The House Next Door

For me I think it would have to be the image that is my avatar: Rock Hudson, strapped to a gurney, being wheeled to his doom in Seconds. Just before this, he has the epiphany that what human beings want is not love or money or fame, but "choice." And that is, of course, the one thing we ultimately can't have. No longer a sheep, then, he's essentially outlived his uselessness. Haunts me when the minutes drag, this emotional climax.

Matt, for me it's probably the scene at Ransohoff's in Vertigo. Jimmy Stewart is picking out clothes for Kim Novak to wear. As he describes the dinner dress he wants, with great and scary precision, he and Novak are both reflected in this huge mirrored wall. (She's trapped between him and the mirror, and dwarfed by him as well.) He's not looking at her but instead at the saleswoman, firing off, monomaniacally, his instructions; and Novak's looking at him, pleadingly, in fear.

It's a moment that crystallizes not just his romantic obsession, but more powerfully that futile and pathetic desire to remake the past (an impulse, we've all been in the grip of, in one form or another, at some point in our lives).

I can't say for what reason, it's certainly not a great movie in a pure sense, but this one small part of "The Longest Day" always sits at the back of my mind. It's the coded message the BBC broadcasts to inform the resistance that the Normandy invasion is underway. It's a french poem I'm not otherwise familiar with.

"Les sanglots longs
Des violons De l'Automne
Blessent mon coeur d'une langueur monotone."

or

"The long sobbing of the Autumn violins wounds my heart with a monotonous languor"

The way the German officer repeats the last bit to himself over and over while the rain falls just stuck with me for some reason, "Blessent mon coeur d'une langueur monotone", "wounds my heart with a monotonous languor". I often silently repeat it to myself when I'm lost for words, just this crazy absurd phrase .

Wide shot: Frank moves slowly across the screen in front of Sweetwater, the music threatening on the soundtrack... and suddenly it EXPLODES with the by-now extremely familiar chord, accompanied by Harmonica's steely visage entering the frame from the right. The music continues to tear your room (or, if you're very lucky, the cinema) apart - sound and vision come together perfectly, as they have so many other times in the film, but this moment is so magnificent it always sends a chill down my spine.

VERTIGO comes to mind for me, too, but it's probably the final shot of that film, with Jimmy Stewart stepping out onto the ledge of the bell tower and looking down in despair. The first time I saw the movie (I was 14 or 15) it was completely shocking to find the movie suddenly end like THAT. I expected an ending along the lines of REAR WINDOW or even PSYCHO, which may not be considered a "happy" ending, but which offers far more closure than "Vertigo."

There's this great scene towards the end of "Breaking Away." After winning the race Dave is celebrating with his family, Mike with his brother, Moocher with his girlfriend, then there's a shot of Cyril (Daniel Stern) realizing he has no one to celebrate with and he slinks away. Just lasts a couple seconds and it's devastating.

Less seriously, the cheez whiz scene from "Blues Brothers" always cracks me up.

The Wild Bunch, four abreast, walking to the end.

Kikuchiyo, in the rain, pouring out what the Criterion DVD commentator (Stephen Prince?) calls "the last full measure" against the bandit chief.

Inspector Tequila, ghost-white with flour, burnt match in the corner of his mouth, pistol pressd to the machine-gunner's forehead.

The ultimate duel with Tatsuya Nakadai in "Sanjuro."

Gandalf: "...Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside."

From "Temple of Doom":

Kate Capshaw: "Let's get out of here!"

Indy: "Yes. All of us."

"So, Judah Ben Hur: Today is the day."

It's an obvious one, but for me it will always be Atticus Finch leaving the court house.

It's a cliched choice, but I can't help that, now can I? Andy emerging from crawling through "three football fields" of shit, collapsing in the water, and in an exhausted stumble peeling his shirt off and raising his face and arms into the rain as the camera gives us that great overhead shot. A moment made even greater--I'd even say moved from mere greatness to sublimity, by Thomas Newman's genius bit of scoring, with music that manages to be both triumphant and sorrowful in the same moment.

A great -- and not nearly as simple as it first seems -- question.

Whenever I hear "Mad World" -- which is often -- I see the face of Donnie Darko's devastated mother, Mary McDonnell. It is not about the composition. It is about intense grief, leavened slightly by an unlikely hope.

My full response is here.

Usually don't participate, but thought I would throw in some of my (perhaps more "girl-centric") moments:

Mrs. Soffel: Diane Keaton is about to enter the prison; the new warden makes a cruel joke; she barely pauses before smacking him (HARD) across the face - then turns to the matron and says in an icy and measured tone "I'm ready to go in now"

Meet Me in St. Louis: In the Christmas ball scene, Judy Garland looks up at Harry' Davenport's disapproving face. "Hello" she says with that nervous giggle

Dogfight: River Phoenix runs away from Lili Taylor's apartment in the misty San Francisco morning with Bob Dylan on the soundtrack "Don't Think Twice; It's All Right"

The last shot of Diner, with all those young faces looking into camera, fading to a sepia tone.

The montage to "Seems Like Old Times" at the end of Annie Hall; that set all my romantic NY dreams in motion as a young kid in sunny SoCal.

