Script Analysis: “Antebellum” — Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: Antebellum (2020). You may download the script here.

Written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz.

Plot Summary: Successful author Veronica Henley finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it’s too late.

Antebellum
Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Rose Banks
GoIntoTheStory.com

p.2: Onscreen quotation: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ — William Faulkner.

pp. 3–7: Louisiana. A plantation, the house surrounded by cotton fields. A little blonde girl gives flowers to her mother, both of them in antique dress.Young black women slaves peg out laundry, made anxious by the attention of three Confederate soldiers. A recaptured slave, Eden, is brought back slung over a horse, a menacing figure following close behind, while two more recaptured slaves struggle with soldiers. Eden notes something startling in the horse’s saddle bag. One of the recaptured slaves, a young Ghanaian woman, kisses the crucifix she wears and then runs. Jasper, the head overseer, catches her with a lasso, drags her behind his horse, then shoots her in the back. Eli, her companion, tries to break free of his own captors but is clubbed into unconsciousness. Eden, pushed by a corporal toward the abandoned-looking cabin #4, sees the dead woman’s body being dragged into the ‘burn shed’. We finally get a clear sight of the shadowy figure who was following behind the horse that carried her: it is a middle-aged man in a Confederate uniform known as Him. Inside cabin #4, Eden screams.

pp. 7–10: Him thrashes Eden, chained in cabin #4, and forces her to repeat her name. Afterward he brands her and threatens her, too, with the burn shed. He leaves after telling her to make him a chicken dinner. Her eye returns to the saddle bag and its contents.

p. 10: Title: ‘ANTEBELLUM’

pp. 10–12: Eden and the other slaves pick cotton, distracted both by nearby cannons and gunfire and by a thunderous sound from the sky. Jasper tells them to sing a ‘negro tune’; Eli leads with a familiar whistle and the others join in, humming. A woman is caught whispering and Jasper knocks her down. The slaves look up as another wave of sound rolls across the sky.

p.12: Eden receives a visit in her cabin from Eli; it is evident they have an escape plan.

pp. 12–15: A new group of slaves are instructed in the brutal ways of the plantation by Jasper. He takes a particular interest in a beautiful young girl called Julia. There is a mark on Julia’s ankle, maybe a birthmark. The new slaves follow Eden to their cabins.

pp. 15–17: Eden prepares dinner. Him greets her with unwanted affection. Yet another thunderous sound from above — Him says a storm is coming. He tells her a group of Confederate soldiers will soon arrive, that she and the other young slave women will be expected to entertain.

p.17: Dream sequence. A little girl lies on top of Eden. They are hiding beneath a blanket, Eden covering the girl’s mouth to try to keep her quiet.

pp. 17–21: Eden, fingers rubbing at what seems a groove in the wall planks of her cabin, gets a visit from Eli: they aim to escape that night. Afterward, she practices silently tip-toeing across the floor, but is interrupted when Julia appears. She tells Eden she is married, says she knows about her and Eli’s escape plan, and begs to go with them. Eden rebuffs her. Julia reveals she is pregnant. When Eden still won’t help Julia accuses her of cowardice. Eden pushes Julia out, then after a moment of anger and frustration goes back to her escape preparations.

pp. 21–26: The young soldiers descend on the plantation. Loud and loutish, they are served in the mess hall by slaves, including Eden and Julia. Him gives a speech about the coming victory of the Confederacy; the woman and girl from the opening stand by, apparently relatives. At a rowdy table, Julia is harassed by Purcell before being assigned by Jasper to later receive Daniel, a young man bullied by the others and uncomfortable in his situation, in her cabin.

pp. 26–29: Now alone with Julia in her cabin, Daniel is shy and awkward. Julia begs for his help. We note his class ring. He explodes into anger and knocks her to the floor. It seems that he is gay and wants to conceal it from the others. He warns Julia to keep up the pretence he had sex with her. As he leaves he unintentionally kicks her in the stomach.

pp. 30–31: Eden slips out of her cabin to tell Eli they can’t escape that night as planned because they must take the pregnant Julia with them. Daniel appears and demands his horse be fetched; Eli hides Eden behind the horse he brings, but she is nearly caught.

pp 31–34: The next morning. Julia, her face bruised, joins the other slaves picking cotton. Julia begins to bleed — she has miscarried. Eli tries to distract Jasper with a jibe, but the overseer sees Julia anyhow. Disgusted by her assumed-period, Jasper allows Eden to take Julia away, then punishes Eli for rebelling by making him clean out the burn shed.

