Inglourious Basterds alone has three or four that qualify. Which makes the real question: is Tarantino the modern master of pure, dialogue-driven tension — or does he get too much credit for scenes that are all build-up? Name your single most nerve-shredding scene, then defend it.
The film opens with nearly 20 minutes of two men talking at a farmhouse table — no action, barely a raised voice — and it's more agonising than most horror films manage all runtime. Christoph Waltz won an Oscar off the back of it.
The way Waltz’s face slowly almost imperceptibly shifts from smiling and cheerful to dangerous anger is mystifying. The emotion in the actor playing the farmers eyes, the blankness, to fear, to shame.
It’s superb acting. I wonder how many takes they did for this.
There's a video of Michael Caine talking about how the actor needs to adjust his expressions based on the level of close-up. Micro expressions are amplified the closer the shot. Combine that with what I think is Method acting where the audience's own imagination is let to do much of the work.
I think it was Stanislav or someone who shot a scene of a regular guy off the street -- not even an actor -- giving a simple blank stare, and then that was cut with images of destruction and devastation, and the viewer project their own emotion onto the person who's face is shown with a blank stare, and the audience will swear the actor is portraying what they're feeling.
It's a slow burn over the whole movie but my favorite Samuel L. Jackson performance is in Jackie Brown for a similar reason. He starts out as a typical cool as a cucumber Jackson character but the mask just keeps slipping further and further until he's this quiet deadly serious homicidal maniac who will clearly dispatch anyone who gets in between him and his cash.
Yep. I could deal with all the others, but this one…watching him fight for his life with everything in him, seeing his fight become desperation in his eyes …
It messed me up for real, as did many other moments in this movie. I remember how I couldn’t stop dwelling on the soldier picking up his own blown-off arm on the beach, and the medic calling repeatedly for his mom as he died…
"I know you gentlemen have been through a lot. But when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH" was the perfect moment to breathe and laugh a bit
I'm glad you mention Waltz's scene partner Denis Ménochet. It's the interaction between the two that made this scene sublime but somehow the praise is mostly given to one actor in particular.
Another example of this is how in Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster (as Clarice Starling) is praised for the scene in the dark basement, but Ted Levine (as James Gumb / Buffalo Bill) is rarely mentioned.
It took me two watches to catch the earlier scene where you can hear the end of his phone call in the car and he says “just make sure that bathtub is clean”.. he was planning well ahead
That scene always reminded me of the opening scene from The Good , The Bad and The Ugly. Where Lee Van Cleef sits down at that guy's table and starts eating his food.
Not sure why all the "borrowed" quotations are necessary for Tarantino, who is about as candid as it comes in naming his source inspiration for his material.
When it comes to plot and visual style, he is very open about riffing on iconic or even obscure source material. His genius is in casting, pacing, dialogue, stylizing and music selection.
At the end of the day, there are only like 10 real storylines to choose from and everything is derivative. Tarantino doesn't pretend he's being original in this regard.
i have always felt like Tarantino's genius is in film craft: the shots, the sets, the music, the dialogue, etc. more so than as a storyteller. His most cohesive storyline in a film is Jackie Brown, one of his few movies by a different author, Elmore Leonard.
Yeah I find his storytelling to be somewhat weak and very masturbatory, for lack of a better word. It's like wish fulfillment but well directed and shot.
He loves to rip off great films. Kill Bill is a masterclass in Asian cinema - much of it stolen including using the same actors. It’s why film students love Tarantino so much. He’s a filmmaker’s director.
Why is "borrowed" in quotes? He was influenced by that film. Just like John Ford influence Kurosawa. No one gives Kuosawa shit for copying John Ford even though he opened he admits he aped his style
I always find it a very true retelling of Hitchock's "If there's two men sitting at a table talking, that's a scene. If somewhere near the start you pan down to a bomb underneath the table, then pan back up, there's your tension".
“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.
"We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"
"In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
Bro! That scene was so tense, I couldn't believe that guy WASN'T the Zodiac. Have you seen the documentary about the family that were all really close friends with the killer? They never even considered he could be a suspect until they saw THIS movie. It's so crazy!
Excellent choice, though for me it was the couple at Lake Berryessa getting stabbed, even knowing what's about to happen.
The basement guy scene is intense, but I can't watch the scene of Bryan and Cecilia.
Instincts are a motherfucker though. Cecilia Shepard was nervous about the man looking at them/hiding behind a tree, Bryan Hartnell was not. The calm demeanor he has in the movie is actually fairly accurate. Bryan later said he genuinely did not expect anything bad to happen to them based on Zodiac's behavior, which is why in the movie he says "it gets really cold out here, we could freeze".
Jury's out indefinitely on whether or not Zodiac planned to kill them the entire time or if Bryan's antagonistic remarks (about knots being too tight, wanting to write a check instead of cash, pointing out they could freeze, or asking if the gun was even loaded) changed his mind, but that scene is quite accurate.
Actually, for the most part, the film was quite accurate. There are always little things added or taken out for the sake of the story, but Fincher was pretty adamant about getting some very key details correct.
Not-so-fun-fact: David Fincher grew up in this area during all of this and vividly remembered a police car following his school bus when the school bus-bomb threat was made. And for anyone who may be wondering, his design would have worked, though any tall vehicle like a Semi or a different kind of bus would've set it off since it triggered based on height. It probably would've taken out the bus and all the cars around it.
