By Matt Zoller Seitz
No explanation required. Here are five, off the top of my head, that really hit me. Scan the titles before you read the synopses. Wouldn't want to spoil any plot twists, even in movies that are decades old.
1. "King Kong." (1976) Okay, so you know how this one ends, but still. I realize we're all supposed to agree not to say anything nice about the first remake, and I admit that maybe I remember it so fondly because I was a kid when it came out, and it was the first "Kong" I knew. But dear lord, that ape took a long time to die, hollering and gasping, stumbling all over the roof of the WTC with helicopter gunships ripping him up like a Peckinpah hero, geysers of blood spraying everywhere. And then that long, long fall, and WHUMP. Did Dino de Laurentiis actually say, "Nobody cry when Jaws die, but when King Kong die, everybody cry?" Or was it John Belushi?
2. "The Wild Bunch." (1969) Speaking of Peckinpah. Hardcase bank robber/mercenary William Holden avenging a buddy's death, risking everything for principle rather than money, blazing away against an army of foes in an Alamo-scale standoff, only to be shot dead by...a child. A mighty scorpion felled by an ant. Kids can be so cruel.
3. "The Untouchables." (1987) I am convinced that when smart bloke Sean Connery got to the part in the script where his character dies, he thought, "No way I play this scene without winning an Oscar." It's so spectacular it's loony -- like every James Cagney death rolled into one gory mass. Gruff cop Jim Malone cranks up his Victrola, chases away a knife-wielding intruder with a sawed-off shotgun and a racist taunt, walks outside to yell at him some more, gets zapped by second assassin Frank Nitti, dances the tommygun Charleston for about six days, then crawls back inside, hauls himself clear to the other end of the apartment while spilling oceans of blood -- "I Pagliacci" roaring on the soundtrack while Al Capone sheds a happy tear in his opera box across town -- and then somehow miraculously stays alive just long enough to give our hero the crucial scrap of information he needs and cough out his most resonant question one final time: "Wwwwhhhuuuuhtttt...are you pre-PARED...tuh DUUUU?"
4. "The Parallax View." (1974) The climax up in the rafters. So shocking I won't spoil it, not even here, in a post about death scenes.
5. "The Vanishing." (1988) An ending so horrific that it would have given Edgar Allan Poe nightmares.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
5 for the Day: Death Scenes
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63 comments:
After seeing Munich the other night I realized that Spielberg, the most sentimental and schmaltzy director the world has ever known (or so his detractors might have you believe), is responisble for at least two of the most disturbing death scenes I've ever seen in the movies. I don't even want to talk about the details of Adam Goldberg's death in Saving Prvate Ryan, much less think about them. Same goes for Giovanni Ribisi's character.
And now in Munich there's the scene with the Dutch woman. It's not just because it's Spielberg, is it?
By the way, I took your advice and named my blog Grand Epic, hence the new username.
Excellent! I can't wait to visit and talk movies.
I think the disturbing aspect of Spielberg death scenes is partly due to the fact that it's Spielberg, and for some reason, after all these decades, we are still conditioned to think of him as a family-friendly director. That was never the case, of course -- the jet of blood in the air when the kid on the raft dies in JAWS, Amon Goeth sniping all those people in SCHINDLER'S LIST, the blood running across the decks of the slave ship in AMISTAD, the list goes on and on. The guy wears a Walt Disney face mask, but underneath, he's Kubrick, or maybe Polanski.
Actually, yeah, the girl's death in Jaws was pretty disturbing as well, and the kid's death left a pretty big impression on me as a child.
Blogger won't let me display my blog in my profile for some reason (has it been this frustrating for you?), so it's listed as "My Web Page."
I like all of your endings! Kong's death, even in the new one, always gets to me.
I saw the 1976 version of Kong before the original. It was the day I became addicted to coffee. My Pops took me to see the 10:30 AM showing on Times Square. Beforehand, he bought himself a coffee from KFC. I asked for one, and he bought it for me. I was hooked, and continue to be hooked 30 years later. I also developed an unhealthy attraction to Jessica Lange, but that's another story.
Can I add a few of my own. These aren't in any order of preference.
The Fury- John Cassavettes finally gets what he deserves for getting that Oscar nomination for The Dirty Dozen. Shot from 13 different angles and completely unexpected. Cronenberg obviously saw this movie.
Set It Off- My cousin's former manager, Queen Latifah, gets shot up in a scene to rival Mr. Connery's. What I love about the scene, which is so incredibly over the top and uncalled for in its violence, is what the Queen does after she's shot about 7,000 times. It's like she knows this is the best scene she's ever going to get. She milks it with this "I can't believe they shot me" look on her face. My kinda woman.
Bonnie and Clyde- That had to hurt. Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard gets you turned into creamed corn.