pp. 34–35: In the burn shed, among the ashes, Eli finds the gold crucifix that had belonged to the young woman who made the suicide run and slips it around his own neck. Overcome by the horror of the place, he tears at his clothes and silently screams.

pp. 35–36: Eden again strokes the same spot on her cabin wall, before practicing soundlessly getting out of bed and crossing the floor. Him arrives and tells her to get his horse, Daphne, settled; clearly familiar with horses, Eden has a bonding moment with Daphne, but her eye is drawn again to whatever is in the saddle bag. Later, she wakes in the darkness of her cabin, beside Him. She cries. She goes back to sleep. An iPhone rings.

pp. 36–40: The same iPhone ring continues. Eden wakes in a luxurious modern bedroom alongside her husband Nick. The call is from her PA, who addresses her as Veronica. The couple have a small daughter, Kennedi, who looks like a younger version of Julia. Veronica tells Nick she’d had a bad dream. Breakfast TV plays her interview of a right-wing white politician, in which she, a sociologist and author of a popular book, easily wins her argument.

pp. 40–50: Veronica gets ready to leave to give a TED talk; in the background we note equestrian trophies from her past. She has a Skype call with an oddly behaving woman called Elizabeth, whom we recognise as the woman from the plantation. Before Veronica leaves, Kennedi gives her mother a stick-figure picture which Veronica promises to put on her wall.

pp. 50–52: At the airport, Veronica exchanges a text with her friend Dawn and has an encounter with a bigoted passenger. On the plane, she sees a woman who looks like Elizabeth.

pp. 52–56: Veronica’s yoga session is interrupted by Dawn and then by the arrival of flowers she presumes are from Nick, brought by someone who looks like Jasper’s right hand man.

pp. 56–59: In the hotel lobby Veronica meets up with another friend, Sarah, a speaker at the same event. They plan to meet up later with Dawn for a night out. But Veronica feels uneasy. We note that the concierge looks like a young belle last seen happily consorting with the soldiers in the mess hall. As Veronica walks away, the concierge sends a text message.

pp.59–60: A pale-skinned woman, face unseen, tricks her way into Veronica’s hotel room. She uses Veronica’s makeup, disorders her belongings, and leaves the toilet unflushed. As she leaves we note Kennedi’s stick-figure drawing on the wall above the bed.

pp. 60–65: Veronica’s TED talk: she speaks about embracing one’s true self and resisting environments that compel assimilation. Afterward, she meets up with Dawn, who is planning their evening with Sarah, though she tells Dawn she will need to leave after dinner as she is catching an early flight. In the corridor, she has a strange encounter with the antique-dressed little girl of the opening scene, who warns her she will get in trouble for talking.

pp.65–76: En route to the restaurant with Dawn and Sarah, Veronica exchanges a text with Nick and thanks him for the flowers — that he didn’t send. In the restaurant, on the bar TV, we notice a man who looks like Him: ‘Senator Dunn Proposes Bill to Preserve Confederate Monuments on Federal Lands’. Veronica, again feeling unsettled, thinks she sees Elizabeth at another table, but it is a different woman. As they leave a man who’d sent across a drink for Dawn is revealed to be sitting next to one of the corporals from the mess hall. Separating now from the others, Veronica gets into the uber whose driver has called out her name.

pp. 76–80: Intercut between Dawn and Sarah’s uber, where they are singing along with their driver and having fun, and Veronica’s, where things are going wrong. She gets a text from the real uber driver who was to have picked her up. Her driver won’t acknowledge her until she turns round and reveals herself as Elizabeth, wearing Veronica’s lipstick. Jasper then grabs Veronica. They fight, as the other car with her laughing friends passes by, but she is overcome.

pp. 81–82: The same iPhone rings again. Veronica wakes again — this time not alongside Nick, but in the plantation cabin in bed with Him. He rushes out to silence the phone in Daphne’s saddle bag but Veronica hears part of his conversation: Nick has been appealing for information about his missing wife. Him returns and addresses Veronica as Eden. She feigns sleep.

pp. 82–84: After Him leaves, Eli turns up at the cabin: this will be the night of the escape.

pp. 84–87: The ‘slaves’ pick cotton in the bitter cold, bullied and goaded by Jasper. There is is rebellion in the air. Veronica is sent to find the absent Julia, and discovers her hanging body in her cabin; we see the apparent-birthmark on her ankle was a small heart-shaped tattoo.

