Scenes That Touch You Deeply (But Probably Don’t Move Others)
There are movie scenes that will unsurprisingly move the audience. In this thread, I’m asking people to share scenes from films that touched them deeply–but one wouldn’t others to be touched by. Indeed, the people sharing may also be surprised by their reaction to these scenes. In Chris’ review of Children of Men, he talked about a particular scene where he lost it (I think he said he was sobbing or something to that effect). I remember the scene, and I wanted to know the reason that scene had that effect.
Another example I recall comes from actor, Delroy Lindo. He describes a scene from Breaker Morant (or was it Gallipoli?) where the two soldiers are walking to their death and the hold each others hands.
I know there have been scenes like this for me, but I’ll have to think about them. Again, these are scenes that others might find touching, but not as much as you did.
OK, I thought of one. The scene in Rocky, when he’s on the canvas in the penultimate round and his corner is yelling for him to stay down. But he doesn’t head their pleas, gets up and gestures to Creed to continue. There’s a shot of Creed’s face and it says, “Oh, man. This guy is still up?” (The music in the background is really great, too. I think there’s a shot of Adrian somewhere in the scene where she closes her eyes.) This is Rocky’s moment. The most important thing for him is to “go the distance” and this feels like the moment where that that will be decided.
I don’t know, is this a moment that others choke up on? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I really get moved at this scene and I can understand if others would scratch their heads about that.
The bigger question is why? I guess the scene moves me because for Rocky the fight moves from beating Creed and becoming the heavyweight champion to “going the distance” with him; the fight becomes an issue of self-worth and dignity, not fame and glory. It becomes a battle for greatness, but greatness redefined–greatness as heart, heart to go fifteen rounds with the heavyweight champion and remain standing in the end. It’s a reduction of greatness to heart and spirit. I believe this; heart and spirit are what make a person great. And the scene displays this heart and spirit by Rocky’s refusal to quit, despite the pain, the fear, the desire to rest, the exhortation of his corner. That’s what makes the scene so moving and beautiful to me.
(The parallels between this scene and Jesus’ death occurred to me. There are a similarities, but I guess the main difference is that Rocky’s suffering and perseverance is primarily for himself, for his personal dignity; whereas Jesus suffers and perseveres for the human race.)
This is a good topic. I can think of a million scenes like this, but the first that leaps to mind is one I described in my review of Sideways. When Miles pauses before he steals money from his mom, he looks at a photo of his dad, and it’s a photo of Paul Giamatti’s dad. How often does an actor in a fictional role get to pay small tribute to his actual father? Since his actual father is someone whom I’ve always admired, I found it a moving scene, even though it did take me out of the movie for a moment.
Here’s another one I seldom hear people talking about:
from Kevin Smith’s Dogma:
BARTLEBY:
In the beginning, it was just us and Him. Angels and God. And then He
created the humans. And He gave them more than He ever gave us. Ours was
designed to be a life of servitude and worship – adoration. But He gave the
humans more – He gave them a choice. They can choose to ignore God, choose
to acknowledge Him. All this time we’ve been down here, every day I felt the
absence of the Divine presence. And it pained me…as I’m sure it must
have pained you sometimes, even though you’d gloss over it with jokes. But
we feel his absence, and why? Because of the way He made us—as servants.
Had we been given free will, we could ignore the pain…like them.
LOKI:
You know—maybe you should take a nap or something.
BARTLEBY:
Loki, don’t you get it? It’s the humans—it’s always the humans. They were
given paradise; they threw it away. They were given this planet; they
destroyed it. They were favored best among all His endeavors; and some of
them don’t even believe He exists. Their ego-mania corroded Hell and made
it dark and crimson.
—
What’s probably obvious is that I love this exchange because of the theme of choice, of liberty. The idea that because we are favored, because God loves us more than anything else, he gave us the freedom to reject him is something I think too many of my fellow believers don’t think about, especially when it relates to our own tolerance of others, and especially where it relates to legislating certain behaviors. If we love our non-believing brothers and sisters the way God loves us, we have to give them the same freedom and not try to force them to live according to the way we think they should live.
Another part is the assumption by these angels that even those who disbelieve must surely feel the separation, ‘though they choose to ignore it. That kind of compassion for our non-believing friends, the kind that understands there is pain and sorrow even when it is not acknowledged, sort of demands a different response from us than judgment.
The way Ben Affleck delivers these lines is just so powerful and convicting. I sort of thought he was talking just to me for a few seconds, and although his monologue is full of resentment, the sincerity of that pain of being separated, and the jealousy that he feels because he has no control over his longing to be reuinited with God, they made me believe that here is an actor of great faith. Whether or not that’s true is not my business, of course, and perhaps it is only testament to the actor’s skill, but I just love it.
Too bad the movie goes completely downhill from here.
I’ve been meaning to answer this question for a while now. I’ll throw a scene or two into the mix.
