Thank you for clearing that up, Toad.
And an excellent point, Nemo, about the guilt laid on Ryan. That note always hit off-key for me as well. Dude earned it by just being there! Earn THIS, pal.
HA! Really? I have seen that movie probably 200 times and never noticed that.
Cool. Think it’s time for me to see it for the 201st time too.
In The Princess Bride, right after Westley is killed, the kid interrupts his grandfater. He’s sure that it must be wrong. With Westley dead, who’s going to kill Prince Humperdinck? The grandfather tells him that “nobody kills Humperdinck. Humperdinck lives.”
But he says it rather offhandedly. I always watched that scene as the grandfather basically saying “don’t interrupt, relax, you’re enjoying the story, let me finish.” But at some point I noticed that he was telling the truth. At the end of the story, Humperdinck is still alive.
I’ve mentioned this one before. Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvy is a cinematic dissertation on the process of artistic creativity. It takes as its centerpiece the breakdown of the partnership between librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan in 1884, and the events that subsequently lead them to their greatest triumph, The Mikado.
Having been a performer in Gilbert & Sullivan circles for over ten years, I can testify to the cries of “oh joy, oh rapture” that erupted among the rankes of the Inner Brotherhood when this film was released in 1999. Of special note were the many, many subtle touches the filmmakers inserted that were unlikely to be noticed by anyone but the devotees of Savoy Opera.
- The filmmakers went to a great deal of effort to cast actors who bore more than a passing resemblance to the historical personages they play, even though this detail was bound to be lost on the majority of the audience.
Take, for example, the character of Richard Temple, the comic bass-baritone who first originated the roles of The Pirate King (The Pirates of Penzance), Dick Deadeye (H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado (The Mikado (duh))
- The real Richard Temple
- Temple as played by Timothy Spall.
Even more striking is the casting of George Grossmith, the D’Oyly Carte’s leading patter baritone.
- The real George Grossmith.
- Grossmith as played by Martin Savage.
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Makeup, sets and costumes used in the theater scenes are designed to replicate those of the original productions. There is a scene, that takes place backstage during a performance, when two of the company’s lead actresses are having a private discussion. While watching, I first wondered why one of the two was dressed as a housemaid. It finally occurred to me that the singer in question was in costume for the role of Mrs. Partlett in The Sorcerer, the show being performed at that point in the story. This, despite the fact that you never actually saw her onstage in the role.
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The incidental music, most of which is adapted from various Gilbert & Sullivan works, often serves as a perfect backdrop to the action – but the care with which these selections were made only becomes obvious if you know the words that go along with the music. Two examples are particularly fitting.
- Three members of the opera company are sitting at lunch in a fancy restaurant, discussing the recent death of General Gordon at the siege of Khartoum. The jaunty march that sets the tone of the discussion is a satirical, over-the-top paean to the martial prowess of the English soldier.
- Sullivan’s mistress informs him that she has become pregnant, and declares her intent to deal with the situation as she has done in the past. While it is not explicitly stated that she is referring to having an abortion, the song playing quietly behind the dialog includes the line “Plead for my boy – he dies!” Subtle indeed.
See? This is the problem with time traveling. Dates wind up just being numbers.
Of course it’s 1985. I think my organic numeric processor was scrambled when it was hit with 1.21 gigawatts of power.
Three pages in, and no mentions of the most subtle movie of all time - “Brokeback Mountain.” I don’t think I can list all the subtle moments, there were so many of them. Maybe just the one that most people miss; Ennis cared about Jack from very early on, as you can see in his eating of beans and going, “Mmmm,” from enjoying them, and then going to get the food supplies and saying no more beans, because Jack doesn’t like them. My absolute favourite is when Ennis is having a sponge bath, and Jack is achingly NOT LOOKING AT HIM. (Or Jack driving a “Versatile” tractor. 
) When people tell me they didn’t get any of this stuff from the movie, they didn’t get that the guys were in love, that the movie just bored them, I feel like asking them to watch it with me, and I’ll point out everything they missed.
Ang Lee is a god among subtle movie directors.
As long as some television ones have already enter the fray.
The current show NCIS is one of my favorites. One of the leading characters is David McCallum, who is now 74 years old. He plays the resident medical expert Dr. Mallard (aka Ducky) who does the autopsies - similar to CSI for those not familiar with the show. He has a number of female admirers on the show.
In one episode the lead actor is asked, “What did Dr Mallard look like when he was younger?”.
The response “Illya Kuryakin” was tossed out and left the office crew puzzled.
That’s the name of the character he played in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” 40 years ago!! I think I’m the only person in my whole company who was old enough to enjoy that simple, single line.
I just re-watched Airplane! for the first time in almost 20 years last night. Something I realized that I had never thought of before was that the plane is part of “TA Airlines”, which is supposed to be ‘Trans America’ Airlines, but could just as easliy be “Tits & Ass” Airlines. I have no idea if that was intentional, or just me reading something into it. But given the nature of this flick, I wouldn’t be surprised if it they really meant it that way.
