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What's the single greatest scene in cinematic history?

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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:39 PM
Original message
What's the single greatest scene in cinematic history?
IMHO, it is the climactic three-way standoff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. It's got an outstanding score, amazing location, great cinematography, every shot from the close ups to the wide angle landscape shots are perfect, the editing's perfect, the performances by Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef are amazing, even the blinking of an eye becomes significant, and the suspense is just incredible.
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redqueen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:42 PM
Response to Original message
1. Hmmmmm...
Right of the bat I thought of the scene depicting man's first use of tools in 2001.

I'll have to think on that one a bit...


(And THANK YOU SO MUCH for this distraction... :loveya:)
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:46 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. I'm having trouble remembering the whole sequence.
It opened with an ape gang war over a watering hole, right? Followed by them waking up to an obelisk. Then the ape finds the bone. kills a tapir with it, then another ape, then throws it up to fade into the spaceship. Is that right?
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redqueen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #4
23. Yes that's pretty much it.
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Dogmudgeon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
2. The scene with the eye in Andalusian Dog (Chien Andalou)
You know what I mean.

--p!
That's gotta hurt
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Lavender Brown Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:44 PM
Original message
Eeek!
That was scary. I believe they used a pig's eye. :scared:
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:44 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Haven't seen it actually.
nt
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TheCentepedeShoes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:47 PM
Response to Original message
5. Two that come to me
Slim Pickens riding The Bomb and Holly searching for Cat.
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Guaranteed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:13 PM
Response to Reply #5
33. LOL yeah the riding the bomb- absolutely CLASSIC. nt
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sans qualia Donating Member (675 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #5
51. Holly searching for Cat?
There was a Red Dwarf movie?
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dean_dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:47 PM
Response to Original message
6. The movie "Heat"
At the very end, as Pacino is standing over Robert De Niro's body, and the airport lights start glowing right on top of them. Frickin' awesome.
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. That is a good one.
the score was very important there too, if I remember correctly.
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McKenzie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:48 PM
Response to Original message
7. the opening scenes in "Apocalypse Now"
the Doors' track "The End" as the backdrop to the jungle lighting up with napalm. I love Coppola's work.

A close second is when the patrol boat reaches the last outpost and command lines have broken down. Hendrix's reverbs are a particularly appropriate metaphor for chaos.

But, for sheer power, the helicopter gunship attack with Wagner...wow!
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:52 PM
Response to Reply #7
13. My favorite scene in Apocalypse Now (out of many great ones)
is when Sheen is captured and kept in a big metal container. It's absolutely pitch black. Like it's the end of the world, or it's outer space or something. And then the camera pans across a tear in the side of the container, it's like a rip in the fabric of space and time. It just glows, you can't see anything else. And there's a dozen little vietnamese children staring in at him, chattering away. Sheen passes out, then comes to again, his vision passes over the tear again, and the children are still there, but if you look closely, you see Marlon Brando staring in with them. Like some kind of malevolent demiurge, surrounded by a host of angels.
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McKenzie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #13
27. repays watching again and again
one of the seminal films of the era..."Saigon...sheeeyit"

It helps to read Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" first though.

"Who's in command here soldier?" "Ain't you?"
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:11 PM
Response to Reply #27
31. "Do you know who's in charge here?"
"yeah"

:evilgrin:
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:50 PM
Response to Original message
9. I might catch hell for this..
But I think the greatest scene in cinema history is the firecracker/drug-deal-gone-bad scene in 'Boogie Nights'. Hey, it's subjective.. but I've seen lots of movies, old and new, and that scene affected me in a way no other single scene has.

BTW, the best chase scene is from "Raising Arizona" when Hi is running from the cops with the Huggies. It's absolutely perfect.
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CBGLuthier Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #9
15. Oh that is a fine one
Certainly one of the best scenes in that movie and I think it is a great movie. Alfred Molina is a truly great actor.
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DrWeird Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:56 PM
Response to Reply #9
18. I've only seen that once...
I remember really liking the part where he's singing along with "I wish that I had Jesse's girl" lol. Fantastic. The rest I'm a little hazy on, don't remember the firecracks, but I remember the panicky get away. The scene that sticks out in my mind is the botched donut store robbery with Don Cheadle.

