THE INSIDER

                          THE  INSIDER  

                           written by

                     ERIC ROTH & MICHAEL MANN

                                                        11/5/99

     FADE IN:

     All we can see is black filling the screen...  Black on
     black...

     INT. A JEEP, LEBANON - DAY

     And we're in a speeding SOVIET JEEP...  Two men in front,
     shouldering assault rifles.  HEZBOLLAH SOLDIERS...  And there
     are three MEN in the back.  A middle-aged Man wearing a tired
     suit and tinted sunglasses trying to hold on.  And on either
     side of him, two Men, blindfolded.  The man on one side is in
     his forties, hands pressed in the pockets of a well-travelled
     black-leather jacket...  A stocky man, with the edge of a
     J.D. Salinger character, he's seen everything at least once.
     But even he has lost some of his self-confidence, here,
     turning his head, sensing the wind, a blast of Arabic music
     that disappears behind him...  He's LOWELL BERGMAN.  On the
     other side of the man in the tired suit is a lanky Man with a
     voltmeter around his neck, NORMAN.

     EXT. THE BEQA'A VALLEY, BAALBEK, LEBANON - DAY

     The Jeep races up narrow winding streets of a Lebanese
     village.  It's shadowed by a Jeep in front, and in back, each
     carrying personnel armed with AK's and a few RPG's...  And in
     the third Jeep are two blindfolded, not very threatening
     Lebanese soldiers.  And as the speeding convoy passes a
     captured Israeli Armored Personnel Carrier covered with
     Arabic graffiti, looking down on them from huge murals are
     the stern visages of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and a Hezbollah
     religious leader, the Sheikh Fadlallah...  And, suddenly the
     convoy skids to a stop...  And blindfolded Lowell and Norman
     are roughly taken out, and pushed, stumbling, through the
     cloud of dust without sight...  The lanky cameraman is
     stopped, told to wait, while Lowell is pushed past armed men
     guarding a small stone house, and inside...

     INT. A HOUSE IN LEBANON - DAY

     A round-faced Man in his mid-forties, with large-framed
     glasses, black hair and a grey-black beard, wearing a
     dullbend, a turban, sits informally at a kitchen table...
     It's the Sheikh Fadlallah whose face stares out at us from
     walls.  A Gunman cradling an AK-47 sits in an incongruous
     purple armchair in a corner.  A torn poster of the Seychelles
     is on one wall.  Another Gunman stands by a window.  Lowell
     is sat down in a chair at the kitchen table...

                         THE SHEIKH
               Coffee?

                         LOWELL
               Yeah...  Thank you.

                         THE SHEIKH
               How have you liked your stay?

                         LOWELL
                   (droll)
               What I've seen...I've liked.

     The Sheikh smiles.  And the smile passes as quickly as it
     came.  A steaming cup of coffee in a small Arabic demitasse
     is put down.

                         THE SHEIKH
               Please to explain, why I should agree to
               interview...with pro-Zionist American
               media?

                         LOWELL
               Because I think Hezbollah is trying to
               broaden into a political party right now.
               So you care about what you're thought of
               in America.  And in America, at this
               moment in time, Hezbollah does not have a
               face.
                   (confident)
               That's why.

     And we've first realized this man is not a hostage; he's come
     here voluntarily.

                         THE SHEIKH
               Perhaps you prove journalism objectivity
               and I see the questions first.  Then I
               decide if I grant the interview.

                         LOWELL
                   (blunt)
               No.  We don't do that.
                   (beat)
               You've seen "60 Minutes" and Mike
               Wallace.  So you know our reputation for
               integrity and objectivity.  You also know
               we are the highest-rated, most-respected,
               TV-magazine news show in America.

     The Sheikh quietly looks out his glasses at him, studying
     him.  And Lowell "closes":

                         LOWELL (cont'd)
               So.  Mr. Wallace.  Should he get on a
               plane or not?

     The Sheikh thinks it over and then...

                         THE SHEIKH
               Tell him I will see him day after
               tomorrow.