Everything in this blog is outstanding, Matt. Keep it up.

There is a shot near the end of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man that often comes to my mind. I saw the movie twice in the theater, and the second time I saw it I saw just so I could see that shot again. It wasn't the beauty of the composition itself, or the particular story moment. I can only describe it as the apex point of a kind of addictive trance state that the movie created in me.

The shot is simple: Johnny Depp looks directly at the camera. The camera is slightly above him, and as he raises his head he also opens his eyes. I am not generally someone who pays attention to the intricacies of camera work, but I think it might be stopped down (or up, I can never keep them straight) so that it's slightly slowed down.

The first time I saw the film, that shot electrified me. It was a "yes" to everything I had been experiencing as I watched. I think it's because the film takes such a subjective point of view, so when Depp looks straight into the camera it's an affirmation that Jarmusch intends for you to be a part of his story. Or something like that.

The weird thing about this is that I'm not even that crazy about Jarmusch. I admire him, but my personal preferences run more towards classic Hollywood and traditional narrative film. It's out of character for one of his films to have affected me in this way.

So to cleanse the palate, I'll also give a shout out to my favorite dialogue exchange of all time:

Priest: Yes, I know that! Oh, that's charming. I'm sorry, I didn't know you wrote that.

Salieri: I didn't. That was Mozart.

Star Child.

or...

The opening monatge to Apocalypse Now.

In "Life is Beautiful", Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) demands to board a train headed to a concentration camp because her husband and son are onboard. She walks, small and defiant, towards the car, knowing full well she could die.

In the Mood for Love, my two favourite contemporary film actors the gorgeous and gorgeously dressed Maggie Cheung and the debonair Tony Leung pass each other on the stairs in 1960s Hong Kong. In slow motion. Over and over again.

In the words of ee cummings, it is a moment so mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful that I damn near cream myself thinking about it.

The Bridge on the River Kwai:

"Madness! Madness!"

The single image I think of more often than any other is the close-up on Stephane Audran's face at the very end of Chabrol's Le Boucher. I've always said that it's the most existentially terrifying shot I've ever seen. Its greatness lies not only in Audran's ability to express profound emotions wordlessly, not only in the skill with which Chabrol frames the shot, but also (and largely) in the fact that this moment cannot be analyzed. Any attempt to analyze what it means fails to capture the experience of seeing it. This moment should only, can only, be felt.

Are we all walking around with our very own idiosyncratic Chuck Workman-like montages playing in our heads?

I find this kind of thing absurdly difficult for some reason. Of all the movies I've seen, one image is supposed to rise to the top. This is why I would suck on a game show -- even if I knew an answer I would freeze on the spot. The best way to make me forget something is to ask about it.

Here's an image that has haunted me for 30 years: The setting: a railroad yard at night. 1970's nighttime photography. The scene: An exchange of some kind --hostages? --Money? A man in a business suit emerges from the darkness -- his head is encased in a golden mask.

I can never figure out what movie this is from.

The French poem is by Paul Verlaine, jilted lover of Arthur Rimbaud.

The single movie image that has stayed with me is Ethan Edwards walking away, gripping his arm a la Harry Carey Sr., at the end of "The Searchers". Much imitated, never duplicated.

Michael Corleone, walking, head bent slighlty down, hat on, hands behind his back, moments after he has had his brother-in-law murdered. Pacino has said he always thinks of that scene when he thinks of the character.

Corney as it maybe, it's the closing scene from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir where the Capt. tenderly releases the young ghost of Mrs. Muir from her old dead body. And with one sweet look of regret back, she and the Capt. walk out the front door into the mysterious fog of eternity.

It's probably gotta be that closing shot in The Searchers...

But, a runner-up: There's a shot in The Last Wave in which someone with an umbrella stops to get a drink from a water fountain in the middle of a rain shower. It's a lovely, poetic illustration of civilization's inherent absurdity...

With this:

The Wild Bunch, four abreast, walking to the end.

Kikuchiyo, in the rain, pouring out what the Criterion DVD commentator (Stephen Prince?) calls "the last full measure" against the bandit chief.,

Rasselas has caught the two that leapt to mind when reading the post. The next one would be the traffic jam in Weekend.

Hmmm...not sure one image is springing to mind. Usually, it's endings more than individual images, like Louis and Rick walking off together at the end of Casablanca or Norma coming in for her closeup in Sunset Boulevard. Since Bruno Kirby has been on my mind this week, I always remember Marlon Brando and all his girth ice-skating so gracefully in The Freshman.

Another LOTR moment:

Boromir, mortally wounded, fights like a berserk demon. My ex-girlfriend was not the only one crying.

I have a handful, but here's the top one, which is mostly cliche (and has been written about so much that I, sadly, have little to add).

That breathtakingly long shot of the desert in Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence emerging first as a shimmer, then as a speck, then finally, as Peter O'Toole, rushing towards the camera -- one of those shots that can ONLY be experienced properly on the big screen.

A sled is thrown into a furnace... Bernard Hermann's music crescendos... Rosebud.

Second place: the camera gliding over the leaves in Bertolucci's "The Conformist."

