Tag: scenes

Anatomy Of A Scene – “Our Integrity Sells For So Little…”

“In a film with such great and memorable scenes, one scene portrayed as a flashback stands out amongst the rest.”

V For Vendetta – ‘Valerie’s Letter’ Scene

In a film with such great and memorable scenes, one scene portrayed as a flashback stands out amongst the rest. V for Vendetta is a fictional movie based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore but its focus on what happens when a totalitarian dictatorship rises to power in the fact of domestic and international calamities is relevant to what’s happened throughout history.

To give some background on the scene, Evey Hammond, the secondary protagonist to the masked anarchist and freedom fighter, V, is captured due to her alleged support of V’s activities to overthrow the dictatorial government that has seized power over the United Kingdom. Her hair is shaved, she is forced into a tiny cell, and practically starved for food or water. She is held there until she is sentenced to death by firing squad unless she gives up V’s identity and his whereabouts.

Rather than do so, she stifles their inquisition into who the masked man with the Guy Fawkes mask is leading her to a certain death. As Evey is about to lose hope and give in to her demands, she finds a letter stuck in a small crevice within the jail cell’s walls, written by a young woman named Valerie, not much older than Evey when she was forced into captivity by the government.

Valerie’s written on toilet paper what appears to be her last will and testament before a likely execution, waiting others to know about the injustices that the Creedy-led government has committed against her and why she is sharing her story of what happened to her. Valerie begins the letter describing her normal childhood in Nottingham in England and how she didn’t mind the rain because her grandmother told her that “God was in the rain.”

Valerie discusses how in grammar school as a teenager she fell in love for the first time with Sarah, a classmate, and that she was homosexual. Sadly, Valerie was forced to endure her teacher’s bigotry and disapproval of her sexuality and Sarah breaking up with her as a result. Even more painful for Valerie was introducing her 2nd girlfriend, Christina, and coming out as a lesbian to her father and Mother.

Valerie had to strength to show her integrity and not lie to her parents about who she is as a person, but they did not accept her for who she was and rejected her and even threw her baby picture away. “I only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little but is all we really have.” Valerie’s quote in this scene is what makes it so searing as a quote in that being truthful and showing integrity should be accepted and understood because it is not easy for those seen as ‘different’ to come out as being ‘different’ even though it is what makes us who we are. Valerie’s parents wanted her to be someone who she is not, and sadly refuse to accept her as she is. She kept true to herself and did not sell her integrity as a person, which is more than her parents can say, who abandon their daughter because they don’t accept who she is forgoing their love over something so short-sighted and ignorant of them.

Valerie did not let her teacher and her parents keep her from being who she is and in 2015, became an actress on a film, and ended up marrying her co-star on it. Her partner, Ruth, and Valerie, move to London together, start a rose garden, and begin their lives as a couple, and end up in the throes of the rise of a dictatorship throughout the United Kingdom as Adam Sutler comes to power due to war breaking out around the world. They fear for what their country is becoming as “different becomes dangerous” and Valerie does not understand “why they hate us so much.”

The dictatorial regime that takes power in the UK begins to take away people who are ‘different’ for ‘rendition’ and ‘detention’ without cause or just because they are ‘different’ from others. The Sutler regime uses the false platitude that because of growing insecurity internationally that he must withhold civil and human rights domestically. He consolidates his power and ends up arresting and detaining minorities, refugees, and homosexuals including Valerie’s partner, Ruth. Valerie is all alone and cries for how she will never see her beloved partner again because of this injustice.

“It wasn’t long before they came for me.” Another resonating quote from this powerful movie scene related to the quote of how they come for different groups of people until there is no one else left but me. The ending of this scene has its real-world historic parallels to other genocidal and abusive periods of time where crimes and injustices were committed against ethnic, religious groups and races, just because they were ‘different’, including genocide. Valerie is alone in her apartment when Sutler’s regime’s thugs come for her too. Like Evey, her head is shaved, she is held without doing anything wrong and against her will. Valerie ends up in a small jail cell like Evey and they both are alike too in that they stand for principles that make us humane to each other like equality, justice, and liberty. “For three years, I had roses and answered to no one.

During captivity, Valerie does not lose that last ‘inch of hope’ that she clings to from her free years of living her life as she wanted with whom she loved. “Every inch of me shall perish, but one. An inch.” Valerie implores that even though she only has a glimmer, or an inch of hope left, she will not let them take it from her despite how long she is locked up for. Valerie implores Evey to never give up, stay true to who you are, and cling to the hope that there is still good in the world worth fighting for.

Valerie, sadly, does not survive her detainment as it is inferred that she is experimented on by the regime and killed, but the letter survives, likely because of V himself. V knows Valerie as V knows Evey and his role in using roses for his victims comes from his own knowledge of the inspiration that Valerie was for him.

