9 scenes that BLOW UP the screen

Cinema is hundreds of iconic quotes, memorable chases, spectacular shootouts, brutal duels and disaster sequences. It’s a flurry of scenes with breathtaking special effects that strike our imagination from the spot and stay in our memory forever. Iconic moments of the X muse for more than 100 years have given us baked goods on our faces, not allowing us to tear ourselves away from the screen. But there is one category of scenes, in my opinion, too rarely mentioned. I’m talking about the moments that literally pull you out of your shoes, with an intensity that gives you goosebumps. We then sit in the armchair with our mouths open with sensation, wondering what also just happened on the screen. Looking at the actors screaming and running amok, making it seem as if they let go of all the brakes, it is better to sit quietly and wait out this outburst of emotions, and certainly not get in their way…

9. Bloodsport (1988), dir. Newt Arnold

Jean Claude Van Damme received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Rising Star for his role in Bloodsport, now considered a classic of kick-ass cinema. Quite wrongly. In Newt Arnold’s film, he created a sympathetic character of a karate soldier who deserts from the army to participate in a dream kumite tournament. In the meantime, he gained new friendships, a mortal enemy and the love of a beautiful reporter. All this Van Damme played perhaps not in concert, but at least correctly. As soon as he entered the ring, a real show of skill in martial arts combined with the lightness and grace of ballet, which Van Damme learned in his youth, began. And the icing on the cake was not at all his trademark twine performed in the air from a half-turn.

Show me another scene like that, where an actor would express rage, helplessness and despair in an equally believable and poignant way with his shouting and body language, as Jean Claude Van Damme did in the scene where Chong Li sprinkled blinding powder in his eyes (by the way, all the viewers and the judge must have gone blind, too, if they didn’t see Li sprinkling that powder in Dux’s eyes). Every time I watch this scene of despair in slow motion, played in concert and with great devotion by Van Damme, the emotion and drama emanating from it somehow incredibly moves me and touches the cinematic regions of my heart powerfully.

8. Rambo 2 (1985), dir. George P. Cosmatos

Pulled from the quarries, John Rambo sticks his neck out to take pictures of prisoner of war camps in Vietnam. In the process, he rescues one of the prisoners and, through this human reflex, exposes himself to the wrath of Murdock, the mission commander, who refuses to allow a severely disappointed John to be evacuated from enemy territory. Even then, it’s clear that Rambo’s rage will be unearthly and that Murdock is screwed. A pissed off Rambo, supercharged with electricity under his bow, single-handedly makes hell on earth, killing everything that shoots and gets in his way, and brings back to US territory (to Murdock’s great satisfaction) not one, but all the American POWs he managed to find. Together with John, we head for the command tent, where Murdock, sweaty to the extreme, skittered behind the curtain. Rambo, whom no one dares to prevent from dispensing justice, smashes all the electronics gathered in the tent with continuous fire from his M-60 before moving on to the dessert of threatening Murdock with his knife. He climaxes this one-sided exchange of fire with his trademark shriek, which brings both him and the audience the anticipated catharsis.

7. RoboCop (1987), dir. Paul Verhoeven

I probably won’t lie if I say that Alex Murphy’s execution is the most powerful, realistic, brutal and shocking screen death of all time. Huge credit for this goes to Verhoeven’s efficient direction, fond of cinematic violence, and the pyrotechnicians responsible for the realistic-looking gunshots and smoke in which the entire execution scene of the future RoboCop was bathed. But it was on Peter Weller’s shoulders that the weight of the role rested, where he had to evocatively and convincingly play the hero’s pain combined with the fear of inevitable death. Alex Murphy’s shrill, piercing scream, mixed with the roar of gunshots, was played by Weller without a shadow of falsity, and we hear it long after the policeman falls dead to the ground. It’s thanks to this harrowing scene that we get so caught up in the second and third acts of the film in the tragic story of the brutally killed policeman, accompanying RoboCop in his search for his killers.

6. The Master (2012), dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, Joaquin Phoenix created the creation of a muted and closed-off World War II veteran, unable to find his way in the post-war reality. Freddie Quell abuses alcohol and, searching for the meaning of existence, wanders around the world, constantly changing his location and catching odd jobs. He has fits of aggression, and the most intense of them occurs in a prison cell, where Freddie finds himself after being attacked by police officers arresting his mentor – the titular Master. It is here, handcuffed behind his back, that Phoenix gives the greatest vent to his character’s emotions, lashing out with his head and back on the prison bunk, smashing the loo with his foot, thrashing around the cell and throatily reproaching the Master for being a big-time crook and hoaxer.

