12:56 am - 03/11/2013
20 Iconic & Memorable Movie Death Scenes
Tomorrow sees the release of "The ABCs Of Death," a new horror anthology from some of the top new names in the genre, with a fairly similar premise: 26 directors, 26 very short films, 26 very different ways to die. From the apocalypse to Zetsumetsu, there's all kinds of inventive ways to be offed across its two-hour running time, and it's sure to keep gorehounds entertained, as our review suggested, even if horror neophytes might be left scratching their heads.
But for all the passings on screen in "The ABCs of Death," it doesn't seem likely that any will really enter cinema history. Death is just about the most dramatic thing that can happen, and as such, is at the heart of many great films and some of cinema's most iconic shots and moments involve one character or another popping off their mortal coil, either peacefully or not. So, to celebrate the release of "The ABCs of Death," we've put together a firmly non-comprehensive list of some of the most memorable, iconic demises in the history of cinema. Take a look below, and let us know your personal favorites in the comments section.
"Blade Runner"
“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” The dying speech of Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was described in Mark Rowland's "The Philosopher at the End of the Universe" as “perhaps the most moving soliloquy in cinema.” Batty is a Teutonic replicant, a humanoid vision of physical perfection built to do dangerous work in the off-world colonies and serve in the off-world armies before being retired when they have served their purpose. He has escaped from his enslavement, and come to hide out on Earth with a band of fellow escapees. The Blade Runner of the title, disaffected cop Rick Deckard, is tasked with hunting and "retiring" him in the neo-noir megalopolis of 2019 Los Angeles. The question of what it is to be human is at the heart of “Blade Runner” and this eloquent meditation on memory, coming moments after he has saved Deckard’s life, as Roy realises he is about to die, is deeply human. Hauer apparently improvised the speech, slashing the original script the night before filming, unbeknownst to director Ridley Scott. Everything about it is note-perfect, the neon fug and smoky gloom above future LA, the rain lashing down, Hauer’s sublime delivery, and the ebb and twinkle of the sublime Vangelis score. It's pure cinematic poetry.
"Jaws"
Quint (Robert Shaw), the grizzled shark expert in Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster, was on the USS Indianapolis, a ship that was bombed during World War II and whose survivors (detailed in books such as "In Harm's Way") floated in the water for days afterwards, getting picked off by swarms of toothy fish. So his death, towards the end of Steven Spielberg's rollickingly horrific romp, is thrilling as well as poignant – it's the dark fate that Quint has been avoiding for decades, finally coming to bite him (literally). Quint is a born fighter, though, and doesn't go out without taking out his knife and stabbing the giant killer shark. It's also a spectacularly gruesome death, with huge spouts of blood. "Jaws" is a movie about a hungry, murderous shark, filled to the brim with memorable deaths (the Kintner boy in particular), but for the emotional impact and sheer, visceral terror, nothing matches Quint's demise.
"Psycho"
While plenty of the most famous movie scenes of all time require a sentence or two of description to be identified, all The Shower Scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" needs is a few simple words. Perhaps what's so special about this three-and-a-half minute piece of film is that it has set a precedent for just how impactful an individual scene can be, well beyond the boundaries of the film that it’s in. The Shower Scene single-handedly granted Hitchcock the highest grossing film of his career and he said himself that it was the "suddenness" of the murder in the book that attracted him to adapting it in the first place. In any other film with a final twist (and final shot) as powerful as that in "Psycho," surely such an image would come to define the film in its viewers’ memories. This is of course anything but the case with "Psycho," the rare film that owes its iconic status to its first true major plot point. In the face of such a status, it's easy to forget how much of a gamble Hitchcock took in creating the scene in the first place. Killing off the film's "main character" 1/3 of the way into the film was so taboo at the time that Hitchcock famously chose to keep latecomers out of the theatre so that they wouldn't be searching for Janet Leigh after her character had already been murdered. But to say that the scene's effectiveness is owed only to the shock it caused its viewers would be to cheapen its immaculate construction. For years, the scene has been one of the finest examples of what's possible in cinema when editing, shot selection, and a healthy dose of suspense all coalesce together in perfect unity to best serve the story being told.