For me, it's Richard Roundtree coming out of the Times Square train station in Shaft. Whenever I exit the Times Square Station, as I will be doing tonight en route to my muthafuckin' Snakes on a muthafuckin' plane, I think of that shot. Shaft's so cool he jaywalks into traffic and doesn't get hit. His walk through Times Square leads to a stuttering, blind newspaper man who utters the funniest line in the entire movie.

I wanted to be Shaft when I grew up. I still do!

The final scene in Shindo's Naked Island, specifically the look on the father's face as he watches his wife break down. Makes my soul ache.

The scene in the Godfather when Michael is outside the hospital standing guard over his father and lights a cigarette. He looks at his hands holding the match and they are rock steady. The look in his eyes shows that he knows his future.

In In the Mood for Love, there is a shot of Tony leung, standing against a wall across from his bedroom in an undershirt while smoking a cigarette. after a minute, he walks inside the bedroom. Something about that shot has kept it in my head ever since I saw it five years ago

Mick Travis spies a man in a hospital room. All we can see is the man's head and he keeps saying please help me please help me. The man's body is covered by bedsheets. Mick pulls back the sheets. The man has the body of a sheep. A man's head attached to the head of a sheep and all the man wants is for someone to help him.

This image from O Lucky Man! has stuck with me since I was a kid.

There are a couple of great moments from a couple of really ordinary movies that have stuck with me:

In Contact: Jodie Foster is sitting on her car listening to the signals from the radio telescope, she's been doing it for years, she's not even really hopeful. Her moment of discovery when she realizes that she's heard a non-random signal is brilliant.

In Addicted to Love, Matthew Broderick is spying on his ex from a building across the street. He's set up a camera obscura and is projecting an image from her apartment onto a dingy wall. It's brief, but he comes by with a brush or roller of white paint and suddenly the scene he's watching pops with color and clarity. It's one of the most beautiful images I've ever seen on film.

Roy Hobbs' home run at the end of 'The Natural.' For me the goosebumps start a moment earlier when you see the blood on his uniform and his cherished bat splinters in two. The home run ball hits the lights, Redford rounds the bases in cheap angling-for-an-effect (but so effective nonetheless) slo-mo, and the baddies peer out onto the field from their outfield office window. I think the most outstanding component of this scene is Randy Newman's swelling, majestic score. A great ending to a movie that is often overlooked because it's such a paint-by-numbers formula.

Either Judge Reinhold's fantasy of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgmont High, or the elephant's funeral in Santa Sangre.

BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM.

"What's your name?"
"Marvin Nash."
"Listen to me Marvin Nash I'm a cop."
"Yeah. I know."

Amidst all the visual wonders at the end of "Close Encounters," the single image that stays with me the most, and gets me every time I see it, is a simple dolly-in to the face of the man who's been playing the keyboard. All the astonishment of everyone on that tarmac -- and in the audience -- is captured in this single face, and Williams' score is just magical at this moment.

The reveal of King Kong, as he stands before Fay Wray...

...or maybe the snowfall in the playground, wreathing our hero in IKIRU...

Another gurney moment: Tim Robbins strapped down on his passage through hell in Jacob's Ladder. This is probably the single most recurrent movie image in my nightmares.

Also, James Woods losing his gun in Videodrome and his puzzled face as he tries to figure out where it went.

Oh, one more from a more recent film: the final melee in the cockpit in United 93, culminating in that impossible split-second image of a grassy field in front of us.

In answer to the question, I actually think of an image from a movie that is far from my favorite. It's from Techine's Alice and Martin, in the first few minutes, when young Martin is feverish and alone in his bedroom, and he stands at the open window to cool off, the shot enveloping him in snowy night sky. I think of this image constantly, but I also think of very little else from the film (I can't even remember how it ends).

Every time I see a plastic bag loose on the street, or a bit of sand kicked up and spun around (I notice it a lot for some reason, sometimes even in whirls a few inches tall) I think of American Beauty. I wish I liked the film more.

I'm terrible at remembering scenes or dialogue from film exactly, so I apologize if the few scenes that follow are inexact (I would appreciate corrections). I also apologize for listing several -- but sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad.

First, the sad.

1) Near the end of Apu Sansar, Kajal is playing around behind a tree as the other children make fun of him for not having a father. They make some crack involving his father's mustache. Kajal, who has never known a father (nor much other care for that matter) asks guilelessly "Do fathers have mustaches?" I have only seen the film once (big screen), and the moment breaks my heart.
Kajal doesn't know what it means to have a father, but he knows it means something, he knows that the other kids have them, and he's trying to understand what he's missing. In this scene I find his struggle palpable.

2) Peter Falk bracing himself against the door from the inside while John Cassavetes screams, begs, and dies on the other side at the conclusion of Mickey & Nicky. The two friends have danced around all night, probing the degree to which their (childhood?) friendship still exists, but the whole night comes down to the one moment where Falk can choose to open the door or choose to hold it closed. Sometimes a friendship comes down to something just that simple, and just that hard.

