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  • Sometimes, ranking things is tricky.

  • So when counting backwards from 10 gets us down.

  • Sometimes we take a page out of our hippy kindergarten teacher's playbook.

  • And declare that nothing is better than anything else, and

  • everything is special in its very own special way.

  • So here, for no real reason or in any particular order,

  • are another five brilliant moments in film.

  • (Sound) Kicking us off at number one.

  • We're taking a look at a little moment we like towards the end of

  • Catch Me If You Can.

  • Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale Jr., a famous check forger and lawyer,

  • doctor, pilot, cos-player who's defrauded millions of dollars by age 18.

  • Tom Hanks plays FBI agent, Hanratty.

  • By this point in the movie after nearly two hours and a few years of cat and

  • mousery, he's finally apprehended him.

  • After a few years in jail, Abagnale is released way early under Hanratty's

  • supervision in order to work a nine to five for the FBI bank fraud division.

  • Abagnale, a legendary escape artist,

  • doesn't much enjoy the salary man life which leads us here.

  • - (Sound) Yeah.

  • - Hey Carl.

  • What are you doing?

  • - It's not a good time, Frank.

  • Clearing my desk for the week.

  • (Sound) - Carl,

  • you mind if I come to work with you tomorrow?

  • - Tomorrow, it's Saturday.

  • I'm flying to Chicago to see my daughter.

  • I'll be back to work on Monday.

  • - You're going to see Grace?

  • - Well that's the plan.

  • (Sound) - So what should I do until Monday?

  • - I'm sorry kid, I can't help you there, excuse me.

  • (Noise) - We're all pretty sure Frankie's up

  • to something at this point,

  • but the scene, which seems like it might as well be over, doesn't stop here.

  • - This is Hanratty, yeah, put him on.

  • (Noise) - Mrs.

  • Sawyer, how are you?

  • I have a half a dozen more checks on that tour operator on The BVI.

  • - And we think it's this last little bit that changes everything.

  • It transforms the scene from a one dimensional plot-point

  • to the beginning of a two-sided conflict.

  • Cutting away early tells us something.

  • Frank Abagnale Jr. slips away, but holding here asks us something.

  • Does Agent Hanratty suspect Frank Abagnale Jr.?

  • Will he try to stop him?

  • Will he slip away?

  • It introduces uncertainty with nothing more than this last subtle moment of

  • a pause, a look, a double-take, and a linger.

  • And because we know, as always, that the camera only shows us what we need to see.

  • It's the simple fact that it chooses to hold on a scene we think is over that

  • flags our attention.

  • And asks us to consider what's going on behind these little nuances.

  • It actually ups its emphasis with a push.

  • This part is extra important the camera move says,

  • that part before was just prologue.

  • And it's not just extra emphasis intention in a vacuum.

  • It fits into the greater dramatic context of the scene.

  • Consider how it was blocked,

  • how the characters move with respect to each other.

  • DiCaprio practically chases Tom Hanks around his office.

  • Trying to catch his attention but never succeeding.

  • But then we get this little seemingly unimportant button that flips it on

  • its head.

  • When Abagnale slips off, Hanks engages.

  • You have to run away to get chased and it works.

  • What's more, it slots in perfectly to the entire theme of the film.

  • The story of a boy who wants to run and by doing so wants to be chased.

  • Right here, embedded in the quiet dead space of a walk out the door.

  • (Sound) It is an immense challenge to walk the line between unnoticed and obvious.

  • To make us suspect something, but not believe it.

  • To give us a thought, but not the certainty.

  • It's like a ping to the subconscious, planting little sleeper

  • cells in our awareness to awaken later for greater effect.

  • Another film we think does this brilliantly is, Everest.

  • Our second moment comes early into the film as a group of climbers prepare for

  • an Everest summit bid during the very beginning of its commercial guiding era.

  • Crowds on the mountain have already very nearly resulted in disaster.

