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Ricochet Movie Fight Club: Question 22
Last week, we discussed how certain films depict the true-stories unfolding around us. I M Fine won that fight pretty handily. Across the backdrop of national tragedies large and small looms a contemplation of individual mortality, and may have prompted I M Fine to ask What is the most memorable death scene in a film? (Any film genre is eligible, but the one caveat is the death must occur onscreen.) One big Spoiler Alert at the beginning here should suffice for what is to follow.
The Rules:
- Post your answer as a comment. Make it clear that this is your official answer, one per member.
- Defend your answer in the comments and fight it out with other Ricochet member answers for the rest of the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by Friday night wins the fight.
- The winner gets the honor of posting the next question on Saturday.
- In the case of a tie, the member who posted the question will decide the winner.
Notes:
- Only movies will qualify (no TV shows) however films that air on television (BBC films, a stand-alone mini-series) will qualify.
- Your answer can be as off-the-wall or controversial as you’d like. It will be up to you to defend it and win people to your side.
- Fight it out.
Movie Fight Club Questions by Week:
- What is the best film portrayal of a book character? Winner: Charlotte with 18 likes for Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies.
- What is the best motion picture comedy of the 21st century? Winner: split decision. In an exemplary display of genuine sportsmanship, Randy Webster conceded the fight to Marjorie Reynolds’ pick Team America: World Police.
- What film provides the most evocative use of location? Winner: Taras with 21 likes for Lawrence of Arabia. Wasn’t even close.
- What is the best film that utilizes or is inspired by a work of William Shakespeare? Winner: Dr. Bastiat with five likes for The Lion King, a film inspired by Hamlet.
- Which movie has the best surprise ending, or unexpected plot twist? Winner: Repmodad with 18 likes for The Sixth Sense.
- What pre-1970s black-and-white movie would be most enjoyed by a modern 18- to 25-year-old audience? Winner: E J Hill with 9 likes for a Casablanca. (He didn’t exactly designate it his official answer, and most of the likes may have been for the modern Casablanca trailer rather than for it as an answer to the question, but nobody seemed to dispute it on those grounds, so that’s how the cookie crumbles.)
- What movie did you go to based on the trailer, only to have felt cheated? (i.e., the trailer was 10x better than the movie?) Winner: Back to back wins by E J Hill with 9 likes for Something to Talk About.
- Name the worst movie portrayal of your profession (where applicable.) Winner: LC with 8 likes for Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough.
- What is the worst movie that claims to be based or inspired by a true story? Winner: Tex929rr with 16 likes for the, “…terrible acting, and countless deviations from history,” in Pearl Harbor.
- What is your favorite little known movie? Winner: A last-minute rally for Tremors made the difference as Songwriter took the week 10 win!
- What is the best movie that you never want to watch again? Winner:
HitlerCharlotte with 15 likes for Schindler’s List. Sorry, Richard Oshea but Jesus won the real fight.
Week 11.5 Exhibition Match (as a make-up of sorts, since Songwriter didn’t get the week 11 question submitted in time) Name the best movie theme song ever? No winner declared but I’m pretty sure it was I.M. Fine with “Moon River.” - Name the best animated feature-length movie of all time. Winner: I.M. Fine with 10 likes for Pinocchio, and justice for I.M. Fine prevailed.
- What is the worst acting performance in an otherwise good film? Winner: In one of the most brutal fights we’ve seen yet Repmodad fended off a furious 12th-round onslaught by Gary McVey to give Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves the win with 20 likes.
- What is the quintessential American movie? Winner: Miffed White Male pulled off the comeback with 20 likes for The Right Stuff. There was a two-way tie at 19 for second place as well.
- What’s the most entertaining movie set during WWII? Winner: Arahant clearly won with Casablanca’s walloping 30 likes despite the withering onslaught by Sisyphus on the final day.
- What is the best movie love story? Winner: Songwriter with 20 likes for The Princess Bride with 20 likes. Up managed to make a strong showing and Dr. Bastiat is still conducting recounts trying to “find” some uncounted votes.
- What’s the best’ buddy’ movie? Winner: Brian Watt wins with 12 likes for The Man Who Would be King.
