Well - what is it?
I just saw the ‘i told him everything’ scene in ‘Sleepers’ which despite being a potboiler, has a great De Niro scene. There’s a reaction shot as he hears ‘everything’ from Jason Patric, that lasts ages and he really does little but says loads. Reminds me of Godfather 2.
I love Midnight Run - ‘Ive got 2 words to say to you - shut the fuck up!’. The scene with his ex wife - borrowing her car and fighting himself to avoid pissing her off is great.
Also loved him as ‘Buttle’ in ‘Brazil’
Taxi Driver sure, Raging Bull, yeah yeah…
If they’re your thing - lets hear it - if its ‘Stanley and Iris’ or ‘Falling in Love’ - let’s hear it!
My worst De Niro scene is all of his sleepy performance in Jackie Brown. Jeez he was better in ‘Analyze This’ or ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle’
Damn that’s a good question. I’ll have to go away and think. In the meantime my fave de niro film off the top of my head is Casino. And I wouldn’t be surprised if my favourite de niro scene is in that.
I do have a vague reccolection of him doing a pesci type “do I amuse you” in some film or other which I liked.
The sequence of scenes in Godfather II where he makes the transition to a neighborhood boss are great. His body language, manner of speech, and even the look in his eyes change.
I think his strong performance in Midnight Run is often overlooked. By embracing the character’s back story, he manages to turn a guy who is thoroughly distasteful on the page into one you root for on the screen. He also showed some great comedic timing with Charles Grodin and Yaphet Kotto.
For his best single scene, I’m with Reeder on The Deer Hunter. Playing between the guards and his fellow prisoners called for so many emotional twists within a few seconds of screen time, it was brilliant.
I just saw Brazil (TDC) for the first time in a long while a week ago. Two surprises: 1. I forgot De Niro was in it, as Archibald ‘Harry’ Tuttle (whacha got a fly in your computer or somethin’?). 2. It skewers the post 9/11 “1984” lunacy perfectly. But it was released in 1985! If this were a new film released this year, it would be far more controversial than F9/11.
Best overall performance is Taxi Driver, unfortunately his best scenes have been polluted over the years by bad imitators and one can no longer enjoy them as before. (Much like the mirror scene in Raging Bull, so two good performances, De Niro and Brando’s, are shot now due to hack imitators.)
So I’d go with the scene in GF2 when the slum lord comes to repay the rent money. Not a lot of words spoken, but a lot of power conveyed. Very nice.
I liked Deniro’s coffee talk with Al Pacino, in “Heat.” It’s so rare to see Pacino deliver a great performance any more, but in this scene, both Pacino and Deniro are in top form.
Sorry - confused myself - I’m talking about particular scenes - but then I refer to whole movies!
Another scene I really like is in GF2 when baby Fredo (?) is ill, and Vito bites his own knuckle to contain his distress. It’s a common gesture I know but has echoes of Sonny when he sees his sister’s bruises. His dad does it to control himself and Sonny tries but can’t - ultimately sealing his fate.
Of course , De Niro would have been able to look at the gestures of ‘himself’ as an older man and that of his sons in prep for the role, but that’s just good work.
Oh and my Tuttle/Buttle ‘error’ was a joke; as per the movie. Sorry for not inserting a smiley. Need to go to ‘Information Retrieval’
Third me on the Russian Roulette scene in Deer Hunter. The combination of anger at his captors, confidence so as to get Walken’s character to follow through, fear for his own life, and bewilderment at the insanity of it all is just astounding.
The scene in Midnight Run where he is forced to call on his ex-wife and daughter in Chicago. Beautiful job conveying his conflicting emotions- the resentment and love and desperation and regret all rolled up together. Murcielago is right. I think Midnight Run is one of his strongest performances.
Also, the scene in Raging Bull where he works himself into a jealous rage and beats the hell out of Joe Pesci. Powerful stuff.
Not to hijack this into a Midnight Run appreciation thread, but De Niro’s performance in that movie was fantastic. The dramatic scene with his wife and then his daughter was very moving indeed, as was his understated mood when Mardukas asks him about it later… But throughout the movie he’s constantly acting with his eyes. Whether it’s giving Mardukas the look after singing “99 Bottles of Beer”, or his squirming in his seat when the Duke is grilling him about being so unpopular with the Chicago police department, the entire scene in the boxcar, or his final conrontation with Jimmy as the mobster talks about the life his wife is leading without him… Great stuff!
And it goes to show how funny the guy can be, too. He’s not making faces like Jim Carrey, or whipping out one-liners. He’s allowing himself to be laughed at because in spite of the fact that he’s a tough guy in this movie, he’s not the sharpest marble in the bag.
Of course, a lot of this has to do with the script and the direction of the movie. Hard to believe this was brought to you buy the same guy who did Gigli.
“Where am I? I’m in Boise, Idaho. No, wait! I’m in Anchorage, Alaska. No, no, wait! I’m in Casper, Wyoming. I’m standing in the lobby of a Howard Johnson’s and I’m wearing a pink carnation…”
Booking officer: “Did he give you any trouble?”
Walsh: “Did you give me any trouble?”
Prisoner: (pause) “FUCK YOU, MAN!”
Walsh: “He didn’t give me any trouble.”
Wow, I thought I was one of the few people who really liked Midnight Run . Other people I’ve seen it with have been sort of indifferent.
I also like his turn as Max Cady in Cape Fear . I mentioned it before, but the scene in the high school auditorium where he approaches Juliette Lewis is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen. He’s SO slimey, and she’s SO enraptured by him - it makes me cringe just thinking about it. She is the perfect gawky girl, with braces, and twirling her hair around her fingers, and a nervous little laugh.
The problem with Midnight Run is that it goes on too long.
It has a great first act (let’s say leading up to when they leave the airplane).
A great second act (when they hit the road together, until oh, maybe about until they get to Texas).
A great ending (getting to Cali and the resolution)
But – the third act (like in Texas and Arizona) in there totally drags. I don’t know how you’d get around it. This is when they’re establishing a bond, but it just had to be more concise. But, there’s the river scene, the train scene, the diner scene, is there a car chase? (this is all from memory). There are helicopters. He loses Mardukas.
That’s my only complaint. De Niro and Grodin made some the funniest chemistry ever in the movies.
My favorite DeNiro scene is in Angel Heart. DeNiro’s character, Louis Cypher(aka Lucifer) is at a table eating lunch. He picks up an egg, and comments that in some cultures, the egg represents the human soul. Then he eats the egg.
All he does is talk and eat, yet he makes it the scariest scene in the whole movie.
This was my absolute favorite as well. One bit of trivia for that scene, it was completely ad lib - totally unrehearsed, and wonderfully executed.
We all know DeNiro has some great scenes from taxi-driver to Deer Hunter, and they are all impressive. However the scene in Heat was second to non in that he and Pacino were like two mountain top hollywood stars rarely seen together, and behaving on screen like they actually cared about one another. I loved that scene.