  • So Rob Hall, our expedition leader played by Jason Clarke,

  • decides to team up with a rival expedition Jake Gyllenhaal's Scott Fischer.

  • - Well, if I say I'll do, it will be done.

  • (Foreign) - We have to work

  • (Inaudible) because we are working together now.

  • (Foreign) - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

  • (Foreign) - We're all professionals here.

  • We'll work together and we'll get the job done.

  • Yes?

  • All right.

  • - Yeah.

  • (Foreign) - Well, my

  • idea is that we work together and we fixed ropes together, we share the duties, okay?

  • - Mm-hm, sounds good.

  • - Okay, you and (Inaudible) maybe get together and

  • talk about who wants to fix what and where, okay?

  • - Only essentials, I'm not going to tell you what to pack, but be brutal.

  • - How do you feel at the end of that last scene?

  • If you're like us,

  • you hardly had time to register more than just a slight sense of something.

  • We're not sure what, before being rushed along to the next.

  • But while that sense of something maybe doesn't have time to get processed.

  • It sits there in the back of our head like a landmine until

  • later when this sets it off.

  • - Hey, where are the ropes?

  • - There is no rope, no rope.

  • - Yeah, this should have been fixed.

  • - Do you have more in your pack?

  • - Not so, get the rope, he's not here.

  • - And while after the first clip you probably didn't say to yourself,

  • they're going to forget to fix those ropes.

  • After the second one, you might have said,

  • I knew it, which seems to contradict itself.

  • But it's because you kind of did and you kind of didn't.

  • Because what really happened was, you were inceptive.

  • Because there was something in that first scene that you gave

  • you just a little ping.

  • Not a piece of concrete information but a flag, it stuck out.

  • It didn't jibe, and even if you didn't know how or

  • why just like the extra link at the end of Catch Me If You Can.

  • It's stuck with you somewhere and made you suspect.

  • How does it do this?

  • By yet again focussing us on something we didn't expect, and

  • sending the scene in two conflicting directions.

  • On the surface, if you take the dialogue literally, this scene is about two arguing

  • Sherpas who bring their conflict to their bosses, where it gets resolved.

  • But the last two shots of the scene, played over the dialogue of Rob Hall and

  • Scott Fischer resolving the conflict, do not show the resolution.

  • Instead, we focus on the Sherpas looking very much unresolved.

  • Because while the dialogue of the scene has arced from disagreement to compromise.

  • The visuals end up exactly where they started.

  • Where they hover for

  • just a little longer than we might expect before rushing us off to the next scene.

  • Emotionally unsettled,

  • having drawn no full conclusion, leaving just the slightest mark on your memory.

  • So when we get to the southeast ridge, see the tattered ropes and

  • the frustrated entergy.

  • Not only is it no surprise, but

  • it feels like it should have been foreseeable if not foreseen.

  • The whole film is riddled with little moments like this that stick in

  • our craw imperceptibly only to rear their ugly heads later in a big way.

  • They each contribute to the story of a tragedy built on the back of many,

  • tiny seemingly preventable mistakes.

  • Each one just beyond noticeable at the time of their making but

  • impossible to forget when their consequences come to bear.

  • In both of these moments and

  • in fact most of our brilliant moments to date we're marvelling and drooling.

  • And obsessing over directors who find artful ways to film the unfilmable,

  • of communicating abstract concepts and thoughts.

  • And feelings like suspicion or miscommunication on screen through

  • the clever arrangement of concrete objects in time.

  • Of transcending the physical, of getting past the limitations of the photographic

  • medium, using the way it looks and sounds to reach towards how it feels.

  • And we think one of the absolute best examples of that comes from

  • the movie, Room.

  • Now we're about to spoil just about half the movie, and Room is

  • absolutely we're seeing spoiler free and with three boxes of tissues on hand.

  • So if you haven't and they think you want to, go ahead and

  • skip ahead to our next section where we spoil The Godfather for the 1100 time.

