These are the times Episodes from a Life of Thomas Paine

An Original Screenplay

By Trevor Griffiths In the 200th year since his death, the Thomas Paine (January 29,1737 - June 8, astonishingly influential radical thinkel 1809) was a British pamphleteer, revolutionary, and writer Thomas Paine is incarnated radical, inventor and intellectual. He lived afresh in the work of one of the most and worked in Britain until age 37, when he important and polltically committed emigrated to the British American colonies, in British dramatlsts and screenwriters of time to participate in the American Revolution. the last fifty years. His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (l 776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776-1783), a pro- Trevor Griffiths was bom and educated in revolulionary pamphlet series. Manchester, and has been writing for theatre, television and cinema since the late 1960s. Later, he greatly influenced the French His extensive work for the screen includes Revolution. He wrote the Rrghls of Man (17911, three major television series - Bill Brand, a guide to Enlightenment ideas. Despite not Sons and Lovers and lhe Last Place on Earth; speaking French, he was elected to the French numerous single plays including All Good Men National Convention in 1792. The Girondists and Through the Night, and the television films regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, Country and Food for Ravens. Many of his stage especially Robespierre, regarded him as an plays have also been produced on television. enemy. ln December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. His hugely acclaimed stage plays include He became notorious becauseof The Age of Occupation, The Party, Comedians, Piano, The Reason (1 793-94), the book advocating deism Gulf Between Us and Who Shall Be Happy ...? and arguing against Christian doctrines. ln For his film Reds, written wiih Warren Beatty, France, he also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian he received the Writers Guild of America Best Justice (17951, discussing the origins of property, Screenplay award and an Oscar nomination. and introduced the concept of a guaranteed Otherfilms have included Country, directed by minimum income. Richard Eyre, and Fatherland, directed by Ken Loach. In 1982 Griffiths was given the BAFfA He remained in France during the early Writers Award. Napoleonic era, but condemned Napoleon's dictatorship, calling him'the completest From the 1980s onwards he has also directed charlatan that ever existed"; In 1 802, at President his own work both in theatre and on film. Food Thomas Jefferson's invitation. he returned to for Ravens (1997), which he wrote and directed America. for BBC Wales, won both a Royal Television Society award and a Welsh BAFIA. Thomas Paine died, at the age of 72, at 59 Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York These Are the Times, a screen biography of City, on June 8, 1809. He was buried at what is Thomas Paine, was originally commissioned now called the Thomas Paine Cottage in New in 1987 by Richard Attenborough. lt currently Rochelle. New York. where he had lived after awaits feature production but has been adapted returning to America in 1802. His remains were for BBC Radio 3 (broadcast in 20OB) and will be later disinterred by an admirer, \Mlliam Cobbett, seen as a stage play at London's Globe Theatre who sought to return them to England. The bones in August 2009 (29s August - 9th October), were, however, later lost and his final resting under the litle A New World. pface today is unknown. (lrom Wikipedia). AMERICA, VALLEY FORGE, FEBRUARY as a Congress allowing these lawbreakers to 1778 prosper will lead us into private anarchy and Night. Paine and Washington sit by the fire; public squalor. Which is to say, just another form an orderly refills their brandy glasses, recedes. of tyranny... Sr/ence. Washington hums snatches of a A log falls,spuffers, on the hearth, Paine turns doleful tune, inturned, a cold anger working on his eyes back into the rcom. Washington dozes, something. Paine watches him over hr.s g/ass; his mouth open, wooden teeth bared, brandy begins to take out notebook and Deane Report glass precariously still to hand. Paine watehes from satchel. Mrs Washington slops rn, krsses a moment, eyes sombre; crosses to finger the the General on his hair, motherly; he pats her glass from his hand; pads caretully from the hand. fond. remote. She leaves for bed. room. Washington