Valerie gave V hope to stand against Sutler’s regime and now that Evey has read Valerie’s story afterwards in the same prison cell, she will gain the same last “inch of hope” to keep fighting for herself and the world around her especially if she were ever to get free and leave Sutler’s prison. Valerie ends the letter to the person(s) who find her letter that it is important to have hope that things will change, and the world will get better. However, Valerie ends her last written words by saying that what is most important thing to her is to let that person reading know that she accepts them, and she loves them, whomever they may be. “Even though I do not know you, even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you…I love you, with all my heart. I love you.” -Valerie.

While many people around her sold their integrity by not accepting who she was as a person, disowning her, imprisoning her unjustly, forcing her to die in their detainment, Valerie never sold her integrity and she never stopped being herself, which is an inspiration to us all watching this excellent scene and film.

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Anatomy of a Scene – ‘To Know Me Is To Fly With Me’

“He has found a job that allows him to be constantly on the road at a job he is good at without commitments or obligations that would keep him from being who he is.”

Some people are most comfortable on the ground, others down below beneath the sea. Ryan Bingham, however, is most comfortable up in the air. Ryan goes from city to city and from town to town racking up airline miles, staying in recognizable hotels, and sadly letting people go from jobs by helping them with the transition process to a new life. He does the dirty work, which can be quite tense and unforgiving. He does not do his job out of pleasure for helping companies fire people in-person but rather because he likes life on the road and is comfortable being in airports, rental cars, and hotels rather than in a cubicle or a factory day in and day out.

Without going into too much detail about the movie, ‘Up in The Air’, I’m going to focus on two scenes to encompass Ryan’s life on the road and how he should be known best. Ryan is single, not a family man, never been married, and does not go on at length about children because he does not have them. He is driven not by his family or his career per say but rather how his home is his backpack or suitcase and how if he stays still, he loses an essential part of who he is as a person. When other people brag about their kids’ latest success or their wife or husband’s latest accomplish, Ryan instead brags about his quest for ten million airline miles and how he has privileged status with his hotel rewards program.

While others would find Ryan’s lifestyle odd and unusual, he would consider their lifestyle to be the odd and unusual one. He has found a job that allows him to be constantly on the road at a job he is good at without commitments or obligations that would keep him from being who he is. While he enjoys being with people, he is also comfortable on his own and enjoys his own company. He believes that any other way to live would not be as satisfying and for what others dislike about traveling constantly, he relishes it. Ryan does not think anything, or anyone would derail him from continuing this lifestyle even after he reaches his ten million miles goal. If he were to stop, it may be only because he loses his job where he helps to fire people or if he met a woman who could live with his ‘unusual’ lifestyle.

“Fast Friends.”

As the scene ‘to know me is to fly with me’ demonstrates, Ryan’s friendships are often self-serving because he is often on the road and can’t have true friendships but rather ‘fast friendships.’ He is a new kind of person and must go along with his constantly shifting itinerary. Ryan is personable and likes to meet new people such as a man next to him in business class and can relate to another gentleman who likes to be on the road.

Ryan has traveled so much that he knows how to approach a conversation with a stranger sitting next to him. They can discuss family matters, where to go for good food in a specific city, and even about the dreams of the person he is sitting with. He may not have deep friendships but is personable and friendly enough to make a quick connection like he would a flight to a new city without skipping a beat.

Ryan can get the business card, say goodbye forever, and is busy enough to move on without feeling a sense of loss or sadness about not seeing that gentleman he had met and formed a connection with for a few hours just before. As Ryan indicates in his narration, he lives by ‘the margins of his itinerary’ and is committed to his schedule without missing a beat or feeling like he is out of step. Even where there is turbulence, bad airline food, or onerous airline security procedures, Ryan Bingham takes it all in stride. He is not dismayed by any of the various annoyances that plague the travel industry. It is where he feels most at home and is probably the only kind of life he would feel at home with.

“I am home.”

Another scene that compliments the ‘to know me is to fly with me’ deleted scene from the movie is where Ryan’s travel process is shown from beginning to end. Different from ‘fast friends’, Ryan’s job encompasses him helping companies too afraid to fire their employees directly by having him fly around the country and perhaps internationally to do it himself. He says that it’s easy to do it since “he’ll never see them again” but it does not seem like he takes pleasure in it and just uses it to travel for a living. Instead of ‘fast friends’, he may be making ‘fast discontents’ as they blame him for everything bad happening to them at that job even though it’s not his decision to fire them but their boss’s. While Ryan never sees them again like the friendly businessman sitting next to him on the plane, those brief moments of sad or happy coincidence just fall by the wayside when he focuses on his true passion of making the travel lifestyle of his as seamless as possible.