  • And come back ones you've cried your tear ducts raw, fair warning.

  • Okay for the rest of you survivors and or say this.

  • We have met Jack and his Ma learn about the room, that is their entire world.

  • That they being imprisoned in for the entirety of Jack's life, and

  • then watched them escape.

  • They're

  • taken by

  • the police

  • to the

  • hospital

  • and wake

  • up here.

  • Never before has an image made us see something in such a way that we could

  • practically feel it in all its detail too.

  • Watching this shot here,

  • it's almost as if we experience cold concrete on our bare feet with Jack.

  • Briefly, a child again tiptoeing along on some hard floor in a distant memory.

  • And while it's easy to just write this off as a relatable image that's well

  • photographed.

  • That would be a huge disservice to the mass amount of work that filmmakers

  • do to earn this moment.

  • Consider from its very first shots,

  • Room dedicates itself to creating a mode of viewership.

  • That replicates that of a curious child experiencing the world around him with

  • fascination for its every detail.

  • Our first introduction to him is him waking up and

  • saying good morning to every corner of his tiny world.

  • And the film in all its macro camera work and closeup sound introduces it to us too.

  • This visual style signalling us that it is Jack's experience we are meant

  • to see things from.

  • It retreats from this intense visual style in its more

  • third person narrative moments and tells us much of a story.

  • But when Jack escapes, something massive happens, his world explodes.

  • Here is a child who has only ever known a 10 foot by 10 foot shed.

  • And known it with an obsessive dedication to detail suddenly unleashed into

  • the world.

  • It is an assault, it is overwhelming, it is a rush of fragmented image and sound.

  • To him and through the camera, to us, suffering the same deluge of

  • new experience as a newborn being brought into the world.

  • So, our next sequence is our hospital sequence.

  • And it is very deliberately structured around these ideas.

  • It is a scene about Jack exploring his new world, seeing and hearing and

  • feeling new things in detail back in the Jack point of experience mode of shooting.

  • First, he sees, the light blooms with the brightness of the daytime sun.

  • A ring in our ears suggests it's intensity, and

  • then he touches using his fingers to probe the new items attached to him.

  • And then he smells, sniffing the hospital bed with it's distinctive hospital smell

  • we all know but he is just discovering.

  • And then finally after all this, he steps down onto the floor.

  • Slowly, gingerly, with toes that test the water before planting one foot and

  • then the next.

  • Each successive encounter priming us for the next, drawing us

  • into Jacks exploratory world until we too, encounter it vicariously with him.

  • (Sound) We are constantly impressed by shots that mirror the experience of

  • the on-screen characters onto our experience as an audience member.

  • They make us feel how a character is feeling just in how

  • they're framed and shot.

  • And like we said, our next pick comes from the end of The Godfather,

  • a seemingly inexhaustible source of brilliant moments.

  • Where after Michael has secured power as the new Don by murdering

  • every single one of his enemies.

  • We catch up with his capo regime, Tessio,

  • the man we know he knows tried to betray him.

  • - We're on our way to Brooklyn.

  • (Sound) I hope Mike can get us a good deal tonight.

  • - I'm sure he will.

  • Sal, Tom, the boss says he'll come in a separate car.

  • He says for you two to go on ahead.

  • - Harry can't do that, it screws up all my arrangements.

  • - Well, that's what he said.

  • - I can't go either, Sal.

  • - (Sound) God isn't that shot spectacular,

  • a perfect representation of being surrounded.

  • And it isn't just showing us what it looks like but making us feel how it feels.

  • It's a visual track closing in on a visual field as it closes on Tessio.

  • Slowly and suddenly enough that we realize what's happening only when it's too late.

  • The offscreen space is used brilliantly with each new goon slipping on in

  • a different way.

  • One running up with an innocent message.

  • Another picked up in the pan already, waiting, facing directly towards us,

  • looming ominously a little too presently in the background.

