The Sheila Variations

Another list of great moments

Perhaps a bit more reputable than the list put together by The Guardian, since it came from the American Film Institute. They describe their list as "the 100 most famous, unforgettable or memorable images, scenes, sequences or performances in films of the 20th century". I've taken the time to boil it all down because they write extensive essays about each moment which are sometimes interesting, but sometimes not.

This list is chronological.

1. Birth of a Nation, producer/director D. W. Griffith, 1915
Little Colonel's return to his ruined home after the Civil War

One of those landmark films, really THE landmark film. The fact that it ends with a triumphant Ku Klux Klan ride is intensely disturbing.

2. Way Down East (1920).
Lillian Gish escaping from the ice floe

I haven't seen this movie, but there is an extended "excerpt" of it in the great documentary about cinematography called Visions of Light. It is horrifying, and completely real. There is a freezing river plummeting over a waterfall - and there are huge chunks of moving ice, and Lillian Gish is jumping from ice floe to ice floe - trying to escape before she goes over the waterfall. I have NO IDEA how they did it. It's extraordinary.

3. Safety Last (1923)

I haven't seen this film - but all I need to do is post a picture from the moment in question, and I'm sure you will recognize it:

4. Greed, Erich von Stroheim (1924)
The tragic ending in the salt flats, the desert wastes of Death Valley

5. Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein
The baby carriage tumbling down the steps of the Odessa train station

Our first repeat from The Guardian list.

6. The Big Parade (1925)
The scene of the parting of the American troops from a French village

Er - just from the description of the scene given it sounds extraordinary:

American doughboy Jim (John Gilbert) calls out for French peasant girl Melisande (Renee Adoree) but cannot locate her. She too hears the bugle call and sees the dust of the trucks, the horse-drawn caissons, and the running men assembling for the pull-out. Her distress and desperation rises with the suddenness of their leaving. Suddenly, she decides that she is desperately in love with Jim. She pushes her way through the massed ranks of soldiers - looking and calling out for him in the ensuing chaos and rising dust. Her frenzied search becomes more frantic and emotional as she searches for a glimpse of him to bid him a lasting farewell. Two other passing soldiers grab at her - one touches her breast, the other tries to steal a kiss. Jim climbs into the back of a transport truck, one in a long line of battle trucks. When he finally catches sight of her, he jumps off the truck and races back - they wildly embrace and pepper each other with kisses - framed in close-up. Earnestly, he vows to return to her in the touching scene: "I'm coming back! - Remember - - - I'm coming back!" An officer pulls on Jim, and then rips them apart. The agonized, feisty French village girl hits back at anyone who would tear them from each other. As Jim is dragged into the tail end of a truck, Melisande holds on firmly to his left leg - refusing to let go. She runs along for a moment as the truck pulls away - she desperately hangs onto a chain dangling off the vehicle, trying to halt the inevitable and defy both time and fate. When she won't let go, she is dragged alongside the procession until she can't hold on any longer. He tosses her mementos to remember him by: his wristwatch, his dogtags, and one shoe, and then sprays her with two-handed kisses. She stands and watches the truck disappear - holding his shoe to her bosom. The passing vehicles and clouds of dust envelope her - and then subside. In the middle of the road, she sinks to her knees with her head bowed.

Jesus. Sounds pretty damn good, huh??

7. The Gold Rush (1925)
The Thanksgiving day celebration

Ha ha ha ha. Charlie Chaplin cooking is BOOT in a big pot.

8. The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
The unmasking of "the phantom of the opera". She rips off his mask and sees this:

I could recommend a wonderful orthodontist.

9. The General (1927), Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton sitting on the connecting driving bar between two railway cars - he is dejected, rejected by his girlfriend, he sits on the bar. The train starts to move - the driving bar starts to rise up and down - and there he is, dejected, going up and down and up and down and up and down ...

10. The Jazz Singer (1927).
Al Jolson's first speaking lines in films.

He's performing - the audience goes wild - he stops them and calls out: "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't heard nothin' yet. Wait a minute, I tell ya, you ain't heard nothin'! Do you wanna hear Toot, Toot, Tootsie!? All right, hold on, hold on. Lou, Listen. Play Toot, Toot, Tootsie! Three choruses, you understand. In the third chorus I whistle. Now give it to 'em hard and heavy. Go right ahead!"

11. Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang
The entire creation of that future world - a precursor to 20th and 21st century sci-fi films.