Anaconda- The only thing cheesier than the fake ass CGI snake is Jon Voight, and he knows it. The snake eats him, but it's not his last scene in the movie. Worth renting just for that.
Both version of The Champ- I am an incredible sucker for boxing movies. Don't die, Champ...Excuse me, I need to compose myself here.
As for Spielberg, he's ALWAYS been mean. People tend to forget that he likes killing people! So let me add Robert Shaw going into the mouth of Jaws. Like the aforementioned Cassavettes, he gets a death worthy of his character. The only time I still cringe watching Jaws is the sound effect that accompanies Bruce the shark biting into Shaw's leg. He screams, and all that blood comes out of his mouth. Good Lord!
Welcome to the party, Grand Epic.
You guys. It's all blood spurting with you. Most people die in bed. In the movies they make weak-voiced speeches before doing so and look beautiful and noble. So mine will include a few that went a bit more gentle into that good night:
-Melanie in GONE WITH THE WIND. This might be my favorite. "Be kind to Captain Butler. He loves you so."
-Beth in LITTLE WOMEN (the Gillian Armstrong version)
-Emma in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (no speech really, Winger just stares at her mother and dies while the hapless husband sleeps)
-Vito in THE GODFATHER (not in bed, sure, but a natural death frolicking in the garden with an orange peel in his mouth and his grandson squirting water at him)
-Sam in ONCE AROUND (once again not in bed, but happy and content with his newborn daughter in his arms)
Of course, in some of the greatest Hollywood death scenes the recently deceased comes back to life. ET or Disney's Beast, anyone?
The problem Spielberg has with audience is that, even after not having made a truly light blockbuster-type film since maybe Jurassic Park (if that fits the bill), people still go to his movies expecting E.T. or Raiders. And I think it's created a disconnect between him and audiences. For example, would it not be fair to suggest 90% took the ending of A.I literally?...
How about some kind of Lifetime Achievements in Death award for Warren Beatty? (He dies like John Cusack gets rained on...) This whole thing really begins and ends with Bonnie and Clyde, and John Pudgy McCabe dying in the snow.
(Also: I'll take James Coburn putting one in his own reflection after shooting Kris Kristofferson in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid- new on DVD!- over Holden in Wild Bunch— "What you want... and what you get... are two different things"; judging from your Cagney reference White Heat must have just missed the cut; and one more: "I hear voices." Damn, those are all American movies from one 25-year span, aren't they?)
A golden era for the Grim Reaper, no doubt. Also the nastiest era of screen violence, at least in America. Things continued to be graphic after the early 80s, but for some reason it just wasn't as disturbing to me, even when I look back over the full range of movies with what passes for maturity.
Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Tony Scott/Tarantino et al. made brutal films, but none of their killings or wounds affected me as much as that image of the blood-strewn apartment in TIME AFTER TIME, or Bonnie and Clyde's perforated corpses, or the aformentioned blood plume in JAWS. Something about 60s/70s violence was just ugly.
Three I forgot: Akim Tamiroff getting strangled by Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL. Still alarming. And Cagney in THE ROARING TWENTIES. And Alan Rickman's final slo-mo plunge in DIE HARD, which is really made memorable by his expression.
That scene in The Untouchables used to crack me up. My friends and I used to mock it all the time. "What -- is this what you want? Is it this?" Too bad Connery didn't have the energy to choke Costner while in his death throes.
As for some other memorable death scenes, in no particular order:
Robert Shaw in "Jaws"
Kevin Spacey in "L.A. Confidential"
Debra Winger in "Terms of Endearment"
James Caan in "The Godfather"
Joe Pesci in "GoodFellas"
Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in "War of the Roses"
Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove"
I forgot about Richard Dreyfuss in Once Around, until I read Jen's post.
Also, the first Heather in "Heathers": "Corn nuts!"
Speaking of surreal last lines: Harvey Korman dying outside the Chinese Theater in BLAZING SADDLES, regarding Douglas Fairbanks' shoe-prints in cement, and gasping, "How did he do such great stunts...With such little feet?"
Just about every death in Miller's Crossing.
First murders in the original TCM: sledgehammer and hook.
Gomer Pyle.
Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon knocking over his pills as his heart explodes within him.
Kikuchiyo falling still after killing the final bandit.
Gerry strangling Gerry at the end of Gerry just before he's rescued.
Dennis Hopper goes splat in True Romance.
Twentynine Palms
Out of the Blue.
Irreversible.
Bud Dwyer.
Fat Girl.
For a real blood-splurting death finale, how about the ending of "Sanjuro?"
For a real blood-splurter how about Johnny Depp in A Nightmare On Elm Street?...
And while we're on deaths...how about HAL 9000's bicycle ride?...
Daisy!
