Rencontres à part: Films, personnages et spectateurs de Woody Allen.

tel-00483686, version 1 - 16 May 2010
TOM (Overlapping Rita, gesturing and turning his head back as he walks) Leave me alone.
I want to have a look around. You go on without me.
Tom, in his pith helmet, walks over to Cecilia’s row. He bends down to talk to her. His face
fills the screen. The audience continues to screech. The offscreen movie actors continue to
appeal to him. The upbeat music plays on. Tom ignores them all.
JASON (Offscreen) We can‘t continue with the story!
TOM (To the offscreen Cecilia) Who are you?
The camera cuts to Cecilia’s incredulous face, looking up to the offscreen Tom.
CECILIA C-C-Cecilia.
(…)
TOM (Taking Cecilia’s hand and pulling her up from her seat) Let‘s get out of here and
go somewhere where we can talk.
CECILIA (Reacting, letting herself be pulled up) But… you‘re in the movie!
TOM (Running with Cecilia down the aisle and around the first row, the black-and-white legs
of his fellow actors seen on the partially shown movie screen) Wrong, Cecilia, I‘m free!
After two thousand performances of the same monotonous routine, I‘m free!
Hand in hand they run through a curtained side exit as the film cuts to the black-and-white
screen. An agitated Henry is shouting. Rita stands at the edge of the black-and-white screen,
looking down at the offscreen fleeing Tom.
HENRY (Walking over to Jason in the background by the windowed view) Call Father
Donnelly.
RITA Tom! (Presses her face and hands against the invisible black-and-white movie
screen, as if against glass; she cannot get out) 11 .
II.
CUT TO :
INTERIOR. DRUGSTORE NEAR THE JEWEL THEATER—DAY.
The drugstore counter is busy; the stools are all taken. A woman sips her coffee; there is
indistinct background clatter. Doughnuts are stacked on a plate on the counter. Cecilia is
seen standing by the storefront window, talking to the man behind the counter; he wipes a
glass with a towel.
Cars pass by on the street outside the window; parked cars line the sidewalk. A rack of
magazines stands on the wall near Cecilia.
CECILIA (To the counterman) Just two doughnuts and a container of coffee to go, please.
The counterman, nodding, goes off to fill the order. Cecilia rummages in her pocketbook for
money as the camera slowly moves away from her, past the customers on their stools, past the
store’s windowed door, complete with a hanging sign advertising pie. (...) Gil’s voice is heard
as the camera moves past some empty tables, holding napkin dispensers and salt and pepper
shakers, past another magazine rack, past another storefront window. Cars and people pass
by outside as the camera stops at a phone booth—where Gil is slouched over, talking on the
phone. (...)
GIL (Offscreen, into the phone) Right now, it‘s chaos... Well, how can rumors be circulating
at the Brown Derby? It just happened! ... Well, squash it, Herbie, I got a (Onscreen) career on
the line... Look, I‘ll call you the minute I hear.
Gil hangs up and walks out of the booth, a disgusted look on his face. He goes to the store’s
door—just as Cecilia, holding her take-out bag, reaches for the doorknob. She looks at Gill;
she gasps.
11 ALLEN, août 1987, pp. 348-53.
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