Million Dollar Moments

What was the best movie moment of 1997? We asked dozens of folks in the movie business, and some who study it or report on it, to give us theirs:

Gregory Peck: The scene in “Shall We Dance?” when the businessman, dancing with the beautiful instructor, trips and falls, ending their chance to win in a competition. His fantasy of breaking out of his dull, routine life is instantly shattered, but he returns to his wife and family with renewed warmth and fervor.

Ruth Vitale (president, Fine Line Features): It’s a tie between the “Under the Sea” number [in “The Little Mermaid”] because it’s a classic, and the scene in “Con Air” when Steve Buscemi sat down to tea with the little girl because it’s so deranged and came out of left field and was so irreverent.

Martha Coolidge (director, “Out to Sea,” “Rambling Rose”): The scene in “Boogie Nights” when Bill Macy decides to kill himself. In one take, we follow him from making his decision, going to his car to get his gun, returning to the bedroom where his wife is in bed with another guy--it’s a great depiction of a man literally throwing his life away.

Elmer Bernstein (Oscar-winning composer; recently scored “John Grisham’s The Rainmaker”): The last shot of “The Full Monty.” It was totally unusual and immensely entertaining.

Kirby Dick (writer-director, the documentary “Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist”): The auto dealership scene in “Crash,” where Rosanna Arquette clumps around a new Mercedes in her sexy leg braces. She sits behind the wheel, but her brace catches on the seat, so she turns to the discreetly ogling salesman for help. While lifting her horribly scarred leg free, the salesman is mortified to realize that he has torn the seat’s perfect leather. The scene is rife with hidden obscenities. The potential violence hinted at by the seductive new car becomes even more eroticized by Arquette, a willing accident victim. The same advanced metal technology created both her sexy leg brace and the car’s fetishistic finish. And the salesman, naturally, is aroused more by the seat’s torn leather or animal hide than by Arquette’s lacerated skin.

Garry Marshall (director, “Pretty Woman,” “Beaches” and the upcoming “The Other Sister”): The scene from “In & Out” with Kevin Kline when Matt Dillon’s character is accused of being gay after they find a videotape of my movie “Beaches” in his possession.

Ann Miller (star of “Stage Door,” “Kiss Me Kate” and “Easter Parade”): From “The Edge” . . . the scene with Anthony Hopkins fighting off the killer bear. [It] had me on the edge of my seat.

Robert Osborne (host of Turner Classic Movies, Hollywood Reporter columnist and author): In “Shall We Dance?” when the power of dance and music transforms Tornio (Naoto Takenaka) and dance classmate Tanaka (Hiromasa Taguchi) from two nerdy, inhibited misfits into frenzied exhibitionists. That single moment was richer, funnier and brought more pure joy to me as a moviegoer than any other film scene from 1997.

Mace Neufeld (producer, “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” “Clear and Present Danger” and “The Saint”): I have two. The first is the scene in “The Full Monty” where the actors are standing in line waiting for their unemployment checks and as background music plays they begin to sway subtly to the music, practicing their dance steps. Without the use of dialogue, in a pure cinematic fashion, the scene delineates the underlying theme of the film: hope arising out of the desperation of these unemployed steelworkers trying to put together a male strip show to earn some money.

Also, the scene in “L.A. Confidential” where James Cromwell confronts Guy Pearce and asks him if he’s ever heard the name “Rollo Tomaso” and Guy Pearce doesn’t react. At this point in the film, in one brief scene, the villain is unmasked and our hero sets off on his mission of revenge in the third act. Without lengthy expository dialogue, this pure movie moment pulls together all of the subplots that have been engaging the audience’s attention for well over an hour.

Millicent Shelton (director, the upcoming “Ride”): In “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” where Rupert Everett and Julia Roberts were having dinner with Cameron Diaz’s family at a kitsch seafood restaurant. Everett was pretending to be Roberts’ fiance in front of Cameron Diaz’s family and got a bit carried away with describing how they met and first fell in love. So much in fact that Everett broke out into a rendition of “Say a Little Prayer for You,” and wound up with the entire family joining in the chorus. It was such an incredibly cute scene without it being corny and I found myself singing along.

Marlon Wayans (star of WB’s “The Wayans Brothers” and the films “Don’t Be a Menace . . .,” “The Sixth Man” and the upcoming “Senseless”): The water scene in “Alien Resurrection”--the way the director shot the special effects and the way the alien moves, it had me so scared of water I didn’t wash for a week.