I love when Jeff Daniels dies in "Speed." Keanu is off on the bus being the hero and meanwhle his best buddy Daniels and a swat team have surrounded Dennis Hopper's house. They bust in and find nothing, but a blinking light that I guess we're supposed to recognize as a bomb about to detonate. Cut to a close-up of Daniels with a chagrined look on his face, like he's thinking, "here I thought I was the badass who was going to catch the villain but it turns out I'm just the best friend who dies." And then the house explodes.
"Scarface," baby. "Say hello to my leetle friend."
"Godfather" Luca Brazi (sp???)
"Dawn of the Dead," helicopter chop shots.
"Private Ryan," Goldberg.
"Match Point" old lady.
For a quieter one, how about Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy?
Heh,you have no idea how pleased I am to see the 1976 KONG mentioned; I too loved it as a kid, and was actually far more moved than I was by the 1933 version — the "relationship" between Kong and Ann was wholly one-sided, she wanted nothing to do with him and was never less than clear about it. You wouldn't have caught Fay Wray descending into Kong's oil-tanker prison (even if the original actually showed us the voyage home), as Jessica Lange does (and if she is clearly an untrained actress at this point, it's also clear she has a lot of native talent and, no less importantly, the camera adores her).
Speaking of dying apes, albeit far smaller ones, the finale of ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971) is shocking, both for the sheer brutality of it, and the fact we're losing two utterly likable characters we'd grown to love from the last two films. For a picture that seems to start off essentially as a farce, it grows surprisingly dark, and even if the last scene is an obvious sequel setup, it's still horribly sad. (Absolutely incredible that a movie this violent got a G rating — but then, in its day, so had the even more violent previous two Apeses.)
As for characters we don't mind seeing go at all, well, I remember seeing JURASSIC PARK on opening day, and we've had this endless build up to the T-Rex, but he hasn't done a whole lot yet ... until he gets hold of Martin Ferrero's slimy attorney and gulps him down. The audience roared so hard at that it was damn near orgasmic, this was a character we'd been instructed not to care about (I love Spielberg but you can't call this one of his subtler movies), and I realized "this is REALLY why we came to see this, to see dinosaurs eat people." A bit simplistic, of course (the brachiosaur scenes are lovely in their own right), but it's one of the most brilliantly timed killings in Spielberg's considerably homicidal career (and one of the last in which he played it for unambiguous thrills, by the time of THE LOST WORLD there's more JAWS-era ambiguity, look what happens to poor ole Richard Schiff).
But then there's the rare villain who's earned a degree of sympathy, and I think the Penguin's amazing last scene at the end of BATMAN RETURNS is just one more of the many moments that makes that picture so breathtaking to me still, it's as messy and lunatic as most stuff Tim Burton's made but feels at least as personal as the prior EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (in fact I think they're obvious companion pieces, but that's another topic).
Jen points out, quite rightly, that a great many of the best "death" scenes involve a character who comes back, and I'm put in mind of John Boorman's EXCALIBUR, a movie I now realize appealed to me at every conceivable level of purely adolescent romanticism — now I recognize much of it as rather silly — but two bits continue to move me: Merlin bidding Arthur farewell as he goes to embrace his putative fate at the hands of Morgana, and then his bewitchingly, snickeringly memorable return to give her a taste back.
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and THE TOWERING INFERNO were toploaded with deaths both surprising and not so much so, but the sudden falls of Stella Stevens in POSEIDON and especially Jennifer Jones in INFERNO remain sort of appalling.
And finally, one of the most shocking deaths EVER commuted to film: David Warner's abrupt decapitation in the original OMEN (1976). I was maybe 10 years old when I saw that and was already unsettled by everything that was going on, but here I thought he was just going to get HIT by the truck. Instead ... OH MY GOD!
Chris Okum: Couldn't an argument be made that IRREVERSIBLE is one feature-length death scene?
Jen: Richard Dreyfuss' motionless body at the edge of the lake is one of the sweetest, saddest images I've ever seen, and the number one reason I put ONCE AROUND on my best of the decade list. Dear Lord, what happened to Lasse Hallstrom? Did he start to suck in direct proportion to his mastery of English?
Odie and Dan: You are so right. Spielberg loves to kill people. and we love to watch people die. And during parts of WAR OF THE WORLDS, I got so lost in the movie that I felt as if the tripods were coming after me. My favorite shot in that movie is the image of the marauding tripod captured in a camcorder's flip-out monitor. It's a cousin of that oft-referenced image of the rampaging T-Rex in the ATV's rearview mirror in JURASSIC PARK ("Objects in mirror are closer than they appear") -- i.e., an image of an image of a threat, Spielberg reminding us that we are watching a movie without taking us out of the movie. Who, besides Hitchcock, ever pulled off such an impossible trick with such regularity and grace?
