The Kingdom of Heaven

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN by William Monahan Early Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY FADE UP ON: RAVENS in stripped trees. Frost clings to hedges, and low fog lies on the November fields of France. A season of mud and snow. TITLE: “FRANCE, 1186” Sustain the image of smoking fields and then (with the sound of PICK AND SPADE...) EXT. A CROSSRAODS. DAWN OPEN CLOSE on the most medieval face you’ve ever seen: a pale, injured, vengeful face, capable of a routine mask of piety: a PRIEST. With a dirty fingernail the Priest flicks out part of a frozen worm from a winter apple. We are at an INTERSECTION of two lanes of near-frozen mud in HEDGEROW COUNTRY. Two GRAVEDIGGERS, a cold PRIEST, a BODY, At a CROSSROADS overlooked by a Celtic cross. ON SOUND, as the Priest contemplates his meal (He wants better and is sure he deserves it) we hear...the PICK AND SPADE at work, digging the grave at the EXACT CENTER of the CROSSROADS. GRAVEDIGGER (OS) (singing) I am Francois, to my dismay (the SPADE digs into the nearly frozen ground) Conceived and born in the usual way... (throws earth) Son of man, yet by the way/ not of him my mother say... PRIEST (beyond cold in thin and ragged wool) Shut up and dig. Chewing his apple he stares at: A SMALL BODY, wrapped in something like burlap. Where the wrapping is parted we see a pitiful WHITE FACE and OPEN EYES upon which snowflakes fall. A rope-scarred neck. A WOMAN: A SUICIDE. A SILVER CRUCIFIX around her neck.