Work Text:
1. THE LOST SCRIPT
2. THE LOST STORYBOARD
3. THE LOST (ALREADY MADE) PROPS & CONCEPT SHOTS
4. OPENING THE SUITCASE: FROM SCRIPT TO CONCEPT ART
5. THE SCRIPT
17 (FLASHBACK)
NYC FLEAMARKET 1962 - EXT.DAY
A festive and sunny day of 1962. Lots of people in a typical Sunday fleamarket in the city.
We see the WINTER SOLDIER in disguise watching a couple looking at old lamps across from him. The man is his new mission and the WINTER SOLDIER is alert but laying low and mingling as he awaits the final order.
The couple takes a sudden turn and starts crossing the street and facing his way, so the WINTER SOLDIER turns and fakes interest on the closest market stall, hiding his face away from them.
This market stall is one of those places where they sell old pictures by the lot: full of faded photos, postcards with wet burry ink, and faces forgotten by time. But something there catches the WINTER SOLDIER ‘s attention.
It’s an old suitcase. Brown stripes consumed by time framing a tag that reads “SGR” in what were once shiny golden letters.
The WINTER SOLDIER is confused. Mission uncharacteristically going to the back of his mind, focus shifted to a distant recognition of something lost.
PICTURES’STALL OWNER (interrupting his thoughts)
They don’t make them like that anymore, uh? I believe it’s from the ’20s. A little worn on the edges but still good to go.
The WINTER SOLDIER looks at the man, confusion already showing on his usually expressionless face.
PICTURES’STALL OWNER
You can open that if you want; but carefully, please, I think there’s stuff inside.
The WINTER SOLDIER says nothing but he can feel himself nodding and reaching for the suitcase as if the actions were being performed by somebody else, while the PICTURES’STALL OWNER goes after another potential client.
The WINTER SOLDIER opens the suitcase and sees the inside: it’s filled with boxes, postcards, and pictures. An enclosed version of the stand it was lying on.
He scans the content and the feeling of recognition on those pictures lies heavily on his chest, distressing him.
He is distressed but also drawn to the handwriting on the envelopes and the faces of the young boys on the pictures that are scattered all over, looking at him from below.
The WINTER SOLDIER is freezing. He doesn’t know who those people are, and yet...
He takes one picture in his hand: a dark-haired boy (features very much like his) posing broodily somewhere that looks like an amusement park.
Something alien and unrecognizable keeps happening to the WINTER SOLDIER : He’s feeling his heart in his throat and the start of a cold sweat breaking in while a weird smell of burnt hot dogs and a distant voice whispering “Buck, you handsome jerk” keep pulling him more and more away from his surroundings. The need to hold on to this picture, to steal the whole suitcase full of smiling faces and run away taking strongly over him.
PICTURES’STAND OWNER
Are you ok, sir? You are a little white there. Want to take any of that… I believe it to be a bargain!
The man’s voice breaks the WINTER SOLDIER out of his state of mind.
Mind clearer, it comes back to him: the Winter Soldier doesn’t own things, the Winter Soldier doesn’t even own himself. The Winter Soldier doesn’t decide where to run.
What the Winter Soldier does is to follow orders, so he quickly scans the market in search of his mission. The couple are a little further away than he would have liked but still easy to follow.
The WINTER SOLDIER takes one final look at the picture still in his gloved hand, recognition lost but confusion still in the back of his mind. He leaves it in the suitcase and follows the couple.