Dan Yuma: Thanks for the shout-out to the APES series. Even though 20th Century Fox kept cutting the sequels' budgets with each new installment, somehow the filmmakers kept finding inventive, content-and-style based ways to make the movies feel bigger. Like an old film professor of mine used to say, imagination IS money.
Your point about the stupefying G-rating is well-taken. It sort of circles back to my question -- one I still can't properly answer -- as to why 60s and 70s films often feel nastier than ones made afterward, even though the blood-and-gore quotient remained steady or even climbed as decades wore on. (Eastwood's 1976 classic THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, with its close-quarters pistol deaths, nasty beatings and grubby frontier rape scene, got a PG rating, when it would clearly rate an R by today's standards. Was society just in a meaner mood back then?) (And boy, would I like to read that EDWARD SCISSORHANDS/OSWALD FLIPPERHANDS compare/contrast piece.)
Mark Asch: "He dies like John Cusack gets rained on." Wish I'd written that. I never realized until just now that rain is to Cusack as caked blood is to Mel Gibson, the substance that makes him a star. (As Owen G. of Entertainment Weekly once wrote of Mel, "He looks great in blood.") Dry, Cusack is a quirky leading man. Damp, he's iconic.
Keith M: Re: "Helicopter chop shots." Did you ever attend a midnight screening of DAWN OF THE DEAD? As a high school freshman in Dallas in the 80s, my friends and I went to midnight screenings of that movie multiple times, yelling rehearsed comebacks at the screen like it was ROCKY HORROR. When that first decapitation scene came up (a technicality: can zombies die?) the audience yelled in unison, in whiny, playground sing-song: "Fraaankie needs a flaaat-top!"
Never saw the whole movie, but the death of Martin Sheen's wife in The Believers was all the more frightening because she was electrocuted by an everday kitchen appliance (a coffeemaker) and some spilled milk.
1. Slim Pickens, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. No surprise everyone keeps bringing up Peckinpah - Sam was a master at sending his characters off. My favorite is gutshot Slim walking down to the riverside to die at twilight, while "Mama" looks on in tears. Knockin' on heaven's door, indeed. (McRea sinking out of frame in the last shot of RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY does a similar number on me.)
2. William Petersen, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. The flick might look all 80's glossy, but Friedkin's cut-throat mean-streak is straight out of the 70's. Wiping the protatgonist off-screen two-thirds of the way through the movie in an unceremonious wide-shot was enough to scar an entire generation of little boys who stayed up too late watching this thing on HBO when their parents weren't home. I still like to spring the DVD on unsuspecting folks, and that moment never fails to draw gasps of disbelief. Sigh, whatever happened to Billy Friedkin?
3. Spock, THE WRATH OF KHAN. Schmaltzy, drawn-out (complete with Dickens quotes!) and just the right size for this larger-than-life rip-snorting space adventure. The whole movie is pitched at the same gung-ho cornpone level as Shatner's iconic chest-thumping performance. (Pitted against Ricardo Montolban, Denny Crane looks like he's underplaying.) There wasn't another TREK movie this satisfying until MASTER AND COMMANDER came along.
The MUNICH scene everybody mentions is one I'm not likely to recover from soon - but earlier this year I was almost as floored by Shannyn Sossomon's murder in KISS KISS BANG BANG.
As Robert Downey Jr. hides under the bed, forced to cover her mouth and shush her last words for fear of giving away his hiding place - it's a such a sad, awful moment that it becomes the ballast for a movie that could have just as easily sailed away on a cloud of snark.
And while we're talking about last year, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS had one of the funnier farewells I've seen in ages. Zombie's slo-mo flashbacks to his three maniac serial killers frolicking in an unspoiled meadow is a hilarious critique of the way Hollywood tends to sentimentalize such death scenes.
Also, "Free Bird" rocks.
I thought of another quiet, but moving death scene: Bruce Davison urging his dying lover to let go in "Longtime Companion."
And since you also dabble in TV, thought I'd toss out a few memorable ones from there:
Rosalind Shays' plunge down the elevator shaft in the "Good to the Last Drop" episode of "L.A. Law" -- so wickedly funny and unexpected.
Leland Palmer's brutal murder of Maddie Ferguson on "Twin Peaks," revealing him not only as the murderer but delivering one of the most intense scenes ever put on TV.
Also from "Twin Peaks," Leland Palmer's dying moments after BOB slams his head into the jail door and Leland suddenly remembers all the horrible things he's done. I'm still pissed off that Ray Wise didn't manage an Emmy nomination.
There are so many deaths on "The Sopranos," it seems unfair to pick only one, but I still think the surprise of Janice blowing Richie Aprile away ranks right up there.
I can't think of 5 right now, and SANJURO's been mentioned, but The WICKER MAN, was the first movie I remember watching where I found the death unsettling.
I should also mention HOUSE OF MIRTH, where death comes as more of a relief than anything. You're not glad she's dead, just that she doesn't have to suffer anymore.