Agree with "Raisin Arizona." That, and the guy shooting lizards off the rocks as he's racing down the highway.
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:01 PM
Response to Reply #18
25. You're thinking of the correct scene (Jessie's Girl)
I can't believe you don't remember the Vietnamese boy lighting firecrackers.. :) That was kind of the gist of the whole thing. Let yourself inside Dirk's head and watch it again. It gives me goosebumps every time.
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Guaranteed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:09 PM
Response to Reply #9
30. No, that's a great scene...with "Jessie's Girl"....
that revelation he has. Great scene.
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stopbush Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:51 PM
Response to Original message
10. Bogey & Bergman, end of Casablanca.
"Here's lookin' at you, kid."

C'mon...what's better than that?
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GOPisEvil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 09:59 PM
Response to Reply #10
46. Right movie...different scene...
I prefer the scene where Sam is playing "As Time Goes By" in Rick's, for Ilsa, and Rick enters. The look on both his and Ilsa's faces are so expressive and tell a story in themselves.
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sir_captain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:51 PM
Response to Original message
11. Ending of Chaplin's City Lights
don't want to give it away, but suffice it to say that Kubrick and Orson Welles agreed with me, and it is the most indelible moment on film that I can think of.
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CBGLuthier Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:52 PM
Response to Original message
12. Good Bad and Ugly hard to top
The way the music builds to a crescendo and then backs down almost to nothing again before coming to one more great climax as the guns start firing.

Another magnificent scene is the early scene in Once upon a Time in the West. When we first meet Henry Fonda's character. I will not describe it just in case anyone hasn't seen it but I have never looked at Fonda's baby blues the same way since.
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mahatmakanejeeves Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:11 PM
Response to Reply #12
47. Once upon a Time in the West
One of the best movies ever. Those of you who haven't seen it, please go out of your way to find it.
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HEyHEY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:53 PM
Response to Original message
14. "NO PRISONERS!!............... NO PRISONERS!!!
Edited on Fri Feb-04-05 05:56 PM by HEyHEY
The scene in Lawrence of Arabia when Lawrence turns into a homicidal maniac. Great scene, amazing setting, terrific costumes.

ANd the YELL...the yell sends shivers up my spine.
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terrya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:54 PM
Response to Original message
16. Not one scene, but some great ones:
The opening track shot in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil". Amazing. Martin Scorcese did a great tracking shot in "Goodfellas". Equally amazing.

Gene Kelly performing the title song in "Singin'in the Rain" I still say to myself "wow!" when I see that wonderful moment. :-)

The "well, nobody's perfect" last line in "Some Like It Hot"
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HEyHEY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:55 PM
Response to Original message
17. Sharon Stone's interrogation Basic Instinct?
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edbermac Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:32 PM
Response to Reply #17
43. How about Ursula Andress in Dr No?
Woof, woof...
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foreigncorrespondent Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:56 PM
Response to Original message
19. I would have to say...
...the scene in 12 Angry Men, when the racist bigot is blurting off and everyone else in the room turns their back on him.

Great scene, and it speaks so much about tolerance and understanding.
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kodi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:13 PM
Response to Reply #19
34. fc, that is my #3. it was ed beagely, and i watched it a few days ago
and how far we have strayed from that sense of a community of human values.

the other scene with lee j cobb at the end tearing up the pix of his son and voting "not guilty" with tears in his eyes.

damn that is a great film, a powerful film.

12 angry men and to kill a mockingbird are about the best "american" films ever made in that they express the hopes of the america we yearn for set in relief with the realities of it.
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foreigncorrespondent Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #34
45. kodi...
...I just purchased it on DVD a week ago and sat down and watched it. I had never seen it before, and got really choked up with the reality of what the movie was actually talking about. How sad that those times are no longer with us, and the religious right has done nothing but bring intolerance and bigotry into our every day lives yet again.
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NewHampshireDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:56 PM
Response to Original message
20. The climactic last battle scene in The Seven Samurai
Good god, thatis filmmaking at its finest.
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hatredisnotavalue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:56 PM
Response to Original message
21. Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man
In the dentist chair...how many people relive that moment when sitting in the dentist chair just to have their teeth cleaned?
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kodi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:15 PM
Response to Reply #21
35. is it safe?
.
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SnowGoose Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:57 PM
Response to Original message
22. It would almost have to be somewhere in
Edited on Fri Feb-04-05 05:58 PM by SnowGoose
Baraka. The only problem is, who could pick?