srores softly on. WASHINGTON: Do ye have a wife, Mr Paine? (Paine frowns; shakes hrs head) Mm. Man needs Morning. Snow on the ground. Tents still in use, awiIe. (Paine lights his pipe. Washington hums but the shapes of cabins have begun to spring again; gulps his brandy.) Those documents on up, men swarming about them, sweating in the yer knee there, are they the corruption affair ye're cold sun. Two wagon-loads of young volunteers come for my thoughts on..? (Paine begins to from France, just aftived, draw cheers lram open the fileJ No no, keep it shut, I got enemies watching Americans. enough in Congress without stickin'my nose in Paine riding through at the walk, on his way, their private chamber pots, as we speak there Washington's grcatcoat tail draping his horse's are elements in that esteemed body plotting rump. Lafayefte struggles up level with him, with my fellow generals to have me removed, oh hunying to welcome the French. yes, keep it shut, sir, I may not be drawn on this LAFAYETTE: Frenchmen, Mr Paine. Answering matler.. (Paine cioses the file. Sniffs.) My advice the call. And there'll be more.. even our King to you would be much the same. Speculation, supports ye, as I hear it.. oeculation and an insatiable thirst for self- PAINE: Good to know it, sir..(Looks down at his enrichment may well have got the better of every sweating /ace) And what'll ye do when it's over, other consideration in many of our countrymen, all this..? but you lift yer head up to speak it, Mr Paine, ye'll LAFAYETTE: l'll take the good news back home, catch a ball. In the meanwhile, you'n'me's got a sir, and see it's put to use.. war to win. That's the crisis. He drains hrs g/asg lays his head back, eyes ENGLAND,1791 closed. Paine looks at him; pushes notes and lile Summer. Large country house at Beaconsfield, back into his satchel; lays down his glass, moves snug rn ils six hundred acres. Paine's carriage to the window, starcs out at the high ridge in clops up the long treelined avenue to the hard moonlight. Snow has fallen, shimmering the house. earth. Sentries call, answer, on the hill. Wentworth House. Drawing Room, ill-kempt, PAINE: With respect, General, the crisis ain't sunk beneath the ages, dark and chill. Paine only the War or the Army any more. The crisis stands by a window, reading the dank is everywhere and everyone. Why we fight. space amid the click of many clocks and the What world we would put up in place o'the alphabetic mutterings of a Caribbean parrot one we bury. A nation born in greed and graft with a Dublin brogue. and corruption will surely drown in them. Same A man enters abruptly, stands for a moment as FRANCE,1792 if lost; he's midsixties, oddeyed, a shambles. Paine rises slowly. Frowns a little. Calais Harbour. MAN: (Ihe parrot's Dubtin voice) Mr Paine, sir. PAINE: Ye'll not come to France with me and September evening. A large excited crowd waits PAINE: Mr Burke. see for yerself? for the boat to dock and Paine to show. A band plays revolutionary BURKE: I cannot see ye, sir. I'm at my desk. BURKE: lwill not, sir. tunes with PAINE: Be happy to wait. But my business is PAINE: Then l'll be plain. Publish your book and some vigour. Officers ol the Calais Assembly urgent. lwill answer it. and other luminaries form an official welcoming party. Silence. Burke loses track for a moment, begins Sr'/ence. Horses neigh nearby; Paine checks a Banners proclaim their to mumble a line he's been struggling with. window: a bulldog slands on hindlegs at the meanings: Pas de Calais welcomes Thomas Paine; BURKE: Sit. pane, staring jowlily in. a new Deputy for a new Convention; Long live the Rights Paine takes the prolened chair, Burke slumps BURKE: Ye're a living danger to all that's sacred of Man. Over this, PAINE'S VO|CE..Reports from France leave into his, face cowled in gloom. in human affairs, Mister Paine. "The French my reserves of hope somewhat depleted. PAINE: I'm conscious of intrusion, Mr Burke, Revolution is but the forerunner to others across Sacking the King was absolutely right, but should have and will be brief,. Europe ..i one of your letters said. You agitate happened year BURKE: ..lf it is France ye would discuss, I have your way across the world, $wing dissension, a back, before he had chance to embroil ye in this pointless war with Austria told ye all I wish to upon the subject.. breeding conflict, gnawing away at the settled and Prussia, PAINE: Ye've told me nothing, sir. My letters lie natural order of things. And here you