  • It pings on our subconscious just below our threshold of awareness until two more

  • close in and the trap is sprung.

  • But is doesn't feel contrived or forced.

  • If this were done with cuts with individual shots with each arrival,

  • it would overplay its hand.

  • We would recognize the conceit for what it was and

  • attempts to communicate a sense of entrapment.

  • Because cutting to a shot is like turning towards something.

  • And you don't see a trap coming.

  • It closes in from behind, from out of your periphery and Coppola knew this

  • which is why he used the blocking and the space to direct our attention.

  • Because in a surprise the world moves faster that your guess just like in this

  • scene where the actors move faster than the lens.

  • (Sound) And finally, at our fifth and final slide,

  • we're going to turn to another moment of interplay between camera and blocking.

  • This time from a relatively obscure film called,

  • Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

  • And it's not exactly what we'd call an unreservedly great movie.

  • By and large, it's just simply bizarre.

  • It has an iguana cam and a breakdancing soul and

  • a Nick Cage's performance under the directorial guidance of Werner Herzog.

  • So yeah, it's definitely worth seeing.

  • We're going to spoil this one too, but it's so much more about the ride and

  • where it goes that we don't think you'll mind.

  • Mostly, what you need to know now is that Nick Cage is a very corrupt cop.

  • And by the end of the movie, he's pissed off a gangster's son.

  • Gotten deeply into gambling debt, and tangled up with the heroin

  • dealer from the murder's case he's investigating, but cannot close.

  • It all seems like he's screwed until this.

  • - Listen, first off, this thing between us, it's gotten way outta hand my man.

  • It got way outta hand, okay?

  • And my father got in touch with his guy and

  • he told to let whoever it is know that that complaint has been withdrawn.

  • Finished, yeah, okay?

  • (Laugh) - Okay.

  • - That's the way out.

  • - Yeah.

  • - No, look, Ned.

  • If you'd called first I would have saved you the trip.

  • I don't have the money.

  • - I'm guessing, that you didn't see the game.

  • (Noise) - How did this happen?

  • - Louisiana, by three.

  • - (Laugh) Excellent.

  • - It's $10,000, sure you don't want to count it?

  • - I trust you.

  • - All right, man, you take care of yourself.

  • - All right.

  • - Great news.

  • - What? - Arman came up with this at the crime

  • scene at Josephine.

  • - I just got lucky.

  • - Lab found Godshaw's DNA on it.

  • (Laugh)

  • - Yes.

  • - Bizarre, right?

  • Like, really a strange sequence of events, shot in an even stranger way.

  • And what we think is happening here is that Herzog is taking the piss

  • out of the narrative neatness of a redemption drama of happy endings and

  • tidy storylines.

  • And he's doing it both structurally and visually.

  • Where most films would make a clever, third act last stand that has

  • the protagonist solve all their problems at once by playing them off each other.

  • While concealing the storytelling artifice involved, Herzog does the opposite.

  • He sits Cage down and parades three deus ex machinas

  • in a row in front of him to solve his problems for him.

  • But he doesn't just work at the story level,

  • his filmmaking style engages with the artifice and over convenience.

  • The characters move with the obvious choreography of a musical.

  • One walking in the door just as the other one leaves

  • appearing just as another disappears and the camera dances with it.

  • Picking one up with ran or move at just the right moment.

  • It's all so evidently planned with all the scenes showing that we're supposed to

  • squint our eyes in suspicion at its too, too convenient manner.

  • These are not pieces of little information sent down to our subconscious by

  • gentle sleight of hand.

  • These are conspicuous and bald face lies pulling us out instead of in.

  • But making us think feel and react all the same, so

  • that we may engage with both the story and how it's told exactly as Herzog intended.

  • So what do you think?

  • Have a different take on our analysis?

  • Any other little moments that strike you as particularly brilliant?

  • Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe for

  • more CINEFIX movie lists.

Sometimes, ranking things is tricky.

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