That ONE Scene in a Movie, that Scene with Heart

 

 

 

There are certain films which although they may have from a few to many good scenes, have one specific scene which stands out to me as the heart in the story.

 

I don’t mean the heart as in the core of the story, or the plot, or the McGuffin, but a scene of emotional depth and importance. This topic is not about a film’s McGuffin, but do you know what a “McGuffin” is? We can thank Alfred Hitchcock for the term “McGuffin”. Every movie has one, every film needs one in order to justify the narrative—and to definitively set the narrative in motion. A plot without a McGuffin is pointless and rambling, and a McGuffin without a plot is just what it is, just a McGuffin. In Raiders of the Lost Ark for instance, the plot involved the search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant and the relationships between Indy and Marian, between Indy and his rival the French archeologist Rene Belloq, and between Indy and his search for truth and his goal to find the ark. The McGuffin itself was the Ark. Without the Ark, the plot had nothing to revolve around, nothing to move it forward, so the McGuffin of any film is what sets it in motion. A story about an older man in a relationship with a younger woman, a woman whose family objects to the relationship and seeks to stop it has a plot involving all of what was just stated, but the McGuffin itself is the age difference—that’s what sets the plot in motion.

 

Just as every film must have a McGuffin, each film should have a scene or scenes that either preludes the action or finale, or slows down the narrative just long enough to set an emotional tone which causes us to reflect on the reasoning behind the quest—whether that quest be to obtain a goal or to survive a peril—and remind us of why we should care; whether the caring need be about the goal itself or the character or characters involved.

 

I enjoy a movie with heart. A good movie will have heart that carries through the whole film, or a good portion, but here I am going to reflect on a specific kind of “heart” that I expect in a good film, one that in certain ways a film may center around, aside from the plot and/or the McGuffin itself of course.

 

The question I pose here is; what is a particular scene that stands out as the heart of the movie. I'm not talking about something that carries on through the entire film, but one specific scene that stands out with heart and emotional depth, a scene that touches you strongly as one you remember most, or one of the most, of a movie; a scene that if you were to re-watch only part of a film you would not want to miss?

 

Home Alone was a fun movie, but it also had a good degree of heart and soul, and depth, regarding the child Kevin’s longing to be reunited with the family he had wished away; a sentiment enhanced more so on the family oriented Christmas Eve. However, there is one scene in that film that stands out above the rest in my sense of emotional enjoyment. Most people recall the zany and undoubtedly amusing antics of the finale as Kevin defended his home from the bumbling thieves who were intent on robbing it empty. What I remember most about that film, my favorite scene of all, the one with the most heart, is the scene in the church on Christmas Eve when Kevin was approached by the “scary” old man who lived across the street. This was the mysterious and creepy old timer who he had been running in fear from earlier each time he saw him, due to the urban legends spread by his brother and other neighborhood children. The old man turned out to be a man of genuine kindness who was not so scary after all. They shared a breakthrough conversation that changed both of them for the better, and changed the movie as well for me.

This scene in the church was a breakthrough and an impetus for both characters, young and old, to face their fears and overcome their own personal conflict, and an impulse for young Kevin to face his fears head on, leading him and us directly into the finale. This above all was my favorite scene of the movie, and to me, the scene with the most heart and soul.

 

My favorite “heart” scene in the first Rocky film occurred the night before the big fight when Rocky, after walking to the arena and back, unable to sleep, sat on the bed beside Adrian and revealed his fear, his awareness, that he had no chance of winning the bout against the unbeaten champion Apollo Creed. He also shared his hope that while nobody had gone the distance against Creed, that none had lasted the full 15 rounds that he would be the first to do so. All he wanted to be able to do was to go the distance, to still be standing at the end when the final bell was rung, in essence to prove to the world and himself that he wasn’t a loser. That scene, and that desire, was the heart of that film by far.

 

In Jaws it was of course the nighttime story scene in the cabin of Quint’s boat where he and Hooper traded scar stories as Brody looks on, a scene which segues into Quint’s relaying of his experience after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. This gave us a deeper, more revealing glimpse into the nature of who Samuel Quint was, and why he had come to be the shark hunter he became. It also gives us an alternate introduction into his deeper self and enables us to befriend him to a greater degree.  