But then there's some happy:

3) Nicholas Cage mouthing "I'm sorry" to Tex Cobb as the grenade pin dangles from his finger in Raising Arizona. Because I believe him, just as I believe Gale and Evell are sorry about "leaving a man behind" earlier in the film. Just because you're an idiot doesn't mean you can't own up to your mistakes and admit you're sorry.
And no, though Leonard Smalls blows up, I do not consider this a sad scene.

4) The slow motion destruction of the copier in Office Space. Because when people talk about the relation between humanity and machines in the modern age, they should talk about this scene, not Modern Times or Metropolis (fine films both, but dated with respect to 21st century life). The scene demonstrates just how cathartic even a relatively small subversive act can be, when directed against the appropriate target. It encapsulates every petty frustration of office life, but it also emphasizes the petty.

And a strange freebie I'm still trying to express to myself:

5) In Sherlock, Jr., Buster Keaton stands in front of a movie screen and suddenly realizes he can enter the movie. Obviously there's an edit where the movie screen is replaced with a shallow set for Keaton to enter. I don't know how long it took to perform the replacement -- it was long enough for the audience watching the movie-within-the-movie to adjust in their seats. But Keaton, as far as I can tell, does not move an inch; if you're watching him the transition seems seamless. I think of that scene a great deal -- I guess because I like to think: it could not possibly have mattered if Keaton had moved just a little bit, or if he had walked away from and back to a mark on the floor. But it mattered to him.

Anon

Bernie Bernbaum: "Look in your heart."
Tom Regan: "What heart?"
BLAM

The penultimate shot of Andrei Rublev.

Or the shot of the hubcap outside the bar in Cuba in Miami Vice

The empty hallway scene in Taxi Driver. You know the one.

Go here for more on my blog.

An impossible question. So here's an obscure answer for you that means just as much to me as anything more obviously familiar: The play of light across Kevin Anderson's face in the backseat of the cab in Mike Figgis' Liebestraum. Seriously. It's that beautiful.

Lovely that there's so little duplication thus far. A nice reminder of how individualistic even such an avowedly mass medium can be

For me, it's Barbara Jean's heartfelt performance of "My Idaho Home" at the Parthenon, as all of NASHVILLE's players gather round and the enormous flag, dancing along with the plucked, bittersweet notes, collapses and reveals its scaffolding before billowing out anew.

The single image I think of more often than any other is, without question, Elizabeth McGovern's brief nude shot in RAGTIME. My own lady with the white parasol waiting to exit the ferry.

1. Bogart, holding the empty glass while delivering a terse eulogy over Elisha Cook's body:

"You did alright Jonesy, but you left me high and dry."

2. Kinski tossing the monkey over his shoulder:

"Who else is with me?"

3. Bill Murray, two cigarettes dangling from his mouth, drily sublimating his despair into this:

"Mmmm...I'm a little bit lonely these days."

Man...I'd have to go with a scene that doesn't have any unique personal emotional resonance for me but which always hits me like a ton of bricks: A creepily dispassionate Lady Lyndon signing the check for Redmond Barry's annual stipend at the end of Barry Lyndon, at the exact moment when Kubrick turns up the volume on the Schubert piano trio ever so slightly. It's hard for me to think of a single more devastating climactic moment (short, perhaps, of the final shot of James Stewart in Vertigo realizing just what he's done).

Others that often come to mind: (a) Tom Cruise lying on his bed in Risky Business, flipping the catcher's mask down over his face and telling the escort service operator he's talking to on the phone that his name is Ralph. (b) The look of surprise and disgust on Major Strasser's face as the patrons at Rick's drown out the singing Nazis with their rendition of "La Marsaillese" in Casablanca, followed by Yvonne shouting "Vive la France" with tears streaming down her cheeks. A shamelessly manipulative moment, but boy does it work...

The ending of 'Aguirre:The Wrath of God" when he's on the raft with all the monkeys.

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Bill C: Seconds chills me. That ending is a worst case scenario for human existence.

Girish: You cut to the heart of Vertigo. It's not just about doomed love, it's a cautionary tale.

Anon 1: RE The Longest Day. Certain phrases from movies lodge in my head and stay there. My most-played phrases are from Glengarry Glen Ross (Alan Arkin's, "Boots, yes"), On the Waterfront ("You think you're God almighty, but you know what you are? A cheap, lousy, dirty, stinkin' mug!") and Goodfellas ("He's gone...And there wasn't nothing we could do").

Bill: That moment you mention from Breaking Away is on a select list of moments where movies actually tell the truth.

Rasselas: I'll go you one better on Temple of Doom -- the moment right after the exchange you mention -- Indy clocking Short Round's chain gang tormenter, then a low-angled fast dolly that reveals Indy standing in the doorway, ready to unleash his wrath.

Tosy and Cosh: Shawhank is pretty much irresitible, and I can't think of very many unabashedly crowd-pleasing Hollywood movies directed with such intelligence and restraint.

Eires32: That whole final sequence of Dogfight -- let's call it what it is, a fourth act -- really raises it to greatness, I think, and that Dylan song has a lot to do with it. Both the song and the sequence communicate a sense of helplessness accepted -- a sense of being at the mercy of forces larger than oneself and coming to terms with it.

