Tiny moments you love to rewatch
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:46 pm
I was going to title this 'tiny moments you live to rewatch', because I do live for these wonderful little moments in films: the little touches, some as brief as a second, that you noticed years ago in classic films and return to again and again. I'll nominate two:
Maltese Falcon -- a film with innumerable small excellences, but for me, the absolute topper is when Bogart is in the DA's office, running down the case as he sees it and the police harassment he's been the target of. He rattles off his lines at top speed, then breaks and, without losing momentum, says to the steno guy: ''You getting this all right, son, or am I goin' too fast for ya?'
Witness for the Prosecution -- Whenever this runs on Turner I wait around for Charles Laughton to shout 'LIAR!!' at Marlene Dietrich. His complete line is, 'The question is whether you were lying then or are you lying now or whether in fact you are a chronic and habitual LIAR!!!!!' Laughton gives the line a terrific build, using the instinctive theatricality that was in his blood. When he reaches the climactic word he's pure thunder.
(I don't mean to imply that all these little moments are from dialogue -- just consider all the bizarre shots that Hitchcock put into his best pictures. They can be editing decisions, facial moves from the actors, nearly anything. In About Schmidt there's a wonderful moment on the soundtrack in the scene where Nicholson stops his car on a dusty, windswept highway and walks about in indecision and emptiness. A brief passage of dark piano chords plays over the scene -- indescribably apt and disturbing.)
Maltese Falcon -- a film with innumerable small excellences, but for me, the absolute topper is when Bogart is in the DA's office, running down the case as he sees it and the police harassment he's been the target of. He rattles off his lines at top speed, then breaks and, without losing momentum, says to the steno guy: ''You getting this all right, son, or am I goin' too fast for ya?'
Witness for the Prosecution -- Whenever this runs on Turner I wait around for Charles Laughton to shout 'LIAR!!' at Marlene Dietrich. His complete line is, 'The question is whether you were lying then or are you lying now or whether in fact you are a chronic and habitual LIAR!!!!!' Laughton gives the line a terrific build, using the instinctive theatricality that was in his blood. When he reaches the climactic word he's pure thunder.
(I don't mean to imply that all these little moments are from dialogue -- just consider all the bizarre shots that Hitchcock put into his best pictures. They can be editing decisions, facial moves from the actors, nearly anything. In About Schmidt there's a wonderful moment on the soundtrack in the scene where Nicholson stops his car on a dusty, windswept highway and walks about in indecision and emptiness. A brief passage of dark piano chords plays over the scene -- indescribably apt and disturbing.)