12. Sunrise (1927), FW Marnau.
The erotic seduction scene between married farmer (George O'Brien) and the wicked city-girl (Margaret Livingston)

13. King Vidor's The Crowd (1928)
A. Tracking shot going up the skyscraper (described by AFI as "One of the most majestic, fluid shots in this silent film masterpiece - one of the greatest impressionistic tracking shots in all of cinematic history")

B. From that tracking shot, the camera somehow does a dissolve through one of the identical windows in the skyscraper into a large room filled with identical desks, identical people at the desks - panning over the room - everyone anonymous, the same - until it finally zeroes in on the hero (James Murray).

14. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)
The final moments - just before the armistice

The German soldier, daydreaming, reaches out to grasp a butterfly - a French sniper zeroes in on the hand, and fires.

15. City Lights (1931), Charlie Chaplin
The ending of the film

This movie is genius. At the end, the blind flower girl who now has regained her sight recognizes that the Tramp is actually her benefactor.

Teary, sentimental, filled with pathos ... but a beautiful beautiful moment.

16. James Whale's Frankenstein (1931)
The "creation sequence" - during a storm

I'm only familiar with this movie because I have seen Gods and Monsters about 8 times, because of my lust for Brendan Fraser. Very good movie, though, if you haven't seen it. About James Whales' last days. A poetic rendition, indeed, but very compelling.

17. The Public Enemy (1931)
James Cagney smushes a grapefruit into the side of his girlfriend's face. What a fanTAStic moment. So MEAN, so UNPREDICTABLE - and yet what every single person in the audience is kind of hoping that he would do.

18. Footlight Parade (1933), Busby Berkeley
The elaborate geometric production numbers - where chorus girls basically act as bits and pieces in a kaleidoscope

19. 42nd Street (1933)
When the director pulls the understudy out of her dressing room - and gives her a speech, just before she has to go onstage to take the place of the star. She is terrified, frozen in terror. His speech goes thus:

Now Sawyer, you listen to me and you listen hard. Two hundred people, 200 jobs, $200,000, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who have worked with you. You've got to go on, and you have to give and give and give. They've got to like you, they've got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't, because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right now, I'm through. But you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out - and Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star.

20. King Kong (1933)
The final moments.

King Kong on top of the Empire State Building. Hard to think of a more universally known image!

21. Queen Christina (1933)
Queen Christina (Greta Garbo) renounces her throne - and then goes into exile, by ship. Famous famous sequence. Even if you haven't seen the whole film, you've probably seen snippets of that scene here and there. Greta Garbo basically stands at the head of the ship, like a figurehead, staring out. It's a bleak ending, with a huge close-up of that unforgettable face.

Michael Caine, in his fantastic book Acting in Film includes this piece of essential advice to film actors: "DO NOT BLINK. When you blink, you are weakened. You lose all your power. Whatever you do, DO NOT BLINK."

You never ever catch Greta Garbo blinking.

Other actors who you will never see blink (and I notice this stuff because I'm insane and I need to get a life NOW): Tom Cruise never blinks, Humphrey Bogart never blinks, Katherine Hepburn NEVER blinks, Jodie Foster is another non-blinker ... These people know how to do close-ups like NOBODY'S business. Watch the entirety of Silence of the Lambs - which is actually mostly done in close-up. Anthony Hopkins never blinks his eyes, and Jodie Foster never blinks hers. Which helps give the film that subterranean vibe of wide-eyed horror.

22. It Happened One Night (1934)
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert hitchhike

How MUCH do I love this movie? If you want a treat - really, you should see it. A screwball comedy? Yes. Clark Gable at his saucy rakish best. But the real revelation is Claudette Colbert. I have no idea how the hell Gable could have kept a straight face doing scenes with this woman. Hilarious.

Anyway, the two of them are having no luck hitchhiking. He shows her all the different techniques with the thumb - getting really into it - he's an expert. "There's THIS way to hold out your thumb ... then there's THIS way to do it ..." All male bravado. She is lying across the top of a fence, completely unconvinced.

He then starts to hold out his thumb, and car after car after car pass him by. His ego begins to deflate. It is humiliating.

Then, ever so calmly, she uncurls herself from off the top of the fence, with this flat unimpressed face, walks over to the side of the road, hikes up her skirt over her knees and sticks her gartered leg out into the road. Of course a car pulls over immediately.

23. George Stevens' Alice Adams (1935)
The dinner party scene

I've actually never seen this film. Alex?? You Kate Hepburn afficianado - I'm sure you have. What's the dinner party scene like? George Stevens is a hell of a director.