p. 87: Dream sequence, continued from p. 17 — the little girl with Veronica beneath the blanket is Kennedi, but their hiding was in play and their pursuer was only Nick.

pp. 87–89: Cotton fields, later that day. As smoke pours from the burn shed, further aspects of modern reality are revealed: the guards have semi-automatic weapons and the ‘thunder’ that had repeatedly caught everyone’s attention is the sound of an airliner passing overhead. Left alone, Veronica and Eli reaffirm that this will be the night of their escape.

pp. 89–97: Veronica again checks her route across the creaking floorboards of her cabin. Later, she wakes with Him; he tells her he had targeted her after hearing her speak on television. After he has fallen back asleep Veronica uses her yoga training to help her climb out of bed silently and make her way to the door. We see the spot on the wooden wall she has been rubbing is a carving that replicates Kennedi’s stick-figure drawing. Eli meets her, axe in hand, and we realise his trademark whistle is Kanye West’s ‘Power’. Veronica digs in Daphne’s saddle bag for Him’s iPhone, but drunken soldiers interrupt her attempt to make an emergency call and she drops the phone. Daniel and Purcell find it; Veronica and Eli follow. Eli kills Daniel, retrieving the phone — but there is no signal: Veronica and Eli will have to go back to the cabin.

pp. 97–104: At the cabin Veronica now succeeds in making a brief emergency call, but to send their location they need to unlock the phone… with Him’s face. Another fight: Eli is overpowered by Him, Veronica slashes at Him’s leg with Eli’s axe, but Him gets hold of the axe and as he takes a final, fatal swing at Eli we see Eli still wears the gold necklace he found in the burn shed. Veronica escapes, pursued by the axe-wielding Him, but finally overpowers her pursuer, hacking at him with his cavalry sabre. She forces him to open his eyes, unlocking the phone so she can put a call through to Nick and text her location. Veronica tries to revive Eli, addressing him by his true name of Sean, but must finally accept her friend is dead. She then drags Him into the burn shed; barely-alive, he even so continues his white-supremacy rant.

pp. 104–107: At the cabin, Veronica grabs a torch and heads back to the burn shed, deliberately attracting the attention of a perimeter guard and of Jasper, feigning ignorance of how Him, referred to by the others as ‘the Senator’, got his injuries. We recognise the guard as the flower-delivery man. Him points over Jasper’s and the guard’s shoulder’s to Veronica — but she slams the door on all three and locks them into the burn shed, which she sets on fire.

pp. 107–112: Armed with Sean’s axe. Veronica mounts Him’s horse, Daphne, pursued by armed riders. Veronica shakes off her closest pursuer by leaping a fence he cannot clear. Her second pursuer is revealed to be Elizabeth, shooting wildly, crazed for revenge. Lassoed by Veronica, she is brought down. Veronica dismounts and they fight, Veronica disabling Elizabeth by stabbing her in the thigh with her own knife. Hearing the sound of other pursuers, Veronica re-mounts but is unable to first cut Elizabeth loose; she is dragged behind Daphne, in the same way the young woman in the opening was dragged behind Jasper’s horse, and is killed, just as Veronica manages to finally cut the tether, by slamming into a statue of Robert E. Lee.

pp. 112–113: Veronica, swinging Sean’s axe, gallops out of the forest into a Civil War re-enactment park called Antebellum. Him’s pursuing guards stop at the perimeter. Veronica rides on, half-expecting these ‘soldiers’ too to shoot at her, but their faces register only shock and dismay. And now there are police cars, a helicopter overhead — she is back in modernity. Aside from the sinister gaze of the little blonde girl, at the edge of the battlefield.

pp. 113–114: A bulldozer demolishes the Antebellum sign. An aerial view shows the extent of Him’s fake-plantation lands, as well as the public re-enactment park, while FBI agents scour the area. A news report reveals the roles of Senator Dunn, his daughter Elizabeth Dunn-Herrington, and her husband Jasper, in the secret inner circle of Antebellum. A last revelation: the little blonde girl, the Herringtons’ daughter, is the sole heir to the Dunn fortune.

Here is a trailer for the movie:

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown for Antebellum, go here.

Major kudos to Rose Banks for doing this scene-by-scene breakdown.

For over 100 more movie script scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.