THE INTERACTIVE FILM MAGAZINE
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Our readers and writers present their all-time great movie moments
My favourite film clip
Nobody had even thought about CGI in 1968 when Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey was released. In fact most computers then were, well, the size of a spaceship.
But Kubrick managed to produce one of the most visually stunning films ever made, using just models, matte paintings, clever editing and a superb magination. And by and large, 2001 looks just as modern and relevant today as it did more than 40 years ago.
There are so many great set pieces in it, from the opening scene of the sun rising behind the earth seen from the moon to the rebirth of mankind as the star child at the end, that it’s hard to choose just one scene.
But I’ve opted for the docking sequence as the shuttle from earth operate by PanAm (whatever happened to them?) approaches the orbiting space station to the music of Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube. It shouldn’t work, but it does – brilliantly.
So sit back and enjoy!
Russell Forgham
The tears begin to well up as soon as Alfred Newman’s great score swells over the opening credits of 1943’s The Song of Bernadette and are in full flow within a minute or so as the following portentous statement appears on screen:
For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.
After that, and for the remaining 152 minutes of so of this exquisite historical feast, blubs of pleasure and sadness are always but a breath away as Franz Werfel’s story unfolds of the simple peasant girl and her visions in Lourdes.
I would happily pick almost any moment in the film as a “Favourite” – especially the scenes between Bernadette (Jennifer Jones aged 25 playing a 14-year-old in her Oscar-winning film debut) and a bitter, sceptical nun (Gladys Cooper). However, I’ve opted for the moment when she sees “The Lady” for the first time (towards the end of this clip). If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now.
Quentin Falk
A film that seemed to confirm Kenneth Branagh as heir to Laurence Olivier’s mantle, his Henry V (1989) eclipsed the version made 44 years previously by Olivier himself.
Each was of its time, of course, which is a tribute to the genius of Shakespeare’s writing. So while Olivier produced a sunny tale of heroism in honour of the forces defeating fascism in World War Two, Branagh was able to make a darker, grittier story of men in combat.
Key to this was the traitor’s scene, omitted from the Olivier film, which underlined the young, as-yet untested monarch’s guile and ruthlessness.
He would grow into the role of King, much as Branagh was expected to develop into a great actor and director on stage and screen. And, if he has enjoyed a more variable career since than had some expected, this film – and this sequence – reaffirms his talent without question. Anwar Brett
Amélie is nothing if not a stylish film and Yann Tiersen’s magical score is part and parcel of the experience. However, near the end of Amélie Poulain's labyrinthine voyage d'amour, the music abruptly stops. This is the scene when the reclusive Parisian girl finally corners her man, Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), and consummates her yearning for love.
Traditionally – at least, in Hollywood – such an episode would prompt the entire string section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to kick into overkill. Here, the sudden simplicity of the scene acts as a bracing antidote to what has gone before, grounding it in a recognisable reality. As Amélie (Audrey Tautou) reaches up to kiss her swain softly on the cheek, we can even hear the displacement of the floorboards.
As in real life, such moments are seldom accompanied by violins, rendering the scene all the more relatable. Its unexpected tenderness adds an additional fillip, producing one of the most achingly romantic clinches in the history of the cinema.
James Cameron-Wilson
The Blair Witch Project splits people. As a horror film fan, I love it. In fact, my favourite scene comes from this meagrely-budgeted, record-bustingly high-grossing addition to the horror genre.
Why? Well, The Blair Witch Project single-handedly reinvigorated horror – a tired genre that had lost its way and which had found mileage up to this point
only in irreverent spoofs and send-ups, beginning with Wes Craven’s Scream (why, Wes, why?) and culminating in the Scary Movie franchise, with a smattering of tongue-in-cheek teen splatter pics mixed in along the way.
only in irreverent spoofs and send-
It’s a film that recouped its modest initial financial outlay many times over - largely as a result of its unprecedented no-budget internet marketing campaign – but for the audience, the pay-off comes in the final fear-kindling scene.
The film cleverly builds up an unbearable sense of unease using almost none of the accepted horror tricks and techniques. There’s no tinkly music and it ignores many of the conventions of editing popularised by the likes of John Carpenter’s Halloween, yet somehow it manages to ratchet up the tension to fever pitch before hitting the audience with a startling
camcorded, torch-lit denouement that sends waves of terror through the viewer – crescendoing at the moment when the camera falls and drops its gaze (and ours) to the ground.
I don’t remember a horror film ever having such an effect on me, emotionally or physically. I remember standing up in the darkened cinema at the end, legs like jelly.
You can see it on YouTube by clicking on this link.
Kim Francis
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There are so many memorable scenes in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), John Ford's film of John Steinbeck's novel about a family of sharecroppers migration from the dust bowl of Oklahoma in search of work in California.
Having been driven off their land during the Depression they head west in their ancient truck to their Eden. It is hard to watch them struggle in terrible hardship and abject conditions until the moment they come across a government migrant workers' camp where there is running water, lavatories and, of an evening, a dance. In a beautiful sequence where these hard-pushed folk, stripped of dignity, brush up and dance, smile, laugh.
Suddenly their anger and frustration is briefly eased, their social deprivation momentarily forgotten, their humanity restored. Sons dance with mothers, husbands and wives hold each other close on the dance floor, children scamper together as the strains of the music soften their lives for a second.
And then men in hats arrive....
Shot with lyrical, black-and-white simplicity, the film won two Academy Awards (Best Supporting Actress – Jane Darwell; Best Director) and received another four nominations including Henry Fonda for Best Actor. Marianne Gray
•Unfortunately the dance scene isn’t on YouTube, but here is another iconic moment from the film, the rousing “I’ll be there” speech by Tom (Henry Fonda).