From organizing his TravelPro suitcase easily stored in the overhead bin in any normal jumbo-sized jet plane to making sure his ties and shirts are neatly folded to fit in his suitcase, Ryan fits the bill as a true traveler who knows what to do. “This is where I live.” Ryan says as he drops off his rental car, which he probably rented for free by using his compiled credit card miles. He avoids long check-in lines by having ‘priority access’ with his airline points allowing him such perks as a personalized greeting from one of the airline staff, which is part of sitting in the ’first class’ section of the airplane. While ‘Up in The Air’ was made before TSA Precheck and Global Entry came out as options to avoid long security and U.S. customs lines, you can believe Ryan would have been able to sign up for those perks as well for free due to his accrued airline miles.

From greeting the smiling airline staffer who is aware of his ‘privileged’ status to making it through the TSA check like it is second nature, Ryan is suited up to make himself presentable for the flight but does not forget to wear dress slip on shoes to make the onerous security check process a little bit faster and little less annoying. He gets out the two bins to put through the x-ray machine for his luggage, expertly has his laptop at the top of his carry-on bag ready to be placed in one of the bins and has the slip-on shoes out of his face so fast he does not struggle with getting them back on later. He even folds his suit jacket expertly in half, so it does not wrinkle at all as it goes through the machine and holds his boarding pass out in front of him through the metal detector, so the TSA security agents know he does not have “anything left in his pockets.”

“All the things you probably hate about traveling: the recycled air, the artificial lighting, the digital juice dispenses, the cheap sushi…are warm reminders that I am home. While most people would hate to have a job that makes them the face people have to see when they get fired or would not enjoy constantly being on the road most of the year, if not all of it, Ryan Bingham in ‘Up in The Air’ truly relishes it and would not have it any other way. There are Ryan Bingham’s in the world out there and they live a lifestyle that while unconventional and difficult, is a unique one that deserves some respect as it isn’t easily pulled off especially since as he said, the stuff most people hate about traveling, he really loves, and that is worth admiring about him.

Anatomy of a Scene – Suds on the Roof

“For Andy, getting three beers a piece and to have some suds as him and the guys work outdoors in the heat is worth the perilous personal risk that he put himself through to make it happen.”

Sometimes, it pays to speak up and be heard even if you’re a convicted felon. Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) is a few years into his prison stint at Shawshank State Prison in rural Maine. He proclaims his innocence to Red (played by Morgan Freeman, his good friend in the prison, who still has a hard time believing him even though the two have become close first as Andy’s provider of cigarettes and posters of centerfold actresses and models but has become more of a confidant despite being skeptical of Andy’s claims of innocence. He tells Andy “Everyone in Shawshank is innocent, don’t you know that?”

As Red also explains, prison is no fairytale world and Andy runs into a rough crowd of prisoners who sexually assault and physically beat him to a pulp. Prison becomes very routine in that Andy tries to fend off his attackers, does his duty at the massive laundry room, and collects rocks in the yard to shape and polish with his rock hammer as a hobby to pass the time. Red also exclaims in the film, “Prison time is slow time…and a man will do almost anything to keep himself occupied.”

It is through his budding friendship with Red and his connections to the outside world that they can finally break the monotony of prison life and to have a small taste of freedom by bribing a few of the prison guards with cigarettes and whiskey to win the job of tarring the license plate factory roof. While it is arduous, backbreaking, and tiresome; it’s also Summer in Maine, a “fine month to be working outside”, and comes with more outside time in the prison and other special privileges, according to Warden Norton. With a small bribe and maybe some extra names in the sorting hat, Andy, Red, and their associated group of inmates win the job with no other prisoners being suspicious of how they won the prized work outside.

This scene that I like to call ‘Suds on the Roof’ focuses on the men at work with the hot tar with the summer heat bearing down on them. The head of the Prison guards gets fleshed out as a character when we learned that his brother died as a rich man being worth over $1 million dollars, which in the early 1950s would be 20x the amount today in 2021. Byron Hadley, being the vindictive, petty, and cruel man that he is likes to play the victim on how he is only getting $35,000 from his brother despite calling him an ‘asshole’ to the other guards and complaining on how it’s not enough or how the government and others will take some of that money he didn’t earn but inherited. This is a brilliant detail at the beginning of the scene to show just how pathetic and small he could be as a character, which is great writing by the film’s writers, because you begin to grow to detest how vile a person that Byron Hadley is.

