What's your favorite, most psychologial-impressive movie scene??

[Trenchfriend]

I don't have to think long about!

1:01, Captain Thomsens face on realizing again. One of the hardest moments...

 

[Worf]

Hmmm interesting thread. I'd say in "The Sixth Sense" when Bruce Willis realizes finally... that he is one of dead that's been haunting the child.

Worf

 

[MisterCairo]

The ending minutes of Withnail & I.

Friendship, moving forward, sense of failure.

 

[green papaya]

THE DEER HUNTER RUSSIAN ROULETTE scene

 

[Harris HTM]

Johnny Got His Gun closing scene. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Peter Finch's "I'm MAD AS HELL and I'm NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!" speech from "Network"(1975.) Perhaps the best scene in the most prescient movie of the last fifty years.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Barney Greenwald's speech in "The Caine Mutiny."

Although, the text in the book is far more powerful. Lt. Greenwald is de- ethnicized in the film, and while the film scene still packs quite a punch, read the text in the book by Herman Wouk for a far more powerful rendition:

They all cheered; they all drank; they sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in bellowing discords. The lawyer stood, pallid and skinny, his mouth foolishly twitching in momentary grins. "Speech! Speech!" said Keefer, clapping his hands and dropping into his chair, and everybody took up the cry and the applause.

"No, no," Greenwald mumbled, but in a moment he was standing alone, and all the faces at the table were turned to him. The party settled into expectant quiet. "I'm drunker'n any of you," he said. "I've been out drinking with the judge advocate--trying to get him to take back some of the dirty names he called me--finally got him to shake hands on the ninth whisky sour--maybe the tenth--"

"That's good," Maryk said. "Challee's a decent guy--"

"Had to talk loud 'n' fast, Steve--I played pretty dirty pool, you know, in court--poor jack, he made a wonderful argument. Multitudes, Multitudes, hey," He peered blearingly at the cake. "Well, I guess I ought to return the celebrated author's toast, at that." He fumbled at a bottle and sloshed wine into a class and all over his hands. "Biblical title of course. Can't do better for a war book. I assume you gave the Navy a good pasting?"

"I don't think Public Relations would clear it, at any rate," the novelist said, grinning.

"Fine. Someone should show up these stodgy, stupid Prussians."

Greenwald weaved and grabbed at the chair. "I told you I'm pretty far along--I'll get to my speech yet, don't worry--Wanna know' about the book first. Who's the hero, you?"

"Well, any resemblance, you know, is purely accidental--"

"Course I'm warped," said Greenwald, "and I'm drunk, but it suddenly seems to me that if I wrote a war novel I'd try to make a hero out of Old Yellowstain." Jorgensen whooped loudly, but nobody else laughed, and the ensign subsided, goggling around. "No, I'm serious, I would. Tell you why, Tell you how I'm warped. I'm a Jew, guess most of you know that. Name's Greenwald, kind of look like one, and I sure am one, from way back. Jack Challee said I used smart Jew-lawyer tactics--course he took it back, apologized, after I told him a few things he didn't know-- Well, anyway...The reason I'd make Old Yellowstain a hero is on account of my mother, little gray-headed Jewish lady, fat, looks a lot like Mrs. Maryk here, meaning no offense."

He actually said "offensh." His speech was halting and blurry. He was gripping the spilling glass tightly. The scars on his hand made red rims around the bluish grafted skin.

"Well, sure, you guys all have mothers, but they wouldn't be in the same bad shape mine would if we'd of lost this war, which of course we aren't, we've won the damn thing by now. See, the Germans aren’t kidding about the Jews. They're cooking us down to soap over there. They think we're vermin and should be terminated and our corpses turned into something useful. Granting the premise--being warped, I don't, but granting the premise, soap is as good an idea as any. But I just can't cotton to the idea of my mom melted down into a bar of soap. I had an uncle and an aunt in Cracow, who are soap now, but that's different, I never saw my uncle and aunt, just saw letters in Jewish from them, ever since I was a kid, but I can't read Jewish. Jew, but I can't read Jewish. "

The faces looking up at him were becoming sober and puzzled. “I’m coming to Old Yellowstain. Coming to him. See, while I was studying law 'n old Keefer here was writing his play for the Theatre Guild, and Willie here was on the playing fields of Prinshton, all that time these birds we call regulars--these stuffy, stupid Prussians, in the Navy and the Army -were manning guns. Course they weren't doing it to save my mom from Hitler, they're doing it for dough, like everybody else does what they do. Question is, in the last analysis--last analysis--what do you do for dough? Old Yellowstain, for dough, was standing guard on this fat dumb and happy country of ours. Meantime me, I was advancing little free non-Prussian life for dough. Of course, we figured in those days, only fools go into armed service. Bad pay, no millionaire future, and You can't call your mind or body your own. Not for sensitive intellectuals. So when all hell broke loose and the Germans started running out of soap and figured, well it's time to come over and melt down old Mrs. Greenwald--who's gonna stop them? Not her boy Barney. Can't stop a Nazi with a lawbook. So I dropped the lawbooks and ran to learn how to fly. Stout fellow. Meantime, and it took a year and a half before I was any good, who was keeping Mama out of the soap dish? Captain Queeg.