are back which clearly threatens all ye seek to unanswered. in your own land and about to put it to the cfeate.. BURKE: Precisely, sir. On events in that lorch. (Paine watches him in rapt fascination, Paine arrives on the gangway: music, cheering, miserable place, lam not persuadable. the man's madness suddenly vivid before his vast applause. He smiles; waves. PAINE: Not even by the truth..? eyes) Bul ye will not succeed, sir. Thanks to our PAINE'S VOICE: ..The good folk of Calais seek to make BURKE: I believe I know the truth, Mr Paine. At sullen resistance to innovation, thanks to the amends by electing me in absentia Deputy to the new Convention and Honorary the moment I am busy wrestling it down onto cold sluggishness of our national character, we Frenchman. English, French, paper. British still bear the stamp of our forefathers. American, now is this a step in the right direction, for one who A clock sfrikes the quarter; another follows; Use what art ye may, ye'll not root out of principles natural would be a Citizen of the World..? another. Burke takes out a Pocket watch; stares this people's mind the of He reaches quayside kisses, hugs, speeches. at the silver tace'cover for some moments, puts subordination. They will continue to respect Smr/es on everything. it away. Paine watches. that property of which they cannot partake, they Slow fade to black. PAINE: Mr Burke, ye did much for the will continue to labour to obtain what by labour PAINE'S VOICE: ..At least no-one rights of colonial Americans, ye've spent a can be obtained; and when they find, as they here would have lifetime championing the cause of slaves commonly do, the success disproportionate to me dead. and homosexuals and religious dissenters. the endeavour, they will continue to be taught to Men and women have read your works and seek their consolation in the final proportions of learnt the future need not be, must not be, as eternal justice ... Paris. Day. The shot slowly tracks the grounds appalling and oppressive as the past. Yet now, PAINE: (Eventually; deadly gur'efl While you, of the Luxembourg, one-time palace, now prison. when millions pay you heed by tearing up the sir, the Champion of Liberty, will continue to call Mutilated corpses lie in rough lines across {raudulent contract with history that holds them yourself a Whig and receive a secret pension of the grass and dirt, some still in their prison down and demanding their natural human rights, ten thousand a year from the Tories to trash the chains, the as yet unidentified remnant of brutal rnassacres. Paine at the heart ye turn on 'em like any mad monarch and vilify future. arrives of the them. Why? In reason's name, sir, why? BURKE: Leave my house, sir. I had imagined carnage, watches relatives pick their feartul way BURKE: (standing abruptly) Mr Paine, ye you a gentleman. across the site, seeking thek own. A weeping may {ind your answer on the shelves at seven PAINE: No, sir. I'm an American. Proud of it. woman claims a husband. Two men heave his legless farm into shillings and sixpence when my book is He heads for the door; the parrot sco/ds lhe a half-loaded cart. Ox-drawn open carts trundle in published, I have nothing more to say to you. dank air: '4, B, C ..." and out, bearing the wretchedness, continually meeting and claimed corpses to the burial ground. Smoke AMERICA, JUNE 1809 and like dead and living bodies from rubbish-pyres thickens the thin autumn Day. A small trail of carts and carriages heads offending the eye, is ... haze. across fields. chained together modern A Ministry of Justice coach draws up neatby, Big field. A coffin lowered into a simple grave; The shot tilts suddenly, reveals a past New Danton leaps out to speak with a group of a headstone nearby: highway, heavy with tralfic, ripping Deputies. Paine turns to leave, face stony, Thomas Paine, age 73, author of Common Rochelle. Mixes, with the southbound flow New York City and its images of sickened. Hears his name called. Sees Danfon Sense. ( to today's leaving the group he's with to come to meet him. wretchedness and affluence ... poor DANTON: Welcome back, Paine. As ye see, sir, A handful of people gathered at graveside. Two PAINE'S VOICE: ... The great mass of the is next to the Revolution has not been idle in your absence. black men, father and son, stand respectfully are become an hereditary race, and it get state of PAINE: Why? (A sweep of the hand across lhe by, their lrousers spattered from their iourney. impossible for them