Final Farewells: The Best & Worst Death Scenes In Cinema (Part Eight)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:30:00 GMT

And now, the worst...

Bjork in DANCER IN THE DARK (2000)

Most of the deaths on this worst list are disappointing, ill-conceived or simply ridiculous, but Dancer In The Dark is another animal entirely. The end of feel-bad auteur Lars Von Trier’s 2000 sadistic (and ultimately pointless) exercise in suffering and hopelessness was so excruciatingly painful and unpleasant to watch that I felt like I'd been punched in the ribcage. Which is not to say it's a bad movie, exactly. Which is not to say it's a good movie, either. I have to give a certain amount of respect to a film (and scene) that produces such a visceral reaction in me -- but, then again, I had a similar reaction to that infamous bootleg videotape of a politician shooting himself in the head at a press conference. Like somebody said once, it's easy to get a reaction out of an audience: just strangle a puppy. But that don't necessarily make it art. (AO)

Tom Hanks in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)

Earn this? Blow me. Saving Private Ryan isn't thoroughly terrible, but the schmaltz at the end is hard to take. Tom Hanks is shot by the same guy whose life he spared a few days before? Gimme a break. Why, those evil, ungrateful Germans. I guess they got what was coming to them. All of the swelling strings and tearful codas in the world can't mask how unearned and meaningless this death scene is. I'm fairly sure that Spielberg expects his audience to start laying palm fronds at the feet of the greatest generation who fought the Nazi menace after all this sturm und drang, but I was left wishing it had come some 14 hours earlier, back when I cared about the movie. (HC)

Mel Gibson in BRAVEHEART (1995)

Mel Gibson is really into the torture porn and martyrdom, isn't he? I know this isn't news; even the South Park parody is old and moldy. But at the end of Braveheart, Gibson's weird fetish wasn't old and creepy yet. It was new and creepy! And meant to lead the audience to admire ol' William Wallace for his hearty shout of "FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMM" despite his (offscreen) pain. And hey, if Mel could take the fake pain of the fake torture and still rally enough shout for freedom, what's a little waterboarding among friends? Perhaps I'm being overly glib; this movie was made well before our nation turned a blind eye to torture. And the message really isn't pro-torture so much as "boy, those English sure enjoyed publicly torturing that Scot guerrilla warrior." But the endless slo-mo, the black-and-white morality throughout, the obnoxious pushy score, all of these were torture enough for me as a viewer before we even approached Mel's craptastic death scene. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to shout freedom and escape the theater. (HC)

William Shatner in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (1994)

They got Spock’s death right in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, except that he wasn’t really dead. They got Kirk’s death all wrong in Star Trek: Generations, but he still stayed dead – hell, he couldn’t even score a cameo in the new movie. A misconceived bridge between the old school Trek crew – emphasis on “old” by 1994 – and Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and company, the movie was meant to launch a series of Next Generation movies while giving the outgoing administration a dignified sendoff. It didn’t accomplish either task with much success. The Next Gen flicks quickly petered out, and only three of the original series cast signed on for their farewell voyage – two of whom (James Doohan’s Scotty and Walter Koenig’s Chekov) disappear with little fanfare early in the proceedings. In the final reel, Screengrab MVP Shatner shows up to lend Picard a hand stopping Malcolm McDowell from destroying the universe or something, but Kirk’s “heroic” actions are pretty run-of-the-mill by his standards and his final moments woefully anticlimactic. (SVD)

But don’t take our word for it – here’s the man himself:

Shatner Responds: The Death Of Captain Kirk

Al Pacino in THE GODFATHER, PART III (1990)

No matter your faith, your creed, your political persuasion or your favorite Beatle, there’s one thing upon which all right-thinking people can agree: Michael Corleone’s story ended with the final shot of The Godfather, Part II. Nothing came after that. We all know he died at some point, because that’s how it works, but there was no reason to ever see it happen because the story was over. Unfortunately, some wrong-thinking people disagreed and eventually one of those people turned out to be Francis Ford Coppola, who had some bills to pay. He even wanted to title this movie The Death of Michael Corleone, just to make it clear that this is something he thought we should see. And so, at the end of his very terrible movie The Godfather, Part III, Coppola jumps some unknown distance into the future, where we find Al Pacino sitting alone on a bench with a bunch of grey shit in his hair. And then suddenly – and here I can’t put it any better than my friend John Mitchell did back in the day – he slumps over like Ruth Buzzi just whacked him with her handbag. And a little dog licks his face. I realize this is how I’m probably going to go out, too, but nobody made three movies about me. (SVD)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven & Nine

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs, Scott Von Doviak

Tilda Swinton & A Plate of Brownies

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:45:00 GMT

Tilda Swinton didn't get a reputation as being one of the quirkiest women in the movie business by doing things the easy way. She's almost always chosen the odd role, the unusal acting choice, the baffling if ever so charming interview: in the absence of Bjork actually making any more movies, which she has vowed not to do after having been traumatized by Lars Von Trier in Dancer in the Dark, Tilda Swinton fills the role of the Bjork of the motion picture industry.

So it stands to reason that when she dipped her toe into the overcrowded world of film festivals, it wouldn't be your typical red carpet affair. Next month, Swinton and her collaborator, Mark Cousins, will be debuting the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams festival in her hometown of Nairn, Scotland. Admission will be three British pounds or a tray of baked goods (out of which an effigy of Michael Powell will be made); seating will be in beanbag chairs; and the theme of the festival, if it has one, is films with "highly colored, dreamlike elements." Cousins describes the festival as "having an element of punk about it", and says that the focus will be on mood and tone rather than celebrity-sighting and premiere-mania.

While the program for the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams Festival has yet to be announced, it's known that Joel Coen will be selecting the films on two nights of its run, so it should, if nothing else, be a cinephile's dream come true. Additionally, prior ot a screening of All About Eve, there will be a screening of...a Bjork video. Well of course there will.

The Screengrab : bjork

Final Farewells: The Best & Worst Death Scenes In Cinema (Part Eight)

Tilda Swinton & A Plate of Brownies