Do you remember the last time a scene stood out? I mean
Casablanca on the runway, or Charles Foster Kane's traipse around the dancing girls. Everyone knows these and can immediately recall them out of context.
In the last 20
years there have been a few new examples: Uma Thurman overdosing in Pulp Fiction,
Matthew Broderick's daydreaming in Election, and Dermot Mulroney's critique of
Emily Mortimer's body in
Lovely and Amazing.
Lovely and Amazing is Nicole Holofcener's second feature. Nicole excels at funny but sad movies, not unlike the best of Woody Allen, and her film examines
a family of four women in
Los Angeles.
Mortimer and Mulroney's fantastic scene comes about a third of the way through. In bed and insecure, Mortimer asks Mulroney to critique her body, zeroing in on each section and stating even the most minor flaw. Pressed and initially resistant, he does.
'One breast is sightly larger than the other'
'Your hair is kind of limp'
Self confidence is stripped from the viewer as Mortimer confirms her unfounded disgust at her own image. Make no mistake, Emily Mortimer is beautiful, staggeringly beautiful, but instead of being devastated, Mortimer is relieved. Everything that she knew was true, is true. Except, she's of course wrong.
I love scene's like this; talented actors showing themselves raw, or directors giving you something that you’ve never seen before. They make you remember a scene.
So, Blog pals, post the scenes that have done this to you. The ones that may not have made an impression as you walked out, but somehow stuck long after seeing the movie.