"Raiders of the Lost Ark"
The go-to villain of much of the 20th century, countless Nazis have died on screen over the last 70-odd years. No surprise then that they figure in here, in the shape of the unforgettable conclusion of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Before their demise, all hope seemed lost as the Nazis had reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant and tied our hero and his love interest to a post. Our childhood hearts wrenched as it looked like the Nazis had won and, if Hitler’s theory were right, would be made invincible within seconds. When Indy told Marion to look away, we covered our eyes and peeked through our fingers. That’s when the Spielberg and Lucas magic happened. After the Nazis opened the Ark, not only were they killed, but in some of the most gruesome ways possible. One exploded, another imploded, a third just melted away. Child and adult alike generally can agree that the third was the most scarring. What is more terrifying than a Nazi melting away like an exhibit from the Vincent Price horror-classic “House of Wax”? And yet again, just like he did for "Jaws," Spielberg was somehow able to wrangle a PG rating for the movie (though the next Indy adventure, "Temple of Doom," was grim enough that it led to the creation of the PG-13 rating).
"There Will Be Blood"
Those turning up to Paul Thomas Anderson's Great American Novel of a masterpiece inspired by its name, reminiscent of a horror movie tagline, and hoping for some gore would likely have been bitterly disappointed. Still, Anderson's true to his word, come the film's conclusion. The epilogue, set many years after much of the film, sees Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview, now wealthy and drunk, finally reject his son H.W, who's off to marry his sweetheart. Now with nothing left to keep him human (if he ever was), he's visited by his old adversary Eli (Paul Dano), who's in need of money, and offers to broker a deal for the last piece of land that Plainview needs. But the older man, after humiliating his nemesis by forcing him to call God a superstition, reveals that he's actually long since drained the oil from the property in question, and then attacks Eli. It's pretty funny, at least at first, as Day-Lewis chases Dano around his private bowling alley like a pair of children, flinging a bowling ball at him ineffectually. But then he catches him, and it's not so funny anymore: grabbing a wooden pin, he then beats Eli to death with it. As the oil-like plasma bleeds from the preacher's head, Plainview simply sits down, and tells his butler, "I'm finished."
Source.
But for all the passings on screen in "The ABCs of Death," it doesn't seem likely that any will really enter cinema history. Death is just about the most dramatic thing that can happen, and as such, is at the heart of many great films and some of cinema's most iconic shots and moments involve one character or another popping off their mortal coil, either peacefully or not. So, to celebrate the release of "The ABCs of Death," we've put together a firmly non-comprehensive list of some of the most memorable, iconic demises in the history of cinema. Take a look below, and let us know your personal favorites in the comments section.
"Blade Runner"
“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” The dying speech of Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was described in Mark Rowland's "The Philosopher at the End of the Universe" as “perhaps the most moving soliloquy in cinema.” Batty is a Teutonic replicant, a humanoid vision of physical perfection built to do dangerous work in the off-world colonies and serve in the off-world armies before being retired when they have served their purpose. He has escaped from his enslavement, and come to hide out on Earth with a band of fellow escapees. The Blade Runner of the title, disaffected cop Rick Deckard, is tasked with hunting and "retiring" him in the neo-noir megalopolis of 2019 Los Angeles. The question of what it is to be human is at the heart of “Blade Runner” and this eloquent meditation on memory, coming moments after he has saved Deckard’s life, as Roy realises he is about to die, is deeply human. Hauer apparently improvised the speech, slashing the original script the night before filming, unbeknownst to director Ridley Scott. Everything about it is note-perfect, the neon fug and smoky gloom above future LA, the rain lashing down, Hauer’s sublime delivery, and the ebb and twinkle of the sublime Vangelis score. It's pure cinematic poetry.