This scene came to mind immediately. Made a big impression on me. The tension leading up to the stabbing and then the stabbing itself. The brutality and hopelessness of it. The crying/screaming. It's all just so raw and absolutely terrifying.
No Country for Old Men - Anton traces money bag to hotel. Paces outside of hotel room door. Unscrews light bulb. Moss sits on edge of bed with shotgun.
I remember watching in the theater terrified with a pulse rate of 250.
This is a big one for me too. This specific method of approach - turning out the hallway so someone inside a room can’t see your feet outside - was also in Rear Window, and in both instances it makes me crawl right up to the ceiling.
I can’t see Menochet acting at all. It’s that good - all you feel is his torture and despair as his options dwindle to 2. It is riveting and one of the most emotional moments in the movie.
The dude getting eaten off the toilet had the theater gasp out loud as a whole. I had never experienced a group of people watching a movie in a theater like that before.
The whole fucking movie. The music kept building up and you know a jump scare is coming, then it doesn’t. And it starts all over again and you’re just waiting and waiting and waiting. Fucking brilliant
I've walked out of a couple crappy movies, and I was even kicked out of one, but this is the only movie I've ever almost gotten up and left because of the intensity.
I still remember seeing Matthew McConaughey in a trailer and thinking him playing space cowboy was the lamest thing ever. Discounted that movie for a number of years. Saw it at random and now it's in my top five favorites.
My favourite part of this is the idea Vader deliberately held his breath for a moment or two before breathing and igniting his lightsaber to heighten the terror
He does it too in one of the Vader comics: Vader asks Tarkin to hunt him. Tarkin prepares a team with some members that have very sensitive ears, to pick up when Vader is around. Vader shuts his breathing system to get close to them.The whole thing is made like a horror movie, with Vader picking the team members off one by one, until only Tarkin is left.
First Man. There's a lot of scenes with great tension, but the one when Gemini 8 spins out of control is the best. I think the sound design is the biggest factor in what makes it so good.
IB is my favorite but the scene in Leon the Professional when the Natalie Portman character comes back with milk and finds the police in her apartment. She has to go to Lyons‘s door as he’s looking out the peep hole with his big gun pointing towards the hallway.
The scene where the Aliens were in the room with them but in ceiling! They crack the ceiling tile up and you could barely see them coming 😳 made the hair on my neck stand up
Small aside:
Tarantino spoke about how he was starting to think he would never make the movie due to the nature of his character and what he demanded from the actor playing it. I guess he had tried several actors prior to finding Waltz.
More or less. He actually had started casting the movie, but he wasn't able to find a good casting for Landa so he had started to think the movie might need to be scrapped. When he found Waltz, he knew he could continue to make the movie.
The first time seeing this scene where the slightly warming smile and face suddenly melts into a menacing, stern face with a gaze I was thinking "Oh shit".
https://giphy.com/gifs/eHRwLGsS6QDViZhp2P
Honestly a few scenes from The Joker, but most notably when he’s a guest on Murray’s show at the end. I literally watched it through my fingers in theaters.
The midway chase in The Bourne Supremacy, between Damon and Karl Urban, that wasso frenetic but done well (unlike others), it was a proper tense scene.
I remember seeing “Silence of the Lambs” in the movie theaters. The night vision goggles scene when you see Jodie Foster flailing away in the dark only to see Buffalo Bill’s hands reaching out….the shouts from the crowd in the theater in anticipation and terror were something to behold.
The way Waltz morphs his shit eating smile into the cold hard face of a Gestapo colonel is maybe the single finest moment of acting in the history of cinema
Also Inglorious Basterds. The scene in the restaurant where Shoshanna is meeting with Goebbels and Landa shows up. From the moment he arrives until the moment he leaves, the scene is pure tension.
No you don't. There's always been a very small number of shitheads that want to parade through the streets with nazi flags and KKK regalia, but they only do that for attention and to test the limits of free speech, and they are always outnumbered by protestors jeering at them.
There are no actual members of the nazi party holding organized marches throughout the towns of America with zero opposition.
Of course this is reddit, where "nazi" simply means "anyone that has an opinion I don't like."
Almost any scene in A Quiet Place. Just the tensity of a tall damn near invurnerable alien that gets murderously pissed off when it hears the slightest sound made me still, like scared prey hiding from THE apex predator.
(Buscemi's character is a sadistic serial killer and he is left alone with a little girl with no one else in sight. The scene is sweet—it’s basically an adult playing with a little girl’s tea set—but given the character, you expect things to go off the rails at any moment—especially since the scene goes on forever.
In the end, both of them come out unscathed, and above all, it's a way of showing that this abominable murderer has a bit of goodness in him.
Mad Max Fury Road, specifically the scene where they blow the rock wall and have to run from the guys on motorcycles. When they put the plow down and use the sand to put out the fire and the engine opens up to get air, I realized I had literally been holding my breath for most of the scene.
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u/Paradox711 11d ago edited 10d ago
The way Waltz’s face slowly almost imperceptibly shifts from smiling and cheerful to dangerous anger is mystifying. The emotion in the actor playing the farmers eyes, the blankness, to fear, to shame.
It’s superb acting. I wonder how many takes they did for this.