One scene that brings me to tears is the final “act” ofBig Fish, from the point when the father looks to his son and says something like: “Tell me the story of how I die? How does it begin?” And then from there I am undone, thinking of my life and the lives of my loved ones and the hopes that somehow every good piece of you that you gave away might come back with the ones you loved attached to it.
From a romantic movie perspective, Love, Actually is full of such moments. The one that caught my by surprise, though, is the scene where the little boy goes after the girl in a mad dash through the airport. I suppose I wish I had the guts to do that. Well-shot and orchestrated.
And, of course, The Lord of the Rings is full of such moments. The end of the first movie at the shore. Gandalf and the elves topping the hill at Helm’s Deep. Sam’s speech at the end of the second movie. “I can’t do this, Sam.” So many good moments that are like a thorn in the paw that remind me of what is essential.
I’m sure there are others, but those are my top scenes.
I think that scene is Big Fish has that effect on a LOT of people.
We talked about this the day we saw all three films, Tony, but for me the real tear-jerking scene, the one that summed up the entire trilogy for me, was near the beginning of the first film, when Bilbo tells Frodo about the ring.
“What must I do?” asks Frodo.
When he asks this question, I get seriously teary-eyed, because he has NO IDEA what that simple, willing question is going to result in. The answer, of course, is the next nine hours’ worth of film; everything that comes after comes because of this question.
Frodo and Sam were my heroes that year. If only we could all be so willing to serve and to love.
Iron Giant potential spoiler
There may be one or two that brought a tear to my eye, but the one that stands out is the one where the giant is flying into the earth’s atmosphere and I think there’s a voiceover saying something like, “Who do you choose to be?” (from a previous scene?) and the robot says, “Superman.” It was just touching.
Mitchell mentions that acts of goodness, rather than tragedy, are the ones that move him to tears. This one is in that mold. In the scene, the giant decides to save the town and sacrifice himself by carrying away the nuclear bomb. It’s also touching I think because of the goodness–and, equally important, the aspiration for both being good and heroic. Still, I have a feeling other people were as moved as I was in that moment.
in the movie karate kid, I loved the exchange between Daniel san and Mr. Miyagi after Daniel is frustrated because his is doing all of these chores around Mr. Miyagi’s house. (painting the fence, painting the house, washing and waxing the cars, sanding the floors). Daniel thinks he is just doing his chores and not learning anything while all this time he was learning Karate. We see it immediately when Mr. Miyagi asks him to show him how to “paint the fence, or wax on wax off” (a very famous scene). It moved me because you realize at that momment how hard word doesn’t always appear as it seems. There is a purporse behind what parents and teacher’s say to what they want to do even if we don’t always see it. I thought it was cool. There are some cool “rocky” like momments and scenes as well, but it was the communication between the two characters that made common misunderstandings between teacher and student some the could both overcome to grow and learn.
The ending of Shane always breaks me down, and it’s basically because of “Little Joey” played by Brandon De Wilde, especially his voice. He just has this cute tonal quality that really gets me–particularly when he screams out: “Shane! Come back!” as the music swells in the background.
Here’s a clip of the ending (if you haven’t seen the film, do not watch this!–which starts with Shane riding into town. It’s a long scene, but it has one of the best gun duels of all time, imo. (Btw, what makes it such a good gun duel is not the action, which is brief, but the personae of the two characters facing each other.)
(Don, have you seen this film? If you haven’t, I think you should give this a shot. It might be slow in some parts and you might find it dated, but you could like this, too.)
The other scene I wanted to mention comes from Breaking the Waves. This scene is literally two seconds, and it’s probably my favorite two seconds in film–it could even be my favorite moment in film. Basically, it’s the shot of Bess, Emily Watson’s character, screaming at the ocean as the waves are crashing around her.
To really understand these two seconds, you have to understand the film. (Spoilers)
Basically, Bess feels like God is asking her to do something she utterly dreads. Like De Wilde’s vocal quality, there’s something in the sound of Watson’s voice that really gets to me. There’s a kind of anguish in her voice that is pure rage and passion. The way she’s flailing her arms enhances the emotion of the moment as well. That scene captures what Abraham must have felt like when God asks him to sacrifice Isaac or what Jesus felt like in the Garden of Gethseme. It’s like the essence of passion distilled in two seconds.
(Btw, the film’s trailer, which has this scene, is on youtube but it might reveal a little too much about the film, so I didn’t embed it. The music on the trailer is a nice addition, though.)
That scene from Shane is terrific, but I wonder why you think it’s a scene that probably doesn’t move others. Isn’t it considered one of the classic movie scenes? Man, I remember when our ninth-grade English showed us this film in class. For the rest of the year, it seemed, whenever someone could insert a “Come back, Shane! Pa’s got work for you to do! And mother needs you!” into a discussion, he or she would. I think we all really liked that movie and especially that scene.
But does that scene make you lose it? I wouldn’t be surprised if it did, but I wasn’t sure. I believe a lot of people like the scene, but I’m not sure if it makes people cry–especially to the extent it does for me.