Lunchtime Poll: Which scene in a movie made you imagine a whole other movie?
Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 11:22AM by Nathaniel R
Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood was difficult to write about. That's what happens with dense movies. Naturally, then, my review left out something major. It was only after publishing it that I realized I hadn't even mentioned the extended scene that is the movie's most impressive on a filmmaking level. I'm talking about the significant detour when Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) visits Spahn's Movie Ranch. He used to shoot a TV show there a decade earlier but it's now Manson Family territory, thanks to the retired and now blind George Spahn (Bruce Dern)...
Spahn is paid for his hospitality with sexual services from Squeaky Fromme (Dakota Fanning, in a blisteringly hostile performance). When Booth arrives he refuses to leave without seeing the old man, to check if he's okay since the "family" feels a little "off" to the stuntman. This stubborn suspicious demand makes him instantly unwelcome. You fear at any moment that the screen might erupt with violence.
The amount of tension and suspense Tarantino conjures in this sequence, with a ton of moving parts within a single location, but not much happening narratively beyond waiting by a door is something only masters can do. But, in truth, it almost felt like it belonged to a separate movie. A more straightforward true story thriller experience than the one Tarantino otherwise delivered.
Which raises an interesting question that I hope you'll answer in the comments. Which scenes, like this one did for me, have made you imagine a whole different or companion movie off to the side of the one you've actually seen? Did you long to be in that other movie instead or did it just make the one you watched feel richer?
Reader Comments (28)
The first movie that comes to mind is Wild - the scene where Cheryl meets the boy and grandmother who lost their llama. I would love to know more about their backstory and the meeting with Cheryl could be a scene from their own movie.
Two recent, silly ones.
Mamma Mia 2: would have rather spent the whole time with Young Donna and Young Bill cavorting around the Adriatic.
Yesterday: The Russian guy and the lady from Liverpool who remembered The Beatles too. What was their story?
Bad Times at El Royale was so much less than the sum of its parts. There were at least three other movies in there, screaming to get out. The opening sequence created the impression of a mystery movie surrounding a single room and, perhaps, a variety of people looking for access to it and jockeying for it. Bizarrely, that was NOT the movie.
Then, the discovery of the secret passages in the hotel was a WHOLE 'NOTHER THING and yet, virtually none of that movie was shared with us. Imagine a movie built around the dark secrets discovered in those passages!
I am a lifelong fan of Legally Blonde and I have watched it dozens of times and will continue to do so for the rest of my life, but also as an adult I have realized to my dismay that it is "bad." Also as an adult I have become fascinated by the bend and snap. An actual staged / choreographed musical/dance number in the middle of an otherwise non-musical movie! It's also not a dream / revery / hallucination! It's just in there! I am delighted with its status as an odd tonal/genre detour, no desire to see a full movie of bend and snap musical scenes, NOR a filmed version of the broadway musical.
The Club Silencio scene in Mulholland Dr is what has stayed with me all these years. I wanted more of that. The first time I saw it ages ago, the scene enriched the movie. Revisiting the movie recently though, this scene just made the rest of the movie less interesting by comparison.
I think Alfre Woodard is just doing fascinating work in her small scene in 12 Years A Slave, and watching how Lupita's performance alters in response to it too. So much is *not* being said, but Woodard paints an entire character and backstory with just a few lines.
I'd similarly watch a companion film to Eastern Boys about Daniil Vorobyev's character. It's so erotically charged, but in a way that feels somehow threatening and defensive at the same time.
In the middle of The Grifters we get these flashback scenes of Myra conning Texas businessmen. They're fairly involved with their own cast, sets and a different tone than the rest of the movie.
Lilly and Roy's world is very film noir but Myra's straight out of a screwball comedy. You get the sense that Frears wanted to direct one of each and Bening made it possible to do both at once.
I want a Janey Carver biopic.
I’d like a companion piece to Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! that is all about the art students and which has a single sequence with the athletes.
Hayden, thank you for mentioning this section of The Grifters, a film I adore. Bening is brilliant and knows how to set a tone. A wonderful performance.
Recently, the section with Brian Tyree Henry in If Beale Street Could Talk made me think of another movie that could be just about this lonely, haunted man. His terrific monologue conjures an entire extra story that could be fascinating if fully explored all on its own.
