Cinema Grandpa (cont.)

[VERY ROUGH DRAFT]

ROBIN sips his iced tea reflectively. At the sound of birds twittering excitedly he looks toward a clump of honeysuckle mounded on the fence outside. INSERT Inside the clump are four sparrows hopping around, all twittering at once. The sound fades.

ROBIN: There is something. I can’t help thinking of Bonhoeffer’s divine mandates.

DAVID: Divine mandates? What are those?

ROBIN: It was during the Second World War in Germany, when the Nazis were trying to take over the church and some church people were caving in.

DAVID (looking puzzled): Was there something like that in the movie?

ROBIN: No, the movie showed the mandates pretty well balanced. There was the church. Well, first there was Lars’ family, which is how it should be since family, ideally, is where we first learn about God. There were cultural institutions: Lars’ workplace; the doctor, ambulance and hospital; the beauty parlor and the bowling alley. There was even a small mention of government: Bianca gets herself elected to the school board.

DAVID: Grandpa, can we backtrack a little? What’s a mandate?

ROBIN: A mandate is an authoritative order or command. Dietriech Bonhoeffer believed that God gave us these institutions as places where we could hear his Word and absorb it as a guide for our lives. They are distinct from one another, but they are interdependent.

ROBIN: Okay, the Word of God was pretty evident in the scenes of Reverend Bock, but what about, like, the bowling alley?

CLIVE: The lad asks good questions, Robin.

BOB rattles the ice in his glass and takes a sip of tea.

ROBIN: Did you see what Lars was going through? It was a lot. He looks at Margo, he rubs his eyes, once he starts to cry, he starts interacting with the other guys, he learns how to bowl.

DAVID: I don’t get it. What do you mean?

ROBIN: He’s been hearing the Word of God from the beginning. He’s been experiencing the reaction of his family and friends to Reverend Bock’s question, What would Jesus do. In the bowling alley the Word comes to fruit in him. (beat) I just remembered. Nancy made some egg salad sandwiches, too.

BOB: I’ll help, David. Show me the kitchen.

DAVID turns off the recorder and stands up. Throughout the following sequence: non-diegetic sound of a song in a male voice with the refrain, “Why won’t you talk to me, pretty girl?” INSERT an oil painting depicting two people in conversation. Walking to the kitchen, DAVID and BOB pass the painting, which is hung on a wall.

Cuts back and forth between DAVID and BOB in the kitchen, gathering sandwiches and plates and talking in a lively manner; and CLIVE and ROBIN in more subdued conversation on the porch. ROBIN stands up and walks to the screen door to admit a cat and a mid-sized, mixed-breed dog.

Final cut of sequence: the porch table is at the center. The men eat sandwiches from plates on their laps. DAVID leaves the frame, returns with a pitcher of lemonade, sits down to eat.

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