"Characters"
Dalila Shades
Barbara Shades
Robert Barnard
Thomas Troy
Sargeant Jim Sunday
Parthenope, the palm reader
Circe
Cosme
The "dream": Ulysses and the Sirens
As the mariners approached the Sirens' island, the sea was calm, and over the waters came notes of music so ravishing and attractive that Ulysses struggled to get loose and, by cries and signs to his people, begged to be released; but they, obedient to his previous orders, sprang forward and bound him still faster. They held on their course, and the music grew fainter till it ceased to be heard, when with joy Ulysses gave his companions the signal to unseal their ears; and they relieved him from his bonds. It is said that one of the Sirens , Parthenope, in grief at the escape of Ulysses drowned herself.
Possible film treatment/narrative:
Dalila Shades is the once strong and feisty daughter of the director Robert Barnard. She sits contemplatively in the café on Farrington Road and watches the burning car, thinking it’s the vehicle used as the getaway car, and thinking about how confused she is about Sunday. It’s now almost Christmas, almost three years after the incident at the nightclub. This is the car that Jim Sunday had been looking for.
She explains the influence her father had on Sunday who was later to become known as Mr Eternity. A photo of Tom Troy appears. It was Sunday's sermon ‘Echoes of Eternity’ which supposedly converted Circe to Christianity in the 1930s. It was after this sermon that Circe took a piece of chalk from her pocket and wrote in beautiful copperplate script, the one word "Sanbah", on the sidewalks of L.A.which would influence many for the next four decades.
The image of Parthenope appears as Troy walks away from the Harbour Bridge wearing a dark coat and depression era hat. 1920s Archival footage of two female swimmers seen from overhead lay on a cliff face. The turbulent sea hits the cliff as the sea runs over their bodies. Sunday’s poetic sermon booms loudly as the sea returns to hit the cliff face as the swimmers hold on tightly.