                         LOWELL
               That's good.  That works.
                   (after a beat)
               Uh, you know, I want to ask you
               something...I know it sounds odd...but...

     It's quiet...too quiet...

                         LOWELL (CONT'D)
               Hello, Sheikh...?
                   (no answer)
               Hello, Sheikh...?

     Silence.  He hesitates, starts to lift his blindfold...  He
     lifts it.  And he sees the Sheikh, and his gunmen, are gone.
     The house empty.  Only his Cameraman, the lanky man, left
     there, standing by the door still in his blindfold...

                         LOWELL (CONT'D)
               Norman.

                         NORMAN
               What?  What?

                         LOWELL
               Take your blindfold off.

     The lanky man does and we see the cameraman is Asian-
     American.

                         LOWELL (CONT'D)
                   (sarcastic)
               Welcome to the world.

     Norman gives Lowell an ironic look and tests the local
     current at an electrical outlet.

                         NORMAN
               Fluctuating all over the place.  Anywhere
               we shoot, here, it's gonna be portable
               gennies and we'll run cable...

     Lowell nods and opens the curtains from this commanding
     height.  Baalbek and the Beqa'a Valley below gold-domed
     mosques.  A moment of triumph.  He dials his cell phone...

                         MIKE WALLACE'S VOICE (OVER)
               Hello?

                         LOWELL
                   (into phone)
               Mike, it's me.  We're on...

     AND WE HEAR PEOPLE LAUGHING AND ENCOURAGING "GO AHEAD...
     OPEN IT..."

     INT. A LABORATORY, BROWN & WILLIAMSON, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
     - DAY

     We're in a SCIENCE LABORATORY...  OUT OF FOCUS LAB
     TECHNICIANS, in white lab coats, celebrating a heavyset Black
     woman's birthday...  Half her presents are opened.  Balloons,
     incongruous, floating above the lab...  And there's a sense
     that somebody is watching...  And from the waist up, a
     disembodied figure comes into FOCUS behind a glass partition,
     as if quarantined, isolated, an expressionless MAN in his
     late forties, watching them...

     INT. JEFFREY WIGAND'S OFFICE - DAY

     The office soundproofed, he watches the people laughing,
     their lips moving.  His hair not yet settled on grey, his
     face is changing, always interesting.  Born in the Bronx,
     educated in Upstate New York, he retains little of the accent
     and much of the directness.  He's JEFFREY WIGAND.  He turns
     to resume gathering things from his desk...some technical
     books, a medical text on asthma...putting them in his
     briefcase.  And as he leaves the office, the silent party
     like a bizarre mime behind him...

     INT. LOBBY, BROWN & WILLIAMSON BUILDING - DAY

     Briefcase in hand, Jeffrey appears from the elevator from
     ABOVE, from WIDE and in FRONT, his eyes, frozen pools...  And
     like a bad dream, a broad-shouldered Man, leaning against the
     wall near the reception island in a suit he's not comfortable
     in, wearing an earphone, saying something into a lapel
     microphone after Jeffrey's passed.

     INT. WIGAND'S CAR, LOUSIVILLE - DAY

     Light mottled through trees reflects off the car window...
     Jeffrey's face goes in and out of the tunnel of light and
     shadow...down this tasteful, suburban Louisville street of
     neat houses and manicured lawns...  He pulls into driveway
     behind a 3 series BMW.  It's a grey French provincial
     replica...

     INT. THE WIGANDS' HOUSE, FOYER - DAY

     Jeffrey comes in and a young Girl, six, is watching
     television in the den...BARBARA.

                         WIGAND
               Hi, honey.

                         BARBARA
               Hi, Daddy.

                         WIGAND
               What's new?

                         BARBARA
               Ms. Laufer gave me a star today.

                         WIGAND
               Yeah?  What for?

                         BARBARA
               For reading.

     He pours himself a drink at a wet bar.

                         WIGAND
               That's great...  Little early for
               cartoons, isn't it?

                         BARBARA
               Okay.

     Dutiful, she shuts off the TV, going upstairs.