24. A Night at the Opera (1935), The Marx Brothers'
The slapstick crowded stateroom scene

My high school boyfriend made me watch this movie on one of our first dates. Sweet. He needed a girl who would be into the Marx Brothers. This particular scene is absolutely ridiculous and gets funnier and funnier and funnier as it goes on, as more and more people crowd into the stateroom.

25. Top Hat (1935)
"Cheek to Cheek" - the dance number

Gives me chills just to think about it. I went through a huge Astaire/Rogers phase in high school, saw them all. This was their fourth film together.

26. Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplin
When Charlie Chaplin is swallowed up by, or becomes part of, the huge machine in the factory. Kind of a terrifying sequence, if you think about it. A man loses his mind.

27. Camille (1936).
The funeral death scene - called by many the greatest tragic death scene ever filmed

Greta Garbo succumbing to consumption.

28. Gone With the Wind, 1939 (two moments chosen)
A. The first meeting between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara. Rhett standing at the foot of that staircase, and the two of them exchange long glances. Scarlett comments on him: "He looks as if - as if he knows what I look like without my shimmy."

B. That unbelievable long wide shot of all the Civil War dead lying in the street, as Scarlett O'Hara steps through them, the torn Confederate flag in the foreground. Spectacular scene.

29 Gunga Din (1939), George Stevens (again)
The ending - with Gunga Din struggling to the top of the tower, to blow his bugle - and then is shot - and falls.

30. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Frank Capra
The filibuster scene

Jimmy Stewart, after 24 hours of filibuster, his voice going, exhaustion ... He's a damn fine actor. A damn fine actor.

31. Stagecoach (1939), John Ford
John Wayne's first appearance (which was also his first appearance in a John Ford film, and the appearance basically made him a star.)

I haven't seen this movie. I am shamefully behind in my John Ford appreciation moments. Give me a break, people. I had a hard time getting into Westerns as a kid, because I'm a girl, and there are no women in those movies. Sue me. I have grown up now, and I can appreciate things even if my gender is not represented. John Ford is on the list.

32. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
AFI chooses, as the greatest scene from this film chock-full of great scenes, the one where Dorothy, the Tinman, the Scarecrow, and the Lion in the poppy fields, running, running, while the Wicked Witch weaves a spell over them.

That scene always upset me DEEPLY when I was, oh, 7 or 8 years old. I thought it was so scary that the witch could see them but they couldn't see her.

33. The Great Dictator (1940), Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin's dance/pantomime with the giant balloon-globe that he is planning to rule over. He has a Hitler moustache, and is wearing a Nazi-esque uniform. The balloon-globe is basically like one of those huge balloons that everyone bats around at baseball games, trying to keep it in the air. That is "the Great Dictator's" goal in this scene: to keep that globe in the air.

34. Citizen Kane (1941)
The "Rosebud revelation" at the end.

It explains everything, it explains absolutely nothing.

35. The Lady Eve (1941), Preston Sturges
The seduction of Henry Fonda scene

36. The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston
The final moment: The policeman picks up the "black bird" and says, "It's heavy. What is it?" Bogart touches it, says, "The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of." (Apparently, the line was his idea). The policeman says, "Huh?" Spade takes the Maltese Falcon and walks down the hall, and you can see Mary Astor's tearful face as she goes down in the cage-like elevator. The end.

37. Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz (two moments chosen)
A. The goodbye moment at the airport, his speech about "I'm no good at being noble ... doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world ... Here's lookin' at you, kid."

B. The final moment, the two men walking away in the fog. Bogart saying the line (which had to be dubbed in later): "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." And then begins the final strains of The Marseilleise. The. End.

38. Now, Voyager (1942)
Again with the "cigarette trick". This showed up in The Guardian list, too. Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes in his mouth and gives one to Bette Davis. I haven't seen it, so please forgive me - do not get what the big deal is. But I will subside.

39. Saboteur (1942), Alfred Hitchcock
The harrowing death-sequence.

Harrowing, indeed. That guy hangs off the side of a skyscraper, literally by his fingertips.

40. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
The "title number"

Can't you just hear Jimmy Cagney's voice singing, "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy ... Yankee Doodle, do or die..." in that gruff cut-off-at-the-consanants kind of voice? Also, I love how he dances up the walls - like Donald O'Connor did in Singin in the Rain.

41. The More the Merrier (1943), George Stevens yet again
The famous courtship scene on the front steps.

I haven't seen this movie, but the scene sounds DELICIOUS.

