Post 15: Writing the Story as a Script and a Book Simultaneously

    I have been thinking of writing the story both in French and English at the same time, thinking one would feed on the other in some way. My friend's Randy interest in the story makes me want to develop it as a film script at the same time too. As a general rule, movies fall short of the book they came from, and this is especially true in my view of those based on Joseph Kessel books. Bunuel's "Belle de Jour" completely misses the point of the book in my opinion, and though "The Horsemen" does a little better job, it still makes what is essentially an intimate psychological drama into some kind of weird travelog for Afghanistan. 
So I started using ADOBE STORY CC which I have available on the ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD to write the story as a script. This is very new to me, as there are very specific ways of presenting a script, that go back to the olden days of manual typewriters. Seems to me we could do better, but old habits die hard, so I will try to do it the way I am supposed to.
I wrote a synopsis yesterday. Nothing is cast in stone, but that's what I see at the moment:

SYNOPSIS

BEYNES, FALL OF 2000

I Granpa JOE, now 86, am working on a model airplane with my 13 years old great grandson TONY, and recounts what happened to me when I was his age during WW2.

ON A COUNTRY ROAD SOUTH OF PARIS, MAY 13, 1940

My mother Sarah and I were fleeing the advance of the German army on Paris on May 13, 1940, with a lot of other panicked French people, in what became known as "La Débacle". We were shot at by the Stukas, and at the crossing of a river on a makeshift bridge, I ended up saving a young 14 years old Parisian thug named Tony from drowning. He swore he would repay me some day.

My mother was killed in a later attack, and I was left alone with nowhere to go, my German doctor father back in Germany and my sickly sister in a sanatorium. I "luckily" ran across my new "friend" Tony in Chartres, and he took me back on the train to live with his family in Paris(Saint Ouen) now under German occupation.

PARIS AND SAINT OUEN, 1940 TO 1942

I was generously taken in (as their son's savior) by his tough but generous Corsican thug father Matteo Mattei, his bitter drunkard drug addicted mother Angela Mattei, and his sexy borderline prostitute older sister Serafina(Fina) Mattei.

That was a big change of environment for me, a "good boy", good student, a quiet shy bookworm and maker of model gliders, the son of a devoted idealistic socialist German doctor and a practicing catholic loving mother and wife.

I grew up very quickly going though the process of discovering a whole new world, under the difficult conditions of the German Occupation.

My friend's father is a night club owner, a drug dealer, a black market trafficker, but on the other hand is also involved in the "Résistance", procures false ID's, and helps Jews escape. His sister also collects information from her German Gestapo "friends".

They try to keep the boys out of it, but in 1942, listening to the BBC every day, they decide to do their part delivering papers, distributing pamphlets, and covering walls with anti German posters at night.

The family is given by one of the father's competitors. The father dies helping them escape the Gestapo under false names.

They head Southeast, walking at night, trying to get to the "Zone Libre" and reach England through Spain to fight in the "Forces Francaises Libres".

Instead, they end up joining the Maquis Louis in the mountainous Morvan region in 1943.

LES FRAICHOTS, EARLY SPRING 1943

In a mountain farm owned by an old couple whose only son was killed in the war, Tony and I meet William, a wounded British pilot shot down parachuting supplies to the Résistance whom they are hiding, and who has actually met my hero Joseph Kessel in England. We become fast friends, and come up with the far fetched idea of building a glider, loading it with explosives, and crashing it into the German ammunitions depot in the valley below. The pilot has gangrene and knows he is going to die, so he volunteers to fly the "Spirit of Freedom" on it's suicide mission.

We also meet the old couple's 16 years old grand daughter LISE, whose mother died in childbirth, and that's a whole side story...

I have built a number of glider models in the past, and actually helped rebuild a real one during one of my summer vacations in Beynes, where the students from the Aeronautics Club of the University of Paris used to learn to fly on AVIA Primary Gliders(based on the 1926 German Zogling design)before the wa r.I have the blueprint in my head.

The "Résistants" are doubting I can pull it off, but I go ahead anyway.I convince the old hermit who owns the old nearby closed down water powered sawmill to get it running again and cut strips of well seasoned lightweight fine grained fir for me. The skins of the rabbits raised on the farm provide the glue to assemble the structure, and cooked flour and water makes the glue to attach the fabric from the pilot's parachute to the wings. We varnish it with egg white.

We work as fast as we can, but the health of the pilot declines and he dies just as we finish construction. We will have to take over and fly the glider ourselves, but we don't want to die in the process, so we devise a way to jump off before the crash.

We practice on the hill side behind the farm that was clear cut just before the war. Every day, we take the glider apart and hide it in the hay loft for the night. Tony does much better than I do piloting the craft, and he is stronger, so he will be the designated pilot.

After a demonstration flight in front of the commander of the "Maquis Louis", the "Résistants" finally believe it can be done, and supply us with the explosives. We need a nice evening with a slight Westerly breeze.

 Finally, the perfect day comes, Thursday April 1, 1943. What a "Poisson d'Avril" for "Les Boches"...We ready the "Spirit of Freedom" at the top of the slope. 200 feet down, the edge of a small bluff. A mile away downhill, the target glows in the setting sun. Tony climbs on the pilot's bench. The sun is setting just behind us, blinding the German guards. The glider will fly low, they won't see it coming...

A quarter mile from target, Tony will lock the controls and jump in the bushes. 

Lise is holding up the left wing and I the right wing, and we are pushing as the glider starts sliding down the grassy slope. It picks up speed, reaches the bluff, and becomes airborne as we wave frantically. Tony waggles the wings cockily and goes off flying low, disappearing behind the next bluff.

We keep running down and then up a knoll until we reach a spot from where we have a clear view of the ammunition depot a couple of miles away in the valley, between the road and the river. The target glows in the setting sun. I have around my neck an old beat up pair of binoculars William gave me before he died. We both lay down in the grass, I hold them up to my eyes, and find the glider, waiting for Tony to bail off.

A gust of wind throws him off course, and he struggles to bring the craft back to its heading.

Jump Tony, jump, jump quick, PLEASE JUMP...

Too late, he is now over the last hill and too high. I see him wave as he crosses the road. Gunfire erupts from the watch tower, but the "Spirit of Freedom" cannot be stopped by bullets and crashes straight into the roof of the building. Silence. And suddenly, an explosion, followed by many more as the whole building opens up, windows blow up, rock flies. I can see German soldiers running away, others laying on the ground. Several trucks parked in the courtyard explode too. Suddenly, it's all over.

I am stunned and drop the binoculars. Lise is crying quietly murmuring his name, Tony, Tony, Tony. I take her in my arms and we cry together convulsively. Above and behind us, the "Résistants" who have heard the deflagration exult in joy.

Thoughts rush through my head. I have lost my best friend. I have KILLED my best friend. I should have been the pilot. I am ALL ALONE. 

The next day, the Germans rounded 10 hostages from the village and shot them.

And I am still wondering 60 years later: was it with the cost?