Andy Dusfresne, our main character in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ overhears Byron’s ‘tale of woe’ about inheriting money from his recently deceased brother and seeks to take advantage of the situation by knowing that his tax and finance knowledge as a banker may play to his advantage. The way he stops mopping the tar, walking over awkwardly, and coming up from behind with the guards’ backs turned away from him is terror-inducing when you first see this scene. Andy’s crew, including Red, implore and yell at Andy to keep ‘his eyes on the mop’ and not to antagonize a vicious man that Byron is because they know from experience how senselessly brutal and violent, he can be to the inmates for no reason at all.

Andy, in this scene, he is as cool as a cucumber and basically tunes out their pleas of him to keep mopping and ignore Hadley’s tale of woe. Andy goes up to Hadley and says a few choice words that almost get him killed within the next few seconds. “Mr. Hadley, do you trust your wife?” That simple sentence has a lot of implications such as that she may be cheating on Byron and has been unfaithful to him but it’s really about Andy asking about their financial relationship although his poor choice of words almost leads to Byron throwing him off the roof of the license plate factory and then calling it an ‘accident’ with the outside world beyond Shawshank none the wiser about his actual premeditated cause to murder Andy.

“Because if you do trust her…there’s no reason that you can’t keep that $35,000!” …In just a few seconds, Andy’s quick thinking and knowledge of one tax-free gift to your spouse or wife helps keep Byron from throwing Andy off the roof to certain death. Andy is trying to save Byron some money and exclaims quickly that he can give his money up to $60,000 in a tax-free gift hence why Andy awkwardly started to ask him if he trusts her implying if he would trust her with such a large sum of money and if she would take care of it properly for him. Byron knows Dufresne as all the guards do as a ‘smart banker’ who ‘killed his wife’ and is worried that what Andy is advising him to do would be illegal and get him in trouble with the IRS and the law.

Andy assures him that this tax-free gift is entirely legal and if he doesn’t believe Andy, Byron can ask the IRS to check and make sure. Byron still looks down on Andy and doesn’t need his help to get all the money, but Andy replies fast that unless he wants to pay lawyers or a financial advisor to do it, which would cost a lot of money, Andy exclaims while hanging from the edge of the rooftop that he would do it for Byron nearly free of charge! Andy only needs the forms to start preparing him and the only cost that he asks for in return are a few beers for him and each of his “co-workers”, which is a hilarious aside that Andy would refer to his convicted inmate friends as co-workers rather than fellow prisoners. Even though they are in prison for life, most of them, they still form bonds of friendship to survive in terrible conditions, with a sociopathic warden and a vicious head prison guard preparing to harm or even kill them if they step out of line.

Now, the most surprising thing about this scene is that the ‘nearly free of charge’ refers to a specific brand of beer, “Bohemia style” as Red puts it and for them to be “icy cold” especially to quench the thirst of the hard-working prison crew toiling to tar the roof day in and day out. Andy, in a sense, wants to feel like he is doing his banking job again and instead of receiving a salary for just himself as he did before, he instead wagers his life to get beers not only for himself but for his crew of friends he recently established. He is selfless in this way in that he does not think only of himself but thinks of those others who deserve that small moment of freedom by drinking “cold ones” on the roof at “ten o’clock in the morning.” For Andy, getting three beers a piece and to have some suds as him and the guys work outdoors in the heat is worth the perilous personal risk that he put himself through to make it happen. For Andy, it was to help him feel a bit less like a convict in a prison on a life sentence and a little more like a free man, if only for a short while.

I believe Andy wanted to feel a bit more normal such as like him and his friends were tarring the roof of their own houses and to sit with the sun on their shoulders and feel free and have a bit of happiness in grim circumstances that they find themselves in day in and day out with little hope to their chances of getting out of prison. As Red indicates towards the end of the scene, they can make Byron, the guard, seem magnanimous or even ignored altogether because they have sun and they have cold beers and they have each other, which is more than the convict crew has had all together in years probably.

Andy is selfless to the end in this scene showing his true character as not of a cruel murderer but someone who even if unclear yet to the audience was wrongfully convicted, whose intentions were pure, and who missed his previous life as a banker and wanted to “feel normal again, if only for a short while” as Red so eloquently puts it. In this scene, we begin to see Andy’s true nature as a human being: awkward and clumsy at first but very brave, empathetic, and a kind heart that not only Red’s friends realize from his selfless act but that the guards also see even if they have to follow Hadley’s orders in dealing with him. Andy was offered a ‘cold one’ at the end of the scene but tells one of the convict tarring crew that he gave up drinking.

Red speculates to the audience watching as to why Andy would refuse the beers that he almost died to get but then realizes in the narration that it wasn’t about getting the beers at all or helping Hadley get wealthier, it was to have that freedom to choose again, to have a choice without asking for permission all the time from the guards, and to feel a bit of life again within the drab and gray walls of Shawshank. The freedom of choice is directly related to having free will, which was taken away completely from Andy and other prisoners. He wanted to restore it again briefly to have a bit of normalcy and break up the sheer monotony and harshness of prison life.

