This has become an annual tradition the day before the Oscars. In order move away all the subjectivity and negativity that happens when figuring out what should win and what’s going to win, I get away from all of that stuff and celebrate the films that are nominated for Best Picture.
We take this day to look at them as masterworks of cinema and not as films competing for a trophy. All of that other stuff — the analysis, the opinions — that’s all done with. Today, we take a minute, we stop, and we appreciate the films themselves. I count down my five favorite moments (or elements) of each of them.
When you take away all the awards, all the competition, and all the arbitrary decisions about what film is better than the others, what we’re left with is great cinema. That’s what we’re celebrating.
Our next nominee is The Revenant:
5. “Blink if you want me to do it.”
This moment is scary as shit. It’s a perfect moment for these two characters. Glass is barely able to keep his eyes open, can’t speak, and is barely holding onto life. And Fitzgerald wants nothing to do with him. So he sets up the ultimate situation, where even though Glass clearly wants no part of being killed, he can’t do anything but, on the surface, make it seem like that’s what he wants. Even reading this on the page, the scene is terrifying, because you know he’s gonna have to blink and Fitzgerald is going to take that as a sign to kill him and go on his way. Incredibly tense moment that I hope came across as tense as it did to me.
4. Horse of a cliff
It’s hard to explain what this moment really is without referring to the script, which I imagine not as many people read. But even in the film, it’s incredible, because he’s riding on the horse and all of a sudden it just goes RIGHT OFF A CLIFF. It’s thrilling because the shot is so seamless that even though you can intellectually see where they moved over to CGI, it feels as though Leo was just there and now he’s gone right off the cliff. Really incredible moment.
3. Leo vs. Nature
The dude is mauled by a bear, left for dead, watches his son murdered in front of him, has to climb out of his own grave, crawl on his hands and knees through the forest, crawl down an incline full of rocks (not seen in the film) and set his own throat on fire just so he can drink! And that’s just the beginning of what this dude has to go through. By the time he gets to the fort, there’s no one that isn’t fully on board with him having the right to kill anyone responsible without any form of repercussion. This man has gone through hell three times over. And we just witnessed it. (Fun facts: the scene of him climbing down the rocks with all the cuts opening back up was not shown in the film. As was a scene where he has to kill a buffalo and keep wolves away, or a scene where he went fully down a waterfall and then held his breath for about two straight minutes while the native americans were standing over where he was submerged in the water. If you thought everything you saw was bad, just know that it could have been worse.
2. Chivo
This movie is absolutely stunning, and I don’t need to say anything other than — Chivo.
1. The bear scene
How can it not be? This is the most brutal, memorable part of the movie. Even people who hated it said this was the best scene. It’s absolutely incredible how they put this together. It feels real. Because the bear doesn’t just attack. It attacks, sniffs around, checks to see if he’s dead, then goes away for a minute, then comes back when it sees him moving. It behaves the way a real bear would behave. Which makes it all the more unsettling for the viewer. This movie could very well win Best Visual Effects for this scene alone, that’s how good it is.
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