"Yes, even Queeg, poor sad guy, yes, and most of them not sad at all, fellows, a lot of them sharper boys than any of us, don't kid yourself, best men I've ever seen, you can't be good in the Army or Navy unless you're ******* good. Though maybe not up on Proust 'n' Finnegan's Wake and all."

Greenwald stopped, and looked from side to side. "Seem to be losing the thread here. Supposed to be toasting the Caine's favorite author. Well, here goes, I'll try not to maunder too much. Somebody flap a napkin at me if I get incoherent. Can't stay for dinner so I'm glad you called on me to make a toast so I can get it over with. I can't stay because I'm not hungry. Not for this dinner. It would in fact undoubtedly disagree with me."

He turned to Maryk.

"Steve, the thing is, this dinner is a phony. You're guilty. I told you at the start that you were. Course you're only half guilty. F' that matter, you've only been half acquitted. You're a dead duck. You have no more chance now of transferring to the regular Navy than of running for President. The reviewing authorities'll call it a miscarriage of justice, which it is, and a nice fat letter of reprimand will show up in your promotion packet--and maybe in mine--and it's back to the fishing business for Steve Maryk. I got you off by phony, legal tricks--by making clowns out of Queeg, and a Freudian psychiatrist--which was like shooting two tuna fish in a barrel--and by 'pealing very unethically and irrelevantly to the pride of the Navy. Did everything but whistle Anchors Aweigh. Only time it looked tough was when the Caine's favorite author testified. Nearly sunk you, boy. I don't quite understand him, since of course he was the author of the Caine mutiny among his other works. Seems to me he'd of gotten up on the line with you and Willie, and said straight out that he always insisted Queeg was a dangerous paranoiac. See, it would only made things worse to drag Keefer in. You know all about that, so as long as he wanted to run out on you all I could do was let him run--"

"Just a minute--" Keefer made a move to get up.

"'Scuse me, I'm all finished, Mr. Keefer. I'm up to the toast. Here's to You. You bowled a perfect score. You went after Queeg, and got him. You kept your own skirts all white and starchy. Steve is finished for good, but you'll be the next captain of the Caine. You'll retire old and full of fat fitness reports. You'll publish your novel proving that the Navy stinks, and you'll make a million dollars and marry Hedy Lamarr. No letter of reprimand for you, Just royalties on your novel. So you won't mind a li'l verbal reprimand from me, what does it mean? I defended Steve because I found out the wrong guy was on trial. Only way I could defend him was to sink Queeg for you. I'm sore that I was pushed into that spot, and ashamed of what I did, and thass why I'm drunk. Queeg deserved better at my hands. I owed him a favor, 'don't you see? He stopped Hermann Goering from washing his fat behind with my mother.

"So I'm not going to eat your dinner, Mr. Keefer, or drink your wine, but simply make my toast and go. Here's to you, Mr. Caine's favorite author, and here's to your book."

He threw the yellow wine in Keefer's face.

A little splashed on Willie. It happened so fast that the officers at the other end of the table didn't know what he had done. Maryk started to get up. "For Christ's sake, Barney--"

The lawyer shoved him back into his chair with a shaking hand. Keefer automatically pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face, staring dumfounded at Greenwald. Greenwald said, "If you want to do anything about it, Keefer, I'll wait in the lobby for you. We can go someplace quiet. We're both drunk, so it's a fair fight' You'll probably lick me. I'm a lousy fighter."

The other officers were beginning to mutter to each other agitatedly, glancing sidewise at Keefer. Greenwald strode out of the room, stumbling a little near the door. The novelist stood up. There was a thick, ugly silence, as though someone had just shouted a lot of dirty words. Keefer glanced around and uttered a laugh. No eye met his. He dropped back in his chair. "The hell with it. Poor guy is just crazy drunk. I'm hungry. He'll be around to apologize in the morning. Willie, tell them to bring on the chow.

"Okay, Tom."

The meal was eaten rapidly in a clinking quiet, broken by infrequent low remarks. When Keefer cut the cake there was a brief dismal scattering of handclaps. The party broke up immediately after the coffee. There were five unopened bottles of champagne still standing on the littered table.

Willie curiously scanned the lobby when he came out of the private dining room, but the pilot was gone.

 

[Stearmen]

A little more subtle, but moving for me. The Sand Pebbles, when Steve McQueen goes below to inspect the engine and says: "hello engine, I'm Jake Holman!"

 

[Benzadmiral]

Two in the movie Poltergeist. Not just frightening moments, now, but emotional moments as well. First, when Diane (JoBeth Williams) feels the spirit of her still-living daughter pass through her: "It's . . . it is . . . it's my baby. It's my baby. She went through my soul!"

