What´s the best story you´ve ever heard inside a movie?
Its amazing how much a movie can give us, images , advise, a moment of peace, make our hands sweat, feeling afraid or uncertain. One of the many things movies give us is the ability of transporting ourselves to another place by story telling. I really enjoy a good movie well told. Let me say that again. A good movie, well told. A movie can say many things or it can make us think. The way it is told is everything. To me one of the best resources a movie has within itself, aside the acting, make up, visual effects, audio mixing or a good supporting cast is the story within a story.
Have you ever noticed some of our favorite movies have to tell us stories to lay the ground , so that we believe the story is deep. The characters can´t be complete without the depth of a well told story.
It seems as if "once upon a time " is not enough.
Sometimes characters need to tell us a story that they heard once .... from some one.......
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Story by
Quentin Tarantino and
Roger Avary
"But Wanaki kept his word"
-Captn. Koons
It is said that Cristopher Walken filmed this scene in just a few hours, probably the best cameo in all Pulp Fiction, because of its precission to the story. it is simply the glue that unites the first part of the movie with the second part. I can´t understand why it wasn´t an OSCAR NOMINATION for WALKEN. Director Quentin Tarantino loves movies, actors and most of all , actors singing his written dialogue. If you watch closely, in several of Tarantino´s films, you can tell where and when the actors are speaking as Tarantino does. All by himself Walken delivers a POWERFUL speech, so moving and so gripping. It is a 4 minute non-stop monologue with a close up of him and his face and a golden watch. It makes Butch´s character and back story real and gives him the "motive" to go back for the watch to meet his ultimate fate. CONFRONTING Marsellus AND riding into the sunset with GRACE. Quentin Tarantino´s best film yet is by far the standard he made us look up to him . (TRIVIA FACT : The white Honda Civic Butch is driving when he RUNS down Marcellus is the same car Jackie Brown drives.)
"The single-weirdest fucking day of my life"
-Butch
Story : Christopher McQuarrie
Who is Kyser Soze??
-Verbal Kint
Director Bryan Singer´s first film is a CRIMINAL MASTERPIECE, Kevin Spacey met Bryan Singer at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and was so impressed with his movie Public Access that he asked to be cast in his next film.
As Verbal Kint is questioned by Agent Kujan about the events of yesterday evening he tells the story he heard . With the use of a powerful flash back, having an almost blinding light and blurry scenes,as if it were a memory ... and ending with a powerful scene of Soze showing "what will really was" as he walks away from an explosion, an elegant and darkest of evil men with the longest hair ever. He is the DEVIL. (TRIVIA FACT : It's the second film where actor Peter Greene has referred to "the gimp" after his role in Pulp Fiction ("Bring out the gimp"). In The Usual Suspects he refers to Kit as "the gimp". and Kevin Spacey claimed that Bryan Singer managed to convince all of the major actors that they were Keyser Soze. At the first screening, an angry Gabriel Byrne stormed off when he realize the truth.)
"I believe in GOD and the only thing that scares me is KYSER SOZE"
Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Based on The Hobbit
by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Ah...FRODO ...EREBOR"
-Ian Holm, AS Bilbo Baggins
I´m probably one of the few people in the world that really love this film. Ian Holm´s performance as Bilbo was an astounding presence on the original trilogy. But having this 3 film come out of one of Tolkien´s shortest books. No one liked it, I on the other hand found it amazing, i followed the production blog for months on updates, because they always talked about behind the scenes stuff i really like. And when the dvd came out i had to have it. Most of it because of the extras. But i love the way it was told. It is a story very close to me.
"...and where sickness thrives, bad things will follow..."
-Bilbo Baggins
Gremlins (1984)
Story : Chris Columbus
"Let me introduce myself, Peltzer is the name Rand Peltzer, and i have a story to tell....."
-Hoyt Axton as Randall "Rand" Peltzer
In Director Joe Dante´s monster masterpiece Gremlins, a man wants to buy his son a really unique christmas gift (TRIVIA FACT: Gremlins Town is Hill Valley from Back to the Future) But he soon learns by the store owner. Mr. Wing " I´M SORRY ..MOGWAI NOT FOR SALE". In Cantonese Chinese, mogwai means devil, demon or gremlin. The Mandarin pronunciation is mogui.
But not from his grandson who knows they need the money and sells GIZMO for 200 dollars. Not before a WARNING that all of us remember to this day.
THE THREE RULES:
1.-Don´t give them water.
2.-Don´t expose them to SUN light.
3.-Never feed them AFTER midnight.
Story by George Lucas
"Before the dark times, before the EMPIRE!"
