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Key scenes: ‘Moneyball,’ ‘The Descendants,’ ‘Coriolanus,’ ‘The Ides of March,’ ‘The Artist’

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For many directors, there is often one key scene that pulls the whole film into focus. It’s the moment that spurs the action of the rest of the film, or sets the tone for the storytelling, or sometimes it just reassures a director that everything will come together in the end. We talk to five directors about what scene in their new films put them on the right track. But if you haven’t seen their movies, beware of minor spoilers ahead.

Bennett Miller (“Moneyball”)

Storyline: Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) reshapes his underfunded baseball team using untested statistical analysis.

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“One scene that is meaningful for me is the first big trade scene when Billy dumps some players to force the manager’s hand to give this new system a fair trial and, in doing so, pushes himself further out on a limb. Jonah Hill’s character, Pete Brand, tries to stop him and he thinks he understands why [Billy’s] doing it. Brad Pitt slows the scene and says, What am I missing? It’s the only time in the whole movie where Brad’s character expresses what his stakes are and connects the two tracks of the movie. He puts it into perspective — I know what I’m doing and I’m a 44-year-old guy with a high school diploma and a daughter I’d like to be able to put through college. He knows full well that if this thing doesn’t go through he’ll lose everything he has ... the manner in which Brad handles it is so sophisticated, he doesn’t permit an overly emotional, melodramatic treatment of the moment.”

Geoff Boucher

Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”)

Storyline: A detached father must reconnect with his daughters after his wife’s boating accident.

“You know what scene worked out for me early in the schedule, was that final shot where they’re eating ice cream on the sofa together. We shot that one night and I knew I had an ending. It came out more or less as good if not better than I had imagined it. When you make a film, if you know you have an ending, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You know you’re going to have a good landing. And also just seeing that Clooney was really showing up for work, hitting those emotional moments but still with the detachment that he personally may have and that the character has. It just was fitting very nicely.”

Sam Adams

Ralph Fiennes (“Coriolanus”)

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Storyline: Shakespearean tale of a banished Roman general who joins with his enemy to take revenge on his countrymen.

“The great moment was my first scene with Vanessa [Redgrave], where she bandages up my wounds in the bathroom. It was quite simple to shoot but she was fantastic. We’d had some discussion, but we just started the scene. She wanted to know exactly how she should bandage it, and then she did this great thing where she puts it around my body, she leans into her son and she says a line. I could just feel her finding these amazing, tiny little nuances that I knew would be huge on film. I suppose that was the bonding moment for me and her. I got very emotional because I’d been wanting to make it for a long time and when she came onto set for the first time and spoke those lines, that was my breakthrough.”

Sam Adams

George Clooney (“The Ides of March”)

Storyline: An idealistic spokesman (Ryan Gosling) for a presidential candidate (Clooney) learns a hard lesson about politics and principles, resulting in a showdown with the man he once admired.

“I think the scene with Ryan and I in the kitchen. When we got the play, and my character wasn’t in the play, Grant [Heslov] and I were going to adapt the screenplay. But one night in the middle of the night I got up and I wrote that scene, and then I came in with Grant and I said, ‘OK, let’s work backwards from here. This is where we are. This is what this guy does.

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“I loved Ryan’s character in the play and I wanted my character to be unbelievably good at what he does. And I wanted Ryan’s character to be unbelievably good at what he does and I wanted to do a scene where two really smart people both had their backs completely up against the wall and they both performed perfectly. They both run on all cylinders. They both do it smart. It’s ‘do I have you or do you have me?’ And I’m really proud of that scene — it really sticks out because you see real evil [in my character]. In fact, I would say if you’re a Democrat knowing all the things that I had done, you would still vote for me if you didn’t see that scene.”

John Horn

Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”)

Storyline: A film actor at the top of his game during the silent movie era can’t make the transition to talkies as the rest of Hollywood moves forward.

The scene: The movie’s dream sequence in which silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) remains mute while a symphony of sound erupts around him.

“One option I had was telling the story of a silent movie actor who stayed silent while the rest of the world starts talking. I thought it was funny but I also thought that it would be disappointing to start as a silent movie and then turn it into a normal, talking movie.

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“But I kept the idea for this one particular scene. It’s shocking, just the sound of the glass, because normally it’s not something you notice in a movie. Then this: We know ‘The Artist’ is silent, which is a big difference from the old movies, which did not have the option of sound. We’re playing a game with the audience. Silence and sound is a theme, and this sequence highlights that narrative line. I actually use sound in a silent movie. It’s a bit transgressive, a way to note that I’m free to do what I want.

“And from a narrative point of view, it’s the character’s hunch that he’s out of the game. I thought about putting this sequence at the end, but it’s better and more surprising as a premonition. He’s beginning to understand his world is about to dramatically change.”

Glenn Whipp

calendar@latimes.com

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