BBM DVD WATCHING Habits and Reactions: THINKIN' OUT LOUD... POWERFUL FILM SCENES

[rtprod]

Ever since I got my DVD I watched it several times... But only ever until the 2nd tent scene (I hate the sudden jump everytime a little more, from when we see fun-wrestling Ennis and Jack change to Aguirre's face and the binoculars..). Then I fast forward to the reunion scene.. I haven't made it past that scene. So for over a month or more now, I haven't watched/seen the gut-wrentching scenes and other sad moments. Too scared..

However, I can watch the first very silent 8 minutes over and over...      From the very first notes of Santaolalla's score to when Ennis and Jack bond in the bar.

For 12 years now, I haven't dared to watch "Schindler's List" again. In 1994 I went the day it was released (in Madrid) in a packed! cinema. After the film, when the whole crowd left the theatre, there was not one single noise. The crowd was dead silent..

I never got beyond this one scene at the very beginning of "The Pianist" (with Adrian Brody) - spoiler ahead - when they push the old man in a wheelchair out of the window........... Just can't watch it again, or the rest of the film.

~ j U d E

Oh, yes, The Pianist.  This is the first moment when the impending storm becomes real to Brody and his family. 

Another one from me:

Timothy Hutton's reaction and conversation with Judd Hirsch after Dinah Manoff commits suicide in Ordinary People. 

[Front-Ranger]

One thing I noticed is that I can't watch the reunion scene without watching the four-year fourplay before it. The scene just doesn't work out of context.

Another scene in a movie that hit me the same way was the end of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, when Julie Christie smokes a hash pipe.

[j.U.d.E.]

Timothy Hutton's reaction and conversation with Judd Hirsch after Dinah Manoff commits suicide in Ordinary People

TOTALLY!! I was thinking about this too!! I love this movie! It was on again the other day here (but dubbed..) and so far I haven't managed to tape it (in English). I guess I'll order it over amazon very soon. It is a beautiful film, great performances. The scenes between Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton are excellent. Especially the one you mentioned!

And there is also "The Killing Fields".. Can't pick one single scene though.

~ j U d E

[j.U.d.E.]

One thing I noticed is that I can't watch the reunion scene without watching the four-year fourplay before it. The scene just doesn't work out of context.

So true! Funny, isn't this the scene that Heath and Jake had to do at the very beginning, when shooting started? Totally out of context there too. I'm amazed again and again by their stellar performance!

~ j U d E

[serious crayons]

I think I may have mentioned that I have only seen my DVD twice

Oops! Sorry, rt, you're right. I missed that detail in your previous post.

OK, I'll keep trying to think of equally moving movies, but I don't know if I'll be successful. As I said, I hate to pit Jack and Ennis' tragedy against that of genocide. Of course I was devastated by Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice, The Pianist, The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda ... but in a different way. Maybe it's the difference between being heartbroken and being horrified.

If you limited it to love stories that are equally sad, I'm pretty sure there aren't any. (The ending of Sophie's Choice is sad in that way, but not as.) Or maybe I am just lacking in cinematic compassion?

[dmmb_Mandy]

I've watched it in full 3 times since buying the DVD and the experience is much different. Better in some ways and worse in other ways. I love the comfort of curling up on the couch by myself and turning the tv up as loud as I want and watching the movie completely by myself, with no kids a few rows behind laughing or random people talking..etc. The tears started flowing from watching the DVD for the first time during the scene when they first part after their time on the mountain. Their facial expressions are heartbreaking; just superb. I admit to skipping to the lake scene too, as well as - I must be a masochist - the closet scene with Ennis and the shirts... Nothing beats watching the entire movie though; what an amazing 134 minute experience.

Speaking of powerful movie scenes... Lisa Rowe's (Angelina Jolie) breakdown towards the end of Girl, Interrupted, when Susanna (Winona Ryder) responds "Because you're already dead, Lisa"; I loved it.

[Meryl]

rtprod, thanks for this and the many thought-provoking threads you have started.  I haven't had time to respond to most for one reason or another, but it's always great to see another pop up. 

I think I've watched the DVD straight through only twice:  when I first got it and when I watched it with my roommate.  Other than that, I've watched the scenes on the mountain most frequently--those, and the terrific scene at the Twist ranch.  Much of the time I'm watching to pick up small details to post about--colors of trucks, clothing, music, etc.  But it's all good.  Hurrah for the technology that allows us to get lost with Jack and Ennis in their world whenever we need/want to.

For other profoundly moving moments in film, I can thank Ang Lee for at least two:  At the end of The Ice Storm when Mikey's father cradles his son; and when Emma Thompson breaks into tears at the end of Sense and Sensibility, when, all unlooked for, her life is made whole by Edward's reappearance.

[Mikaela]

I've watched the DVD through a number of times by now, I'm not sure how many. I think this is the first time and the first film that has thoroughly given me problems in picking certain scenes that I'd like to watch more than others. (Though I admit to having seen the reunion and the NITs some additional times). Still, when I've gone straight to a scene it's nearly always been in order to verify something that happens there, or the look of something etc, mostly for discussion purposes. For instance, I just braved a slow-mo viewing of the bashing scene in the middle of Ennis's telephone conversation with Lureen for discussion clarification purpose. 