The Avengers: The Porno
When Agrado tells her story in the theater in All About My Mother, I wanted her to have her own movie
loving all these answers. It's like seeing a bunch of immaginary movies really quickly!
I appreciate the question, but I didn't think the Spahn's Ranch sequence broke with the tone of the rest of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. In this film, Tarantino shows a new maturity in his creation of suspense, right from the first appearance of the Manson 'Girls' as they come along the street. I felt that the Manson stuff in the film was all played serious (except for the tonally offbeat climax, which nevertheless worked) and I felt that this added to the sense that the film is respecting Sharon Tate (the real Sharon Tate) by not cheapening her memory. These serious moments, when juxtaposed with the comedy of Rick and Cliff in other scenes, create something of a rounded portrait: Hollywood 1969 as a rather ego-driven place, filmed with affection, but also a menacing one, filmed with care.
I did, however, think that the Spahn's Ranch sequence was an example of a film having an almost self-contained sequence, a kind of mini film within the main film. In that respect, it reminded me of the La Louisiane sequence in Inglourious Basterds.
I think THE FAREWELL lends itself to this question very well. Can you imagine a movie where the lead is Awkwafina's cousin pretending to get married or perhaps his fiancee, the Japanese girl who doesn't understand what anyone is saying? Or how about the grandmother's sister and the journey she had to go through or Awkwafina's parents, their relationship with each other and the grandmother.
Sarah Paulson's scene in Carol where she tells Rooney Mara about her relationship with Cate Blanchett. What makes Paulson's performance work is that she's able to conjure this alternative world in just a few moments.
The hours and the brief scenes between the three mais characters and supporting cast:Virgínia Wolf and her sister, Clarissa and her lover/daughter, Laura Brown and her neighbour. The scenes despite been brief make us wonder and imagine what would Their be like...
The mention of Mulholland Dr. brings to my mind the scene of the accidental shoot when the guy tries to fix the mess causing more disaster. Is like a sketch of dark comedy inside a psichological thriller.
Another Woman –– the scene where Sandy Dennis confronts Gena Rowlands about how their estrangement was not accidental but purposeful on Dennis’s part, then proceeds to list out why she grew to resent Rowlands’s character
The scene where Elizabeth Debicki is buying a gun in Widows. After that scene I only wanted to follow her path. Debicki is such a talented actress
Madeline Kahn's backstory in Clue. Sort of a parody of 50s housewife movies where Mrs. White could not care less about social norms, coldly dispatches husband after husband, and finds reason to develop those flames at the side of her face regarding Yvette.
I love Manuel's answer. I want a movie about Debicki and Weaver's mother-daughter relationship.
Careful! It’s questions like this one that begat creatures like Hotel Artemis, Tokyo Drift and the upcoming Avatars 2 through 17. ;)
I have lots of thoughts, but have to advocate for the backstory of Elio’s dad (Michael Stuhlbarg) from Call Me By Your Name. The speech to his son! It betrays so many possibilities, but nothing tangible.
Here's a slightly obscure one: That scene in "Zabriskie Point" where Daria goes to a little roadhouse in the middle of the Mojave Desert looking for a man who works with "emotionally disturbed children." She never finds the man, but has some very odd encounters with the men in the roadhouse and then finally with a group of children, probably those "emotionally disturbed" ones, she was talking about. The kids, sans an adult supervisor, accost her, trying to get a "piece of [her] ass". She leaves and you spend the next little while wondering what the hell was going on in that weird, desolate little speck on the roadmap.
glad to hear Dakota rocked it! Was not fan of her performance on the Alienist but we all know she can knock it it of the park and is the Fanning sister of choice
what scene/sequence made me imagine another movie:
Honey Bunny and Pumpkin. aka diner scene in Pulp Fiction. This is by far the one that jumps most to mind where you can imagine a film following these two.
Channing Tatum's sequence in Hail Caesar. I wanted to see a whole movie musical of him and those characters.
Short films for sure, but some vignettes in between the "Before" trilogy of what their lives are like, and maybe, "Sliding Doors" like, what could have been....
HE "Hail Caesar!" is a Pandora's box of starting points for other films!
In addition to what you've mentioned, I would love to see follow up on Hobie and Carlotta, the Thacker sisters, DeeAnna and Silverman, and even the McGuffin of "On Wings of Eagles".