This is not just an acting showdown between Joaquin Phoenix, but a clash of giants of cinema, after all, in the adjacent cell stands Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose stoicism and composure contrast fantastically with Phoenix’s outburst of rage. The future re-creator of the iconic role of the Joker already betrays the seeds of it in The Master; his Freddie is skinny, walks hunched over, often laughs nervously (sometimes for no apparent reason) and goes from a calm demeanor to sudden explosive action.

5. The Professional (1994), dir. Luc Besson

Unforgettable scenes are often created through improvisation, and some are created through a combination of improvisation… With boredom. Nonchalant, surprising, and now iconic “I know” Han Solo’s response to Princess Leia’s “I love you” from The Empire Strikes Back, after all, was due to Harrison Ford’s fatigue, who was fed up with takes where he responded over and over again with the template “I love you too.” Similarly bored was Gary Oldman, who on the set of The Professional repeated the line repeatedly:  “Bring me everyone,” until finally, supposedly as a joke, he tore himself out at full throat, repeating “Everyone!” in such a way that the subsequent sounds of guns, rifles, rocket launchers and a grenade explosion, when juxtaposed with the force of his seething acting performance, appeared like a shot from a drenched cap. Luc Besson decided without hesitation to put this big-small improvisation in the film.

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), dir. Peter Jackson

Played by Ian McKellen, Gandalf, whether Gray or washed up in Perwoll, was rather rarely annoyed throughout the trilogy and even more rarely used his wizarding skills. But in Moria, his nerves let loose beyond all reason. First Peregrin Tuk dropped a bucket into a well, waking up the orcs and a cave troll, which had already put the hitherto composed wizard out of his mind. The bucket of bitterness, however, was poured over by the Balrog, doggedly following Team of the Ring. This was too much… Lasting more than 12 hours, the monumental trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson, contains a bunch of fantastic scenes of gigantic proportions. But I guess anyone who had to point out the one scene that comes to mind on the phrase “Lord of the Rings” will sound in their head Gandalf’s shouted resolute and unobjectionable: “You shall not pass!”, after which shout even a speeding locomotive would not pass on.

3. 300 (2006), dir. Zack Snyder

If 300 were shown in 7D theaters (you know, twitching seats, gusts of wind, rain falling on the audience…), the moment Gerard Butler shouts the iconic “THIS IS SPARTA!!!” (in capital letters, it’s impossible otherwise), a bucket of testosterone should be poured over the audience. This line of text, brilliant in its simplicity, shouted in a manner full of charisma and causing shivers in the audience, became the calling card of Snyder’s film and made Gerard Butler an icon of true valor, toughness, cold-bloodedness and tenacity. At the same time, the actor was held hostage not even to the role itself, but to this very issue, never thereafter repeating or even coming close to the success his role in 300 brought him.

2. Brothers (2009), dir. Jim Sheridan

Traumatic experiences from Afghanistan and a hidden, unimaginably painful secret prevent Sam (Tobey Maguire) from returning to a normal life. The situation is also not improved by the distance his daughters keep from him, and Sam’s suspicions of his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) and wife (Natalie Portman) add fuel to the fire. These, believing Sam to have fallen on the battlefield, in the mind of the miraculously surviving soldier, have surely had sex with each other. The eruption of the volcano of emotions bubbling in Sam’s head, battered by black thoughts, takes place in the kitchen, which has been renovated in his absence by his brother. Tobey Maguire, challenging his wife, smashes the furniture with a metal object similar to the one with which he committed the cruel act in Afghanistan.

We have a feeling that something very bad is about to happen, after all Sam has a gun stuck behind his trouser belt. When Maguire points to his hands and, in despair, asks his wife, “Do you know what the fuck I did with those hands to get back to you!” this is dramatic acting of the highest order – heartbreaking, clenching the throat from the torrent of emotions played in a mature way by Maguire. The viewer knows what his character did in Afghanistan, while the actor has the weight of that act painted on his face. Tobey Maguire, after a widely criticized performance in Spider-Man 3, more than rehabilitated himself with his performance in this excellent drama, receiving a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

1. The Godfather Part III (1990), dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Although this is the weakest installment of Francis Ford Coppola’s famous trilogy, it contains the most powerfully gripping scene of all three films (although the emotional charge of “I know it was you, Fredo” from part two is not much inferior to it). We are, of course, talking about Michael Corleone’s almost silent (!) scream on the steps of the opera house after his daughter falls dead from an assassin’s bullet. In this touching scene, when Michael Corleone lies for a long moment with his mouth open, making absolutely no sound (this one appears later and lasts only a short moment), we paradoxically get the impression that we are hearing the loudest cry of despair that a person can make. In this silent scream Al Pacino accumulated all the suffering and life failure of his character. We didn’t need a flashback to appear before our eyes all of Michael’s bad choices, through which he became an angry, lonely, bitter man; whom life had just knocked out and made lonely until death.