THE SCREEN IS BLACK.
A CAMCORDER IS TURNED ON - OFF (MAIN TITLE APPEARS) - ON -
A VIDEO IMAGE GLOWS TO LIFE
A hand blocks the lens, adjusting the camera, getting it
set up. Then TED sits down in a chair, facing the camera.
He is intelligent, troubled, intense - both unconventional
and charismatic. He wears a gray pull-over sweater and
blue jeans.
TED
I am a sick man. I think it's
my liver, but I refuse to see a
doctor... from spite. I am a
spiteful man. I've been living
like this for a long time. I
used to work in the building
department, but I don't now. I
was a bad civil servant. I
was... uncivil...spiteful...
CUT TO:
INT. APARTMENT - NIGHT
A gloomy basement apartment. The basement window has
burglar bars. A prismatic snowflake ornament hangs on the
window. Five tiny cacti line the window sill. There is an
antique day bed directly below the window. Sparsely
furnished; it's the kind of room where someone could wait
for Godot.
Ted sits in a chair; the video camera rests on a small
table. His sense of style is idiosyncratic - he thinks
that he has a sense of style, but no one else does. VIDEO IMAGE - TED As seen through the camcorder: