# Amazingly well done scenes that leave you breathless **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985 "2004-10-25T03:05:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/81 "2004-10-28T18:38:12Z")
“I want the truth!” “You can’t handle the truth!!” Yeah, people make jokes about it now, but that was a powerful bit of filmmaking. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/82 "2004-10-28T18:46:05Z")
**ROTK:** The thing that gets me about “My friends . . . you bow to no one” is the tiniest thing: that little sigh/exhale after he says it. As if to say, “Silly hobbits, you don’t even understand the magnitude of what you did.” ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/83 "2004-10-28T18:58:19Z")
> [@pesch](#): > > Someone will have to confirm this for me, but at the climax of one of Toshiro Mufune’s movies (I think it’s “Yojimbo” but I’m not sure. It could be “Mushashi”), he has a Samurai face-off with his nemesis. Toe to toe. Swords sheathed. They pull, and slash in one fluid movement. There’s a pause, and Mufune’s enemy falls dead. > > It’s hard to describe just how effective this looked on the screen, because they both draw so quickly and you see blood flying all over the place from the slash, but not who got it. Great, memorable scene, even if I couldn’t remember the title. Well, that could be just about any samurai movie, but it sounds like _Sanjuro_ (the sequel to _Yojimbo_). IIRC both movies ended with a face-off between the two samurai, but only _Sanjuro_ had the “blood flying all over the place from the slash.” (And I love that scene, because it manages to be just bad-ass cool and comical at the same time; you could just imagine someone standing off-camera with a garden hose filled with fake blood and his thumb over the opening.) ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/84 "2004-10-28T19:04:16Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > Mullholand Drive: > > When Rebeca del Rio sings Llorando (crying) Damn, this was the first one I was going to mention. It’s not just that her performance of the song is so powerful, it’s the whole scene, everything leading up to that. The MC does a whole monologue telling you that it’s all an illusion, that none of this is real. And even after all that, and you see and hear the emotion in the song and how it’s affecting Betty and Rita and you’re starting to cry along with them. And then they pull the rug out from under you and _show_ you that it was all just an illusion, and it’s _still_ a surprise. And another one from _Return of the King_: when there’s an earthquake, the forces of Mordor are building up around Minas Morgul (right?), and the Witch-King flies to the front of the gate, and the blast of energy shoots out of the top of the tower with an enormous shockwave. Everything about that scene was just so perfectly done and so powerful. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/85 "2004-10-28T19:34:01Z")
Not breath taking, but a scene that explains the characters almost perfectly: **GWTW** Rhett and Scarlett are strolling down the street with their new born baby in a stroller. People pass them by and make comments on the lovely day or the coot bebby or simply say a greeting. Scarlett beams at them all with the perfect face of a loving mother/wife/friend. As soon as each person passes by, though, she frowns or scowls or sneers. Out of everyone’s sight, of course, except Rhett. An almost perfect insight to their characters inner feelings. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/86 "2004-10-28T22:30:06Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > _Contact_ is a pretty flawed movie, but it has a fair amount to recommend it. Best of these, in my opinion, is the five-minute sequence starting with Arroway listening on her headphones and ending with her answering the question about who they should tell: “Everybody.” In a movie that makes a few serious missteps, this sequence is _absolutely perfect._ Jodie Foster’s performance is simply breathtaking; the writing is solid and plausible, as the scientists frantically dot their i’s and cross their t’s, desperate to be proven right but equally afraid of jumping the gun and looking like idiots; the sound effect for the transmission she receives is chilling; the production design is flawless, showing us a completely believable control room instead of a Michael Bay style high-tech temple… > > I find many things about the film frustrating, but this five minutes absolutely moves me to tears. That, I believe, is exactly what that event would be like, and I feel privileged to have been allowed to witness even a fictional version of it. > > In fact, I may watch it again tonight. Just that sequence. That’s all I need. Pure intellectual adrenaline. I’d love to talk with you about the flaws of that film, a movie that could have been just _so much more_. ☹ My scenes comes from Kill Bill 1. The first is the two-minute long tracking shot that follows Uma, the restaurant owners, and Sophie Fatale on their way to and past the bathroom at the House of Blue Leaves. The second is right after the Green Hornet theme sequence, when the Bride pulls up to a red light and looks to her left, seeing Sophie Fatale on her cell phone. The Bride focuses