Most times, it’s the big splashy set pieces of a movie that leave audiences slack-jawed and chit-chattery about after it’s over, often leaving smaller but significant moments forgotten. Here’s a few in a new series we hope to explore that deserve a closer look.
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Bo Peep Sees All in ‘Toy Story’
In Pixar’s now seminal 1995 computer animated film Toy Story, we meet a cast of characters now beloved around the world, including the likes of Buzz Lightyear, a fast talking electronic space ranger action figure and Woody, a classic pull-string cowboy doll. While the two have become famous for their friendship, it wasn’t so much a friendship when they met. Woody was the established “favorite toy” of the house until at a birthday party, Buzz is given as a gift to the kid in charge, Andy. Excited by his arrival, Andy swoops upstairs and in a pivotal moment, casts Woody off his “spot” on the bed, seemingly replacing him with Buzz before rushing back down to feast on cake. While we watch as Woody spills off the blankets into the abyss below, the film cuts very quickly to Bo Peep, standing on the dresser nearby, watching the whole affair. It’s a brief, momentary glance but crucial in storytelling as she witnesses the downfall, and while she says nothing and makes only the smallest of expression about it, the image is astonishingly effective in signaling to us how impactful this moment is for Woody and her.
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Little Bill Gets No Breaks in ‘Boogie Nights’
Director Paul Thomas Anderson‘s stylish film on the life of a man rather well-endowed for a career in pornography features a slew of secondary characters orbited the skyrocketing early success of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg). One of them is a guy named Little Bill (William H. Macy), an assistant director for filmmaker Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), a pro in the porn industry. Little Bill married a woman in the business (played by real porn star Nina Hartley), and she hasn’t really taken to the whole love and devotion aspect of marriage, openly having multiple sexual affairs right in front her husband, who it seems is just taking it on the chin, though there’s a rage fuming inside. I’ll leave it to you see see where that takes him, but in an early scene at the opening of the film, while the camera is following our new hero Eddie, way up in the top right corner, nearly out of sight, we see Little Bill head for his car parked outside the club everyone is leaving. On the windshield is a ticket and it signals the first of a series of things-gone-wrong for the hapless movie maker. His ride is just getting started. What a great way to show a secondary character begin a landslide into the shadows.
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3 Mirrors Reveal The Truth in ‘Bridge of Spies’
There’s a whole lot of intrigue in Steven Spielberg‘s spy thriller Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks, most of it based on real events. The story follows attorney James B. Donovan, who finds himself on the front page in 1957 when he’s tasked with defending Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a quiet painter in the New York City working for the Soviets trading secrets. Sticking to ethics, Donovan fights against the system in trying to deliver due process, at one point visiting the home of the sitting judge on the case (Dakin Matthews), hoping to convince him to forego a death penalty so as to keep Abel alive in case they need him later (turns out, that’s a good plan). This is against not only what the judge wants but what public is actively clamoring for. However, in the house, while the judge attempts to knot a bow tie around his neck, Donovan pleads his case. This sees the judge shifting from three different mirrors in the room, the first aged and blurry, the second too small and hard to get a good fix on, and the last, finally, large and clear. These movements represent the transition of the judge’s convictions, swayed by Donovan’s efforts, evolving from murky and obtuse to the bigger picture that is easy to see. It’s a wonderfully symbolic yet very subtle way to move the character from one line of thinking to another.
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Stuffed Teddy Bear in ‘Last Action Hero’
This is a small one but in Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s 1993 film Last Action Hero, he plays both himself and a character in a movie, the story about a boy named Danny (Austin O’Brien), who finds himself in a movie when a magic tickets transports him through the screen and into the backseat of a car driven by his movie hero Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger). Now in the land of make believe, he has to convince Slater things aren’t right, especially when a bad guy named Benedict (Charles Dance) makes off with the ticket and heads into the real world. At one point, in the real New York City, spending a late night in search of Benedict, Jack crash at Danny’s house, the next afternoon, Danny waking up on his sofa holding a stuffed animal. The bear is dressed in a red t-shirt, jeans, and a black baseball cap, which is exactly what Slater wears not long after. It’s a cute nod to remind the audience that despite all the action the kid’s been through, he’s still just a boy … with a hero.
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Ryan Reaches for Cathy in ‘Clear and Present Danger’
The Jack Ryan movies got a smart start with 1990’s the Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin initially in the lead before Harrison Ford redefined it in the next two films. They include 1992’s Patriot Games and the superior 1994 thriller Clear and Present Danger. Ford brought a depth to Ryan that made the character easy to identify with, sort of following the Die Hard practice of getting thrust into action rather than seeking it out. In the story, Ryan is caught up in a mess of politics and a drug war in Colombia while trying to settle into a new job as the acting Deputy Director of Intelligence when his friend and former boss Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) is stricken with terminal cancer. And it’s this subplot that leads to a very small moment late in the film when that cancer gets the best of Greer, where Ryan, while at home with his wife Cathy (Anne Archer) gets a phone call. Ryan crosses the room and sits in a sofa while listening into the handset, then, with no words spoken to his wife, reaches out to Cathy, the screen filled only with his extended hand. It’s a subtle visual moment that even more so humanizes the now larger-than-life figure, dealing with a loss by needing the comfort and warmth of a woman he loves. In a story loaded with high-level betrayals, shootouts, fistacuffs, exploding cars and more, this brief but gentle image reveals more about Ryan than nearly anything else he does. And that’s including this very cool moment here.
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Soo Yung Sings in ‘Rush Hour’
Director Brett Ratner‘s 1998 crime comedy Rush Hour was a clever vehicle that combined the talents of fast talking Chris Tucker and fast moving Jackie Chan, making for a smash hit that led to three films. In this first film, the plot revolves around an LA cop (Tucker) and a Chinese detective (Chan) joining forces to stop a conspiracy plan involving the kidnapping of a Chinese diplomat’s (Tzi Ma) young daughter Soo Yung (Julia Hsu). Loaded with the usual expected high quality action stunts and comedy a Jackie Chan movie needs, Rush Hour is a fun action adventure. Naturally, the little girl at the heart of this is only the MacGuffin in pushing the story forward and barely has any screen time, though does have one key moment early in the film that makes everything that follows crucial. Before she’s kidnapped, we see her being driven to school by her father’s aides, and in the backseat, the little girl gleefully chortles along to Mariah Carey‘s Fantasy blasting inside the car. In only a few seconds, as she happily, innocently lets loose while those in the front tolerate it, we become instantly attached to the child’s welfare, galvanized by her feelings of safety and unawreness of the dark world soon to take her. It’s a smart and powerful little moment that instantly pushes everything that comes after, the efforts of the lead characters now given all the momentum we need in seeing them to the end. That’s smart storytelling.