"Absolutely incredible that a movie this violent got a G rating — but then, in its day, so had the even more violent previous two Apeses."
I always loved the quote "In an R-rated movie, a man can touch a woman's naked breast, in a PG-13 he can hack it off with a chainsaw."
Nice blog, Matt!
Nothing like people getting killed to spark a lively debate...
The end of Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
The only James Bond film that's not just exciting, but moving. And an ending that could only have been permitted in the 60s-70s era, when ambivalent or unhappy endings were briefly considered OK.
Matt-- you're on my sidebar. Thanks for creating another space to catch up with your writing. Favorite death scene was a question in a quiz I posted on my blog a while back, and in addition to some of the same answers above, one of my favorites was Slim Pickens' demise in Pat Garrett. The two answers I provided in my quiz were:
"Favorite Death Scene (Unparalleled Drama Division): Richard Jaeckel’s agonizingly slow death, pinned between two logs in a river, in Sometimes a Great Notion"
"Favorite Death Scene (Grand Guignol Division): Piper Laurie being stuck onto a door jam and repeatedly impaled by kitchen implements made airborne courtesy of the uncontrollable rage rocketing out of her telekinetic daughter, then giving an orgasmic last gasp and coming to rest Christ-like and crucified, in Carrie. Added bonus: Sissy Spacek trying to pull her down, but that one hand just... won’t… yank… free…"
I look forward to lots of great reading to come. Thanks!
Wow, Dennis, you just gave me a BOURNE IDENTITY-style, all-at-once traumatic flashback. I saw SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION when I was a kid, and that death you cite -- was that the same one where Paul Newman repeatedly ducks under the water trying to give Jaeckel oxygen in mouth-to-mouth bursts? -- was the most disturbing I'd seen up to then. If I recall the movie correctly -- and it's been, Jesus, 30 years! so forgive my fuzzy recall -- Newman finally gives up because he realizes he does not have enough strength to save Jaeckel.
Am I remembering this right?
If so, it's the giving up part that makes this death scene truly horrifying.
Or am I thinking of Michael Sarrazin?
For some reason, I was thinking it was Henry Fonda (At least I'm damn sure it wasn't Lee Remick!!!), but now that you mention it, I think you're right. I'm pretty sure it was Paul Newman. And yes, that's the thing that's horrifying about the scene-- Newman stays with him, trying to reassure him, keep his spirits up, and keep his head either above water or keep from getting it crushed between the logs. But then those logs start to move, and the way Jaeckel is pinned, each movement drags him lower toward the surface of the river, until he has no more strength, less even than Newman, who can only helplessly stand by as Jaeckel is slowly dragged under.
My parents took my sister and I to see this movie at the local drive-in when it was released in 1971, largely because it took place in Oregon, where we lived. And since films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Animal House and others had yet to be shot, big movies with recognizable locales filmed in and around our part of the world were still relatively novel (the one big feature filmed mere miles away from where I grew up in the mid 60s was the turgid all-star western The Way West). So they figured it was just a great opportunity for some family entertainment. But my sister and I got awfully quiet after that scene, and I remember it disturbed me so much that I couldn't concentrate on the rest of the movie-- everything past that point remains a blur to me, and I hope one day for a DVD release so I can recall everything else that leads up to the bittersweet fuck-you of Newman riding down the river, (Fonda's?) severed arm attached to a pole, with its hand extended upward, digits stiffened into a Kesey-esque middle-finger salute.
Or wait a minute-- Are we both misremembering this? Does Newman hang out for a while, and then run off to try and get help, at which point Jaeckel is left alone, and that's when he is slowly dragged under-- with no one there to either help him or to even see his last moments alive? God, that's even more horrifying, and I think that might be the way this scene actually plays out. Why do I feel like I'm engaged in some cathartic repressed memory session here? :)
Okay, my wife confirms that Newman was there with him through the last awful minutes, and that it was Sarrazin who goes for help. Jeez, what a breakthrough. I need a drink!
A drink, then, to what Roger Ebert defines as "The Gradually Expanding Flashback."
Now that you mention it, I think I remember Sarrazin running desperately through the woods, he said, guzzling tequila straight from the bottle and sobbing.
Matt wrote "And boy, would I like to read that EDWARD SCISSORHANDS/OSWALD FLIPPERHANDS compare/contrast piece" ... heh, not surprised you caught that too. I'd forward the piece if I had it on this machine, it was long ago and on a pre-Internet machine, the only line I recall is "and what is the pasty-faced, messy-haired, funny-fingered Penguin if not Edward's evil twin." Actually it was largely a piece about Danny Elfman's score, but I was finding myself then starting to need more to write about the films as a whole (Elfman can be so abstract and random that he's actually difficult to write about, though at the same time it's always obvious that his music is yet another character in any of Burton's movies).