Andy would like to think and have again for a moment where he is not a mere convict but a human being worthy of some simple dignity, choice, and a small taste of freedom for some brief moments asking for those cold beers and if he must almost die for that freedom, it was worth it to him in the end. That feeling of ‘normalcy’ to Andy as Red puts it was the real driver for him to put himself at risk and to feel good about it after, to smile and feel some small sense of happiness that had been missing for so long. Lastly, Andy did not just do it for himself but to help his friends who had sustained his spirit in the drab prison even after being beaten, abused, and almost worked to death in the laundry room. It is not he who deserves to feel somewhat normal again alone but his crew as well who worked tirelessly to mop hot tar in the summer without any prospect of real rewards or gratitude. The beers were not just for him but for Red and for the others to feel like ‘free men’ and to be the ‘lords of all creation’ in their minds and in their hearts, if only for a short while.

Anatomy of a Scene – ‘Why do we fall?’

“It feels more real than any other comic book movie and the character development is better than most other movies due to the major scenes having a deeper meaning behind them that continue throughout the Nolan Batman trilogy.”

As I have written in a previous blog article, ‘Batman Begins’, directed by Christopher Nolan is one of my all-time favorite movies and still my favorite comic book movie. It feels more real than any other comic book movie and the character development is better than most other movies due to the major scenes having a deeper meaning behind them that continue throughout the Nolan Batman trilogy. One of the scenes from ‘Batman Begins’ that really sum up the core message of this trio of Batman films from 2005-2012 is asking the question of ‘Why do we fall?’. This question not only summarizes the trilogy’s main message of not letting adversity or failure keep us from trying and eventually succeeding but also regarding the need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving forward in life.

This simple message of ‘why do we fall?’ is more than just about Batman’s own struggles in terms of having a traumatic experience of falling through a well, getting harassed by a swarm of bats, and injuring himself but it’s about our own setbacks in life and what we can do to put them behind us rather than dwell on them. This peculiar scene from ‘Batman Begins’ is central to the theme of the movie as Batman, an ordinary man who while having inherited obscene wealth and prestige, still suffers from tragedy early in life despite his well-to-do circumstances of birth.

This scene starts with a young Bruce Wayne falling into a boarded up well near his father’s mansion while playing with a childhood friend, Rachel, as they search for an arrow relic. Not only is the fall quite steep causing young Bruce to fracture his arm, after also falling to the bottom of the well, Bruce’s presence agitates a flock of bats who come out rapidly to surround and pester Bruce who is afraid by their mere presence. While his fright appears to be very real, it is likely that they are more frightened of him then he is of them. Luckily, Rachel tells Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne, about the incident who comes rushing with Alfred to get his young boy out of the well. The elder Wayne is a doctor who can set the bone and care for his son as a doctor would for any patient.

As Dr. Wayne and Alfred carry Bruce to his bedroom, he asks his son, ‘Why do we fall, Bruce?’ and he answers his own question as he knows the boy to not have picked up on the inherent wisdom that comes from falling: ‘So we can learn to pick ourselves up.’ This is the exact kind of fatherly advice that Bruce will remember not only as a child but as an adult as well.

Facing adversity not only as Bruce Wayne but also as Batman will cause him to remember the quote that his father imparts on him. There will be challenges, failures, and setbacks that he must deal with but the only way to get through them is to ‘pick yourself up’ and to keep moving forward. Dr. Wayne’s advice is key also in imparting to Bruce that only through ourselves can we overcome adversity and that we cannot rely on others to do it for us. While he was there for Bruce to help him get out of the well and to heal his bones, he like all fathers will not always be there for his children. Any child including Bruce Wayne must face the passage through adulthood, often by themselves, and be forced to reckon with life’s challenges head on and by yourself without the help of family and friends even when you are an eccentric billionaire born into wealth.

“All creatures feel fear…even the scary ones? Especially the scary ones.” Another key part of the scene that resonates is that the Bats did not attack Bruce because of who he was but because of what he did. All creatures including humans tend to lash out when they are fearful sadly and that includes the bats when Bruce unknowingly invades their territory in the well causing him to be attacked. This part of the scene is also a precursor to a later scene in the Opera house where a man, seemingly both desperate and homeless, steals from the Wayne’s and kills them out of both out of fear, self-loathing, and pain as he murders them to be able to live off the stolen goods to keep himself from economic deprivation.

A good film like this one develops side characters like Bruce Wayne’s characters to show how much they meant to Bruce before their deaths and how devastating the memory is for the young boy whose unfortunate murders would change his life forever. You really feel for Bruce given how wise, caring, and kind he was both to Bruce, to his wife, and to Gotham City.