Annie Frisbie: I know what you mean when you talk about Dead Man. I admire and enjoy Jarumusch, but never thought of him as a particularly emotional director, but this movie -- deliberately controlled and abstract as it often was -- really ripped me up. It's probably because it finds an aesthetic, "objective" way of communicating the hero's alienation from his world, his feelings and himself. That shot you mention is the Big Reveal. "The first time I saw the film, that shot electrified me. It was a "yes" to everything I had been experiencing as I watched. I think it's because the film takes such a subjective point of view, so when Depp looks straight into the camera it's an affirmation that Jarmusch intends for you to be a part of his story." I think you're right on the money.

Anna LaPerle: I am always happy to know that there's someone else who admits to loving Life is Beautiful. I think if Charlie Chaplin had been alive, he wouldn't have done too many things differently, and critics would have given him the benefit of the doubt because he's Chaplin. But my pick for the keeper image of the whole movie is that extended real time shot where the hero and his future wife go into the greenhouse and after long, long pause, a child emerges.

Wagstaff: I want to know what movie you're remembering. I am pretty sure I've seen it, too.

Hayden Childs: RE Weekend: I think the definition of an iconic movie is one that seizes and interprets mundane events in a way that makes it impossible for you to ever again experience them without thinking of the movie. I thought of Weekend this evening while sitting in a gridlocked taxicab trying to get home to Brooklyn from Manhattan on a Saturday night. Similarly, I am apt to think of Psycho while showering or Jaws while swimming at the beach. And I can't walk down a metal stairwell in a skyscraper without thinking of Die Hard.

Odienator: Shaft is your implied theme music.

Jill: That's a great moment in Contact, but my favorite is the shot of the young heroine racing upstairs to save her father, as seen reflected in the bathroom mirror. Horrible, horrible moment.

Tuwa: RE American Beauty: For all its faults, this must be considered an iconic film, because it claimed so many everyday images and imprinted its personality on them.

Andrew J. : That Casablanca moment gets me, too. It's the unabashed emotion on the woman's face that gets me. She's endangering herself by expressing any opinion at all, and she decides "To hell with it" and says -- sings -- what's in her heart.

The Great Swifty: Knowing that Home is being bootlegged in China fills my heart with joy.

I can think of 3 (random, in no particular order):

1 "SHORT CUTS" Jack Lemmon's exit in his final scene. He realizes that his grandson Casey is going to die and that he will be alone again, and he walks away from the camera with the saddest expression I've ever seen. What's more, there's a hospital worker mopping the hallway very slowly; Lemmon walks past him, interrupting his rhythm, but the worker is oblivious to what's going on.

2 "BELLE DE JOUR" Catherine Deneuve has just been "violated" in the brothel, and she's lying on the bed, face turned away from the camera. Surely this must be a terrible moment for her as the posture of her body suggests. But then she turns to face us and we see a perverse smile on her face, and we realize that she has enjoyed every minute.

3 "GHOSTBUSTERS" Dan Aykroyd sees Slimer for the first time and his mouth hangs open in disbelief. His lit cigarette dangles from his lower lip for the longest time as he slowly backs away. This moment always makes me crack up.

I wonder if, twenty or so years hence, anyone will be answering the question with "That's it! I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"

2001: A Space Odyssey: The Star Child observing Earth.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The killer rabbit attacking King Arthur's men (via a clearly visible string).

The Bicycle Thief: The ending, where little Bruno, with tears in his eyes, reaches up to hold his father's hand.

Grave of the Fireflies: As short ghost visions of Setsuko playing around the bomb shelter fade in and out, and in and out, to the music of a distant record player.

Underground: While on fire, a wheelchair-confined Marko and Natalija repeatedly circle an upside-down statue of Christ.

All About Eve: The ending - a young admirer of Eve stands in front of three mirrors, which reflect her image dozens of times over as she bows to each mirror.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The mother spaceship playing the musical copycat light game with awe-struck scientists.

The Thin Red Line: Miranda Otto on a swing, slowly gazing into the camera and then swinging away from us and towards the sun-glazed green hill.

Randomcha: That whole Jack Lemmon supporting performance in Short Cuts makes me so uneasy that as many times as I've seen the movie, I still have to steel myself to watch it again. What a painfully limited father than character is. I wonder if he ever really feels anything?

John: All the domestic flashbacks in The Thin Red Line are piercing, but the one you described is particularly mysterious. When I think of the movie, the first two shots that come to mind are the crocodile sliding into the muck, and, after a soldier is shot in a firefight, the shot of a leaf perforated by insect teeth -- the marks look like they were made by tiny bullets -- with the sun streaming through the holes.

And since, miraculously, nobody's brought it up yet, I might as well quote the famous passage from Walker Percy's novel The Moviegoer: "'I am quite happy in a movie, even a bad movie. Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives: the time one climbed the Parthenon at sunrise, the summer night one met a lonely girl in Central Park and achieved with her a sweet and natural relationship, as they say in books. I too once met a girl in Central Park, but it is not much to remember. What I remember is the time John Wayne killed three men with a carbine as he was falling to the dusty street in Stagecoach, and the time the kitten found Orson Welles in the doorway in The Third Man."