                         BARBARA (cont'd)
               Deborah?  Debbie?

     He looks outside.  A Woman is sitting on the back porch
     drinking wine, reading a paperback book, drinking wine.
     There's something like a Hockney painting about her against
     the manicured lawns.  Right now the Woman comes in.  She's
     pretty, tall, languid, reserved, somebody it would be nice to
     wear on your arm.  LIANE WIGAND.  She has an odd delay
     between a thought and her speech...

                         LIANE
               Oh, I didn't know you were home...  It's
               early...  Isn't it?

     He doesn't say anything...

                         LIANE (CONT'D)
               Gotta take Debbie to ballet...

     And it all feels suburban, familiar.  Suddenly there's a
     shout...

                         BARBARA'S VOICE (OVER)
               Mommy!

     Jeffrey goes quickly up the stairs into...

     INT. WIGAND'S HOUSE - DEBORAH'S BEDROOM - DAY

     And a little girl, eight, sitting on the floor in a ballet
     leotard, her head back, wheezing, her neck muscles
     contracting and bulging, her face pale, lips white, and her
     eyes filled with fear as rapid, shallow breathing induces a
     sense of suffocation.  DEBORAH WIGAND is having a severe
     asthmatic attack...

                         WIGAND
               Sweetheart, c'mon.  C'mon.

                         BARBARA
               She was playing with my Pooh doll
               again...

     Jeffrey sits her on the side of her bed next to which is a
     Nebulizer, an air compressor to deliver medication via a tube
     into a circular mouthpiece.

     The compressor whirs.  Deborah breathes in the medication.
     Jeffrey brushes the hair back from her face and wipes
     perspiration from her forehead as...

                         WIGAND
               Slow down.  Slow down.  Slow down.
               Breathe deep.  Breathe deep.  Slow down,
               honey.  Slow down.  Slow down.

     Liane rushes in with rolled-up towels, kneels in front of
     Deborah, smiling to mask anxiety, and goes into the bathroom
     with the towels and turns on full blast the bathtub's hot
     water.  We don't know why yet...

     Deborah's chest heaves.  She's scared.  Jeffrey gets in front
     of her and talks to her to arrest her attention.

                         WIGAND (cont'd)
               Here we go.  Deep breaths, deep breaths.

                         BARBARA
               She was playing with the Pooh doll.

                         WIGAND
               Pooh's dusty, sweetheart...he's dusty,
               and you breathed him in, okay?  So what's
               - what's happening to you now is... cells
               called mast cells told your lungs "don't
               breathe any more of that dust in."
                   (beat)
               ...and the airways in your lungs are like
               branches.  And when the branches close
               up, you get an asthmatic attack.  And, we
               give you medicine, and you get better.
               Huh?  Okay?  You're better already,
               aren't you?

     And the medication's taking effect and she's calmer.

     Liane, hands clutched in her lap, smiles at Deborah.  Now she
     takes Deborah's hand and exchanges a look with Jeffrey.
     Jeffrey's a good father, a natural caregiver.

                         WIGAND (cont'd)
               Okay, baby?

     INT. THE WIGANDS' HOUSE, LOUISVILLE - EVENING

     Jeffrey, Liane and the two Girls silently eating dinner,
     Deborah in a bathrobe.

                         DEBORAH
               Can I go to dance tomorrow?  I'm
               better...

                         LIANE
               ...if you are, then I'll take Barbara to
               soccer and take you to dance after...

                         WIGAND
               I can take her.

                         LIANE
               Don't you have to be at the office?

                         WIGAND
                   (instead, getting up)
               Is there any more rice...?

                         LIANE
                   (nods)
               Yes, it's on the stove...

     He goes into the kitchen, to the stove, seeing...

                         LIANE (cont'd)
               Do you want more rice?

                         DEBORAH
               Maybe later.

                         LIANE
               How about you?

                         BARBARA
               I'll take some.

                         WIGAND
               Instant rice...?

                         BARBARA
               Can I go over to Janeane's house?