Tom Jacobson (producer, former head of production at 20th Century Fox): In “Boogie Nights,” the scene at the drug dealer’s house is amazing. There’s a close-up of Mark Wahlberg and “Jesse’s Girl” is playing in the background and the camera just holds and holds and holds on his face. You read on his face his whole life up to that moment. The scene has built--there’s the bodyguard with the guns, and you know they’re trying to rip him off, and firecrackers are going off. You’re really on edge. The camera holds on Wahlberg’s face. It’s the moment he finally realizes, “I’ve got to get my life back together.”

Billy Zane (actor, “Titanic”): There was a wonderful film called “Ponette” from France. A brilliant 4-year-old actress, playing a girl trying to grasp that her mother was dead. Towards the end of the film, the scene when she’s clawing at her mother’s grave and really trying to figure it out, and is ultimately visited by her ghost . . . that was definitely a tear-jerker.

Drew Casper (professor of cinema and television, USC): I loved the scene [in “L.A. Confidential”] where Kevin Spacey, the suave cop, and the cadet [Guy Pearce] enter the Formosa Cafe and Pearce mistakes this woman for a member of the prostitute ring of movie-star look-alikes. He says, “Get this bimbo out of here,” and in fact it really is Lana Turner. It was very funny. Like all good gags, you knew it was coming. There was the setup: Spacey, smarmy and smirky, points the woman out to Pearce. Then, the delivery. It was beautifully constructed.

Dustin Hoffman (star, “Wag the Dog”): [In “Donnie Brasco,” when Al Pacino’s] sitting there on his couch, watching the TV and [Johnny] Depp comes in. . . . It was very brave of Pacino--he works off of himself, and it was as if, what would’ve happened if he himself hadn’t gotten anywhere in life.

Atom Egoyan (writer, director, producer, “The Sweet Hereafter”): When Bob’s dominatrix wife, Sheree Rose, begs her dying husband to allow her to beat him up in “Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist.” It revealed a type of relationship with an alarming sense of ferocity and truth.

Larry Kasanoff (producer, “Mortal Kombat Annihilation”): The End of “Devil’s Advocate,” where Al Pacino tries to seduce Keanu Reeves to the dark side with naked babes, writhing computer-generated frescoes of orgies, rage and threats. Encapsulated in two minutes of screen time, you have all that I love about movies: sex, violence, special effects and a really over-the-top bad guy.

Jim Wiatt (president, International Creative Management): It was the scene in “Contact” with Jodie Foster when she was in that machine that was being transported in time. There was all that noise and shaking going on and just to watch her face and see how she acted that scene was pretty amazing. I remember sitting in the theater and I felt I was vibrating while that was going on.

Tom Pollock (chairman, American Film Institute): I remember the look on Joey Lauren Adams’ face at the end of “Chasing Amy,” when she looks at Ben Affleck, knowing that the relationship is never going to work and then really being sad anyway.

David Foster (co-producer, “The Mask of Zorro”): The flashback scene in “Amistad,” when Cinque is captured and taken from his home by the slave traders. It was powerful and devastating. Can you imagine such an ungodly act? It really got me in the gut.

Alan Rudolph (director, “Afterglow”): The scene in David Hare’s “Designated Mourner” when Mike Nichols’ character Jack describes discovering Miranda Richardson’s character Judy’s death. This scene showed the power of brilliant words and superb acting. It was also one of the more emotionally moving things that I have seen in a film this year.

Minnie Driver (actress, “Big Night,” “Good Will Hunting”): [Sigourney Weaver’s scene in “The Ice Storm”] where she finally takes the key chain out of the bowl at the end. It’s so strong and she’s so broken.

J. Todd Harris (producer, “Denise Calls Up,” the upcoming “Digging to China”): The truths that [Neil Labute’s “In the Company of Men”] embodied and its method of dramatizing them combined for a transcendent experience, climaxed near the end when the nebbishy character comes back to the handsome guy’s apartment filled with remorse over what they’ve done, and then the nebbish realizes the handsome guy’s girlfriend is in the next room, and that not only was everything they did a joke, but the son-of-a-bitch had a lover at home the whole time. It blew my mind. Exactly what an independent film should do.

Lawrence Bender (producer, “Pulp Fiction,” “Jackie Brown”): Mathieu Kassovitz was in this beautiful French movie called “A Self-Made Hero.” There was a scene where he’s laying in bed crying, because although he’s respected by all these people in his city, he’s built his career on lies; his whole life is one big lie.

Barry Levinson (director, “Wag the Dog”): In [the upcoming] “Two Girls and a Guy,” which Jimmy Toback wrote and directed, there’s a scene where Robert Downey Jr. is talking to himself in a mirror that I think is one great scene. It exposes so much about someone and his whole feelings about himself in two minutes. A terrific piece of work.

Tim Allen, (star of “For Richer or Poorer”): I actually walked out of a few this year. “Boogie Nights” or “Boogie Fever,” whatever it was. . . . I just didn’t get it. And I was so up for it.