Moments in Film

version

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Scenes, lines, images, sounds which stuck with you for whatever reason, which rendered the film worthwhile or which opened a door on their own.
 

version

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Wire: Your music is very visual. I suppose that’s partly the influence of films? You’ve talked about that sound from ‘Alien’ being one of your favourite sounds.

Burial: The motion tracker, yeah, and the dropship, the sentry guns. My big brother would play that sound to me when I was little, and tell me the stories from the film. He recorded it on a tape. He would tell me about that motion tracker sound, and ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’ are some of the scariest films. But he would only show me the bit where they were loading up the weapons, but he’d say, ‘you’re too young, I won’t show you the rest, but I’ll tell you about it’. I love the sound of the motion tracker, you can feel the fear of the empty spaces ahead, it's like sonar. I like Blade Runner but I’m only obsessed with one scene in it, the bit where he’s sitting at those cafes in the rain.
 

version

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The predator camo always got me in the first Predator, moreso than the film. Just that shot of it shimmering where the eyes flash for a second and the bit where it appears on the tree.

yelloweyes.jpg
 
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version

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I've never seen a Wong Kar-wai film. I've been meaning to watch Fallen Angels and Chungking Express for years but just never have.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've never seen a Wong Kar-wai film. I've been meaning to watch Fallen Angels and Chungking Express for years but just never have.
I've seen them but somehow never seen In The Mood For Love. I watched this thing called Kaili Blues recently, it's kinda like Wong Kar-Wai now I come to think of it although I liked it a lot more

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
As for moments... it's really cool the bit in that clip when he rides up the mountain on his motor bike - reminds me of the entering The Zone bit in Stalker.
 

version

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I really like sequences which just follow people driving or whatever, like the opening of the original Italian Job or the jogging scene at the start of Birth.


 
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version

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The opening of T-2 when the terminator foot comes down on the skull is another for me, that and the noise of the treads going over the bones.

 
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version

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The woman floating off into the void on the other side of the mirror in Prince of Darkness.

 
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version

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"It had to be an ear because it's an opening. An ear is wide and, as it narrows, you can go down into it. And it goes somewhere vast. . . "

This quote from Lynch on the ear in the field at the start of Blue Velvet has been rattling around in my head since I read it the other day. It's perfect. He managed to condense the entire film into a single image.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I think I mentioned before but one of my favourite ever scenes is the ending of the American Soldier when there is a shoot out and then the guy who has an unrequited homosexual crush his older brother kinda flops around with the body in slow motion as this sub Doors crooning fills the ears.

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I think I mentioned before but one of my favourite ever scenes is the ending of the American Soldier when there is a shoot out and th6en the guy who has an unrequited homosexual crush his older brother kinda flops around with the body in slow motion as this sub Doors crooning fills the ears. Must have influenced Lynch.


The other guy who gets shot is Fassbinder himself (starred, directed and I think even wrote - but not performed - the music).
 

version

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What's Prince of Darkness?

It's a John Carpenter film from '87.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093777/

A priest invites quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack and his students to join him in the basement of a monastery belonging to "The Brotherhood of Sleep", an old order who sometimes manages to communicate through dreams.

The priest requires their assistance in investigating a mysterious cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Among the thirteen academics present are wise-cracking Walter, demure Kelly, and lovers Brian Marsh and Catherine Danforth.

They decipher text found next to the cylinder which describes the liquid as the corporeal embodiment of Satan. The liquid appears sentient, and broadcasts increasingly complex streams of data. The academics use a computer to analyze the data, and find that it includes differential equations. Over a period of two days, small jets of liquid escape from the cylinder. Members of the group exposed to the liquid become possessed by the entity and attack the others. Anyone attempting to leave is killed by the growing mass of enthralled schizophrenic homeless people who surround the building.

Birack and the priest theorize that Satan is actually the offspring of an even more powerful force of evil, the "Anti-God", who is bound to the realm of anti-matter. The survivors find themselves sharing a recurring dream (apparently a tachyon transmission sent as a warning from the future year "one-nine-nine-nine") showing a shadowy figure emerging from the front of the church. The hazy transmission changes slightly with each occurrence of the dream, revealing progressively more detail. The narration of the transmission each time instructs the dreamer that they are witnessing an actual broadcast from the future, and they must prevent this possible outcome.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
A great thread idea. The ones that shaped me most as a kid were possibly the "Did you see that?" shot from Jaws where you see the shark attack only in the background, presaging a lifetime's interest in horror films that don't necessarily present as such, in camouflage, and the Quint/Hooper/Brody three header onboard ship, presaging a lifetime's interest in weird talky films.

I love those films that work as a sequence of brilliant and iconic moments, rare as they are. Alien is definitely another. I'd say Marie Antoinette too (can't believe I'm saying that about a Sofia Coppola film, but life's weird). They're the only ones I can watch repeatedly. Even films I love, if they work in a different way, I have trouble watching more than once

The final scene of The Prestige. And as obvious as it is, the final scene of The Usual Suspects never ceases to be a cinematic wonder (the rest of the film I can take or leave, but the moment of revelation is shattering).

And the scene in Fruitvale Station where Michael B Jordan is having a random interaction with another guy while they're waiting for their respective girlfriends to use the bathroom. The affect of that scene, knowing what shortly follows, is cosmically heartbreaking.
 
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version

Well-known member
A great thread idea. The ones that shaped me most as a kid were possibly the "Did you see that?" shot from Jaws where you see the shark attack only in the background, presaging a lifetime's interest in horror films that don't necessarily present as such, in camouflage, and the Quint/Hooper/Brody three header onboard ship, presaging a lifetime's interest in weird talky films.

I think the mayor in Jaws was the first time I really hated and understood how awful a politician can be.
 
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