4 - The Script

As I said before Ernest and Célestine is a series of books depicting the daily life of Ernest and Célestine in their home. The stories are always very simple and very short. For example, one of them is called The Broken Cup, Célestine breaks a cup because she is angry, Ernest is mad, Célestine apologizes and clean up the mess.

When we decided to make a film about Ernest and Célestine we didn't want to put all those stories together and make a film with that. We decided to make an original story and for that Mister Didier asked Daniel Pennac, a french novelist.

Let me introduce him... As I said, Daniel Pennac is a novelist, he never wrote for cinema before. We made some very famous novels in France : The Scapegoat, Write to Kill, he also puplished essays like Reads Like a novel and The rights of the reader illustrated by Quentin Blake and novels for children like Eye Of the wolf.

Mister Didier asked for his contribution after reading Eye of the Wolf. Strangely enough, Daniel Pennac knew Gabrielle Vincent as he wrote her letter several times, but Mister Didier didn't know that when he asked him. Daniel Pennac and Gabrielle Vincent never met but they had a lot of respect for each other, they only talked with letters.

When he started working on the script, Daniel Pennac said that he wanted to pay respect to her old friend. Here is a small pitch of the story he wrote :

In normal bear life, it is frowned upon to 

make friends with a mouse. But Ernest, a 

big bear, a clown and musician who lives

on the fringes of bear society, nonetheless

welcomes little Celestine into his home. She

is an orphan and has fled the mouse world 

down below. Thses two solitary characters

find support and comfort in one another, but

in the process, fly in the face of convention,

upsetting the established order

I didn't discover the script by reading it, Daniel Pennac who is a wonderful Storyteller chose to read it to us.

Representation of Daniel Pennac reading his story

When he tells his writings, he puts a lot of energy in it, he sometimes act like a bear, answer to the bear like a mice, interprating each characters of the story one at a time. His reading is full of anecdotes telling us how he got this or this idea. Most of these anecdots are talking about the mice living in his house. This result into a wonderful way of discovering Ernest and Célestine story.

Representation of Daniel Pennac reading Ernest role, then Célestine role

Here is a small extract from the script. It is at the very beginning of the film, the first time the audience meets Ernest...

2.ext. ernest’s house – early morning

The feather settles on top of a snowy hill. A little bird comes over and takes it into his beak. We hear the sound of deep loud snoring interrupted by the beginnings of a sneeze.

ERNEST

(Off)

AAAAAAAtt…

The camera focuses on a small hill.

ERNEST (CONT'D)

(Off)

AAAAAAAA CHOOO…

The bird is ejected and all the snow tumbles down from the hill, revealing modest cabin.

ERNEST (CONT'D)

(Off)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAATCHOOOOO !

The bird who had again settled on the rooftop of the cabin is ejected by the huge sneeze once more.

3. Int. ernest’s house – early morning

ERNEST’s house is in a sad state of disarray. Decrepit furniture, dust and spider webs, an old piano along with other musical instruments: cymbals, a drum, an old accordion slinking down towards the ground,… the dishes and the cleaning seem to have been neglected for months.

ERNEST

AAAAAAAAAT…

A big canopy bed (without the curtain) and a big bear sleeping in it. We come closer to him. This is ERNEST. He is snoring but a tiny snowflake has drifted down from a hole in the ceiling and lands on his nose. It tickles. He scrunches his nose.

Another little snowflake lands spot on his snout.

ERNEST (CONT'D)

TCHHOOOOOO!

ERNEST, nightcap on his head, turns over in his bed, once, then a second time. He sits up. Frowning, he is not in a good mood. He grumbles:

ERNEST (CONT'D)

I’m hungry.

He gets out of bed, steps on the accordion, which lets out a groan, walks across the room over to a table covered with pots and pans. ERNEST lifts the top off of a big crock pot and gags. He quickly places the top back on. He looks into another pot: it’s empty. He throws it over his shoulder. Another: empty. Tosses that one as well. A third : empty. He swings his arm and sweeps all the pots and pans off the table.

He comes across a big jar marked « cookies ». He shakes it, hears a sound. A big smile spreads across his face, he opens the jar and emtpies it of its crumbs. He savours his spoonful of cookie crumbs.

A little bird settles on the window sill and looks at the tempting crumbs remaining on the table. Ernest pulls the curtains to block out the sight of the bird. But chirping can be heard from the gaping hole in the ceiling above him: little birds have gathered to observe the scene and make a dive towards the cookie crumbs at the same time as Ernest. But he stumbles and trips over himself, knocks over the table and falls face first onto the floor, furious.

The fledglings flee through the roof leaving Ernest to, at last, enjoy his crumbs.

More chirping: one of the little birds has settled on Ernest’s bed. The bear looks over at it and smacks his lips. He takes some crumbs in one hand, a frying pan in the other and moves towards the bird with an extended hand, offering up the crumbs.

ERNEST (CONT'D)

Nice little birdy

Come here, little birdy, come here, little birdy.

As the bird moves towards the crumbs, ready to peck, Ernest swings the frying pan down to crush it but at the last minute, the bird flies off and Ernest crushes his own hand with the pan.

ERNEST (CONT'D)

(cry of pain)

AAaaah!!!

The script was finished in the beginning of 2009. This is when we started to recruit an artistic team. This is what we are going to talk about next