And later, when Craig Nelson's boss is up on the hill with him, proclaiming all the great developments that are to come. Boss admits that the company moved the cemetery down below up on to the hill where they are standing, the camera pulling back to show the fence and the headstones. Nelson mutters, "And no one said anything?" Boss looks blank. "No one's complained . . . until now."

What am I saying? There are many more zing! moments in that, mostly thanks to some of the best dialogue ever in a ghost story, from the older paranormal researcher lady offering a hopeful vision of the afterlife, to Tangina the short medium lady:

"It keeps Carol Anne very close to it and away from the spectral light. It lies to her, it tells her things only a child could understand. It has been using her to restrain the others. To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is the Beast. . . . Now clear your minds. It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning. Don't give it any help, it knows too much already. . . ."

 

[Tiki Tom]

 

[Feraud]

A little more subtle, but moving for me. The Sand Pebbles, when Steve McQueen goes below to inspect the engine and says: "hello engine, I'm Jake Holman!"

That's a great scene!

 

[Tiki Tom]

...And... Emma Thompson getting crushed and then trying to recover in "Love Actually".

 

[Frunobulax]

I don't know if it's my favorite, but it's the first thing that came to mind. FL's media embed won't let me set the time, but it's particularly the scene beginning at 3:19.

 

[DocCasualty]

William Holden in the The Wild Bunch at 2:12. "If they move, kill 'em!"

 

[DNO]

Mine is actually a fairly quiet scene from the film Mississippi Burning. It's the scene in the kitchen when Gene Hackman and Frances McDormand are having a sort of down home conversation. Specifically it is that split second when the conversation changes from being a friendly chat to an interrogation. The change in Hackman's eyes...chilling. Hackman could do more acting with his eyes than a lot of actors could do with their whole body. He did something similar in French Connection.

 

[scottyrocks]

The famous interview scenes between Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Hopkins is diabolical in his treatment of the role reversals during some of the scenes. I don't think I know anyone who didn't get chills down their spine during those scenes, especially when he calls her by name.

 

[Benzadmiral]

The famous interview scenes between Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Hopkins is diabolical in his treatment of the role reversals during some of the scenes. I don't think I know anyone who didn't get chills down their spine during those scenes, especially when he calls her by name.

Yes indeed. Lecter is an archetype, much like Count Dracula or the Shapeshifter (usually shown as a werewolf). Imagine being face-to-face with the actual Count Dracula, King of the Vampires, and finding he's more terrifying than Lugosi, Lee, and all the others put together . . . but at the same time rather charming.

I don't recall if it's in the Silence film, but in the novel Starling makes the (fake) offer to Lecter that, if he tells what he knows about Buffalo Bill, he'll get to walk outdoors one week a year on an island with nesting terns. And Lecter sighs, "Terns . . ."

Lecter has (some) human qualities. They're just not always on display.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Early on in "L.A. Confidential" there is an almost throwaway scene which is one of the finest, most compact examples of psychological exposition that I have ever seen. Young, super-ambitious cop Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) takes the night watch. The other detectives leave for the night, not bothering to conceal their contempt for him. He opens his college books on his desk and begins to study. He glances up at the clock at the other end of the room, next to the intercom. He looks at his watch. There are a few minutes of discrepancy. He gets up from his desk, crosses the room and begins to adjust the clock. At that moment he catches the squeal on the Nite Owl massacre over the intercom.

This scene, wordless though it is, speaks volumes about who Ed Exley is and what makes him tick. First, it really bothers him that his watch and the clock don't agree. Second, he knows it's his watch that is correct! He doesn't bother with calling time -and - temperature. He is an anal compulsive perfectionist and supremely confident in his own rectitude.

In all the many reviews of this classic I've read, I've never seen this scene mentioned.

 

[vitanola]

 

[Edward]

The famous interview scenes between Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) and Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Hopkins is diabolical in his treatment of the role reversals during some of the scenes. I don't think I know anyone who didn't get chills down their spine during those scenes, especially when he calls her by name.

Quid pro quo, Clarice.....

I actually use this to explain the concept of consideration in English contract law to undergraduate students.

There are a lot of Indiana Jones moments that get me - "Maybe, Sweet heart, but not today", "It's not the years.... it's the mileage", and more.... but one that really sticks with me is when he does that riff about "truth" in the classroom in Last Crusade. I find myself paraphrasing that all the time with my students. (Actually, those few scenes of his teaching style have - I realise now after nearly twenty years an academic myself - had a huge impact on my own lecturing style).

One line that sticks with me is from that film, The Butler, where the Forrest Whitaker character questions the more militant stance taken by his son, formerly a passenger on MLK's love bus. The son quietly, but with real weight, sinmply replies "we ain't getting beat up no more." I find I respond strongly on an emotional level to cinematic characters who stand up and say 'no more' in that firm, slightly threatening way. Perhaps in large part because I'm such a pushover myself, and often wish I was a bit firmer.