But otherwise I do watch it from the beginning - and I recently gave the following long-winded (light-hearted, but sincere) explanation as to why that is:

Well, I feel you *have* to start with the first scene, because how can you possibly *not* want to see Jack against the truck, and Jack glowering inside Aguirre's trailer, and Jack and Ennis being so completely adorable in the bar, and.... Then you *have* to see all of "life in camp" as the DVD calls it, because every little subtle part of their courtship counts. Plus, all the sheep-carrying and sheep-dragging that Jake did - can't let the poor guy have done it all for nothing.
Then there are both those tent nights that are the very core of the matter for any serious Brokaholic, and the sad descent from the mountain and the goodbye. **meep**. The getting on with life all goes so fast and suddenly it's the reunion **sigh** and the motel **sigh** and the never-to-be cow and calf operation **sigh** -  and there might be a scene or two after that which could be skipped in a pinch, but they're so few and far between, so why bother?
And anyway those scenes either lead up to the post-divorce meeting, or they lead you on away from it while you're still in an utter daze from it. Then there's the whole painful last meeting, - can't ever not see that, - though some of it sure *does* make you want to kick Ennis's horrible father where it hurts.
The scene at Jack's parents is even more painful than that, but it's *got* to be one of the most perfect film scenes ever made; such simple means and that spartan location and only 3 actors speaking so few actual words; it's absolutely and totally unmissable, a movie landmark if ever there was one. Once you've gotten to Ennis finding the shirts you're pretty much a wreck unable to move, and you might as well sit through his wedding talk with Junior anyway because there's a sorely needed glint of hope there, and otherwise you'd not get to see the shirts again in their closet and not seeing them is surely never going to be an option....

[ednbarby]

rtprod, thanks for this and the many thought-provoking threads you have started.  I haven't had time to respond to most for one reason or another, but it's always great to see another pop up. 

I think I've watched the DVD straight through only twice:  when I first got it and when I watched it with my roommate.  Other than that, I've watched the scenes on the mountain most frequently--those, and the terrific scene at the Twist ranch.  Much of the time I'm watching to pick up small details to post about--colors of trucks, clothing, music, etc.  But it's all good.  Hurrah for the technology that allows us to get lost with Jack and Ennis in their world whenever we need/want to.

For other profoundly moving moments in film, I can thank Ang Lee for at least two:  At the end of The Ice Storm when Mikey's father cradles his son; and when Emma Thompson breaks into tears at the end of Sense and Sensibility, when, all unlooked for, her life is made whole by Edward's reappearance

Also in Sense and Sensibility, Alan Rickman's face when Marianne says from her sickbed, "Colonel Brandon?  Thank you."

Another one that haunts me is Tom Hanks in "Saving Private Ryan," when he puts his helmet with a pool of blood in it back on after storming the beach, and the blood drips down his face while he stares blankly.  He totally captured what shell shock must look like.  I had thought he was vastly over-rated for years until I saw him in that scene.  I don't think he's done anything even remotely as stunning since.

Mikaela, I agree with all you've said except for the Alma, Jr. conversation.  There are a couple of stunning non-verbal moments in that one, too.  Ennis looking out the window, again, after he says, "This Kurt...  He loves you?" and she very thoughtfully and knowingly answers, "Yes, Daddy.  He loves me."  And Alma Jr.'s face opening up into the most amazing smile when Ennis says "You know what?  I reckon they can find themselves another cowboy.  My little girl... gettin' married..."

I find all of the last four scenes of Brokeback to be among the most powerful ever put to film.  The lake scene.  The post card and phone call to Lureen.  Lightning Flat.  Ennis' trailer.  It's like a one-two-three-FOUR knockout punch combination.  Instead of the usual arc of most movies, where you have, as my husband calls it, "The Inevitable Low Point of the Film" followed by some sort of hopeful (and often downright ridiculously happy) resolution, Ang Lee has constructed a film that builds to its crescendo - and stays there.  I think it's why so many people just feel like they've been struck by lightning at the end of their first viewing.  It's nothing you expect, because it's nothing that's ever been done before.

[serious crayons]

the Alma, Jr. conversation.  There are a couple of stunning non-verbal moments in that one, too.  Ennis looking out the window, again, after he says, "This Kurt...  He loves you?" and she very thoughtfully and knowingly answers, "Yes, Daddy.  He loves me."

The first few times I saw it, I thought this scene seemed kind of tacked on. Now it's one of my favorites. The myriad emotions that pass over his face when he looks out the window! The gentle and, as Barb put it, knowing way she answers indicating that she sort of understands what he's going through! So powerful.

Let's see, now for another sad scene. Well, the scene at the beginning of "Beyond Rangoon" when Patricia Arquette comes home to find her husband and son murdered by a burglar really got to me. Part of it may have been that I had a six-month-old son and was probably still surging with hormones. (It's actually not the most tragic part of the movie.) Any child death scene is pretty hard to take, though. Same with the end of "Hotel Rwanda," where they reunite with some of the kids, but it's clear that the others have been killed.