THE
HARE LIP PROJECT
by Richard Nathan
As the film begins, the following legend
appears on the screen:
Three
weeks ago, three film students went into the woods to make a film about three
students who had gone into the woods to make a film three months earlier.
They were never heard from again. None
of them. Not the original three students, or the other three students
who made film about the first three. Nobody!
Really. Never heard from
again!
We're
not kidding.
This
is the film they left behind when they disappeared.
We're
not just making this up.
Really.
INT.
ALICE'S BEDROOM -- DAY
Someone is
shooting film of the ALICE, the Director of the second film.
(She's the one who disappeared three weeks ago - not the one who
disappeared three months before that).
ALICE
Okay, hello, and
welcome to my film. I'm making a
documentary about these three film students who made a documentary about the
Hare Lip Woman, and who were never heard from again.
In my documentary, I'm going to try to find out what happened to them and
why they were never heard from again. But
first I'm going to show their film footage which was found after they were never
heard from again. So the part of
the film you are going to see now is the part from the students who were never
heard from again. It's not from me,
because I'm going to be heard from again.
INT.
LUCY'S HOUSE -- DAY
Now we're in the home of LUCY, who is the
first director, the one who disappeared three months ago, not the one who
disappeared weeks ago. LUCY speaks
into a hand-held videocamera.
LUCY
This is the story of the Hare Lip. It's a local
legend here in Southern California.
It seems
there was a woman who was very beautiful,
only she had a hare
lip, which is like a cleft
pallet, and they can cure it these days.
Only
they couldn't cure it back when this story took
place. Anyway, this woman was so
embarrassed by her hare lip that
she went into
the woods to live all alone in a cabin, where
no one would ever
see her hare lip. At the
same time,
there lived in the city a man with
a wooden eye. He only had one real eye, but
he was too poor to buy a glass
eye, so he had
a fake wooden eye made. Anyway,
he figured
no normal woman would go out with him, but he
heard about the woman
with the hare lip, and he
thought maybe she would go out with him.
So
he wandered through the woods, until he found
her cabin, and he
knocked on the door, and he
was still worried about his wooden eye, but he
figured she wouldn't say anything because she'd
be so sensitive about her hare
lip. So he knocked
on the door, and
he said, "Would you like to go
out with me?"
And she was thrilled, because no
one had ever asked her out before.
So he said,
"Would you like to go out with me, and she said,
"Would I? Would I?"
And he said, "Hare Lip!
Hare
Lip!" And neither of them were ever heard
from again!
So we're going to go into the woods
and find out what happened to them.
EXT. DARK ALLEY -- EVENING
LUCY, followed by her two man film crew, RICKY and FRED goes into a dark alley to interview people on the street.
LUCY
Now we're going to have a man-on-the-street
interview to see
what people think of the story
of the woman with the hare lip and the guy with
the wooden eye.
The first person LUCY walks up to is a WITCH, looking like something out of the Wizard of Oz (with the green skin, and the pointy black hat, etc.)
LUCY
Excuse me, may I ask you a question for my
documentary?
WITCH
Certainly, dearie.
LUCY
Have you heard the story about the hare lip
woman?
WITCH
Isn't that the story of the woman with a hare lip
who goes
into a bar, and she says to the bartender,
(the
witch uses a hare
lip voice for the woman)
"I'll have a scotch and
soda." And the bartender
says,
(the witch uses a
hare
lip voice for
the
bartender) "One scotch and soda coming up."
And the woman says, (the witch uses the hare
lip voice) "Are you making fun
of me?" And the
bartender
says, (hare lip voice:)
"No, this is the
way I talk."
Then another customer comes in and
says, "Gimme a shot of
whiskey." And the bartender
says (normal voice:) "Shot
of whisky, coming right
up." And
the woman says, (hare lip voice:) "I
thought you said you weren't making
fun of me."
And the bartender
says, (hare lip voice:)
"I
wasn't making fun of you. I
was making fun of
him!!!"
LUCY
No. That's not
the hare lip story I meant.
Lucy goes further into the alley to find another person to interview. She walks up to a VAMPIRE who is busy sucking blood from the throat of his beautiful VICTIM.
LUCY
Excuse me. Do
you mind if we ask you a few
questions for a film we're making?
VAMPIRE
Go away! Can't
you see I'm busy?
Whenever the vampire takes his mouth away from the VICTIM's neck, blood spurts out of the two wounds in her neck. (Whenever the VAMPIRE isn't speaking, he goes back to sucking.)