Last scene in "Inherit The Wind". Drummond (Darrow) picks up the Bible and Darwin's "The Origin of Species" and leaves the courtroom, after he calls Hornbeck (LH Mencken) out on his irreverence and bankrupt existence. Just as a world ruled by dogma was unacceptable, so too was a world, ruled by cynics; without the acknowledgment of spirit. He had just made a case for one in court that day and it contributed to the death of a man he used to call friend. Now was the time to make a case for the other. I remember seeing that on PBS, (I think), when I was a kid and it was the first time I realized how complicated the world was. That was just one of many powerhouse moments.

I am always in awe of Gabriel Byrne's performance at the end of Miller's Crossing.

I also really enjoy the scene in Saving Private Ryan when Oppem translates the Edith Piaf song to the other soldiers in the bombed-out street.

Also, in Underground, when the zoo in Belgrade is bombed, there's a scene where a goose (or a swan) and a tiger are trapped under rubble, and the tiger leans over and kills the bird even though it can't eat it.

So many to choose from...I love the club scene in "25th Hour"--specifically where one long, unbroken take follows Philip Seymour Hoffman as he makes his decision, walks up the stairs, and goes in to plant a kiss on Anna Paquin. Her expression says it all without a word, and the "White Lines" soundtrack to the whole scene is perfect.
Oh, and I just rewatched "Team America" tonight--the scene where the Hollywood celebrities turn loose "panthers" that turn out to be black housecats is a high point of an absurd masterpiece.

Oh, and...
"Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!"

Another: The only moment of actual filmed movement in La Jetee. Absolute show-stopper, that is.

That moment in The Godfather where Michael carefully tidies his hair right before heading out to kill the guys in the restaurant is pretty amazing - and you don't actually see Pacino's face, which is a sign of a brilliant performance.

The scene mentioned in Casablanca made me think of the last scene of Paths of Glory. The captured German Girl is brought on stage, and visibly terrified, starts to sing "The Faithful Hussar", and the crowd of French soldiers' mood shifts, illustrated on their faces, as they stop jeering and start to hum along. Though some start to weep, they don't seem to regret being yanked from their moment of escapism to consider the real tragedy of their situation.

And speaking of The Thin Red Line, every other shot sticks in my mind, but then it is a Malick film. The crippled parrot writhing on the ground, the shirtless japanese prisoner holding up a bullet with both hands while seemingly having a breakdown.

A lot of it was filmed in my home state of Queensland, so even the most trivial things such as the grass on the hills blowing in the wind, or the sounds and form of the greying clouds during the shot of the soldiers swimming in the ocean are just spooky to me, I know them so well.

And the melanesian choral music I still listen to regularly.

Randomcha stole my original choice with his shot from BELLE DE JOUR, my favorite film. It's Severine's expression that sells it- a look of complete satisfaction that feels both perverse and oddly sincere.

Another favorite: while as a whole I prefer RED, the most memorable moment in Kieslowski's 3 COLORS trilogy is in BLUE. Namely, the scene in which Binoche looks at the musical score for the first time after her husband's death. The camera follows her finger as she runs it across the score, and when she continues after the written music has stopped, the music continues as well. Yeah, I miss Kieslowski.

Thank you for that quote from The Moviegoer. When I worked at Kim's Underground, I had that posted up on the wall for the longest time.

Re: Kieslowski: There is a shot in Double Life of Veronique where she is holding marbles up to the light. I saw the movie about 10 years ago, and for some reason that moment led me to put some marbles in a dish. I still have the marbles & the dish, but I haven't seen the movie since. I should see it again because I can't remember anymore why that scene struck me as it did.

Annie: Kieslowski is a master of the sort of moment once described by New York's John Simon in a review of Badlands -- unexpected, poetic, slightly mysterious moments that don't obviously advance the plot or deepen the characters, but which, for whatever reason, "just seem to fit."
Double Life is full of those moments, though, like Paul C. (above), my favorite Kieslowski is Red, for its deep warmth and its determination -- more so than the other films in the trilogy, I think -- to show how nobody's really alone, that even the most alienated people are connected to other people in ways they don't even realize. The first time I saw it, it reminded me of Wings of Desire, and one of these days I would like to watch the two movies back-to-back and see whether they're really kin, or if it's just my imagination.

PS -- I still miss that Kim's location.

Red is certainly the warmest film in the trilogy, and as a middle-aged male I can more readily identify with the judge's character than, say, Julie Delpy's character in White.

That said, I think that Blue is the most impressive work of cinematic art in this holy trinity. It is the deepest of the three, with its focus on art, artistry, death and immortality, and most beautiful from a purely aesthetic standpoint.

Henry Fonda cuddled to ecstatic exhaustion by Barbara Stanwick in The Lady Eve.

Speaking of The Lady Eve... After Charles has complained, "That hasn't stopped everyone from calling me Hopsie ever since I was six years old!," I've always loved the sinister way that Barbara Stanwyck says, "Hello, Hopsie." It's right before their flirtation/romance crosses into S&M territory.

That moment in the Godfather was what I was going to choose -- Pacino walking away after having Clemenza kill Carlo. So I'll have to go with this one, amongst many...