to out of that millions in every killing field) What does ii mean? Carnet motions her sons to the grave'head, themselves ... The condition of is now far worse than if they had DANTON: Waste not good tears, Mr Paine, sfations herself at its foot. country ,.. born before civilisation began ... most of 'em were enemies, when you know the CARNET: (Red rose hetd against btack dress) been The shot reso/ves slowly back to the deserted crrcumstance.. May the body of this man lie in peace in this open gnve. PAINE: Circumstance? What circumstance on good earth. And may his name be remembered field, the ... lt a revolution in the state earth can justify the brutal slaughter of thousands wherever Liberty and Justice are cherished ... PAINE'S VOICE: is the of chained prisoners by crazed citizens' death (Looks down the grave af son lhomas) Let my of civilization that is now needed. Already squads, mister, while the Revolution stands by son there stand here for America ... I for France. conviction that representation is the true system the and does nothing..? Where was the Minister of BLACK FATHER: Amen. of government is spreading itself fast in Justice..? Carnet turns, smiles at him. The man steps world. But there must grow, and soon, a system government, DANTON: (Eyeing him; cool)..The Prussian forward, hat in hand. Collects a hunk of dirt. of civilization out of that system of woman born in Army stood seventy miles from Paris, the Minister BLACK FATHER: I hoPe ye'll forgive so organized that not a man or Republic but shall inherit some means of of Justice was busy raising a People's Militia th'intrusion, ma'am. My son 'n' me heered Mr the New York beginning the world and see before them the to up and throw'em out. Ten thousand patriots Paine'd passed on, we walk' up from certainty of escaping the miseries that up to answered the call, eager to go, yes, but not while t'pay respec's ... gentlemen. now have always accompanied old age ..' An the prisons of Paris sat swelled to bursting with CARNET: You're very welcome, son army of principle will penetrate where an army the enemies of their revolution, who might break He thraws the dirt on the coffin. His ioins of soldiers can not: it will march on the horizon out in their absence and take revenge on the him. the world, and it will conquer. undefended families our patriot volunteers would Wide, high shot of the scene. The two black of A wind stirs the grass: the grave remains open. leave behind. fsweeps a hand at the killing men peel away, the diggers head for their tool- private -End- field) They did what they did. I turned my back. I cart, the boys leave their mother to a was busy saving the Revolution. (They eye each moment. other. Paine takes deep breaths; reeling) Paine, She slands some moments longer, turns away, there s no maps cover the place we've got to clears frame. For a moment, there is only the or the land ahead. Stay close, friend. Ye could, I open grave. (in promise ye, do much worse... (lnclines his head The shot c/oses ln, begins to move, as Paine's Trevor Griffiths' theatre plays two volumes), of Sons towards the nearby group. Paine takes them in; vorce sels up, over, in a final summation of These Are the Times and the screenplay are all published by Spokesman spo/s the dwarl Marat; the others stangers, one belief, as il from the grave. and Lovers Robespierre, dabbing a nosegay to his face; and PAINE'S VOICE: ... The present state of Books {wwuspokesmanbooks.com). Bancal) Be useful here. Take a hand in writing civilization is as odious at it is unjust ... publish papers from a colloquium the new Consiitution, lead the Commitiee, l'll The down-shot heads on past the grave, slowly They also in New York under the auspices of the back ye. But don't get embroiled elsewhere. covers the lields and hedges beyond' held Naiions in 1987 to celebrate the 250th Especially, should we decide to proceed with PAINE'S VOICE: ... lt is absolutely the opposite United Paine's birth. The volume is called it, in the trial of the King. This fever must run its of what it should be, and it is necessary that a anniversary of of the Common Good. course.. revolution should be made in it ... Thomas Paine: ln Search PAINE: Trial, did ye...? The down'shot heads on: odd sounds and to He's gone. Paine turns away, bearings gone, approaching traffic on a highwaY. Many thanks to Gill and Trevor Griffiths, grim; takes a last look at the carnage. PAINE'S VOICE: ... The contrast of affluence Tony Simpson at Spokesman Books.