In the scene, you also see Thomas Wayne plan to surprise his wife with a necklace of pearls and to ask for his son’s opinion before he plans to give it to her on a family outing to the opera house. He cajoles his son out of bed, seemingly healed from his injury, to join them at the opera house.

My favorite part of the scene is Dr. Wayne’s philanthropic efforts directed not just at charities, foundations, and such but also right to the city that helped made the Wayne’s very wealthy as a family. Bruce asks his father, “Did you build this train, Dad?” His father responds, “Gotham’s been good to our family. But the city’s been suffering. People less fortunate than us have been enduring very hard times.”

He goes on to say, “So, we built a new cheap public transportation system to unite the city. And at the center, Wayne Tower.” His son asks if he works at the gleaming financial center with his name, but Thomas says that he works at the hospital where he is most needed and leaves his company’s financial dealings to those men ‘better and more interested’ in that kind of work than he is.

In this version of Batman, Thomas Wayne is a philanthropist and billionaire you can’t help but be proud of in a way. He doesn’t shirk responsibilities and puts the money directly to help those who are less fortunate in a real manner while he is running the company. He may like to direct attention to himself and his name by having the public transportation system be centrally located in Wayne Tower but it’s a small price to pay for an investment project like that for those who need to get around the city in a cheap and efficient manner. For a billionaire to not hoard his wealth, to invest in the city he loves with an actual, physical embodiment of helping others get to work or to school such as a public transportation network, so the city’s residents can have greater opportunities, it makes his untimely death that much more tragic.

Not only a doctor helping at a city hospital but a man willing to put money towards an actual public good like transportation is an example of the rich and powerful galvanizing resources together to help people less fortunate than they are in a concrete way. Whether its building new schools, constructing a train system, or adding more hospitals, that is a real kind of philanthropy to a city that the wealthy of a society should realize their civic duty to do so beyond paying taxes.

Beyond Thomas Wayne’s message of ‘picking yourself up’ when you have an accident, or a tragedy happen to you, his willingness to invest money back into a city that made his family wealthy is a real example in a movie of how to give a fictional character real development in just one two-minute scene. It is a good example for other filmmakers and directors how to really start to care for a character before an untimely demise and to learn about why drives the other characters in the film who were affected by their death or demise. I highly recommend viewing this ‘why do we fall’ scene to better understand character development but also the Batman film franchise of Christopher Nolan as well.

If there’s one thing I know for sure, our world today could use more men and fathers like Thomas Wayne from ‘Batman Begins.’

Movie Scene link here: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=CPvGLawULKw&pbjreload=101

Anatomy of a Scene – The Dream

“In his 30+ years as a police officer, he means well but he has noticed an increasingly brutal fact that is inescapable. The world has become more unforgiving, violent, and it is hard for him to make an impact whereas at the beginning of his career, he sought to make it a better place.”

Tommy Lee Jones is an elderly police officer overmatched in the excellent ‘No Country for Old Men’ (2017). He is overmatched for a number of reasons including not being able to keep up with the actions of violent men who show no compassion or no remorse. Throughout the film, he is always just a step behind the sociopathic Anton Chigurh and fails to either apprehend him or to prevent him from killing innocent people. In his 30+ years as a police officer, he means well but he has noticed an increasingly brutal fact that is inescapable. The world has become more unforgiving, violent, and it is hard for him to make an impact whereas at the beginning of his career, he sought to make it a better place.

Ed Tom Bell is your average protagonist who means well, wants to do right in his work, and believes he can do good but finds himself overmatched and overwhelmed by what he is asked to do. When he thinks of his future, he wonders what is left for him and if retirement will bring him peace or have him think back on what could be.

The dream scene begins with Ed Tom, now retiring, looking out of his window at his farm’s seemingly barren landscape with a sole tree to his left through the window behind him. A man of seemingly few hobbies and fewer words, he thinks about his day ahead and thinks about the possibility of riding around on his horse. Not too enthused about it, he also asks his wife if he should help around the house. Seemingly because he is less than skilled at this work, his wife believes it’s better that “he not.” He asks if his wife will join him riding but she is still working and a member of society actively.

Resigned to his fate as a retiree instead of being an active police officer, he reflects to his wife that he’s had dreams and he wants to share them. She says that he has time for them now and that she’ll be polite while he remembers them. He goes ahead and states that there were ‘two dreams’, they were ‘peculiar’ and both of them involved his father who has long passed away. Ed Tom is an older man than his father ever was indicating his father passed away at a younger age that of which Ed Tom will live to be longer.

