craiger'sgreatest
moviemoments
Well, considering the thousands (and I mean THOUSANDS) of films that I have seen over the course of my 30 years on this planet, what are the ones that contain those singular moments of greatness? Or, moreover, how do I constitute what I see as a great film moment. I guess that I see cinema as a fine art form of empathy. It's one of the those mediums (not too unlike paintings) that have powerful visceral effect on us. The greatest films, I feel, have a huge power over us in the sense that they work on us to create a state of pure transfixation. As Roger Ebert once described, the cinema is like a grand virtual reality machine where we become the characters and, for a few brief hours, bare witness to their lives and feel things through them. We empathize with them and relate to them. We become war soldiers in World War II, we become space pirates in galaxies far, far away, we become Roman Emperors...man...I could go on and on. The cinema, whether you agree or not, has the most transcending power over us than any other art form. Because it's ostensibly visual, our cognitive dissonance is basically shattered. We live vicariously through the films we watch, and...dammit...its great!
But, what makes a film scene (or moment....some of the best only last for mere seconds on the screen) my greatest? My brief list here is primarily subjective (objectivity is not the name of the game for film criticism). These are moments that had a profound impact on me. These are moments that, after I saw them, I have not forgotten. These are moments that, I feel, had a significant impact on the film world. These are moments that have an emotional resonation with me (some of them excited me, some made my nearly crying, some had me in a state of disbelief, and some made me cringe).
More importantly, these are moments that remind me what films are all about - they exist on a level of pure escapism, and these moments, for either minutes or brief seconds, made me forget that I was in a movie theatre, and you just can't buy that level of transferable power.
So, let the list begin:
Darth Vader reveals his true identity in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
Eat your heart our M. Night Shyamalan, because George Lucas pulled of the greatest twist ending of all-time in his fourth episode on the greatest film series of all-time. The STAR WARS saga has so many inspired moments, and will always be regarded as films that appeal for their breakthrough visuals and effects, but it's that small moment between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker at the film's conclusion where Vader reveals his true relationship to our hero that had us screaming, in shock, "what!?" more than any other moment in film history. Make no mistakes about, no one saw this coming when they first saw the film back in the spring of 1980, and it set up one of the great cliffhangers of modern movie memory.
Shower Scene in PSYCHO (1960)
Janet Leigh's final moments of life in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece of terror - PSYCHO - just may be the finest directed and best realized death scene of all-time. Hitchcock broke many cinematic conventions with this film and scene; not only was it grisly and violent (for its time), but it spat on conventions like killing off your main character before the first act is even done! The moment is also a masterpiece of editing, as Hitchcock labored through over 90 individual shots to create an eerie and frightening moment of horror that has been, as the cliché goes, often imitated, but seldom duplicated. It does not hurt that the scene is punctuated by one of the greatest musical scores of all-time.
Gene Kelly sings in the rain in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
Was there any doubt here? Not only is this the greatest film musical of all-time, but it sure as hell has the best song and dance number ever. Gene Kelly, who at the time of filming the scene, was suffering from a 103 degree fever, sang and danced his way into the annals of the most memorable moments of glee, satisfaction, and inner elation ever. This ultimate feel-good moment will melt even the harshest of cynics.
Telephone "Love Scene" from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
This 1946 Frank Capra classic (the best film of his career, no question) has my single favourite performance by any actor in one of the finest acted moments ever. Jimmy Stewart shares the screen with the equally great Donna Reed in this moment. Now, I use the terms "love scene" not in the literal sense but in the emotional sense. In the scene, George Bailey and his future wife are sharing the phone while talking to a friend from the past. Now, she loves him, he knows it, but he's been in a terrible and foul mood all day, not to mention the fact that he, deep down, loves her but is unwilling to tell her. The scene builds and builds until the emotional tension becomes very heightened, and it ends in a scene of quiet and feverous passion. This scene ostensibly demonstrates that you can have eroticism in films without any sex or nudity.
The end of CASABLANCA (1942)
What? The greatest love story ever told...and it has an ending where the hero does not get the girl?! Rick Blaine, a callous nightclub owner in a wartime waystation, played in one of the most memorable performances ever by Humphrey Bogart, has his world turned upside down when his lost love, Ilsa, returns into his life. We explore the two lovers reacquainting themselves and reliving past memories, but when the shaky events of the outside world collide with their ability to be together, it made for cinema's greatest endings.
Marlon Brando's Contender speech in ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
Arguably the finest and most memorable monologue ever in film history. I remember this tender moment between two wounded brothers because or its overt and painful melancholy. Terry Malloy's speech, where he laments on how his brother may have cost him his career as a legitimate boxer, is one of the most sensitive moments of pain, indifference, and regret ever, and it was Brando's performance in that classic 1954 Oscar winning film that held spearhead modern film acting to what it is today.
The elevated train chase in THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
Before William Friedkin made stinkers like JADE, he was one of the best directors in American cinema, and the chase scene in his 1971 crime thriller THE FRENCH CONNECTION is easily the most exhilarating action scene of all time. Shot, by the director's own admission, out of sequence and over a period of five weeks, the scene nevertheless provided a few minutes of cinema's best realized moments of kinetic action, and it ended on just the right note.
Travis Bickle's "You talkin' to me" speech in TAXI DRIVER (1976)
Probably the greatest scene of improvisational acting ever, in the best film of the 1970's. Yet, this very simple moment really gets to the heart of the film. Travis Bickle, preparing himself for the assassination of a presidential candidate, rehearses with his weapons in front of a mirror in this scene, and very few moments outside of this one have gotten to the heart of a desperate loner dealing with his own inadequacies and inner troubles. One of the great chilling monologues ever, and it truly captures the wounded soul of an outsider who occupies a world that he hates and despises.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" in APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
Monologues seem in vogue on my list...well...can ya blame me? This one, spoken with a sort of detached and surreal irony, is done by Robert Duval, as his platoon has just went through a Vietnamese village and laid it to waste with vast napalm bombs. Many remember the epic and enormous battle scene that precipitated this moment, but it is the aftermath of the attack and Duvall's unforgettable words that haunt our memories with the sick and brutal truth of war, and how combat can warp anyone's sensibilities.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat" - JAWS (1975)
This line is just to damn sly, sarcastic, and damn cool to be eliminated from my list. It's one of those small and ingenious moments in Spielberg's first big hit - JAWS - where he precisely knows that the best way to balance terror and scares is with moments of perverse and ironic humor. When Roy Scheider says this line, after he witnesses first hand the aquatic prey that him and his colleagues have been hunting for, you REALLY know how he feels.