in on Sophie’s mouth and has a flashback to the massacre… _Hit, she is flung back and in midflight the frame freezes and silence is broken by a cellphone tone, the first 8 notes from Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne”. Time resumes, and the Bride lands on the floor, glancing over at Sophie, laughing at something said on the other side of the phone call._ Returning to the present, the Bride, overcome with memory, rushes away without even checking the oncoming traffic. The reason why I like that scene is that the first eight notes of _Auld Lang Syne_ is for “Should auld acquaintance be forgot.” The Bride, still recovering from a four-year coma, forgot that Sophie was at the massacre until she accidentally saw Sophie on the phone on the streets of Tokyo. It is a really subtle piece of work, and easily the best use of a cellphone tone ever. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/87 "2004-10-28T23:14:15Z")
For use of stunts/special effects, the entire freeway schene from Matrix 2 is something really special. The rest of the movie was so-so but the freeway stunts were amazing ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2004, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/88 "2004-10-28T23:16:19Z")
Have we mentioned the crane chase scene from T3? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/89 "2004-10-29T02:59:51Z")
Two scenes from _Russian Ark_: the meeting of the Persian ambassador with the Tsar’ and Tsaritsa, and the ball at the end. Both of these scenes are just incredible in their technical details, their scope, the number of actors in them, the fact that they were done in one take, and their display of the absolute splendor and opulence of the Russian Empire. The scene near the end of _Andrei Rublev_, where the gigantic bell that Boriska has made is going to be rung for the first time, because of the incredible anticipation on everybody’s part: the workers’, who have spent weeks building the thing; Boriska, who has directed the effort even though he doesn’t know a thing about bellmaking, and if it doesn’t ring then he’s toast; and Rublev, who has been following their progress and has faith in the boy. And after all their hard work, and them being clueless about what they were doing, it rings. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/90 "2004-10-29T22:32:26Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > And finally, the sequence when Beatrix flies to Tokyo. Not for the scene itself, but for that astounding double-tongue trumpet score. Wow what skill that riff must require, as it goes fluidly from double-tongue to sluring and back again… Al Hirt, _Flight of the Bumblebee_. Which was the theme music for _The Green Hornet_, which is why Tarantino used it. ---
**Author:** ![Nvme77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Nvme77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nvme77)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/91 "2004-10-30T04:06:38Z")
In The Piano when Holly Hunter gets her finger chopped off by Sam Neill and she just slumps in the mud like a deflated hot air balloon. The look on her face, IMHO, was all she needed to express without words her despair and surrender. She won the Oscar for that scene alone in my book. ---
**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/92 "2004-10-30T18:54:15Z")
A couple from **Apocalypse Now** … the Do Long Bridge scene and the helicopter (Flight of the Valkyries) attack. **Brazil** … the arrest of Harry Buttle at the beginning of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![furthur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@furthur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furthur)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/93 "2004-10-30T20:08:58Z")
> [@Katisha](#): > > Oh, agreed entirely – that was amazing. I bawled right through it. (And I was thrilled to hear the “far green country under a swift sunrise” line in the film; it’s my favorite in the book, but I didn’t expect it would work its way into the dialogue.) Agreed. I tear up just thinking about it, actually. For me, some really powerful, poignant scenes come from Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds. So much is done in that movie without dialogue – as when Anne sits before the mirror looking at herself, all this pain in her face, because Frederick said she had “changed so much he would not have known her again.” Devastating yet powerful. That movie is nearly perfect in its details – Anne’s gripping the chair when she sees Frederick again, his appeal to her when Louisa falls, everything. Mrs. Furthur ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/94 "2004-10-30T22:54:43Z")
> [@furthur](#): > > snip > > Mrs. Furthur :smack: I kept waiting for you to continue. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/57b2e6/32.png) [@Quasimodal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2004, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985/95 "2004-10-31T07:12:46Z")
The Sopranos Spoilers! Last season, the second half of Long Term Parking when Adrianna got whacked had me emotional for hours. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-well-done-scenes-that-leave-you-breathless/270985.md?page=4)