Summer Rerun: Ingmar Bergman's 'Hazardous Dukes'
[sad news: legendary Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman has lost his final chess game with Death. In remembrance I'm reposting this ditty from 2005. RIP, Mr. Bergman.]
Excerpts from my rejected film project
OPENING MONTAGE
Slow motion shots of the General Sundqvist '69 Volvo jumping over broken bridges and misty fjords
THEME (By the Kronos Quartet with vocals by ABBA)
Just the good ol' boys
Filled with guilt and ennui
They're bored, racked with discord
Just hangin' by the fjord
Scarred emotionally
Masking their pain
The only way they know how
Just a bit more existentialist
Than their souls will allow
Just them good ol' boys
Wouldn't change if they could
Psychically crippled
Like two planks of Danish teak wood
Yee. Ha.
SCENE 1
Interior shot of a backwoods cabin in rural Georgia. The room is tastefully decorated with Bruno Mathsson lounge chairs, Eero Saarinen side tables, a rebel flag and moonshine still. An old bearded man lies on a vintage midcentury Alvar Aalto death bed.
NARRATOR (Gunnar Biörnstrand)
Just plumb about everybody in Hazzard County has a story to tell 'bout them Duke boys and their existential auto-didactism. This one starts back at the farm, where Bo 'n' Luke are about to find out that Uncle Jesse has a little surprise in store for 'em...
UNCLE JESSE (Max Von Sydow)
Bo, Luke. Come to my side, nephews.
(Cousins Bo and Luke, scions of Uncle Jesse's crumbling moonshine dynasty, enter.)
LUKE (Börje Ahlstedt)
What is it you want, Uncle?
(Bo and Luke exchange long, blank glance; a Hans Wegner clock ticks on a far wall)
UNCLE JESSE
Death.
BO (Ashton Kutcher)
Your despair has shaken our complacency. I shall bring your jug.
LUKE
It is the same Blomvo jug that Aunt Bessie long ago bought for you at Ikea... when you were young and happy.
UNCLE JESSE
Its design is elegant; yet, like life, it brings me no joy. I am compelled to smash it, like my own existence.
BO
But you must live, Uncle.
UNCLE JESSE
Why must I live? Life is a meaningless parade of pain, and loneliness, and revenuers.
(Bo and Luke stare; close-up of ticking clock)
LUKE
You must live to see the outlaw dirt sprints at Hazzard County Speedway Saturday night. There is a $2000 prize, and Bo and I have entered the General Sundqvist.
(pan to kitchen table; close-up of Cooter bolting Holley Dominator carb to Edelbrock Torker intake)
UNCLE JESSE
Perhaps you are right, Luke. Your exegesis has taught me that the pain of life can be borne, if only for the nihilism of the dirt track.
BO
(thinking) I am the one who has brung his jug, yet Uncle Jesse can only express love to Luke.
COOTER (Sean Penn)
(thinking) I am the one who has competely rebuilt their carb, yet I remain only an honorary Duke.
(Pan zoom to cabin door, where the Grim Reaper has been observing; he silently drops sickle, smashing the clock)
NARRATOR
Well how 'bout that... looks like Ol' Uncle Jesse done stirred up the Duke social hierarchy and got ol' Death all riled up like a big ol' hive of yellowjackets!
*****************************
SCENE 4
Boss Hogg's office, Hazzard County Courthouse. Hogg lays on Verner Panton chaise talking with his psychiatrist.
BOSS HOGG (Alf Nilsson)
So y'all are sayin' that my feelin's of disconnecteness and alienation stem straight from maternal rejection from my momma?
DOC APPLEBY (Erland Josephson)
I didn't say that, Boss. I think you done came up with that all yourself.
BOSS HOGG
Hot diggity dawg! I think I just had one of them there psychotherapeutic breakthroughs! Wait'll I get home tonight and Lulu finds out I'm a-ready for some marital intimacy! I did it all mysef, and didn't need no damn $200-per-hour fancy haid-shrinker.
(close up of Big Mouth Billy Bass)
DOC APPLEBY
Well, now there, Boss, I didn't quite mean it that way. See, I was using this here Jungian self-regression technique on you, and...
BOSS HOGG
Git outta my office you overprice quack, afore I have my deputies foreclose the mortgage on your clinic!
(Boss chases Appleby around desk and out into the sherriff's office, smacking into his lackey Roscoe P. Coltrane)
BOSS HOGG
Roscoe, why is you allays in my way? Is you some sort of e-mas-cu-la-ted-ed moron?