The first dream is almost like a flash as most of our dreams tend to be with the details muddled and hard to recall. Ed Tom only states that he meets up with his young father in town and he leaves him some money perhaps as a way of his father being there for him even if he wasn’t present physically in his life. Similar to losing his father early in life, Ed Tom believes he lost his money in the dream as well leaving him without help as his father’s early death may have inadvertently done.

The second dream is much more imaginative and involve Ed Tom and his father living in ‘older times’ perhaps when the West was not settled and was lawless. He is no longer a police officer maintaining law and order but rather a horse rider having adventures with his father as he wishes they perhaps would have had time for had he lived longer.

This second dream is much more vivid as Ed Tom recalls how it is cold, they are going through a mountain pass together. They ride together in the snow among the mountains of the night until his father rides past him with no explanation and his blanket wrapped tight against him. This is confusing to Ed Tom at first knowing how hard it is to be without his father who he loves and must face the cold world without him as if he has been abandoned again. Though he may have lost his father, Ed Tom recalls how his father was carrying ahead a fire and a horn of a golden moon color, which gave him comfort despite the fact that he was not with him riding together.

“He was going on ahead, fixing to make a fire.” Ed Tom believes his father in the dream is out there doing this noble act in the middle of all the dark and cold, which is brutal to handle. “I knew whenever I got there, he’d be there…then I woke up.” The hope that Ed Tom haves is that his father even though it seems like he abandoned him as the son is that he really is instead looking out for him and paving the road ahead with light so he would not abandon his hope.

He believes that his father even though he may not be there with him wants him to keep going ahead and to meet him eventually instead of becoming deterred. He paves the way for his son to chase the flame of his absence and to resolve to not let the dark encapsulate him fully. Ed Tom’s expression about the dream is one of resigned sadness that his father is no longer around but also one of lingering strength to believe his death was not in vain and that he will reunite with him one day. His father, like him later, use their lives to keep the flame and the light moving forward even when surrounded by the darkest aspects of human nature.

Like any dream scene in a movie, this one has a deeper meaning behind it related to one man’s grief involving the loss of not only his livelihood but of his hope for a brighter future for humanity. Having seen the horrors that people inflict on one another, he may be resigned to that fact but he also believes his father would have wanted him to keep the flame ‘alive’ and to keep carrying it forward throughout his life even if things looked bleak. His death did not stop Ed Tom from keeping the flame moving in his own life and to carrying it forward in the hopes that he would bring it to his father someday when they would eventually be reunited in another lifetime or in another dream that seemed real.

Anatomy of a Scene – The Training

Batman Begins – The Will to Act (Training Scene HD)

‘Batman Begins’ is an excellent film for many different reasons. It has a great cast, excellent cinematography, a realistic story even if based on a famous comic book character, and also a great origin theme to it that is compelling and relatable. While we know that the idea of an ordinary man becoming a ‘superhero’ is farcical at best, the way that process is shown in ‘Batman Begins’ and the way Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is able to transform himself both mentally and physically into that role is really awe-inspiring when you think about it.

This is really the first Batman on film experience that shows how this caped crusader was born and what it took for him to become a masked hero to Gotham’s people. The hero’s journey in this one is believable because it takes up almost 30 minutes of the film. We see him at the beginning in a rural Chinese prison for no discernible reason and we only know that he is a wealthy man named ‘Bruce Wayne’ who seems to have lost his way. He seems desperate to find his way in the world and is desperate to fight criminals wherever they are even if it may cost him his life. Rather than concentrating his energy on his home city or finding a way to use his philanthropy for good, he wiles away in a prison fighting lowly conmen and convicts before the police have to force him into solitary confinement for ‘their’ protection and not his.

What Bruce needed at this time in the film is a good mentor to show him a better path and that person at the time is Henri Ducard (played by Liam Neeson). We do not know much about this month but only that he commands a powerful group of ninjas / mercenaries called the ‘League of Shadows’ and they are tucked away in the mountains. He offers Bruce in a previous scene the chance to join them but instills a challenge in other to be worthy. He must seek out a rare blue flower and climb up the mountain by himself so he may be deemed ready to begin his real training to instill fear in his enemies and fight them wherever there is injustice. It is a tall task, but Bruce is up for the challenge of going to their hideaway.

When he gets to this mountain hideout, he is immediately forced to start fighting even though he can barely stand. He is challenged to confront his fears especially of bats when the rare blue flower he carried can be used as a fear-inducing toxin, which he must confront and control in order to be able to succeed as a new member of the League of Shadows. In addition to challenging his mind, in different scenes, he has to learn different kinds of martial arts and learn to balance himself even as he is being attacked with sticks by many members of the League.

In ‘The Training’ scene, we are introduced to the aftermath of Bruce losing both of his parents and feeling guilty that they are dead because of him but Alfred reassures him that it was nothing he did that made them lost their lives in a cowardly homicide by the murderer.