- What is the worst movie (not a made-for-TV movie) ever made? Brian Watt joins E.J. Hill as the only other back-to-back winner with 16 likes for Barbarella. Brian will get another crack at it by choosing the week 19 question. Can he make it three?
- What is the most frightening non-bloody film you’ve ever seen? The winner: J D Fitzpatrick with Wait Until Dark, starring the lovely Audrey Hepburn getting terrorized over a doll, sort of.
- Which movie has the best duel? Winner: Split decision between Philo for The Princess Bride and Songwriter for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The winner as decided by week 19 champion, JD Fitzpatrick, was The Princess Bride.
- Which movie based on a true story is the most accurate depiction of those events? Winner: I M Fine with a runaway victory for Apollo 13 with 27 likes.
Well, if The Princess Bride can’t win, at least its lines can drag down the competition. :)
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) — the Nazi death scene during the reveal of the ark of the covenant.
This movie came out the day before my 14th birthday and going to see it was the only thing I asked for. I got my wish, along with a sort-of surprise pool party. Definitely a top 10 birthday. :)
Final answer.
We could throw in a lot of slasher movies with equally “memorable” deaths in the sense of making the audience want to be able to unsee them.
A lot depends on how you interpret “memorable.” The OAD is equivocal: “worth remembering or easily remembered, especially because of being special or unusual.”
So do you want “memorable death scene” to mean “easily remembered”?
Or do you want it to mean “worth remembering”?
When we talk about “memorable moments” in our lives, do we mean times when we are profoundly emotionally disturbed, filled with a strong sense of shame, or otherwise possessed by a memory that we are unable to shake?
Or do we mean moments that give us a window of something worth remembering because the memory gives us a vision of a deeper, richer life?
Ah, you beat me to it! I think it’s also memorable because we see how much Spock has grown into his dual heritage since the series (actually acknowledging Kirk as a friend) and seeing Kirk and Bones’ reactions; Bones goes from banging on the glass trying to get Spock out of the chamber, after he already attempted to stop him, to grabbing Kirk to keep him from killing himself too. From the moment Spock uses the Vulcan nerve pinch on McCoy, the whole triumvirate, which is the heart of the show and the movies, is destroyed in slow motion.
The Princess Bride and Casablanca are the Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd of Ricochet Movie Fight Night, just with less overt racism. And fiddling.
The second part of that definition would favor the death in Alien as more memorable.
Lots of things are worth remembering. That doesn’t make them memorable. That’s why we have to create mnemonic devices.
What really makes Sonny’s death memorable for me is the scene that comes immediately after, with Vito and Tom. Sonny was the one that brought Tom into the family, the first person to really love and care for him, to be his brother, and it clearly is destroying him inside to have to even contemplate giving that news to his father. Who for all intents and purposes is Tom’s father too. And Vito! Throughout the film, we see that he holds Tom at just a hint of arm’s length because he doesn’t want to disrespect his parents, but losing Sonny makes him want to hold harder onto the son that the one who just died has gifted him; the way he allows Tom to hug him and closes his own eyes, allowing himself to feel the pain of the loss, is breathtakingly sad. The whole thing is doubly heartbreaking when you consider just how hurt Tom was by Sonny insulting him as a non-Italian earlier in the film, Sonny’s respect and love were the world to him and he’s lost all of that in a preventable way.
Official Answer: Vasily in The Hunt for Red October
Vasily is like Ramius’ son, his right hand man who shares his commander’s dreams of escaping to a brave new world of freedom. Unlike Ramius, he isn’t motivated by revenge, but by a desire to live his life to the fullest, to live it freely in a way that he knows he cannot in the USSR. And his dreams are so wholesome and simple, so indicative of someone who was lived a life without almost any free choice; he wants someone to love, a trade of his own choice, and a vehicle that will allow him to go, to move and see the world around him without restriction. He comes so close to attaining that goal, takes all of the crazy risks that his and Ramius’ plan entails, and then, at the last moment, is fatally wounded by a KGB plant, the same monsters that he has spent his whole life under the thumb of. And his final words , “I would have like to have seen Montana”, let us see just how dear his dream was, and how sweet it was to have almost reached it.
