Great subtle moments in movies

[amplify]

The Manchurian Candidate, the scene where Sinatra meets Janet Leigh on the train. He is a complete mess, a nervous wreck, and they have this exceedingly strange dialog. No woman would be attracted to this man and yet she is, or is she an agent giving him instructions in code, or just what is going on in this scene? It's subtle because if you aren't paying attention it seems normal, I thought nothing of it the first few times I saw the movie besides its illustration of Sinatra's desperate state, but the more you watch it and think about it the weirder it gets.

[TheDudeAbides]

Some really great subtle nuances in Dazed and Confused. The way Wiley Wiggins touches his face all the time when he's nervous. The expressions on Slater's face (usually in the background). There are lots more, but I haven't seen it in about a year. I think I may rewatch that movie tonight.

[rapidacid]

[ QUOTE ]
Some really great subtle nuances in Dazed and Confused. The way Wiley Wiggins touches his face all the time when he's nervous.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this is subtlety ... I think this is bad acting.

[MuppetBingo]

At the end of Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin becomes Darth Vader and he screams out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

[lvalntin99]

In Good Will Hunting when the girl comes up to Matt Damon in the bar, Casey Affleck says "I swallowed a bug" and walks away. I watched the DVD commentary and Ben Affleck says that Casey adlibbed the line and proclaims that subtle line to be one of the greatest moments in movie history or something equally ridiculous. But Ben Affleck is an Oscar winner so he must be right.

[DarrenX]

The subtelty is debatable, but I didn't catch it the first time or two I saw it:

Vanilla Sky, when David is yelling at Brian, blaming him for the accident involving Julie Giani, because Brian must have told her that David considered her a "f*ck buddy". Brian immediately denies this, saying, "I told her nothing of the sort", followed by his eyes quickly darting quickly from side to side- I took this as either:

1) him blatantly lying and his eyes giving him away or

2) him telling what he believed to be the truth, then 'searching his memories' of the drunken night of the party, realizing he actually may have said it.

Either way, it seemed blatantly obvious later, but perhaps not so to the casual observer.

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]


I don't know what to say to someone who immediately thinks of Fight Club when asked about suble moments in films. Maybe watch more films?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an ignorant comment. (But I guess it's coming from someone who can't spell "tons" and who doesn't pick up on much subtlety anyway).

One great subtle moment in Fight Club is a cue that Jack and Tyler are the same person. Down in the basement of the bar, when the owners confront Tyler about having his club in there, he stands up to them and immediately gets punched in the stomach. Right when he's hit, you can see Jack in the corner of the screen leaning up against a post -- and he tilts his head down as if *he* just got a gut-punch. It's a subtle reaction that clues us into the fact that these guys are experiencing the same thing.

***

One of my favorite subtle moments is in A Few Good Men:

Demi Moore, a superior officer, is talking to rookie lawyer Tom Cruise about her case. While she's trying to explain the details to him, he's casually eating an apple. When he's done, he looks around for a trash can and she holds one up for him to toss the core into. Then she continues explaining the case, but Cruise's hands are sticky from the apple juice. So what does he do? He rubs his hands together really fast, like we do when we want to get sticky stuff off our palms.

It's an awesome little moment because it shows the disrespect Cruise has for this woman while she's trying to be serious, and it sets the tone for the relationship between those two characters -- she's intent on getting through to him, and he's oblivious.

[TheDudeAbides]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Some really great subtle nuances in Dazed and Confused. The way Wiley Wiggins touches his face all the time when he's nervous.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this is subtlety ... I think this is bad acting.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd agree with you if it only happened once or twice. But it happens throughout the whole movie, and its exactly the kind of thing a kid his age would do when surrounded by older, cooler kids and feeling uncomfortable. That, and there is no way Linklater would let this happen every single scene unless it was entirely deliberate.

[FlyWf]

Seriously, there is nothing subtle about any part of Fight Club. If someone mentions American Beauty in this [censored] thread I can't be held responsible for my actions. What's next, Dead Poet's Society? Boondock Saints?

I'll, natch, go pretty obscure but I just saw it and really loved this subtle little moment:
At the very end of Payback's director's cut when Porter puts the cigarette in his mouth the wrong way and then breaks the filter off.

[Michaelson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I love "About Schmidt", precisely for all the subtleties.

One off the top of my head: Jack drives to Colorado for his daughter's wedding (after being unable to convince his daughter not to marry this loser). He's going to stay at the groom's mother's house. In fact, he'll be sleeping in the groom's old bedroom, which his mom has kept to look like it did the day he left it (the Aerosmith and Van Halen posters, etc).

Jack looks at all the awards and trophies on display in the room, and almost all of them are branded "Participant" or "Fifth Runner-Up". A real achiever, this kid.

Honorable mention to "Easy Money", where Rodney has a joint hidden in the bathroom, in the Roach Motel.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Dear Ndugu..."

About Schmidt is a movie rife with, and in fact all about, subtlety. Taken on the usual measures of a film, plot, characters, etc., its not a very good movie. But the entire movie takes place on a level not shown on screen and we only get subtle hints though Jack Nocholson's performance about the internal life of a shallow and pathetic man. I liked it very much.

[/ QUOTE ]

The scene in About Schmidt when he's sitting on the roof of the RV or whatever it is, staring into the sky, and his dead wife appears in the stars...

This is a terrible thread, btw.