-Alec Guiness as Obi Wan Kenobi
Director George Lucas considered casting Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune for the role of OBI WAN KENOBI, but he went for a veteran -seasoned -theatre-classic actor named Sir Alec Guiness to portray the most important Father Figure young Luke Skywalker would ever have.
While Guinness made no secret that he disliked the dialogue in George Lucas' script, he claimed that he accepted the role for two reasons: He was an admirer of Lucas' previous film American Graffiti and The narrative compelled him to read the whole script through to the end, in spite of not liking the dialogue and not being a fan of science fiction.
A TRUE actor who would bring experience and a veracity to this sci-fi space opera. An old JEDI KNIGHT, Obi Wan Kenobi or as Luke calls him "Old Ben" Kenobi delivers a remembrance speech about the old days, NO PREQUEL could ever ASPIRE. He says in very few words, what happened to the galaxy after the JEDI went "all but extinct" thanks to a young Darth Vader. Setting all the back story we ever needed. (TRIVIA FACT This is the only "Star Wars" movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, and the first ever science fiction film to be nominated for Best Picture. And have you ever noticed that Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi never actually meet within this film. The closest they get to meeting in this film is when she sees him from a distance during the lightsaber duel.)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010)
Based on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling
As Harry, Hermione and Ron are talking with Luna´s father ( Xenophilius Lovegood )to learn about a symbol seen several times on their journey, he tells them that the symbol represents the Deathly Hallows:
the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility. It´s worth watching it over and over again. Because of the importance to the story, the beautiful animation and the perfect narration of
actress Emma Watson. ( TRIVIA FACT: The unnamed characters in the Deathly Hallows story each have a parallel character in the film. The three brothers each receive a gift from Death. Voldemort, like the first brother, seeks the wand that will win any duel. Voldemort ultimately ends up seeking the same Elder Wand spoken of in the story. Another brother wants the Resurrection Stone to bring back to life a woman he loved. Snape loved Lily Potter, and seeks through the series to redeem himself for having caused her death. The third brother seeks only to hide from death with the Invisibility Cloak, which he ultimately gives up to accept his own mortality, and he and Death meet as old friends. Harry inherits an invisibility cloak from his father, but ultimately gives himself up to be killed voluntarily. At the crossroads between life and death, Harry meets Dumbledore, who is certainly an old friend. Dumbledore himself, like Death, has at one point been in possession of all three hallows. Xenophilius Lovegood speculates that the three brothers in the story were actually, or at least based on, the three Peverell brothers. In the book, both Harry and Voldemort are revealed to be descended from two of the brothers. Harry's Invisibility Cloak is in fact the very one spoken of in the tale, and the Resurrection Stone is set inside a ring which is a family heirloom, which Voldemort took after killing his uncle.)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
STORY by Thomas Harris
Why did you leave that ranch?
-Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter
As Dr. Hannibal Lecter lures Clarice to tell him things or let him inside her mind. She finds out there is no price to privacy. Lecter is a master manipulator begging for few details so he can make his twisted metaphors as he is hurting you. As he asks in a perfectly polite manner he recites what he knows about her. Because she told him first. Quid Pro quo (an exchange of goods) TRIVIA FACT: The Silence of the Lambs remains one of only three films to win the Big 5 at the Oscars (Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress). The other two are One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and It Happened One Night.
"Lambs... they were screaming "
Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling
What better way to call a horror movie than the story inside that story. That is why Hannibal "thanks" Clarice as she has confied in him as a pacient seeing a psychologist. Director Johnathan Demme achieved movie greatness when he pulled away everything and left close ups be the telling tale of the young FBI trainee, A SERIAL KILLER and the caged CANNIBAL.
Additional scenes were planned to be shot over Clarice unfolding of the origins behind the screaming lambs, which would see a younger Clarice stealing the lambs.
However, Jonathan Demme was so impressed with the acting by Foster and Hopkins in that scene that he decided to abandon the shoot, the emotions they convey on their faces are so strong that to cut them short would have been a crime of cinema.
It is very rare to recognize who made what in a film. But if you become aware of the opening credits you will find who produced, who edited, who wrote the film etc. Each and everyone of this individuals has left an impression on us. Positive or Negative but without the sum of all this talents the movie would be quite different. There is no magic potion or secret recipe for success or cultural phenmona, there is only the hopes of many hard working people who stamp their name , craft and talents to make this whole story come to life and into our senses.
Story telling is one of our oldest traditions as mankind. The way it has evolved from painting to film to television, to the internet. We see every day stories, we tell every day stories. There is always a story within a story.
