"I'll never forget that scene in ..."

In an exchange below with my regular visitor, 'Dearieme', I remarked on how certain cinematic images stick in the mind.  The details might alter slightly under the ravages of passing time and fading memory, but the essence stays with you forever. The particular scene that began this train of thought was in the film of "Cabaret" when a group of smiling, happy, handsome, young Bavarians sitting drinking beer in the sunshine in the idyllic German countryside began singing "Tomorrow belongs to me". I didn't get it at first, it just seemed like a lovely song in slow 'oomp-pah-pah' time - and then the underlying 'reality' hit me.  Sheer genius!

The other cinematic image that is burned in my memory was from a film richly abundant in wonderful scenes - "Lawrence of Arabia".  The moment when Lawrence and an Arab guide are resting, alone in the vastness of an empty desert, when suddenly the Arab notices something that Lawrence can't even see.  The camera holds a long, steady shot of the empty desert, and very gradually a tiny black shape appears, the image too wavy under the reflected heat to be identified but which gradually transforms into the image of Omar Sharif.  Once seen, never forgotten!

Wikipedia have quite a good entry for the film pointing out the incredible happenstance that governed so much of what turned out to be almost perfect casting in every role.  They also indicate that David Lean and his scriptwriters played fast and loose with historical exactitude, even supposing anyone could be exact concerning the ambiguous hero of the story, but such criticisms can be ignored.  Like Shakespeare's histories, "the play's the thing", and that's what you should judge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_of_Arabia_(film)#Cast

If anyone else has any cinematic images that they would like to share, please tell me.

Comments

[dearieme]

There's the moment in Bridge Over the River Kwai when you spot that the cable is snagged.

[David Duff]

Another great David Lean film, but I do have an even earlier memory from one of his other films, "Great Expectations", when the convict suddenly looms out of the darkness in the churchyard. I was very young when I saw it and I nearly wet myself with shock!

Another great image I've remembered from one of my top ten movies - 'Gigi'. The scene where Gaston is brooding on his unexpected love for the young Gigi and is seen in silhouette with his opera hat tipped forward and his cane over his shoulder against the fountains in the (I think) Place de la Concorde. Of course, the whole film is a bow in the direction of the French impressionists - superbe!