42. To Have and Have Not (1944).
The kissing scene ("It's even better when you help", which ends in the "You know how to whistle" moment - which then leads to Bogart, alone in the room, bemused, kind of shocked, kind of turned on - a million things going on on his face at once - and then, slowly, he "puts his lips together" - and does a kind of catcall whistle. Beautiful. Hot.

43. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The home-coming scene

A serviceman (the wonderful and later blacklisted Fredric March) returns home to his wife and kids after the war. I have not seen this film but the mere description of the scene brings tears to my eyes.

The touching, wordless homecoming scene commences when he rings his apartment's doorbell, and quickly cups his hand over the mouths of his two grown children to silence them. Son Rob and daughter Peggy stand in amazement - overjoyed to see him. From the distant kitchen, his wife's voice asks about the unexpected visitor: "Who's that at the door, Peggy? Peggy? Rob? Who is...?" Al's apron-clad wife suddenly stops placing dishes on the table and intuitively guesses her husband has finally come home. In a long-held shot with Al's back to the camera, she spatially appears at the end of the hallway corridor with arms half-outstretched. Both stand frozen to the ground - and then silently, slowly, move into each other's arms across the vast void. His children watch from afar as their parents share a long embrace.

44. Duel in the Sun (1946), David O. Selznick
The ending of the film

I have not seen this movie. But the ending - which is a shootout as well as a love/lust scene - gave the movie the nickname "Lust in the Dust". Love scene between the delicious Jennifer Jones and the delicious Gregory Peck.

45. Gilda (1946)
Rita Hayworth's torchy rendition of "Put the Blame on Mame, Boys."

It's torchy, use, but it's also tragic. She's desperate, she's embarrassing - and the dance is used to humiliate Johnny. Great.

46. It's A Wonderful Life (1946), Frank Capra
In my opinion, so many great moments to choose from in this movie. AFI chose one of my favorites:

That PHONE conversation. You have to know the one I mean. It has everything. The acting, the sensuality, the tears, the love, the closeness of their two faces ... unREAL.

47.Notorious (1946), Hitchcock
The "longest kiss in screen history"

Perhaps it is noteworthy that that was the "longest kiss" at the time - but I think the endless descent of the staircase that closes the film is a superior scene. The whole movie is great, though.

48. The Lady From Shanghai (1948).
The Hall of Mirrors scene

Don't know this one.

49. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), John Huston
When Walter Huston makes fun of the other two for wanting to turn back.

"My, my, my, what great prospectors, two shoe clerks readin' in a magazine about prospectin' for gold in the land of the midnight sun, south of the border, or west of the Rockies, ha, ha, ha...Go ahead, go ahead, throw it. If you did, you'd never leave this wilderness alive. Without me, you two would die here more miserable than rats..."

50. The Heiress (1949), William Wyler
The climactic scene

Montgomery Clift, the manipulative sneak, is finally crushed by the rejection of the once naive Olivia de Havilland (who won an Oscar for the role). He bangs on the door maniacally. She has closed all the blinds. She does embroidery, as we hear him go more and more crazy outside. Her face (which at the beginning of the film is soft and open and naive) gets harder and harder and harder. She takes a lamp, and walks up the stairs - still listening to his maniacal pounding on the door. She is proud, she is proud of rejecting him - but the rejection is obviously twisting her soul into something hard and unsympathetic. She says to her aunt, "He came back with the same lies, the same silly phrases...he has grown greedier with the years. The first time, he only wanted my money. Now, he wants my love too. Well, he came to the wrong house and he came twice - I shall see that he never comes a third time...Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters."

It's a great performance. I highly recommend it.

51. The Third Man (1949) - two moments chosen
A. The entrance of Orson Welles

B. The final closing sequence

52. White Heat (1949)
The last scene. Of course. One of the great scenes of all time.

"Made it Ma! Top of the world!"

53. All About Eve (1950)
The "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

Delivered by Bette Davis, after something like her third martini, in this black satin dress, as she stops at the bottom of the staircase ... It's such an imitated line, that I was shocked when I saw the film for the first time how NATURAL it comes out. It's not campy at all. It's quite real.

54. Sunset Boulevard (1950), Billy Wilder
The ending. Of course. Gloria Swanson is lured from her mansion, and descends the staircase. She is utterly mad. She thinks she's playing Salome, her great part earlier in her life. She doesn't know what is real. She is speaking - a long monologue which ends with the famous famous lines: "All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up."

