In 12 Monkeys, Cole keeps having the same dream of a man getting shot as he runs through an airport. Each time the scene replays, little details change as Cole gets closer to the answer behind the plague.
In The Conversation, the conversation is played several times, each time with different inflections revealing new information (or assumptions) about them and the client who hired Caul.
Know any other movies that use this technique?
And I suppose Rashomon should also be included in this list.
Memento does this doesn’t it?
I’d say the Sammy Jenkis parts do.
How about Run Lola Run? If you want a musical, there’s Les Girls
Noises Off shows three performances of the first act of the play Nothing On from different perspectives.
I’m uncertain, the play Copenhagen (by Michael Frayn, who also wrote Noises Off) shows a meeting between Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg by showing it slightly different, a way to indicate different memories and different interpretations of the same even.
The Usual Suspects uses this technique for the scenes on the boat.
I really HATE this technique, myself.
Klute doesn’t repeat the scene, but, like “The Conversation”, repeats the same dialogue over and over, until I wanted to rip up the film.
Insomnia has the repated images of something that you can’t figure out. They play it over and over ad nauseum until they finally explain what the hell it is. I don’t intend to ever watch this movie again.
No one’s mentioned Ground Hog Day yet? It’s all repeating scenes!
Oh, yeah, another big one for repeating scenes (although it’s done a little differently, in that each time you see it you start a little later in the scene and go a little farther, so it’s never exactly the same scene repeated):
Catch 22.
Also the remake of “Rashomon,” The Outrage. Both “ER” and “CSI” have done episodes using this technique.
Jackie Brown replayed the same scene from the POV of three different characters.
Then there’s Hero.
The Fountain also had some recurring scenes.
It’s been years since I saw the film, but I don’t think this is accurate. This really grates on me, because I hate the technique in general, and the way this one was used in particular.
My recollection is that they replay it many times, but NOT with different inflections, except for the last time. And yiou DON’T learn anything new from all those repetitions – they’re just repetitions.
When they repeat it the last time, they DO change the emphasis, from “He’d KILL us if he got the chance!” to “He’d kill US if he got the chance!” this strikes me as “cheating”. There ought to be ways to make the difference in meaning clearer (and the revelation that comes with it) without having to heavy-handedly re-record it.
In “Red Rock West”, Nicholas Cage keeps driving back into town past the sign that says “Welcome to Red Rock West,” when the smartest thing he could do is put as much distance as possible between himself and that sign!
Harry was re-imagining the emphasis that way to aid his dawning understanding. It seemed pretty clear to me.
In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun imagines the rescue of his mother several different ways before carrying it out.
It seemed pretty clear to me, too. But I still think it’s cheating.
Pulp Fiction, of course.
The Red Violin had a slightly different take on the same auction scene between each section.