Script To Screen: “Leaving Las Vegas”
The 1995 movie Leaving Las Vegas [screenplay by Mike Figgis, based on a novel by John O’Brien] features two key characters: Ben Sanderson…
The 1995 movie Leaving Las Vegas [screenplay by Mike Figgis, based on a novel by John O’Brien] features two key characters: Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) as an alcoholic screenwriter intent on drinking himself to death and Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute who has befriended Ben, but only on the basis of a non-interference pact regarding Ben’s death wish.
Setup: While still in Los Angeles before he heads off to Las Vegas, Ben — drunk as usual — seeks out the companionship of a prostitute.
EXT. KERBSIDE - NIGHT
The girl looks up and down the street and then walks over to
the car and bends down to the window.
HISPANIC GIRL
You wanna date? You wanna
date me?
The girl's eyes shift constantly from Ben to the street and
then back again.
BEN
(cut to the chase)
I'll give you a hundred
dollars for a straight forty-
five minutes. You get the
room.
Ben shows her the money.
HISPANIC GIRL
(trying to take him)
The room is twenty. You pay
for it.
Ben laughs.
BEN
OK... but only because I think
that the concept of surrender
fits in with the big picture
right now. How about over
there?
He gives her a twenty and indicates a motel across the
street. She sets off and he gets out of the car. As he does,
a wave of nausea hits him. He shakes his head violently and
then lurches across the street, causing two cars to hit
their brakes. The camera follows him into the dark parking
lot of the motel, where the Hispanic girl is waiting.
BEN
(slurring badly)
I canremember... if
mywifeleffme... or Illeff
her... bufuckittanyway...
The girl laughs at Ben and says something in Spanish.
Slowly the picture gets darker, until all that can be seen
is the headlights from the passing cars on Sunset... and
then...
INT. BEN'S HOUSE - DAWN
Ben wakes up on the kitchen floor. The fridge door is open
and its light is what lights Ben. Inside the fridge are one
green pepper and four bottles of vodka. Without too much
effort Ben feels for his wallet and sees that it is still
there, as are his car keys. He closes the fridge door and in
the green light from the window he lies still. The first
birds start singing. (the birdsong continues through the
following sequence, which does not have sync sound.)
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK
EXT. SUNSET BOULEVARD MOTEL. PARKING-LOT DUMPSTERS - NIGHT
At the rear of the motel. Next to some garbage hoppers, the
Hispanic girl hugging him and kissing his neck. He tries to
kiss her on the mouth, but she turns her face away.
CUT TO:
INT. BEN'S HOUSE - DAWN
Ben lying on the floor, thinking.
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK
EXT. SUNSET BOULEVARD MOTEL. PARKING-LOT DUMPSTERS - NIGHT
The Hispanic girl kneeling in front of him, unzipping his
trousers. Through a gap in the fence, we see traffic going
up and down Sunset.
CUT TO:
INT. BEN'S HOUSE - DAWN
Ben lying on the floor, thinking...
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK
EXT. SUNSET BOULEVARD MOTEL. PARKING-LOT DUMPSTERS - NIGHT
The girl takes his hand and kisses it. She begins sucking
the fingers, taking the whole hand into her mouth.
CUT TO:
INT. BEN'S HOUSE - DAWN
Ben suddenly sits up and looks at his hand. His wedding ring
has gone. He thinks about this for a long time.
Here is the scene in the movie:
On the whole, the scene is quite like the script. There are a few changes. For example, the movie cuts the scene where Ben tries to kiss the prostitute. The focus is on how the prostitute sucks Ben’s finger, just his finger, not his whole fist. Ben waking up on the floor of his house, the flashback where he recalls how the prostitute sucked his wedding ring right off his finger, that’s directly in the movie as written.
The editorial choice there makes sense. With the ring gone, symbolically Ben is set free from his last tie to Los Angeles, setting the stage for his departure for Las Vegas.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script To Screen articles, go here.