I know we’ve done favorite scenes before, but here I’m talking about parts of feature films that could stand as complete short subjects on their own, despite being integral to the overall work.
I know a lot of people might nominate one or more of the pre-credits sequences of the James Bond films, and go ahead if you want, but my problem with them is that most of these have little to do with the rest of the film they are attached to.
To be clear about what I have in mind, here are a couple of examples for your consideration:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
One of the most chillingly effective sequences in this effects-heavy film basically consists of an air traffic controller talking to another guy on the radio. What I love about it is the seeming spot-on authenticity of the dialogue, as if Spielberg simply pointed a camera at a real controller. Whoever invisibly plays the pilot of ‘Air East 31’ is great as well, going from typical aviator seen-it-all casual to a tinge of polite exasperation as he says ‘traffic is NOT below us’, to a momentary suggestion of panic as his plane is buzzed by…something, revealed a bit later in the film.
The Train (1964):
This sequence supposedly was added in post-production to provide some juice to the middle of the film. While returning a repaired steam locomotive to the site of a train full of French art looted by the Nazis, Burt Lancaster and two other actors playing railway workers are strafed by a British Spitfire. There are only a couple of words of dialogue, but the actors nevertheless effectively convey the terror of coming under fire with no defenses except whatever speed they can coax out of their wheezing rustbucket of a locomotive. The payoff, for those who see the rest of the film, is that:
the locomotive’s crew are all Resistance agents, and thus suffering through being shot at by both sides.
Although these are personal favorites, it strikes me that there are several other sequences in both films equally worthy of note.
I can’t think of any scenes like that off the top of my head but even though I really liked Emmerich’s “Anonymous,” especially the main character, I thought the Henry V performance within could have been it’s own movie. Compare that Crispins Day Speech with the Brannagh version.
I love animated storytelling in movies - the Deathly Hallows story in Harry Potter 7.1; the beginning of Hellboy II; Harold the Hedgehog in Simon Pegg’s The Fantastic Fear Of Everything; the closing titles of Wall-E; the closing titles of A Series Of Unfortunate Events. Some of those (and things like them) would work for me completely standalone.
Maybe not what you’re looking for, but I’ll provide it anyway.
In 1976, a movie called Drive-In was released. It was a simple comedy about the people who went to, and the events that took place at, a drive-in movie in the mid-1970s: the nerdy guys trying to pick up the cool girls, the local gang trying to enforce a debt, families with uncontrollable kids upsetting couples making out, and so on. It was slapstick in spots, with very broad humor, and I saw it a number of times on late-night TV back in the 1980s. It was, at best, a B-movie.
But being as how it takes place at a drive-in movie, there has to be something on the screen in the background. There was: a fictional film called “Disaster '76.” As in the popular disaster movies of the 1970s, we see–in the background shots showing the drive-in’s screen–ships sinking (“The Poseidon Adventure”), planes falling out of the sky (the “Airport” films), buildings burning (“The Towering Inferno”); and we hear, in the background, all the cheesy dialogue that existed in 1970s disaster films playing in the background: “If we’re going to die, Chet, I want you to know that I love you more than your wife ever could.”
I think that “Disaster '76” could stand on its own as a satire on 1970s disaster movies; perhaps just as much as “Airplane!” did some years later.
the opening act of Up as a standalone would be a different genre than the rest of the movie. it is better too imho. Wall-E is similar, but less intense.
That what I thought this thread was going to be about before I opened it up. I was going to suggest The Hate Boat (a movie poster in the background in the film Running Man)
During Kentucky Fried Movie there was a mini-movie parody of Enter The Dragon called * A Fistful Of Yen* that is funny on its own, but doubly so if you’ve seen the original.
The first thing I thought of was actually a short to begin with, but after it was shown to Spielberg he agreed to a movie being built around it. The movie was Kevin Reynold’s Fandango and the original short was the skydiving sequence.
Yeah, come to think of it, most of Tarantino’s movies tend to be a series of semi-independent episodes strung together; Pulp Fiction may be the most obvious example.
It’s about a bunch of kids who are making their own movie and get distracted by unfolding events. Their actual film they made is shown at the end of the movie, after the credits. I liked it better than the “parent” movie.
How about “See You Next Wednesday” from “American Werewolf in London”?
The porno playing on the cinema screen in Piccadilly Circus while the undead are harassing our hero.
Not quite the same thing, but I understand that the sequence in *Gravity *where Sandra Bullock’s character is trying to contact Mission Control but only connects with an Inuit and his dogs corresponds to a short indie film showing the exchange from the Inuit’s perspective.
First off, add my vote for the opening sequence of Up.
The first time I ever saw Mrs. Miniver, I came in halfway through - just at the beginning of a bombing raid when the family’s in an underground bunker and the father goes out after dinner to smoke a pipe and watch the bombers. That sequence was some of the most riveting film I’ve ever seen, and would function great as its own short. The family’s living in a hole, talking about bombers like it ain’t no thing, and the dad smokes his pipe upside down with no explanation. Only watching for several minutes does one piece together this isn’t a dystopian sci-fi - it’s England in WWII. Much less pedantic, and more powerful, than the film as a whole.
