INT. EMPTY ROOM - NIGHT
The room is featureless and almost completely bare. A BED, meticulously made, in one corner (it hasn’t been slept in). A small DESK near the window, illuminated only by the glow of the streetlights outside.
At the desk sits PAUL SCHRADER—thin, pale, unkempt, clad only in his underwear. He writes feverishly in a JOURNAL, accompanied by NARRATION.
SCHRADER (V.O.)
June 19th. I can’t sleep. Visions of Ozu and Bresson dance across the inside of my eyelids, shadowy images projected not by a meager electric bulb, but by the flicker of Hellfire. I think of my father, a pious Calvinist. He would not approve of my career in motion pictures, any more than he’d approve of the booze or the drugs or the sex or the guns. He never answers the phone when I call home. In his eyes, I am no son. I am a sinner. A blasphemer. I am damned.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET - DAY
SCHRADER navigates the brightly sunlit streets, an anonymous face in the bustling crowd. His face is now clean shaven, his hair neatly combed, his shirt freshly laundered and pressed—but his eyes remain glazed, sunken, HAUNTED.
SCHRADER (V.O.)
June 20th. Saw Jaws today. Pretty terrific. 3 1/2 stars.