"Jaws"
Quint (Robert Shaw), the grizzled shark expert in Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster, was on the USS Indianapolis, a ship that was bombed during World War II and whose survivors (detailed in books such as "In Harm's Way") floated in the water for days afterwards, getting picked off by swarms of toothy fish. So his death, towards the end of Steven Spielberg's rollickingly horrific romp, is thrilling as well as poignant – it's the dark fate that Quint has been avoiding for decades, finally coming to bite him (literally). Quint is a born fighter, though, and doesn't go out without taking out his knife and stabbing the giant killer shark. It's also a spectacularly gruesome death, with huge spouts of blood. "Jaws" is a movie about a hungry, murderous shark, filled to the brim with memorable deaths (the Kintner boy in particular), but for the emotional impact and sheer, visceral terror, nothing matches Quint's demise.
"Psycho"
While plenty of the most famous movie scenes of all time require a sentence or two of description to be identified, all The Shower Scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" needs is a few simple words. Perhaps what's so special about this three-and-a-half minute piece of film is that it has set a precedent for just how impactful an individual scene can be, well beyond the boundaries of the film that it’s in. The Shower Scene single-handedly granted Hitchcock the highest grossing film of his career and he said himself that it was the "suddenness" of the murder in the book that attracted him to adapting it in the first place. In any other film with a final twist (and final shot) as powerful as that in "Psycho," surely such an image would come to define the film in its viewers’ memories. This is of course anything but the case with "Psycho," the rare film that owes its iconic status to its first true major plot point. In the face of such a status, it's easy to forget how much of a gamble Hitchcock took in creating the scene in the first place. Killing off the film's "main character" 1/3 of the way into the film was so taboo at the time that Hitchcock famously chose to keep latecomers out of the theatre so that they wouldn't be searching for Janet Leigh after her character had already been murdered. But to say that the scene's effectiveness is owed only to the shock it caused its viewers would be to cheapen its immaculate construction. For years, the scene has been one of the finest examples of what's possible in cinema when editing, shot selection, and a healthy dose of suspense all coalesce together in perfect unity to best serve the story being told.
"Raiders of the Lost Ark"
The go-to villain of much of the 20th century, countless Nazis have died on screen over the last 70-odd years. No surprise then that they figure in here, in the shape of the unforgettable conclusion of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Before their demise, all hope seemed lost as the Nazis had reclaimed the Ark of the Covenant and tied our hero and his love interest to a post. Our childhood hearts wrenched as it looked like the Nazis had won and, if Hitler’s theory were right, would be made invincible within seconds. When Indy told Marion to look away, we covered our eyes and peeked through our fingers. That’s when the Spielberg and Lucas magic happened. After the Nazis opened the Ark, not only were they killed, but in some of the most gruesome ways possible. One exploded, another imploded, a third just melted away. Child and adult alike generally can agree that the third was the most scarring. What is more terrifying than a Nazi melting away like an exhibit from the Vincent Price horror-classic “House of Wax”? And yet again, just like he did for "Jaws," Spielberg was somehow able to wrangle a PG rating for the movie (though the next Indy adventure, "Temple of Doom," was grim enough that it led to the creation of the PG-13 rating).
"There Will Be Blood"
Those turning up to Paul Thomas Anderson's Great American Novel of a masterpiece inspired by its name, reminiscent of a horror movie tagline, and hoping for some gore would likely have been bitterly disappointed. Still, Anderson's true to his word, come the film's conclusion. The epilogue, set many years after much of the film, sees Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview, now wealthy and drunk, finally reject his son H.W, who's off to marry his sweetheart. Now with nothing left to keep him human (if he ever was), he's visited by his old adversary Eli (Paul Dano), who's in need of money, and offers to broker a deal for the last piece of land that Plainview needs. But the older man, after humiliating his nemesis by forcing him to call God a superstition, reveals that he's actually long since drained the oil from the property in question, and then attacks Eli. It's pretty funny, at least at first, as Day-Lewis chases Dano around his private bowling alley like a pair of children, flinging a bowling ball at him ineffectually. But then he catches him, and it's not so funny anymore: grabbing a wooden pin, he then beats Eli to death with it. As the oil-like plasma bleeds from the preacher's head, Plainview simply sits down, and tells his butler, "I'm finished."
Source.
death.
EVER!!!