On the other hand, think about it from Miller’s perspective… he was given a mission that was in many ways just a jerk-off mission to save a guy he didn’t know. He saw every member of his squad die, one by one, some of them slowly. And now he’s dying. I don’t so much see what he’s saying to Ryan as being “hey, you’re a big loser and not worth us having died. So you’d now better go out and turn your life around and solve cancer, or we will have died in vain”, but more like “we all died for you… so go out and live well for us, to make our sacrifice mean something”. Not so much “you must be THIS virtuous to earn this rescue” as “you’re living for all of us… please make something of your life”.
Sure, Ryan stresses and worries about it and wonders if he’s been good enough. But, hey, at least he didn’t DIE. And there’s no reason not to think that he actually DID leave a better life than he otherwise might have.
And in any case, what Miller said seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for a dying person to say. Are you mad at the character? Or at the filmmaker?
(Saving Private Ryan is high on the list of movies-most-unfairly-bashed-on-the-SDMB, imho, right behind Titanic and the Spielberg War of the Worlds.)
In the BMW Short Film Star, probably one of the least subtle of the Hire series of films starring Clive Owen, it took me something like four years to realize that…
Glen hired the Driver to put the Star in her place. 
I caught that one right away. I had to explain it to my daughter, though. Damn, I’m old.
Finally remembered one.
In The Ref, one of the best Christmas movies ever, Denis Leary plays a safecracker that takes a couple hostage after his heist goes wrong. As there’s company coming for dinner on Christmas Eve, he dresses up in suit and tie and pretends to be their therapist, Dr. Wong.
In the dining room, on a buffet, there’s a chocolate manger scene. In the middle of a conversation, Leary picks up the chocolate Christ child and takes a chomp, then stops. It’s obvious the chocolate is years old, and he’s only discovered that because of the taste.
Then he mutters “Jesus,” in disgust and throws the rest of the chocolate away.
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
On the other hand, think about it from Miller’s perspective… he was given a mission that was in many ways just a jerk-off mission to save a guy he didn’t know. He saw every member of his squad die, one by one, some of them slowly. And now he’s dying. I don’t so much see what he’s saying to Ryan as being “hey, you’re a big loser and not worth us having died. So you’d now better go out and turn your life around and solve cancer, or we will have died in vain”, but more like “we all died for you… so go out and live well for us, to make our sacrifice mean something”. Not so much “you must be THIS virtuous to earn this rescue” as “you’re living for all of us… please make something of your life”./QUOTE]
Thank you for pointing this out. I wanted to respond to the previous post but you summed up what I was thinking. Ryan was not living with guilt all those years. He just wanted to know that the men who had died in his place had not died meaningless deaths. He knew that just having been in war or even fought alongside the men who died was not enough; they died FOR HIM, not just in some vague, metaphoric way, but in a real, tangible sense. And it was apparent, at least to me, that he wanted to live his life with that thought always guiding his actions. That’s why he asked his wife if he was a good man and had lived a good life.
And I think in Spielberg’s eyes, that is a question we all ought to ask ourselves as well.
Sorry for the hijack. I just really love that movie.
What was subtle about that?*
ETA: *Not meant in a smart-ass way, just thinking that it may still be too subtle for me to see the subtlety.
I can see the subtleness if it were never mentioned elsewhere that it is several years old: you’d only know from his reactions. But never having seen the movie I don’t know.
The other thing is that only 2 of his squad members died as part of the “Save Ryan” mission - Vin Diesel and Giovanni Ribisi. The rest died for an actual military purpose - defending the town the 82nd was holding and keeping the bridge out of German hands. True, they were there because of the jerk-off mission, but most of the squad died doing something more useful than sending Ryan back to his mother.
I’m still working on this one:
Memento
Doesn’t Leonard Shelby appear for a fraction of a second in the Long term care facility / ward ?
(As opposed to Sammy Jenkis)
But then, if we were to talk about fraction of a second moments, I think Memento is filled with them.
::Meeko crosses his fingers and hopes he doesnt hijack the thread::
Fight Club
I noticed, after perhaps the second or third time, that the film actually had imposed images in it. I paused the DVD after a WTF!? moment. Only when the plot got around to talking about imposed pornography did I get my answer.
Wallace and Gromit
Gromit reads a lot of books and newpapers that reference dogs
The Republic by Pluto
Dog reads paper (headline)
That reminds me of one that I’ve heard about, but haven’t checked out yet: according to David Fincher, there’s a Starbucks cup in every shot in Fight Club. He was trying to make some point about the pervasiveness of consumerism, or something.
Shrek 2:
When a transformed Donkey and Shrek (Donkey is a stallion and shrek is handsome) are sitting in the bar sulking, the bartender asks them, “Hey, why the long face?” This is a reference to the well known bad joke about the horse in a bar that was asked the same question. NOBODY in the theater got it except me.
Monsters Inc.:
At the end of the film when little Boo is showing Sully her room, she hands him one of her toys and it is the Clown Fish from their next movie, “Finding Nemo”.
Most any movie made by Pixar will have a lot of subtle references. I can’t remember all of them.