There and Back Again

Disposition: Restless
Listening: American Idol Season 3
Reading: The Interpreter
Watching: Visionarios
Obsessing: Eduardo Noriega
Pondering: The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them. (Mary Schmich)

In the next few days - months, more like it - I will try and remember all of my favorite scenes from a movie. Just for fun of course. Here’s the few that came to mind as I started enumerating.

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There are three scenes in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor that are similar to one another. In all three scenes the Emperor is running after an important woman in his life - his nurse, his dead mother and then his wife. And they all end the same way, a red gate closes on the beleaguered Emperor, he orders the guards to open it and - symbolic of his life as a puppet emperor - they refuse his orders.

The last scene of Death in Venice is poignant. As death nears, Gustav Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) watches the image of young Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen) against the setting sun, a symbol of perfect youth and perfect beauty.

Danny’s (River Phoenix) Juilliard audition in Running on Empty always makes me regret not knowing how to play the piano.

The opening sequence of Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) plays out perfectly like a dream.

The “revelation” scenes in Sixth Sense and The Others are always an Ahhh! moment!

The hospital scene in The Godfather is a classic! Watching it, I was as nervous Michael Corleone and the baker as they stood outside the hospital, pretending they were armed guards. And the murder of the neighborhood thug, Don Fannuci in The Godfather II is also a classic and a thriller.

ET’s departure (ET: The Extra Terrestrial).

In Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Sam asks Frodo if he remembers the Shire and Frodo says he remembers nothing. “No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire.”

Scourging of Jesus (The Passion of the Christ).

Opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.

Cathedral scene in The English Patient.

Who can forget the closing scene of Cinema Paradiso where Toto is sitting in the theater, watching a Alfredo’s movie of all the kissing scenes edited from the films they used to watch. This one always makes me cry.

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Well, more to come in my next entries. In the meantime, why don’t you share your favorite movie scene here.