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SOMETIMES IT HURTS
Stabbing Westward
Director: Kevin Kerslak
INTRO
CLOSE UP: A fly buzzes in the quinty sunlight. Chris' closed eyes shot up close in super-
atomic macro. They pop open as the drums kick in.
FIRST VERSE
Chris lies on his side, and as he registers the surroundings, with an expression reflecting the fact
that things feel very, very, very foreign, we begin to notice, from Chris' sideways point of view,
certain, er, relics, or icons, that feel awfully familiar: a raggedy suit on the ground with straw
coming out of its sleeves and pant legs; a witch's hat; a deflated hot air balloon... We are in a
field, beside a pond, in the middle of nowhere. In a place, however non-descript, which itself
feels familiar. But we can't quite place it. Groggily, Chris gets up onto his knees and crawls
over to the water, and peers down into the water. We see what he sees: shimmering underwater,
a ruby red slipper. And we get the sneaky feeling now that Dorothy's dream wasn't a dream after
all, the balloon ride out of Oz was real. Technicolor real. And this is how she goes from head to
tail: colors that go bang.
Throughout the first verse, we see Chris sing in a tight headshot, in a very stoic pose. I mean not
moving an inch. Dead pan. But, in spite of the ordinary nature of the close-up, there is
something slightly off about it. It dawns on us by the end of the first verse that we have been
looking at an image reflected on water.
FIRST CHORUS
Chris punches his hand into the water, into his reflection, to retrieve the ruby red slipper, and
holds it aloft, thinking, you know, this is really strange. He upends it, water flowing freely, and
discards it. Like it all means very little to him. Like he's never seen the movie.
SECOND VERSE
Chris, still on his knees at water's edge, is lifted up, inexplicably, by his ankles. As Chris is
slowly lifted up, up, up, so that he is suspended upside down above the ground, we see the
harness. It is connected to a construction crane. And it slowly flies Chris, upside down the
entire time, over the immediate area, allowing us to see from a bird's, or Chris' eye view, the
wreckage from the hot air balloon crash: the vacant suit of the scarecrow, a pile of tin limbs, the
rack of bones once called Toto, and the magnificent sight of the hot air balloon, stretched out and
lifeless, a withered tit that looks as though it's been there a long, long, long time. Chris also
witnesses a line of midgets that walk beneath him, falling into formation right about the time he
"feels so useless." He sings the whole verse throughout the action of him swinging hither and
thither, and we keep seeing his point of view, like we are scanning the area. And in the corner of
the frame we think we see glimpses of construction equipment, and the frame of an old house.
Rather large equipment, like land movers and tractors. And that house. Hey, that looks like
Dorothy's house. But we can't be quite so sure because the camera swings away from it rapidly.
The ground is scarred rather badly, which suggests that something is clawing the earth. And only
heavy metal machinery can gouge these holes. So you draw certain conclusions.
Like your conclusions matter.
But what the fuck is up with the midgets?
SECOND CHORUS
On the crash, Chris is dropped, and I do mean dropped, into the mud just in front of the midgets,
landing with a thud and a splash. And what he sees is one of those things that make you giggle
uncontrollably and say what the fuck at once: the midgets dance a dance that is half yellow brick
road and half lederhosen slap and clap solid gold. Sort of like a perverse combination of the
dancers from STP's "Vaseline" and half-pint Busby Berkeley. Fucked up is what it is. And they
play it straight down the line, dressed not in "The Wizard of Oz" costumes, but in blue collar
construction gear. They have their plaid sleeves rolled up, and they, in unison, wipe their
foreheads with their bandannas. Their necks. And stuff it back into their back pockets. And
dance solid goldness.
BRIDGE
Chris is swiftly dragged by his ankles, backwards, through the mud. Intercut the drag with shots
of Chris walking through the house. He sees ghosts of his bandmates (which we might tease in
earlier), set individually in corners, and on chairs, and on stairs, and on and on, slowly turning
their heads to regard him, as Chris walks through cobwebs and broken down doors. My, the
place has been neglected. And where the fuck is Auntie Emm?
Nowhere in sight.
OUTRO CHORUS
Chris is going absolutely ballistic in the house, a trapped animal. Singing as he would the outro
live, only he's not. He's Memorex.
And as Chris screams bloody murder, the construction equipment razes the house. We see the
destruction from a number of perspectives, the most alarming being the angles on the men
manning the equipment. It's the fucking midgets.
Lollipop world my ass.
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