Right—I agree with you. That’s why I’m saying people have to decide how they want to interpret the word “memorable.”
My point is that one interpretation would favor a movie like Alien (or other horror films with shocking deaths) while the other would favor a movie like Blade Runner. The word itself doesn’t rule out one or the other.
However, when I use the word “memorable” to describe something in a movie, I want it to mean “worth remembering.” Hence my pick.
I suppose the death of Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) at the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai should get a mention. What have I done?
I just bought that movie to watch with a friend next week. Oh well.
What have I done?
Ashley-Pitt’s shooting at the train station in The Great Escape. Something about seeing all those obedient Germans getting out of the way of the shooter.
I think you are mixing up his service in the Sudan and the Boer War.
He went as a war correspondent. After his escape he used his friendship with General Ian Hamilton to wangle an appointment as a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse (or some such Rough Riderly type outfit). War corresponding became his side hustle, and a lucrative one it was.
Best Youtube version, for those of us who don’t tweet:
I would nominate the death of Victoria Page at the end of the Powell and Pressburger’s “Red Shoes”.
Besides it being what might be the best Technicolor film ever, the best dance film ever, the best film about art ever, and the best fairy tale adaptation ever, it starred Moira Shearer, whose skill at dance and acting astonish as much as her beauty. There are so many great scenes in the movie, and even though Brian and I are not dance aficionados, we could probably recite large portions of the film from memory.
In the original fairy tale, a woodsman can only remove the red shoes by cutting off the feet of the young girl but the feet and shoes continue to dance. (Hans Christian Anderson had a ghoulish side.) The death in the film is a less hideous but faithful ending.
Couldn’t find a clip I like of the end, but this is a quick look from Criterion:
Regarding memorableness (memorability?)…I’d just like to point out that my nomination (please visit comment #24!) is so memorable that I didn’t even need to name the movie.
Official answer: Captain John Miller in Saving Private Ryan.
It’s where Ryan walks up and looks down at the dead leader who led his men on the mission to find him after his three brothers died. Ryan stands there looking down, then the scene morphs to the present and he’s in Normandy looking at Miller’s grave. He straightens up and salutes the man who saved his life, accompanied by his wife, children, and their grandchildren. Real tear-jerker . . .
@Vectorman I found that clip as well, but the quality is so poor (IMHO) that it almost detracts from the scene. I do thank you for posting it.
Which death is more iconic: the Wicked Witch of the East or the Wicked Witch of the West? The former gave us the expression of “house fall on…”
Yeah it’s memorable. I’ll give you that. It’s also really anticlimactic. There weren’t even any puns involved, like “Time to take out the wash” or “You’re all wet” or “I’ve heard of turning water into wine babe, but that witch’s voice was more shrill than Donald Sutherland podding into a Hillary impersonation act, cha-cha”.
Arnold might have sucked as a governor, but he sure could deliver the goods on a killer pun.
Final Answer: The ending sequence of The Last of the Mohicans (1992) where there are the deaths of four major characters and a few minor ones. The setting. The music. The sadness. This is amazing movie making and this film should be enjoyed and studied by anyone who loves film.
Hint:
Love your comment @KirkianWanderer. I’ve seen Montana. Poor Vasily really missed out.
Actually, no I think Bambi comes in second place in that category. I think Old Yeller wins in that one.
Thanks. I watched the movie (the second time around) with another person and remain a Vasily truther; we never see for sure that he dies, so I prefer to think that he was revived and treated off screen and got to see Montana.
Yeah, I was thinking about this one too. :)
You think about these things a lot more deeply than I do.
I just thought, “Wow, look at all the bullets!”
Nameless bad guy in Goldfinger
I agree with Richard. But I have confidence that the market will correct itself by dealing The Princess Bride a crushing setback this week.
One thing Movie Fight Club has taught me – The Princess Bride is way overrated. It’s good and it’s funny, but c’mon. It’s not the all-time great that its movie-fight victories would lead one to believe. (My theory is that its over-rating is related to the fact that it somehow has a reputation as being not that popular – more of a cult classic sort of thing – so liking it scratches everyone’s itch to be one of the cool kids.)