In Rocky, near the end, when Rocky tells the promoter, Jurgens, that the poster of him is incorrect; Jurgens tells him it doesn't matter, "We know you're going to give us a great show." There's a look in Stallone's face, a mixture of recognition and resignation, that he finally has it figured out, that it's all a put-on, and everyone is in on it but him.

Kumo2006 and Joel: Well, if we're talking about Barbara Stanwyck, my pick would be either her trouper-like belting of "Drum Boogie" in "Ball of Fire" or her walk down the stairs in "Double Indemnity" (Fred MacMurray fixated on her lovely ankle).

And I'm with Anon on Gabriel Byrne in "Miller's Crossing." Like the movie, it seems rigorously opaque, bordering on either Sphinxhood or constipation. But the more times you watch the film, the more attuned you become to Tom Regan's character (and Byrne's performance), and the more precisely you can pinpoint what he's thinking and feeling at any given moment.

"Miller's Crossing" ceases to be opaque when you start watching it as a gay love story. The whole thing with Bernie-Mink-Dane is a simple love triangle that gets jealously out of hand, and Tom's devotion to Leo has a Sirkian unrequited-love angle to it. Watch it again. Listen to the dialogue ("a guy can have more than one... amigo, can't he?"). Also, think about why it quotes "The Conformist" so relentlessly. This aspect of the movie is probably very obvious to everyone here, but it's only something I picked up the third viewing.

Joel: "Tom's devotion to Leo has a Sirkian unrequited-love angle to it." Absolutely, but what I love about the movie is that Tom's motivation comes from so many contradictory and complimentary places, all at once. There's a romantic quality to Tom's devotion to Leo, but there's also a father-son aspect (glancingly Oedipal in that Tom the son is in love with his father's wife) and a classic noir aspect (the boss' trusted adviser sleeping with the boss' wife) and a careerist aspect (on some level, Tom seems to fancy himself smarter than his boss, a man who was surely his mentor in certain ways; and in the end he proves that he is, in fact, a superior tactical thinker, because he manages to reassemble Leo's shattered universe without Leo ever knowing that Tom was behind the reconstruction).

Maybe I should just write an appreciation.

Nutsa Kukhianidze sitting on the window ledge, smoking, in Neil Jordan's The Good Thief. Moroccan influenced arches of the apartment building under the lamps like gilt; the smoke from her mouth a velvety blue. She doesn't turn to look as her lover climbs up the stairs on the other side of the courtyard, calling to her. She has a secret.

It's a slight moment in a slight movie, but near the end of the remake of Ocean's 11, all of the principles are gathered, for one last time, in front of a fountain in Vegas to reflect on the big score they've just managed. One by one, they take off with a wink and a nod to each other. The last one to leave, though, is the old-time wheeler-dealer played by Carl Reiner, and the look of satisfied elation on his face lets the audience know that he's happy, that he's come to the end of a long existence with one last great moment, and he's drinking it all in, savoring the taste -- making it all the more poignant that they're in front of a fountain. I love that Soderbergh gave Reiner this moment.

Matt: "Maybe I should just write an appreciation [of MILLER'S CROSSING]."

Yes, please!

And congratulations on the video release. I'll be tracking that down soon.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about a movie I think isn't very good, but the images have stuck with me. The final shot of MIAMI VICE ends like the film begins: in the middle of an action. It has me thinking that MIAMI VICE is really all about living exclusively in the present tense. One of the characters walks towards the doors of a hospital and we know the story is going to go on from there. I do applaud this, as I think many films have clearly telegraphed beginnings and endings, and don't really suggest that things continue after the final reel. MIAMI VICE does just that.

It wasn't easy to just let my mind relax and let the image pop in without trying to force something, but the image came to me pretty fast once I did: The ending of Krzysztof Zanussi's "A Year of the Quiet Sun," with Scott Wilson and Maja Komorowska dancing in the dust in Monument Valley.

If I were given to hyperbolic Godardian pronouncements (and I am), I'd say, for me, this moment IS the cinema. I don't know how many times I've seen it, but I always find myself opening my eyes just a little wider, straining forward in my seat, as if I could soak up more of it if I did so. And that's what the image represents -- a hunger for life, for beauty, for joy, for meaning and resonance beyond all limitations of time and space. It's the culmination of a love affair that feels like both a memory and a wish-fulfillment fantasy at the same time. And it moves me beyond words.

Lots of Miller's Crossing love here, but I'm gonna hafta go with the most indelible image from Barton Fink instead: John Goodman running down the flaming hall, shotgun in hand, bellowing, "I'll show you the life of the mind!"

Also: Dennis Hopper feverishly muttering "Candy colored clown" right before intoning "In Dreams" to a thoroughly freaked-out Kyle MacLachlan.

Also: Warren Beatty dying alone in the snow at the end of McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

There are so many. But the one I've been thinking about the most lately is Spielberg's great tracking shot in A.I., which displays the Flesh Fair in its full vulgarity and insanity.

I might also aid Branagh's tracking shot of the aftermath of Agincourt from HANRY V.

Or Gus Van Sant's long, snaking shots from ELEPHANT, or the tracking shots from his GERRY which seem (to me at any rate) to both depict and negate movement at the same time.

