promised, Columbus commanded each Indian to pay an annual tribute. Most being unable to, they were barbarously punished, against the express wish of Your Christian Majesties... ISABEL lowers her eyes. SANCHEZ Since provocation and injustice never ceases, many of the Indians have fled to the forests, or have begun to slay the Christians. ISABEL looks over at BROTHER BUYL. ISABEL Could it be so? BROTHER BUYL Yes, Your Majesty. SANCHEZ But there is worse. From the beginning, he forced the nobles to undergo physical labor, treating them equally with the Indians, all of them reduced to slavery. When the nobleman Adrian de Moxica protested against such treatment... (he pauses) ... he was executed. (pause) Is that not true also, Brother Buyl? BROTHER BUYL Yes, Your Honor. It is all true. All of it. I saw it with my own eyes. SANCHEZ He has lost control. His great arrogance has led him into depravity. He encourages our soldiers to marry the native women. He promised a paradise, but he has made a hell full of all its horrors. Silence. ISABEL Is that the man I knew, Treasurer Sanchez? SANCHEZ Yes, Your Majesty. INTERIOR HUT - ISLAND - DAY COLUMBUS is stretched on a bed, sweating heavily in fever, clearly delirious. Insects crawl over his face, he makes no effort to swat them away. There is a dripping sound of water. FERNANDO Of all the words my Father wrote and there were many, I remember these the most. "Nothing that results from human progress is achieved with unanimous consent..." Rain is falling into the room over documents spread on a table. COLUMBUS stands up and moves to the table. Some of the walls have been blackened with smoke and flames. A lizard scuttles into the shadows. FERNANDO "And those who are enlightened before the others are condemned to purse that light in spite of others..." COLUMBUS stares down at the documents, moving them away from the rain drips. He stares out by the window, and we see: A devastated landscape. Flooded roads, half-destroyed huts, broken trees... A dog picks its way through the mud. FERNANDO There was a time when the New World didn't exist... EXT. OCEAN - DAY A vast stretch of ocean. It fills the screen. Unbroken, infinite, luminous, mysterious -- it stretches away, meeting and blending with the sky in pale ribbons of pearl and misty light. FERNANDO ... The sun set in the west on an ocean where no man had dared to venture. And beyond that, infinity... Pulling back, we discover: A TEN-YEAR-OLD BOY and a strongly built man in his middle thirties, are riding a mule. The MAN'S weather-beaten face frames unusually bright eyes. On the screen these words: ANDALUSIA, 1491 COLUMBUS AND HIS SON are following a windthrashed path at the top of the hill. COLUMBUS hums a song, and FERNANDO looks up at him in adoration. FERNANDO Once I asked my Father where he wanted to go. And he replied: "I want to travel all over the seas. I want to get behind the weather..." FERNANDO laughs. He then starts to hum along with his FATHER. appoint- mianować, powołać barbarously- barbarzyńsko, w barbarzyński sposób beguile- oczarowac, mamic, omamić condemned- skazany consent- zgoda, ugoda depravity- deprawacja, demoralizacja devastated- zniszczony, spustoszony dignity- godność enlightened- oświecony, światły hum- nucić luminous- świecący, świetlisty noble- arystokrata scuttle- biec szybko małymi kroczkami slay- zabijać, zgładzić stretch- rozciągać się swat- pacnąć, palnąć, trzasnąć sweep away- zmieść, zniszczyć unanimous- jednogłośny, jednomyślny undergo- przechodzić, poddawać się czemuś, doświadczać venture- podejmować ryzyko weather-beaten- sponiewierany przez burze, podniszczony windthrashed- smagany wiatrem
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