“My anger outweighs my guilty.” Bruce does not feel guilt anymore but the anger of not being able to apprehend or kill the murderer of his parents is difficult for him to still deal with. In this Training scene, what I really enjoy is how both epic and intimate it feels from the snow-covered ice sheets to the sprawling mountain landscapes, it feels as if a superhero is being trained and that his mentor is there to help him launch that path.

“You know how to fight six men; we can teach you to engage 600.” This quote from Henri Ducard shows that he is doing more than training a mercenary like his other men, but he wants to train a future leader who will be able to use ‘theatricality and deception’ to strike fear in the hearts of hundreds of men rather than a few.’ As we see later on in the film, Bruce takes his former mentor’s advice literally by becoming Batman. Beyond different forms of martial arts, we see that Henri and Bruce are sword-fighting as well for the first time which is part of the League of Shadows arsenal. Bruce is curious to learn from Henri intermixed with their training on how to become truly invisible such as using ‘explosive powder’ and disguising one’s identity to disappear and then reappear suddenly.

“Always mind your surroundings.” In addition to skills in dodging, deflecting attacks and also going on the offensive, Ducard likes to remind Bruce on how to always be aware of the environment around you as it can be turned against you or made into an ally as well. Despite the immediate threat of his sword, Bruce must also be considered with the ice-sheets below him and the cold mountain air that can cause him to also lose his life if he is not careful.

“You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent.” In order to become more than just a vigilante, Bruce must become a symbol that strikes fear in the hearts of his enemies. The idea of becoming Batman is born in this pivotal training scene and the fact that he must his own fear of bats against his enemies is worth remembering later on in the film.

The example of the farmer as a prisoner because of his murder of his neighbor of a land dispute shows the beginning of a rift between Henri Ducard, the mentor, and Bruce Wayne, the student.:” Crime cannot be tolerated; criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding.” Henri Ducard has a zero tolerance of criminals and does not believe in society’s prisons and judicial systems as a means of holding them accountable for their heinous actions.

Ducard believes in an ‘eye for an eye’ such as if you murder someone, you must be murdered in return to really receive final justice. It is a very black and white view which Bruce does not entirely agree with and will push back on later. Bruce has faith in his fellow citizens and knows that a punishment such as imprisonment can be sufficient for true justice to occur. He does not believe in the total corruption of society as Henri does and this scene also shows the beginning of that difference in their world views.

In order to get Bruce to lash out at him and cause him to truly unless his potential, Ducard goads Bruce by saying that the death of his parents was not his fault but his father’s. This is a successful ploy by Ducard as Bruce loses control of his emotions and strikes wildly at Ducard who blocks his attempts and causes him to be subdued.

“Your training is nothing, the will is everything! The will to act.” This quote is by far the most powerful moment of this scene and perhaps the movie itself. It does not matter how much physical or mental training you have built what do you do when it comes time to act and take a stand. Will you be able to put your training or your knowledge to good use and make it count? This is an excellent quote by Ducard and shows that when it comes down to it, we can have all the training, expertise, and knowledge in the world on martial arts, advanced chemistry, or business but what good is that knowledge if we fail to act and use this training for the benefit of ourselves but also others in the world. It is a powerful quote that makes this scene stand out from others in ‘Batman Begins.’

Urged on by this challenge to act, Bruce seems to finally subdue Henri towards the end of the scene only to be put back in his place with Ducard’s ability to carve out a hole beneath Bruce’s feet to sink him into the frigid, icy waters. This part shows that Ducard is still the mentor and Bruce still has a lot to learn about his surroundings but also what it means to finally beat your enemies and leave no room for silly errors.

The scene ends with how much Ducard and Bruce have in common even though they barely know each other. They have both felt great anger in the loss of loved ones and how they grieve the same and how they understand the pain that drives them to exact vengeance against criminals like the ones who robbed them of their families. The scene ends with Henri’s warning to Bruce that “Your anger gives you great power but if you let it, it will destroy you as it almost did me.” Unlike Bruce though, Ducard could avenge his wife’s death but Bruce lives with the guilt that he could do what was necessary to avenge the murder of his beloved parents, which haunts him in this ending of the scene.

‘The Training’ scene in Batman Begins is exquisitely filmed, has excellent scenery, and really has different life lessons imbued in its powerful dialogue. The chemistry shows between Henri Ducard and Bruce Wayne is really authentic as a mentor-mentee relationship and this scene is the first one where you can see how their paths will diverge based on their differences in opinion regarding murder, vengeance and what really encompasses true justice for criminals. A must-watch scene as part of a must-watch movie. Check it out when you have the chance.

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