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The single greatest sequences in movie history?

posted 7 years ago by Abner_Kadabner
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This great movie has one of the greatest sequences in movie history, which is probably lost on most, if not all, viewers of the movie. It happens when Kane's mother signs the papers arranging for Charles to go back east with Mr. Thatcher. It begins with the camera in the living room looking out the window of the front of the house at Kane as a little boy playing in the snow with his sled (what was the name of that sled?). The camera slowly pulls back until it comes to a rest in the dining room where Kane's mother is signing the papers. The whole time the camera moves Charles Kane remains in view through the window frame, even at the end when it's reduced in size to a small square. This particular shot is so brilliant due to the act of his mother signing the papers effectively puts Charles in a box (a cage actually) that he would spend the rest of his life trying to get out of. That what's makes this shot so brilliant, because Charles spends the whole time while playing outside confined to the inside of the window frame. It's a metaphorically foreshadowing of the rest of Kane's life and the rest of the movie.

It's just brilliant. Did Hitchcock ever do anything like that? I don't think so.

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Everyone may have an opinion but very few seem to have an informed one.

[–] theuserformerlyknownasfrantruff 7 years ago

Personally, I find the shot of a dozen Kanes, all walking seemingly numb to all external reality, simultaneusly disappearing once the real one leaves the frame to be the best shot in this movie, but pretty much every scene has some part that could be argued for that.

The greatest sequence in cinema history? Perhaps this one, perhaps HAL's disconnection in 2001: A Space Odyssey, perhaps the final conversation between Noriko and Shukichi in Tokyo Story. Far too many to decide, actually, but I'd probably end up choosing that last one.

I've only seen 6 Hitchcock films, but the sequence that most impressed me was the one were Judy decides to become Madeleine for Scottie in Vertigo.

[–] Abner_Kadabner 7 years ago

I've never seen Tokyo Story so I have no reference there. But it is compelling in 2001 watching HAL slowly lose his mind.

While I was reading your post I suddenly remember something I had forgotten about Hitchcock. I'm not a Hitchcock fan, as I consider him the most overrated storyteller (not director) there is. But in Psycho, the last sequence is brilliant. It ends with Norman, which dissolves into the corpse of his mother, which then dissolves into the shot of the car being dragged out of the swamp. If you freeze frame it at the right moment, you see the rope running through the heart of Norman and his mother, symbolizing the binding of them together.

Sometimes the thing that makes a sequence memorable is not how you felt watching it unfold, but when you go back another time, and understanding what it really means, leads to you think, "Oh, now I understand what they really meant..."

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Everyone may have an opinion but very few seem to have an informed one.