Ashamed to admit that I've never seen OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, and now in the era of DVD, I'm tending to wait until the urge comes upon me to see whatever (presently, via Netflix, I'm on a Takashi Miike kick, and speaking of awesome death scenes, the finale of DEAD OR ALIVE may be the most apocalyptic of all, rivaled of course by BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES).
And speaking of the Apes, Mr. Seitz, those first five movies are an obsession of mine (which made Tim Burton's remake such a peculiar disappointment, studio meddling to the nth degree, not least being the casting of Mark Wahlberg in the lead — this is someone Burton would have AT MOST cast as a bully figure, it's like a weird mirror image of 80s nebbish Anthony Michael Hall showing up as the beefy asshole in SCISSORHANDS, whose dispatch at Edward's hands is also particularly surprising and unsettling).
Anyway, I think the principal author of the APES movies is the noted poet and screenwriter Paul Dehn, who showed up on the scene with the second movie, wangled the ingenious means of thinking up the third, ESCAPE, and carried it over into the bloodthirsty CONQUEST. If you've read any of his scripts, they're far more elaborate than final budgets would permit, but awesomely cinematic; there are acres of gorgeous descriptions of the Forbidden Zone in his first draft of BENEATH, very little of which they could afford, I suppose.
CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was the only one of them to get a PG instead of a G, and in fact Fox was terrified that the movie was going to get an R rating, so a lot of the more overtly sadistic material got cut; for example, Don Murray's Governor Breck was originally slated to be beaten to death with his own belt, and I think they probably did film that, but instead Roddy McDowall's Caesar does an uncharacteristic about-face and delivers that dreary homily about "compassion and understanding," which was clearly post-dubbed and clearly hacked together at the last second; Roddy McDowall had given arguably the best work of his career during Caesar's original final rant, and in the post-dub he's not able to bring back the same frenzy, perhaps because he didn't quite buy it either.
Were people in a worse mood then, or in more of a forgiving one? I don't know. Consider the notorious re-rating of THE WILD BUNCH to NC-17. And PAPILLON, an awesomely brutal film (and one of my all-time favorites possibly for that reason, it's so unremittingly bleak), got away with a PG, and it's also crammed with female AND male nudity, though none of it frontal. The DVD carries an R rating, which I think it well earned, but I think in the 1970s and early 80s it was easier for big-budget movies to talk their way down a notch. Spielberg was apparently very good at charming the MPAA even when he was a relative unknown with JAWS (which bore the unusual "May Be Too INTENSE For Younger Audiences" underneath its PG). He also talked them down from R ratings for RAIDERS, POLTERGEIST, GREMLINS and TEMPLE OF DOOM, around which time (mid-late 1984) he proposed the PG-12 rating, which became instead PG-13.
Mutinyco mentioned the death of Toshiro Mifune's Kikuchiyo in SEVEN SAMURAI instead of the more famous arrow attack in THRONE OF BLOOD; both outstanding sequences, I still think the most chilling death scene Mifune did for Kurosawa (there were several) is one Mifune actually didn't do at all: when we learn of his fate via the shadowy Takeshi Kato, describing in gruesome detail what happens to him in THE BAD SLEEP WELL. It was somehow even worse than seeing it would have been.
I am inexplicably put in mind of Klaus Kinski's nearly plaintive winding-down at the end of Herzog's NOSFERATU.
And as for television (I'd thought of this earlier but no one else had brought up television), the freeze-frame close-up of Brian Blessed as the poisoned Augustus while his widow Livia (who is responsible) is struggling between justifying herself and grieving; Sian Phillips' performance throughout the series is a marvel (well, there's not a bum job amongst the whole cast, that's why so many of them are household names now), and yet I don't know that she wasn't even better in this one monologue where we can't even see her.
I said it before and I'll say it again: DEAD ALIVE is the WILD BUNCH of zombie pictures.
All the Peckinpah reminiscences are deserved tributes-- standing in a Virgin NYC store once, I came to a halt before a storewide monitor to watch Joel McCrea pass away at end of RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and realized two other gents my age were similarly entranced, all three of us crying. Claire Danes' death in LITTLE WOMEN made me a fan for life. Here are three no one has mentioned, all featured on TCM:
--Elisha Cook Jr. in BIG SLEEP takes the poison as ordered, and laughs, knowing something his killer doesn't;
--Royal Dano runs out of time in Huston's RED BADGE OF COURAGE, disengages from companions, muttering "Let me be...", and falls as a tree would, just as Crane described;
--the gut-shot mute killer in A. Mann's MAN OF THE WEST runs down a ghost-town's main street making the most unexpungeable squeal I've ever heard in a film.