Guess I'm just in a tracking shot frame of mind roght now.

There are a lot of moments in a lot of movies that I think about often, but there is one single image which is, as corny as it may sound, "sheer magic" to me. Despite the fact that is a completely unexpected, sublimely beautiful and fascinatingly poignant moment, it proves that one never really knows what a movie is about until the very last shot.

It's Being There.

The President (Jack Warden) is giving the eulogy at his friend's funeral while the simple-minded Chance (Peter Sellers) wanders off from the crowd, bends down to tend to a small tree and then..... starts to miraculously walks across the water of a lake as the voice of the President can be overheard saying "Life is a state of mind."

A marvelous, transcendant moment that to this day has me debating what actually happened in that film.

This is belated, I know, but I just stumbled upon this on the sidebar and I knew instantly the passage that's been tumbling through my brain for a year or so.

Early in Tarkovsky's MIRROR there's a scene where the camera's in the kitchen of a rural two-(three?)room house, focused on two children at the table. Then the camera pulls back and swivels and follows the mother, and then the children through the small house and out the front door to see a neighbor's barn on fire in the rain. The first time I saw the movie I couldn't really focus on what was happening but the swift, fluid camera movements made my jaw drop. Pretty much the whole movie does that to me, but that one moment when the camera shifts to the left, matched with the voice over and sound effects of rain and feet is pure mise-en-scene. I thought I'd had it good before with the climax of THE SACRIFICE and, as Keith said, "the penultimate shot of Andrei Rublev", but this is the one that stands above them all ina league all its own, followed closely by the zoom at the end of the picture. When that zoom happened, I was immediately struck inside--how did he plan that? Did he hear the Mozart when he was shooting? Brilliance. I wish I had time to watch it again right now but alas I must go sell popcorn and soda.

Another, quickly: Adrian Brody opening the bread covered in jam near the close of THE PIANIST. All the SHAWSHANK lovers need to re-watch that movie if they want true transcendance.

The scene in Sansho Dayu where Anju calmly walks into the lake, disappearing into her own reflection, till there's finally nothing left but the black concentric ripples on the gleaming white surface of the water.

The very last scene from Nights of Cabiria.

The end of Notorious when Devlin (Cary Grant) is helping the poisoned Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) out of bed. Their faces are so close, they are whispering to avoid being overheard, yet he is trying desperately to keep her alive. The camera floats around them in such a way to allow us to feel the intimacy, the urgency.

In Rear Window (though I could honestly cite every scene in this film) when the entire courtyard is brought to their balconies as the woman screams about her dead dog...the only window that is still dark is Thorwald's (Raymond Burr), and the view of that window from Jeffries' (Jimmy Stewart) apartment is that of a lit cigarette, slowing being consumed.

The Matrix. Neo and Trinity are in the matrix, breaking into the building where Morpheus is held captive. The scene before they get on the elevator is incredible.

The final scene of Umbellas of Cherbourg affects me like nothing else in the world. Just humming the tune I start to well up. When Geneviève introduces Guy to Francoise... I've just been hit with an overwhelming bittersweet sadness just thinking about it.

2001. The circular drum interior of The Discovery rotating as Frank Poole runs around it, moving past his colleagues asleep in their containers.

I think about the detached lonely wonder of that shot all the time.

Here's one that's not likely to be shared by anyone else yet really lingers for me: the final montage of Alien 3, a series of shots of machines stopping, doors slamming shut and gates closing. The in-your-face finality of it all (the end of a movie, the end of a series (or so it seemed), the end of a prison, the end of a woman's life) really impressed me and keeps popping into my head at unexpected moments.

Not a great film, by any means, but better than its reputation.

Lawrence of Arabia. Final scene in General Allenby's office with Dryden and Brighton in attendance along with Lawrence and Prince Faisal. Prince Faisal says to Lawrence as he prepares to exit Damascus and Arabia for good, "what I owe you is beyond evaluation."

Last Year in Marienbad: the camera stalks through the corridors of the hotel until it reaches Delphine Seyrig in one of the rooms. She is looking right at us.


Lost Highway: Pete and Alice making love in the headlights of a car in the desert while 'Song to the Siren' plays.

Pete: I want you. I want you, Alice.

Alice: You'll NEVER have me.


The Gospel According to St. Matthew: The angel Gabriel appears to announce Jesus's resurrection. The moment when he and Mary smile at each other while that incredible music swells is amazing.

Inland Empire: the end, with all those people in the room, from Nastassia Kinski to a random Lumberjack. It's so joyous.


Cabaret: the nazi boys singing. Tomorrow Belongs to Me. The most blood chilling scene ever.

I love movies.

- The smoking of the last cigarette in Dekalog Five.

- Just after the last shot of Esther's room in "Silent Light", the sunlight rippling over the field of wheat while the camera moves to the right, with the lens flaring. Transcendental. And then, slightly later, in the last shot, when the sun moves through the tree. I distinctly remembered some sublime music in that scene, even though there is none. It is that powerful.

- The final shot of Cache'. The way the Ending starts to happen when you are mentally in the midst of the film, with almost everything unresolved, is nothing short of a tour-de-force of open-interpretation in modern cinema.