The scene in Ikiru, (To Live), directed by Akira Kurosawa, when the protagonist finds peace and redemption. He is simply sitting on a swing, singing a song remembered from childhood. His eyes are filled with such joy.
The scene in Black Rain (Kuroi Ame) by Shohei Imamura, when the patriarch/grandfather’s daughter, afflicted with radiation sickness, accepts the courtship of her poor neighbor’s son, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and spends his time carving statues of a boddhisatva. Despite their differences in station, they find a deep, human bond in the midst of their suffering.
And the final scene, in which the grandfather watches as his granddaughter is being taken away in an ambulance, just shatters my heart into a million pieces. He stares after the amublance, wanting to cling to hope when there is none.
My eyes are tearing up just typing about those scenes. The director conveys such a huge depth of emotion so subtly, without resorting to over-dramatization or histrionics.
I’m a guy who is seldom moved to tears (Charlotte’s Web in grade school was the last time I remember), but I was quite choked up at the end of Big Fish.
I think that heartfelt displays of respect move me more than anything. I didn’t cry when I heard about the WTC disaster, but when I saw people saluting the rescue workers just after, I nearly lost it. Is that unusual?
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Sophie’s Choice yet. Practically any scene with Meryl Streep fits the OP, but the most wrenching one has to be the choice: on the train platform when the Nazi guard makes her decide which child to sacrifice.
To me, the most powerful scene in LOtR was the heroes riding out to meet the enemy at the end of TTT - especially the one shot of them riding through the outer gates of Helm’s Deep, banners flying, into the waiting arms of the enemy horde. Such a glorious, doomed last gesture. I knew what was going to happen, but at that very moment I had no idea how they’d durvive.
Other choices: the “dueling national anthems” from Casablanca. I just saw the movie a couple of days ago, and that scene was just perfect in every way. It’s one of the few movie scenes that constantly make start to tear up.
This one is more obscure: it’s from the rather mediocre 1971 war film Waterloo. Now, as a Russian-British co-production, the film generally sides with Wellington (Christopher Plummer) and the allies. However, there’s one moment when the filmmakers let their own true feelings slip through - when Blucher’s black-coated Prussians arrive, turning the tide of battle against the French, Napoleon (Rod Steiger) stares at them in rage and horror and says, “I should have burnt Berlin when I had the chance.” You can feel the level of passion in that statement leaping from the screen.
I always have to leave the room during the scene where Nedry bites it in Jurassic Park. “Because Wayne Knight is too good an actor,” I told Mr. Rilch the first time this happened.
Not that the other cast members aren’t good actors. They are, but their acting in this film is appropriate to the SF and action genres: just a bit larger than life, so you don’t take it completely seriously and are free to focus on the action instead of the characters. Knight, OTOH, is playing his scene 100% realistically. Panic, frustration, the knowledge that he screwed himself…I can’t handle it.
The final scene in Rudy had me awash in tears. Had it not been led up to as it had, I would have scoffed at it as pure corn. But Sean Astin’s performance in all the scenes that lead up to this is another of those 100% realistic portrayals. So the last scene is not about football; it’s about someone who has paid dues that most people can’t even imagine, just for sixty seconds on the field. And, it’s not just poignant, it’s tense, because there’s still the potential for him to screw up and let everyone else down. The other team wasn’t on his side, after all.
If comedic scenes can be considered powerful, then I nominate the “Knights of the Round Table” scene in Holy Grail. My first viewing of that left me flopped back in my chair, looking as if a horse had kicked me in the chest. I couldn’t even absorb it all.
You know, so many “Lord of the Rings” scenes have been mentioned, and yet I didn’t find any scene in that film powerful. There were many COOL scenes, many well done scenes, many scenes that I thought were just excellent, but none hit me with power. Perhaps the story was too familiar?
I found the whole Pellenor Fields battle was very powerful. I went in not expecting much - since after all, how could they improve on Helms Deep for huge battles? The whole fight just kept ramping up and up and it’s the first time in any movie I think I’ve ever had that breathless awe that people talk about getting occasionally.
That bit where they think they’ve won and all of a sudden the Oliphaunts charge in… wow.
“Can you ever forgive a pig-headed old man, who had not the eyes to see…” Gets me every SINGLE TIME!
I absolutely love that scene. It helps that the Marseillaise is such a stirring song. technically, “die wacht am Rhine” is not the German national anthem, but I get your meaning.
And more props for LOTR:ROTK – the Rohirrim charge makes me hyperventilate; and “my friends, you bow to no one”…sniff…
I just saw Dead Man Walking again the other night. I’d forgotten what a great film that was.
The last hafl-hour or 45 minutes are amzingly powerful, but the scene that always gets me is when Sean Penn is talking to Susan Sarandon’s character right before he is led away to the death chamber. He has denied that he did anything throughout the movie. Finally, with his death imminent, she asks him simply:
SPOILERS - but then again, the movie was released 10 years ago…
In Braveheart…when Murron is being tied to the post by the Sheriff of Lanark and she’s searching the hills for William Wallace to come charging down and save her, and the camera pans up to the hills, and back to her eyes, and you realize he thinks she escaped and doesn’t know she needs rescuing…
And, of course, the end of the film when “the prisoner wishes to say a word…” Not so much Wallace’s cry of “FREEEEEEEEEDOMMMMMMMMM!!!”, but the reactions of his friends who’ve snuck into London to be near him, while hundreds of miles away in Scotland Robert the Bruce looks up as if somehow he heard Wallace’s cry…and then Murron’s ghost comes through the crowd to be with him as the axe falls…
It’s a Wonderful Life is smarmy tripe, I know, yeah, whatever.
But I love the scene where George’s brother comes home from college, and instead of taking over George’s job at the building and loan, so George can have a life, he’s now married and is going to work in his FIL’s factory. So George is still stuck in Bedford Falls, and at this point there’s a great head shot of Jimmy Stewart standing in front of the train; he’s not saying anything but you can see it in his face.
In The Rules of Attraction when the girl kills herself in the bath tub. Just the look on her face as she slits her wrists, and the song “Can’t Live” is playing. As the blood drains from her body, the song gets muffled and the camera angle starts to shake and fall. It was just a very hard scene for me to watch but I have to watch it every time. It has stuck with me.
From Here To Eternity has a very powerful (and very famous) scene.
In a night club, Fatso (Ernest Borgnine) pulls a knife on Frank Sinatra. Almost out of nowhere, Burt Lancaster steps between them and then smahes a beer bottle on a table, confronts Ernest Borgnine with the broken end and says “Well if it’s killing you want, Fatso … come on !!”
Yeah, that’s powerful.
The ending of Schindler’s List. The aforementioned scene of Oskar crying as he and his wife leave. Also, and to me more moving, the very last scene, with the survivors at Schindler’s grave.
Leon’s silent POV shot when he’s walking toward the exit disguised as a police officer, after going back in for Matilda.
He hasn’t seen that Gary Oldman’s character has spotted him and is moving up to shoot him in the back of the head. The scene goes white for a moment, then the camera angle slowly sways and drops to the floor.
I loved that scene. I wouldn’t place it among the most powerful scenes in movie history, but it was fabulous filmmaking!
As for powerful scenes go, one of the strongest ones I’ve ever seen is a particularly vile domestic violence scene in the little known (and seen?) Our Boy. Being an admirer of Ray Winstone, I got to mention Nil By Mouth too, which also contains some very strong, powerful scenes.