55. George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951)
The dance - when Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift fall in love

One of the greatest extended love scenes, ever, in my humble opinion. What's so great about it is - both of them are misinterpreting the other. Because of hormones, I suppose. And yet the electricity between them is also intense. But ... there's something OFF. It's a powerful scene - with a ton of intense closeups - which really get inside the heads of the two characters. Very very intimate scene.

56. Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
"STELLLAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

57. High Noon (1952)
Gary Cooper alone in the streets at high noon. A classic scene.

58. Singin' In the Rain (1952)
The "Singin' in the Rain" dance sequence.

Did you know that the rain in that scene was made up of water AND milk - because the milk was what made it all shiny under the lights? Just plain water was soaking into his suit immediately and didn't give the desired effect.

59. Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953)
The scene you actually DON'T see in the film - when he (Lee Marvin) throws scalding hot coffee on her (Gloria Grahame's) face.

I haven't seen this film. The scene sounds brutal - it happens off-camera but you hear her screaming, "My face! My face!"

60. From Here to Eternity (1953)
The couple making out as the waves rush in. A classic scene.

61. Shane (1953).
The echoing finale.

"Come back, Shane!"
Come back, Shane....

62. Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954)

"You was my brother, Charley. You should've looked out for me a little bit. You should've taken care of me - just a little bit - so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money...You don't understand! I could've had class. I could've been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face it (pause) ...... It was you, Charley."

63. The Night of the Hunter (1955) - two moments chosen
Often called one of the greatest American movies ever made. I agree. Charles Laughton, the famous actor, chose this as his only directorial project. Which may be why the film is so hard to classify, so ... of its own kind. Is it a thriller? A horror film? A myth? Well, it's certainly terrifying, I know that.

A. Robert Mitchum's insane prayer at the beginning about HATE and LOVE which he has tattooed across his knuckles.

B. The insane duet of "Lean on Jesus" between Lillian Gish, sitting in her rocking chair with a rifle - as a sort of Whistler's Mother - with the psycho killer Mitchum in the garden. She standing guard against him. He is biding his time, waiting. But they sing together. If there is a scarier moment in films, I don't know what it is. I have goosebumps going up my arm right now.

64. Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Do the words "Marilyn Monroe with a skirt blowing up over a subway grate" bring up any images?

65. John Ford's The Searchers (1956)
Spd rdr, et al: I promise to see this film eventually. Okay???

AFI chose the beginning and the end of this film: the framed door looking out onto the wilderness

66. The Ten Commandments (1956), Cecil B. DeMille
The parting of the Red Sea moment

67. David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
AFI acknowledges all the great scenes in this great movie - but chose as the best scene the one where Alec Guinness keeps his men standing all day long when they arrive at the POW camp, in the hot sun - and Guinness is then beaten and dragged into that stove-box thing, for him to be basically cooked in the sun. Heat torture. This power struggle lasts for days. An excruciating sequence.

68. Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958).
The final sequence where the 2 shackled-together prisoners (one white - Tony Curtis, and one black - Sidney Poitier) run together to try to jump together onto the moving train. The whole film is about race relations - these two have to put aside their animosities and work together because they are handcuffed together. And this last death-defying moment - is the true symbol of race relations in America at that time.

69. Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958).
The opening sequence. Which is absolutely beyond belief. It's called by the AFI: "the most dazzling opening sequence in any film" - and if you've seen it you'll know that's no exaggeration.

70. Vertigo (1958), Hitchcock
AFI chose as the greatest scene the one where she finally transforms herself into his dream of the dead girl. Hitchcock was such a wack-job, wasn't he, but he certainly knew how to tap into our fears. Creepy creepy scene. Jimmy Stewart is so wonderful, too - trying to re-mould this new girl into the one he lost. It's a scene where you don't know if it's real or a fantasy, the camera going round and round and round ...

71. Ben-Hur (1959)
The chariot race. Beat me about the head and neck, everyone, once again, for I haven't seen this film. But dammit, there are only so many hours in the day.

72. Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959)
The crop-dusting scene. (Sorry, Emily, and Emily's dad.) I am actually a bit more partial to the scene with all the characters climbing around the face of Mount Rushmore.

73. Some Like It Hot (1959), Billy Wilder
"Nobody's perfect."

Of course.

74. Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)
The shower-scene.

75. David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - two moments chosen.

A. For whoever it was yesterday who thought THIS was a better choice than the mirage scene: AFI chose the moment of the lit match becoming the desert.