"the WILD BUNCH of zombie pictures ... " okay, okay, I'll rent it already. (Offhand I suppose SHAUN OF THE DEAD would be the BLUES BROTHERS of the genre?)
anonymous's post made me think of another great one: Thelma Ritter's final monologue in Samuel Fuller's PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET.
And although the character who's responsible for his demise is not worthy, I couldn't help but be moved by Captain Kirk's last words (supposedly his last syllable was an accident, Shatner spotted something in the sky he wasn't expecting) in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS.
I haven't seen the cited MAN OF THE WEST, but it reminds me of a staggering sequence in the Japanese movie SOCHIYO NO KUBI (Sadao Nakajima, 1979, big hit there, unknown here; Nakajima is going to be the retroactive next Fukasaku when people catch up to him Stateside) ... a drunken, distraught mime suddenly commits suicide by chewing on broken glass, all the while singing and crying and carrying on (perhaps he's all the noisier now for having been so long a mime), it's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. (The actor in question, Ko Nishimura, has a long history of playing extravagantly bizarre death scenes; the one most of you are most likely to have caught is his campily lengthy sayonara midway through Fukasaku's BLACK LIZARD.)
A friend out here reminded me of another great one: the Biker from Hell in RAISING ARIZONA looks down at Hi and sees the pulled grenade pin hanging from his finger. Hi says, rather sincerely, "I'm sorry." Then, BOOM.
How about Spike Jonze's death in Three Kings? We get to see his death entirely from the perspective of Marky Mark, who's about to die himself. His attention drifts away, and when he turns his head back, Jonze is gone. Throw in muffled sound, and you have one of the most unnerving, discombobulating deaths that I can think of off the top of my head.
Also, ditto ditto ditto etc. on Slim Pickens in Pat Garrett. Preferably without Dylan crooning, "Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door!" (Thanks, though, to Warner Bros. for now giving us an option.)
(Although I'm now way behind the discussion, I don't really see this stopping me...)
Flattered as I am for your kind words re: Cusack, I can't really claim to be making an original observation. (If anything, the Cuze may be more aware of his reputation for hydro-compatability than anyone—I don't think it's a coincidence that his most unflattering, stalkerish scenes in High Fidelity are played in downpours.)
As for why the 60's/70's "put the sting back in death" (to quote Pauline Kael's review of Bonnie and Clyde), I sort of fee like that period, when the American film industry was dominated by a group of movie-loving anti-establishment types, was one of those times when despair and romanticism are inextricably linked in the artistic imagination. (And now, since I apparently have a thesis to prove, how about John Cazale in Dog Day Afternoon for a brutally resonant offing of a sympathetic outlaw?)
And, as for Peckinpah, I've always felt like a main character not dying in one of his Westerns says a lot more than when someone does. Randolph Scott and Robert Ryan have to live with their compromises— fade away rather than burn out. (Of course, we see the end result of these compromises in the framing scenes of Pat Garrett, when even the sellout gets it... Damn, I cannot wait to cash my next pay check and buy that DVD.)
Mark: Great thoughts on the 70s mentality. Despair and romanticism indeed. BTW, tomorrow I'm going to haul my ass to the nearest DVD outlet and pony up for Sam. Observations will ensue in a future post, and I am sure a fine new dialog will commence.
Matt: Thanks for the reminder on Spike's death. And what a performance! He reminds me of half the guys I grew up with in Dallas. In fact, I knew a kid who even sort of looked and sounded like him. His nickname was Boomer, and I heard he went into the Marines around about 1990. He could have been that character.
Anonymous: Your Joel McCrea story is totally Walker Percy, and it gives me a weird faith in humankind.
Great post and comments, and the new blog is first-rate. I don't think anyone's mentioned Henry Fonda's big payback in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. There's no way his exit could match the terrifying grandeur of his entrance, but there are worse fates than having your last breath supplied by Ennio Morricone.
Eihi Shiina's drifting away at the end of AUDITION left me with a swirl of emotions; sadness, disappointment, relief . . . anger even.
Chow Yuen Fatt's death in THE KILLER was nearly as corny as Spock's in Khan, and nearly as emotionally wringing.
If you're picking Mifune death scenes, how about his refusal to go away in SHINICHI NO SAMURAI?
Oh, and speaking of corny but effective, Willem Defoe in PLATOON (I am Jesus, hear me roar).
animated deaths?
Baby sis in HOTARU NO HAKA.
Spike in "Cowboy Bebop."
Much better than SCARFACE: Laurence Fishburne VS Wesley Snipes in KING OF NEW YORK.
Matt, Kronke here. You have some sadistic correspondents -- nice work if you can get it. What about Wages of Fear, when they're trying to spin their truck out of the oil spill and it rolls over Yves Montand's partner? Yves tries to pull him out of the muck - and not all of his body comes along.
The first deaths, of the other trucker team, are pretty shocking, too, when the nitro they're transporting blows. At first, all you see are the cigarette papers blowing around in Yves' truck; then, the distant and initially silent explosion. See you Monday.