Oh, man, then there's that scene in Harold and Maude where he "immoliates" himself... classic. Seen it a dozen times, still laugh my dumb ass off every time.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 05:57 PM
Response to Original message
24. Jack Nicholson
right after he admitted to ordering the Code Red in a Few Good Men looking up into the camera
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hatredisnotavalue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:03 PM
Response to Reply #24
26. And in The Shining "Here's Johnny!" n/t
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Bitter Betty Donating Member (66 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #26
41. I'll add my vote to that one
And my avatar.
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Lautremont Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:22 PM
Response to Reply #24
37. Best Nicholson scene:
In the restaurant in Five Easy Pieces. "Hold it between your knees!"
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NewJeffCT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:05 PM
Response to Original message
28. too many good scenes, but my favorite in a recent movie
Was the charge of the Rohirrim in "Return of the King"

but, i think the scenes at the end of Casablanca & Gone with the Wind are the most famous.
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kodi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:08 PM
Response to Original message
29. brando/steiger/cab scene/on the waterfront
second.. brando/streetcar named desire/lamppost scene/"stella!"
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Guaranteed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:12 PM
Response to Original message
32. So many from the Godfather- but my favorite in the movie
is the restaurant, when Michael shoots Salazo and the cop. That was the beginning of it all.
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-..__... Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:17 PM
Response to Original message
36. There's many I could name.
One stand out (reason I mention it is because I just watched the movie last night)... final scene of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" where Alec Guinness' character (Col. Nicholson), realizes he has helped the enemy
("What have I done"!?!). When he's mortally wounded he collapses on the plunger and blows up the bridge just as the train is crossing.
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CJCRANE Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:25 PM
Response to Original message
38. "I've seen things
you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the coast of Orion. Sea-beams glittering in the Tennhauser Gate. All these things will be lost, like tears in rain".

Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. Not the best scene ever, but definitely a classic.
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TroubleMan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:25 PM
Response to Original message
39. The final fight scene in Drunken Master II

For real....don't diss it if you ain't seen it.
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Shakespeare Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:29 PM
Response to Original message
40. Maybe not the greatest, but certainly great:
In Some Like it Hot, when Marilyn Monroe is running to catch the train, and the two jets of steam shoot out immediately in front of and behind her, and as she dodges them--as only she can--Jack Lemmon says "Look at that! Look at how she moves! That's just like jello on springs!"

Maybe a 10-second scene, but so classic.
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wryter2000 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
42. Scrooge
Known as A Christmas Carol in the US -- 1951, Alistair Sim. The scene where Scrooge sees his own grave. The black and white is haunting. The sound Sim makes is unearthly. All around one of the finest movies ever made.
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yellowdogintexas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-04-05 10:00 PM
Response to Original message
44. In "The Sting" when Redford and Newman shoot each other and
Robert Shaw is being rushed out of the bookie joint by Charles Durning and as soon as they are gone, Redford opens his eyes, spits out the fake blood and winks at Newman.

just Classic! I almost burst into tears because I thought they had turned on each other, and Redford's character was dead.


OH yeah: in "To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Love Julie Newmar", when all the women in the town come out in red and all the men just stop dead in their tracks. Simply fabulous.


and when Robert Preston goes on stage instead of Julie Andrews at the end of Victor Victoria


just to mention a few
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bmbmd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:26 PM
Response to Original message
48. Two nominees.
The end of Godfather when Robert Duvall closes the door on Annette Benning, and the "leap" at the end of Billy Elliott. Took my breath away.
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leanin_green Donating Member (823 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:28 PM
Response to Original message
49. "Rosebud." Citizen Cane.
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enigmatic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:32 PM
Response to Original message
50. 2 scenes:
Robert Shaw's monolouge about the USS Indianapolis in "Jaws", and the last vingette/scene in "Night On Earth" w/ Aki the cab driver. Both are brilliant, and very haunting..
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UTUSN Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-05-05 10:38 PM
Response to Original message
52. The Big "Anthem" Scenes
1- "Marseilleise" scene in Casablanca.

2- "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" in Cabaret.

3- Non-song, in GWTW, where whassername is trying to get the doctor to go deliver or tend to Melanie's baby, he tells her he can't get away right now, is busy, and the camera pans across thousands of wounded and dying, ending in the Confederate flag.

But since Dr Strangelove has surfaced repeatedly, where Peter SELLERS in the wheelchair does the uncontrollable arm into the Nazi salute, with actors breaking up in the background.

The first 3 are chillworthy. The last one just is hypnotic.
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