Home Alone

Home Alone   

OPENING SEQUENCE

Blue Moon against a black sky.

Blue house silhouette against a black sky.

The house recede into the background, getting smaller and smaller.

EXT: LARGE HOME: NIGHT

Upper middle-class home with Christmas decorations. Very noisy. Sounds of

many people talking at once. "Where's my suitcase?"

INT: LARGE HOME: NIGHT

A policeman, with his back to the camera, stands in the hallway. He tries

to get someone two pay attention to him, but everyone ignores him. Two

small girls walk down the staircase. A third girl walks up, a fourth girl

walks down. They all walk past the policeman as if he didn't exist. He

stands alone, with his hands on his hips, expressing exasperation.

[ Rejection of authority generates humor. This allows the audience to

vicariously experience superiority over policemen, and releases repressed

feelings of resentment that expresses itself in laughter. The policeman is

a "traffic cop" that is being ignored; a deviation from normal patterns of

behavior. The policeman becomes frustrated. The audience finds the

exasperation of an authority figure to be amusing. ]

INT: PARENT'S BEDROOM: NIGHT

Kevin's mother is on the phone, talking to a friend. She packs clothes on

the bed, while her husband is in the bathroom. A small boy, KEVIN, walks

into the room.

"Mom, Uncle Frank won't let me watch the movie. But the big kids can. Why

can't I?"

"Kevin, I'm on the phone," responds his mother.

"It's not even rated R. He's just being a jerk."

"Kevin, if Uncle frank says no, then it must be really bad."

[ Common empathy structure of a young child being ignored by his parents or

guardians. Elliott in E.T. and Dorothy in WIZARD OF OZ. ]

Kevin jumps on the bed. His mother tells him to get off, but he ignores

her. Kevin picks up a book that is a travel guide to France. "Hang up the

phone and make me, why don't you.

[Resentment at being ignored]

Kevin's father, wearing a blue shirt, walks into the room. he talks to his

wife.

'Hey, by any chance, did you pick up a voltage adapter thing?"

"No, I didn't have a chance."

"How am I supposed to shave in France?"

"Grow a goatee."

"Dad, nobody will let me do anything?" says Kevin.

"You want to do something, you can pick up those micro-machines in the

hall. Aunt Leslie stepped on one and almost broke her neck."

"He was in the garage again playing with the glue gun," says the mother.

Kevin makes a grim face and signals to his mother to stop talking by

cutting his throat with hand.

"Didn't we talk about that?" says his father.

Kevin replies, with an attitude. "Did I burn down the joint? I don't think

so. I was making ornaments out of fish-hooks."

"My new fish-hooks?" replies the father.

"I can't make ornaments out of the old ones, with dry worm guts stuck on

them."