What struck me most forcibly was the shocking violence perpetrated against female replicants - Zhora is shot in the back whilst running to save her life; Pris is shot and left screaming and threshing her legs in agony until she is finally properly “retired”. I remember this very clearly from the first time I saw the movie, and it stayed with me unexpectedly. With repeated viewings, I now take the view that this violence was critical to the central theme of the nature of humanity, and that was why it hung around in my mind.
It’s interesting how hardly anybody talks about how much more violent the movie gets after that scene. There’s:
[ul]
[li]Bambi’s fight with the other buck for Faline’s affection[/li][li]The forest fire[/li][li]The return of the hunters[/li][li]The scared bird who flies off in terror, only to be shot, and whose dead body we see (unlike Bambi’s mother)[/li][li]The attack by the hunting dogs[/li][/ul]
Certainly not a ‘classic’ (but I think that ship sailed long ago), but in movie To Live And Die In L.A. has a scene about half-way in, where the Major Character gets shot in the face with a shot-gun. Completely unexpected. Did not see that coming.
Thought it was more towards the end—and it shocked the hell out of me when I saw it—and it’s not ‘classic’ anyways, but it fits. Great B-movie, with, as noted, an amazing car chase, and it has an almost Michael Mann-like verisimilitude to the cop dialogue and some of the gunplay. Worth your time. Scared the US Secret Service—who demanded some edits, IIRC—for the detail it went into about how to counterfeit currency.
I thought the overwhelming irony of the movie is that the replicants are far more ‘human’ than Deckard? They certainly show more mercy, and aesthetic appreciation than him. They live; he just exists.
Trying to think of ‘classic’ movies shocking violence, and the one I came up with—though it was certainly expected in its context—was the climax of Sanjuro. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SfpagB8wWng
The speed and finality of the duel, nevermind the geyser of blood which I understand made its debut in this scene, was shocking to someone brought up on Hollywood fencing between the protagonist/antagonist. Nope. Blink, and you miss it. I’ve had to put the clip on 1/4 speech at YouTube to see the handwork.
I’m sure audiences in 1939 were shocked when Scarlett O’Hara shot the yankee pillager in his face. The technicolor bloody face was only momentary, but startling for the times.
A couple of other scenes make more lasting impressions in my mind, and I’m not sure why. One is Carlo Rizzi kicking through the windshield as he dies, and the other is the guy kicking Sonny Corleone’s cadaver in the face.
Not really a classic film, but how about Willow and the scene where someone gets ripped in half by a two-headed monster? That used to make us howl with laughter when we were young and stupid. I’ll blame it on youth, because it doesn’t make me laugh now and I’m no longer young.
Scarface has lots of violence, but for my money the most shocking is when Tony Montana is forced to watch his partner’s arms get cut off with a chain saw. Although all you see is Tony’s face get splattered with blood, it’s more sickening than all the shootings.