One man's sadist is another man's moviegoer.
The final death in PROFONDO DEATH, after Hemmings' troubled hero has faced the truth about the picture he has seen in the beginning but not realized.
The final death in PROFONDO ROSSO, after Hemmings' troubled hero has faced the truth about the picture he has seen in the beginning but not realized.
"One man's sadist is another man's moviegoer" ... or, obviously, moviemaker. The more I think of JURASSIC PARK the more craftily toploaded with sadistic expectations it is (I just flashed on the goat, still tethered in the rain). Spielberg's genius was to make us wait so long. (Incidentally, at the time of the making of that one, he was quoted to the effect that he thought the original GODZILLA to be the greatest dinosaur movie ever made, and one can't help but notice that, while he puts his own unmistakable spin on it, the final emergence of the T-Rex is handled very similarly to the way Godzilla's only seen or heard in bits and pieces until more than halfway through.)
Varrick corrected himself above, I see, although I rather like the title PROFONDO DEATH.
Stuart Gordon's recent KING OF THE ANTS has a lot of really cruel and weird stuff in it, even nastier than CASTLE FREAK and I did not think that possible, and it's probably all the more unsettling for being grounded in a premise of at least vague plausibility. (You may be tempted to laugh at the sight of George Wendt playing such an irredeemable villain, but in fact he brings it off, and wonder just what's going to happen to him ... Gordon does not disappoint.)
Off the top of my head, Honora's brutal murder by the "Heavenly Creatures" is a scene that's pretty much etched onto my brain forever. And that may be due in large part to the fact that it was committed via a brick to the skull.
Ruediger: Bludgeoning scenes always creep me out more than anything else, except for death by torture. The end of BRAVEHEART would have made me vomit if I wasn't so amused by Gibson's movie-star-Christ complex. What is it about action heroes that makes them want to play ass-kicking martyrs when they get a chance to step behind the camera?
Matt, I can't believe you forgot about Goose in Top Gun. I know you had to keep the tear cup handy.
During the torture scene in "Braveheart" I kept expecting Michael Palin to step forward and issue "Cardinal Fang - fetch THE RACK!!!" But the film actually lost me prior to that: When Patrick McGoohan threw his effeminate son out of the [presumably waaaay high up] window for simply being effeminate - well, the action was tasteless enough...but to add the insult of having PATRICK MCGOOHAN do it!?!?! Shattered my heart. Into chunks of quivering flesh. To McGoohan's credit - he bounced right back as Billy Zane's dad in "The Phantom" (making him "a" Phantom as well). That I can see.
Mr. Burt Reynolds: I busted out the tear cup as soon as I read the word "Goose." God rest his jocular-yet-supportive soul.
PS--Loved you in "Rent-a-Cop."
Ruediger: Gibson has taken gratuitous potshots at gay people for so long that by that point in his career, I would have been surprised not to see it. Even in PASSION OF THE CHRIST -- which I'm one of the few critics in America to admit liking -- I find it interesting that he makes Satan a creature of indeterminate gender.
I've just found this blog and have been eating it up in between real work over the past three days. Great site!
This is a long dead topic, but I have to add almost every death in Blade Runner.
I was a teenager when I got the video (original, not directors cut) from the local library. All I had heard of it from bits I saw on tv was my dad saying it was a bomb, which I took at the time to mean it sucked, not that it lost a ton of money and was actually great. An obsession with industrial music reminded me of it -- it along with Videodrome (another find from that era) are amongst the most heavily sampled films for that style of music.
The opening scene "I'll tell you about my mother!" Zhora's death -- even if it can lean towards the cheesy side with the multiple shattered glass windows -- is a man shooting a fleeing woman in the back and inevitably gets the opposite reaction from the audience that Bryant has. Daryl Hannah's nervous system breakdown which she repeated in Kill Bill. And finally Roy deciding he loves life too much to kill this "little man."
uh, has anyone ever seen a FINAL DESTINATION movie ,what about SCHINDLER'S LIST like whean amon goeth snipes out two lazy workers,or when his gun misfires 3 times on an execution attempt then pulls out a beretta 9mm and that misfires ,not a death scene,but a good part in the movie.
Re: Blade Runner
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhauser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time
like tears in rain.
Time to die."
Those have to be some of the greatest lines ever written.
Another death that truly struck me was that of Cowboy in Full Metal Jacket. To watch it closely is really a gut-wrenching experience.
Re Roy Batty's death in Blade Runner: It's not really the words that make that scene so powerful, but rather the way Hauer says them. His diction was simply chilling. An amazing performance, and an amazing movie.
It's a damn shame Hauer never had much of a career after the 80's.
Yeah the ending on the vanishing scared me to death, I also hated that movie about the birds attacking.
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