LUCY
We just wanted to know if you've ever heard
of the Hare Lip
Woman and the Wood-Eyed
Man.
VAMPIRE
Of course I've heard of that ridiculous story.
They were telling it way back when I was a
child.
LUCY
Well, do you think it's true?
VAMPIRE
Of course it's not true.
Only an imbecile would
think it was true.
LUCY
Well, I think it's true.
There was a man with a
wooden eye and a woman with a hare lip.
Except some people say it was a woman with a
wooden eye and a man with a
hare lip. But one
thing everyone
agrees on... they were never
heard from again.
VAMPIRE
Good.
LUCY
I'm going to make a film about them and call it
the
"Hare Lip Project." Do
you think maybe I'll
never be heard from again?
VAMPIRE
I hope so.
LUCY
I take it you don't believe in the supernatural.
VAMPIRE
I don't believe in you.
Now go away and stop
bothering me!
LUCY turns to the camera.
LUCY
There you have it! Folks
around here tend not
to believe in the Hare Lip Project.
EXT. -- THE WOODS -- DAY
LUCY and RICKY and FRED are walking through the woods. They take turns shooting each other with the videocamera.
RICKY
Is there some way we could do this film
without the guy
having a wooden eye and
without the woman having a hare lip?
FRED
I think that would be kind of hard.
LUCY
Yeah. Like
doing "Titanic" without the
iceberg or the boat.
RICKY
It's just that we're making this film to get jobs
in the
business, right? And I'm afraid
there'll be
people who'll think we're making fun of the
handicapped, and that's
not cool.
FRED
Are you saying Will Smith isn't cool?
He makes
fun of Kenneth Branagh for not having any legs in
"WILD,
WILD WEST." And no one's cooler
than Will Smith.
RICKY
But he's black, so he can get away with it.
He's
an oppressed minority. But
I'm a white guy, so
I can't make fun of women with hare lips.
FRED
Maybe he's right. My
mother got a hairy lip when
she went through menopause, and when we joked
about it, she had a fit!
LUCY
Not hair lip! Hare lip!
FRED
Huh?
LUCY
It's spelled "h-a-r-e." Not "h-a-i-r."
FRED
Huh?
LUCY
It's spelled "h-a-r-e" like a bunny rabbit hare,
not "h-a-i-r" like the hair on your head hair.
FRED
So she had a lip like a bunny rabbit?
RICKY
But don't bunny rabbits have hairy lips?
LUCY
It's like a cleft pallet!
It has nothing to do with
facial hair!
RICKY
Still, what if there's some big important producer
with a
hare lip? If we come up with a
movie that
makes fun of people with hare lips, he could fix it
so we'd never
work in this town again.
LUCY
Big important producers don't have hare lips.
They have enough money to get them fixed.
FRED
But what about wooden eyes?
Lots of important
people have fake eyes. Like Sammy Davis Jr.
LUCY
He's dead.
RICKY
And he's black, so he can get away with it.
FRED
Sandy Duncan isn't dead, or black, and she's
got a glass
eye!
LUCY
(dripping with sarcasm)
Yeah, right. If
we offend Sandy Duncan, she'll fix
it so we'll never work in this town again!
I'm
trembling with fear!
RICKY
Peter Falk has a glass eye.
FRED
And Pamela Anderson had glass breasts.
LUCY
What???
FRED
She had breasts made out of silicone, until she had
the
silicone taken out. And don't they
make glass
out of silicone? Or is
that mirrors?
LUCY
We're not making fun of people with glass eyes . . .
or
glass breasts! The guy in this
story has a
wooden eye!
RICKY
I still think it's risky!
There are a lot of very
compassionate people in the business.
Like
Steven Speilberg. He
may not have a fake eye,
or a hare lip but he's so compassionate, he'd worry
that somewhere in the world there's a poor little girl
with both a fake eye and
a hare lip, and if she saw
our film, it would break her little heart.
And Steven
Speilberg would get so mad, he'd ruin our lives
forever. We'd be lucky if he didn't have us killed!
LUCY
But not everyone's a squishy soft Democrat like
Steven Speilberg. Remember, Bruce Willis is a
conservative Republican. He'd probably love it
if we made a film about a guy with a fake eye.
He'd probably be so pleased, he'd give us all jobs
on his next film.
FRED
Maybe not. It's
true he's a conservative Republican,
but he's also bald, so he might not like
people making
fun of other people's deformities.
