“We Should All Live So Long…”

I’ve watched Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Hospital seven or eight times, but until this morning I’d never read portions of Chayefsky’s actual script. The pre-dialogue intro hums with sardonic perspective and architectural exactitude. In a word, brilliant.

I’m imagining what it must have been like to read it cold in ’70, before filming. This kind of writing has always been rare; it’s almost nonexistent today.