Thursday, August 26, 2010

Thursday Talkback: your favorite emotional scenes

I've chimed in a lot these last few days with examples of how it can be more effective to use restraint when dealing with charged emotional scenes rather than simply writing a two-page crying breakdown for your main character. What are your favorite scenes?

What scenes made you cry and what can you learn from how the writer and director evoked that response in you? What techniques do you use when you need to show a character going through a very emotional moment?

21 comments:

  1. The ending of In a Lonely Place gets me every time. Don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I think what makes it work is the lack of dialogue following a very emotionally charged scene. It lets the audience take in what's happened without explaining it to them.

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  2. When Karen walks down the hospital hallway in silence and just knows Sid is dead on Knots Landing.

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  3. Clive owen racing through the streets of the ghetto to get kei and her child during the middle of a Fishes vs. Army battle. 7 minutes of glory.

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  4. When Jimmy Conway (Al Pacino) received the news that Tommy ( Joe Pesci) was killed

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  5. In Saving Private Ryan when the old man turns to his wife and pleads "Tell me I'm a good man." That gets me every freakin' time.

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  6. The opening montage of "Up," and then later in the film when Carl discovers what Ellie left for him to find.

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  7. The final scene of Evangelion directed by Hideaki Anno : the protagonist is lead to understand one harsh truth about reality as all the people he met during his trials applauds him for his discovery.

    Simply animated, with a slow remix of the show's song theme, but that was extremely well done.

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  8. Hands down best executed was Network, and Beatrice Straight's Oscar Winning scene (because that's really the only scene she's in). Wow, such a fantastic "throwing the husband out" scene. Actually another goodie is later in the film, the scene between Faye Dunnaway and William Holden where he leaves her. Having a character "devoid of emotion" (Dunnaway) be told how horrible she is as a human being, and she still can't really cry, but is about to. Wowee, awesome stuff... There's a reason that film won 3 Oscars for Acting. Not to mention Writing. No film has done that since.

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  9. Still one of my hands-down most affecting death scenes after all these years is Glenn Ford as Pa Kent in Richard Donner's Superman, for its utter simplicity in both performance and execution. He runs into a medium close-up, stops as he catches his breath, checks his pulse, says "Oh no" and collapses on the cut to a long shot of him on the farm. Clear, distinct actions, two shots. Tears me up even writing about it.

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  10. The last few scenes of Philadelphia. When Denzel Washington (Miller) visits Tom Hanks (Beckett) in the hospital for the final time, and then family and friends gather at Beckett's apartment following the funeral and watch home movies of Beckett as a child. That Neil Young song...I'm getting teary just thinking about it.

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  11. The spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp - Tramp's gesture is so gracious and vulnerable and Lady's response so accepting, I tear up every time.

    Of course, there are those who find it only silly because it's two Italian cooks serenading a couple of dogs--but those people have no soul.

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  12. "I have been, and always shall be, your friend."
    ST II The Wrath of Khan-death of Spock

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  13. Georgie Amberson repeating "God forgive me" with Orson Welles's haunting narration.

    The end of Ford's The Long Gray Line. Subtly, a soldier at the parade ground wipes a tear from his eyes. "It's a great day for Marty." "No. It's been a great life for Marty."

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  14. The Book of Stars had me crying from beginning to end, so much so that I couldn't go to work the next day because my eyes were so puffy.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163559/

    It didn't get distribution. I didn't study the film to figure out why I cried, I just knew I could never watch it again.

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  15. A Little Princess, when Sara learns her father has died and she's being banished to the attic. No words of note, just a fantastic use of objects and elements introduced earlier in the film (the doll that's supposed to bring her hugs to her father; Sita's circle of protection from the Rama story). You see exactly what she's trying to do, what it means, and why it's so futile; and it strongly reinforces the larger theme of story-as-coping-mechanism. Plus it makes me cry like you wouldn't believe.

    There are lots of other great examples, of course, but that's the one that makes me cry the most consistently.

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  16. One of my all-time favorite emotional scenes is the one between Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski in "Paris, Texas" -- the scene in which Stanton talks to her (his estranged wife, but she doesn;t know it's him) through the one-way glass in the peep show where she entertains lonely men. It's profoundly human and utterly heartbreaking at the same time - and not a tear is shed by either party, only the viewer. INHO, it's one of the greatest scenes ever written and filmed.

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  17. The end of House of Flying Daggers when Xiao Mei decides which of her men she wants to save and how she wants to save him. I bawl like an itty bitty baby.

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  18. I think I'm gonna win this one.

    _Wit_ where Vivian's teacher returns and reads _The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies_

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  19. Mike beat me to it with the opening scene of "Up".

    I have to say the very last scene of "Six Feet Under" where we watch all of our characters age to the soundtrack of Sia's "Breathe Me" is a total blubberfest for me.

    The final scene from "Safe" where Julianne Moore can finally look herself in the mirror and say "I Love You" to herself is incredibly powerful.

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  20. Seconding Mike and Zein on 'Up' and 'Wit'.

    The ending montage of 'Big Fish', where father and son finally connect. Oh, and 'Sense and Sensibility', where Marianne finally says 'Thank you' to Brandon - the slight change from resignation to hope on Alan Rickman's face gets me every time.

    I realise that in saying this I've revealed myself to be a big girl.

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