 

Saving Private Ryan was a film with a lot of heart. But the scene that stands out for me is the part where they had just overrun the enemy machine gun nest, where the medic Irwin Wade was killed and the lone surviving German soldier was captured. The men wanted to kill him, but Captain Miller set the man free. Amidst their confusion, frustration, and arguing over his decision, Miller explained who he had been in the life back home; how he wanted to preserve something of himself for his wife to recognize him by when he returned, for with every man he killed, he left a little more of himself behind.

 

In Kill Bill part 1 it was the entire sequence with Sonny Chiba as Hattori Hanzo, the sushi restaurant owner and retired samurai sword maker; from his banter while preparing a meal for the Bride, to his discussion about not wanting to build another instrument of death, to his final philosophical statements about the nature of revenge. That to me makes up the heart of the film for me. Without that sequence, this otherwise fun movie about vengeance loses much of the heart that kept me rooted throughout the film. In this particular topic, this is one selection that comes off the strongest in my mind.

 

In the Planet of the Apes, the original 1968 classic, the trial scene stands out by and far as the heart of this film. This is where Taylor stood before the orangutan judges, and they argued and debated about the origin of man and the concept and rights of intelligent men and of men of all kinds. This culminated with the private discussion between Taylor and Dr. Zaius about what "truth" about mankind Zaius was truly afraid of.

 

The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (and likewise the books, but I am discussing films here after all) gave us many scenes with emotional depth, several scenes that match my criteria for this topic, including a few of Samwise Gangees emotionally charged speeches, but for me the greatest scene with the most heart in the entire trilogy is toward the end of Return of the King when Aragorn is crowned king. He is seen walking through the crowd of people, his new subjects, and these thousands of people are bowing down before him, bequeathing him with the honor and respect of a grateful and relieved people. He comes upon the four Hobbits, Pippin, Merry, Frodo, and Sam, four of a race of beings who were anything but expected to have taken part in the struggles that they had. What Aragorn does next instantly brings forth in remembrance all of the conflicts and struggles, fears and pains, ordeals and overcoming, deaths and survivals that the characters went through throughout the trilogy.

Upon seeing King Aragorn break through the crowd and stop in front of them, the four Hobbits immediately began to bow down before him. And the newly crowned Aragorn, the valiant and noble warrior we had come to respect and love as the stories progressed, stopped them with a gentle wave of his hand and stated…

“My friends, you bow to no one.”

…before stepping back and bowing down himself to the surprised Hobbits, leading the thousands of people all around them to follow suit and do the same. That, to me, was the greatest scene in the entire trilogy, and one of my favorite scenes from any film. It clearly has the heart of which I speak of in this topic.

 

In Jurassic Park it is the scene where Ellie Satler and John Hammond were eating ice cream and discussing the missing loved ones, and his motivations for creating Jurassic Park. Her line about him not getting it, about none of them getting it until it was too late, that she had been affected by the magic of the place, and that now she realized how much the danger of Hammond's project outweighed the benefits of having a dinosaur park; that what mattered more were their loved ones. By that statement you can deduce she meant the loves ones of all families, if the dinos were ever to get off of the island.

 

A film without such a heart scene, such as the examples I reflected on, leads to a film less enjoyable; a film lacking in warmth, and less memorable. But the heart scene can also lead to a new direction—not so much a plot twist—but a new perspective. Just as a good film must have a McGuffin to build the plot around, it must also have the heartfelt moment to end with as well. In the beginning of Jurassic Park Dr. Grant expressed his theory that dinosaurs evolved into birds. He promised the students and volunteer diggers around him that they would never look at birds the same way again.

 

The heart of this movie was the human experience in wrongly creating dinosaurs, and being forced to face them up close and deadly personal and see them in a whole new light. And how did that film end, after their traumatic, nightmarish encounter with the live dinosaurs? It ended with Dr.Grant gazing out the window of the helicopter and staring at the form of a flying bird. Even without dialogue, you just knew what was going through his heart, his mind, and his thoughts as he stared at that bird, knowing that he would never see it the same way again; giving him and us an entirely new perspective on birds.