LUCY
I don't care! I
don't care who we offend! This is
my artistic vision! You guys
promised to make this
film with me! It's
too late for you to back out now!!!!
Now,
come on! It's time to shoot the
first scene.
EXT. A SMALL CLEARING IN THE WOODS -- DAY
LUCY is speaking very seriously, directly into the camera.
LUCY
This is the site where a family of settlers lost their
way in the Nineteenth Century. Without
any food,
they were literally starving to death.
"Daddy!
Daddy,"
the children cried, "We don't like Mommy's
hare lip!!!" "Shut up and eat around it," their father is
reported to have
said.
EXT. CAMPSITE IN THE WOODS - LATER
RICKY is leaning back against a tree.
RICKY
All this talk about fake eyes makes me think of the funniest thing I ever saw in my entire life. It was Sammy Davis Junior's face after he got hit by a pie on the Soupy Sales Show. Sammy was doing a guest appearance with Frank Sinatra, and I'll never forget the look on Sammy's face when Soupy smacked him with that pie.
It was the perfect combination of shock and lost dignity. It was the best! Better than Stan or Ollie or Larry or Moe or Curly or anybody. There's no point in ever throwing a pie in anybody else's face, because Sammy Davis Jr. has already done the best possible reaction. Then a few nights ago, I was channel surfing, trying to find something to watch on television, and I found a documentary on Frank Sinatra. It showed Frank in the back seat of a car, talking about the Soupy Sales Show, and he said Soupy came up to Sammy on the side with the glass eye, and he literally blind-sided him. Sammy didn't see the pie coming. So that great reaction wasn't talent - it was just natural. That was the most disillusioning moment of my entire life.
FRED
No it wasn't.
RICKY
Yes it was.
FRED
No it wasn't.
RICKY
Yes it was!
FRED
No it wasn't. Because
even if he didn't see it
coming, it was Sammy Davis Jr.'s great talent
that made
him look like he did when he was hit
by the pie. And that's what made him great.
RICKY
Maybe you're right.
EXT. A PATH IN THE WOODS -- DAY
LUCY, and RICKY and FRED are walking through the woods, passing around the videocamera.
RICKY
I'm not sure it was such a good idea to make this
film in
the woods.
LUCY
The story takes place in the woods! Where else
could we make it?
RICKY
The woods are sort of monotonous. I mean, how
interesting can we make all these shots of leaves
and dirt. Besides, its hard to put
product placements
into the woods.
FRED
What's a product placement?
RICKY
That's like if you're making a movie, and you have
the hero
drive a Lexus, then the Lexus company is
so grateful, they give you a free car.
FRED
Wow! That's
cool! Put me down for that!
LUCY
No one is going to give us a free Lexus for
doing a student
film.
RICKY
Okay, but what about McDonald's? We could
do a product placement for McDonald's!
LUCY
You want us to put in references to McDonald's?
Why? So you can get a free
happy meal?
FRED
Sounds good to me.
RICKY
But free happy meals is only the beginning.
We could make a deal for cross-promotions.
McDonald's could give away little Wood-Eye
Man and Hare-Lip Woman toys
for the kids
to play with.
RICKY picks up some twigs off the ground, and holds them up, pretending they are Happy Meal toys talking to each other.
RICKY
"Would you like to out to McDonald's with me
for a
Quarter Pounder? "Would I?
Would I?"
"Hare lip! Hare
lip!" And then McDonald's
would pay us a fortune!
LUCY
I'm not going to sacrifice my artistic vision to make
a
fortune.
FRED
Why not? I
mean, what makes you so great? You
think you're better than George Lucas? I
bet he's
sacrificed lots of his artistic vision to make a fortune!
LUCY
Don't talk about George Lucas while the camera is
rolling!
RICKY
I bet George Lucas doesn't even like Jar Jar Binks,
but he
knew he could make a fortune in merchandising
if he put Jar Jar in the movie,
and he knew he had a
duty to everyone who had a share in the profits of
the
movie.
LUCY
Don't talk about George Lucas while the camera is
rolling!!!
RICKY
Why not?
LUCY
Because we want to get jobs!
Remember? No
one is going to
give us jobs if we bad-mouth
George lucas!
RICKY
I'm not bad mouthing George Lucas! I think he's
a great patriotic American.
The more money he
makes, the greater it is for our economy.
LUCY
Putting Jar-Jar Binks into his movie so that he can
make a
lot of money does not make George Lucas
a patriot!
FRED
Hey, I like Jar-Jar Binks.
LUCY
&n