ROSCOE (Matt Damon)
Goo goo goo... well there J.D., now, now, now, I got me some information 'bout them Duke boys that's gonna put a smile on that handsome little pudgy face of yours.
BOSS HOGG
Duke boys eh? Out with it Roscoe!
ROSCOE
Goo goo goo... well Deputy Enos, see he's been mindin' that citizens band, and it seems Bo and Luke are havin' themselves a big ol' patriarchal psychodrama over Uncle Jesse and the big Saturday nite sprints at the raceway. Even Cooter's got all alienateded 'bout the whole durn situation, goo goo goo!
BOSS HOGG
Family social network issues eh? Heh heh, Roscoe! Looks like you and me's got a rendezvous down to the Boar's Nest with Miss Daisy Duke to add a little Oedipal syndrome to this here Duke fambly gumbo!
ROSCOE
Goo goo goo!
(close up of Big Mouth Billy Bass)
NARRATOR
Oh oh Daisy... best watch out, looks like Boss Hogg is up to no good.
*****************************
SCENE 7
Inside the Boar's Nest, Boss Hogg's roadhouse
BOSS HOGG
Well well well... Miss Daisy Duke. I swear you's so lovely I'd a-ask you to come a-calling iff'n Lulu wouldn't bean me with her fryin' pan.
ROSCOE
Goo goo goo!
DAISY (Scarlett Johansson)
You repulse me. Because of you I have been reduced to a bar wench, serving glögg and fondue to an endless succession of disengaged strangers.
BOSS HOGG
Now, Daisy, from what I hear you make pretty good side tips here at the Boar's Nest.
DAISY
What is that supposed to mean?
BOSS HOGG
Oh, now, nothing in particular, I hears me lots of thing. Like I heared me that you is right popular with the Hazzard County menfolk.
(close up of rippling Hamm's beer sign)
DAISY
I neither love nor hate. I couple with men to numb my existential abyss.
BOSS HOGG
What do your cousins think of that?
DAISY
I only couple with my cousins.
(slow mo of beer pitcher crashing to floor; pan shot through broken shards)
BOSS HOGG
Both Bo AND Luke?
DAISY
And Coy and Vance... before they became lovers.
BOSS HOGG
(whispering)Roscoe, you gittin' this on that tape recorder?
ROSCOE
Goo goo goo!
NARRATOR
Mercy sakes alive, looks like ol' Bo and Luke are gonna find out some unpleasant Duke family secrets.
*****************************
SCENE 13
Hazzard County Raceway
TRACK ANNOUNCER
Welcome to the feature race tonight at Hazzard County Raceway - a 30 lap outlaw sprint dash with a winner's purse of $2000. Starting on the pole in row 1 in the orange General Sundqvist '69 Volvo #01 with the Swedish flag, it's local favorite Bo Duke!
(crowd stares blankly)
TRACK ANNOUNCER
And what's this? We have a surprise late entrant... also in row 1, in another orange '69 Volvo, it's #01 car of local favorite Luke Duke! And... what the? It's three more #01 orange Volvos, driven by Coy Duke... Vance Duke... and honorary Duke, Cooter Davenport.
(crowd stares blankly)
BOSS HOGG
Hee hee hee! Roscoe this is gonna be more fun than the Euripides revival at Hazzard Dinner Theater & Barbecue Hut!
ROSCOE
Goo goo goo!
(revolving close ups as the Dukes are lost in thought as they rev their Volvos)
LUKE
I am sickened by my own incestuous desires.
BO
Though my soul is blank, it cries out for revenge.
COOTER
I spurned my own family for the false dream of the Dukes' affection.
VANCE AND COY
We never received any of the lunch box licensing residuals.
TRACK ANNOUNCER
And the green flag has dropped!
(cut to the raceway bleachers; Uncle Jesse sits with Death, wearing a Jeff Gordon rainbow on his hooded robe)
UNCLE JESSE
I'm glad we worked things out. Want a sip of my corn squeezin's?
DEATH (Billy Bob Thornton)
Nah, I'm still workin' on my beer.
(cut to the race; spinning shot as cars furiously circle Daisy, wearing a blank expression. At once, all five General Sundqvist clones leap through the air, converging on a central point. Freeze frame)
NARRATOR
Well I seen the Duke Boys get out of some tough jams in the past, but this one looks grimmer than that ol' reaper himself...
(Unfreeze frame: the five converging orange Volvos stack neatly, one on top of another)
NARRATOR
Now just doesn't that beat all? I guess it just goes to show you -- you sure can wreck them Scandinavian psyches, but you just cain't dent their cars.
**********************
Related: Fear and Loathing in the Mystery Machine