B. The mirage moment, discussed yesterday.

76. Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962)
The first image we get of Lolita.

77. Tom Jones (1963), Tony Richardson
Albert Finney as Tom Jones has a multi-course meal with a Mrs. Waters - but really what it is - is the whole meal is a metaphor for foreplay. It's all about sex - I mean ... er ... just look at Albert Finney's face.

78. The Sound of Music (1965)
The opening.

79. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn
The two of them being shot, riddled with bullets

An iconic scene, one of the most controversial ever made - at the time. One of the first times slo-mo had been used when depicting violence.

80. The Graduate (1967), Mike Nichols
The ending: the wedding, the rescue scene, him at the back of the church, the two of them fleeing to a bus, and then bursting into laughter. They look out the back window ... and they suddenly look so small and worried and alone. It is most definitively NOT a happy ending. Very interesting.

81. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Bone into space-ship.

Emily, please inform "the fags" that I did not choose these moments. Also - please do more drunk-blogging. I so wanted to join whatever party it was you were having!

82. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The ending. You kind of can't get any better than that ending.

83. Easy Rider (1969)
I LOVE that this moment was chosen: Jack Nicholson saying to the 2 bikers, "Have I got a helmet? Oh, I've got a helmet!!"

Cut to the next shot: which is the 2 motorcycles screaming down the road, the 2 cool biker-dudes, and Nicholson - the dissipated lawyer, wearing a gold football helmet, with an enormous happy smile on his face.

84. Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969)
AFI chose as the greatest moment in this film the entire opening sequence, with its freeze-frame credits, etc.

85. Patton (1970)
George C. Scott's 6 minute monologue at the beginning - standing in front of that enormous American flag.

Why did George C. Scott decline the Oscar he received for this role?

86. A Clockwork Orange (1971), Kubrick
The rape scene. Which makes me sick just to think of.

87. The French Connection (1971)
The car chase.

Probably one of the greatest chase scenes ever filmed.

88. Deliverance (1972)
I saw this movie in a Jon Voight MANIA I had some years ago (before I had a blog - so I didn't inflict that obsession on you). It got so bad that I was seeing films where he only had one or two lines.

However: Deliverance is a classic film. Terrifying. Burt Reynolds is amazing, Ned Beatty is pathetic ... it's haunting.

AFI chose from this film that first scene with banjo-playing hillbilly person. The whole scene sets up the entire movie - the world that these guys are, unknowingly, entering.

89. Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972)
The long opening scene. (The marriage, the private meetings going on in Brando's office, Brando petting the kitten during the meetings ...) It is masterful.

90. The Exorcist (1973)
The crucifix scene which makes me wince just to think about. Ouch. Ouch.

91. Chinatown (1974)
When Jack Nicholson's nose is cut after he comes out of the storm drain.

An AWFUL scene.

I would have picked the "mother sister mother sister" scene.

92. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The scene where Nicholson wants to watch the World Series. Nurse Bitch-ed wants to stop him.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that's a good scene.

93. Rocky (1976)
Rocky's triumphal run up the steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art. With swelling music, pumping his fists in the air, the skyline of Philadelphia ...

94. Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976)
"You talkin' to me?"

95. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
The disco era is so made fun of now, and we're all embarrassed by that cultural phenomena - that it's hard to remember what a good movie this is. My favorite moment is when he pushes the doors of the club open right at the moment in Beethoven's 9th symphony when the music blasts ...

AFI chooses his solo. In that damn white suit and black shirt. Easy to make fun of now - but in the context of that movie, a very very good scene.

96. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979)
So many unbelievable scenes to choose from. AFI also chooses the morning helicopter raid, with Robert Duvall's insanity, the swarm of helicopters over the water, and Wagner blasting.

97. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).

98. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The opening sequence.

What I SO LOVE about that opening sequence is that it has NOTHING to do with the rest of the plot - it is there to set up Indy's character, to show us who this man is, to tell us that basically "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is just ONE in a NUMBER of adventures had by this man ... and it also is hilarious how after THAT beginning, with the fedora and the bull whip, we next see him as a stuffy professor with glasses. I mean - perfect.

99. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
Orgasm. Deli. "I'll have what she's having."

100. Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993)
AFI actually chose my favorite sequence in the film, which is NOT "the red coat" one - It is the composing of the list. The joint composing between Schindler and Stern ... Kingley at the typewriter, Neeson pacing and smoking, the list growing and growing and growing. It's my favorite scene in the movie.

Posted by sheila