Search found 1 match: Laurence Olivier

Not necessarily changing a film, but definitely having a profound impact, either in terms of plot or character development, or just plain emotionally powerful. Not necessarily a film you’re crazy about - just one that has a memorable, stand-out example of either a look or gesture.

- Liza Minnelli at the end of Cabaret, giving a reverse wave good-bye over her shoulder when she turned around, walking away.

- one of my top five creepiest moments in film: in Clockwork Orange, when Alex is getting his first round of Ludivico medication. He asks the nurse if the treatment will be like going to the movies. Manoman the way she looks at him - that forbidding, mordant gaze, shifting from the needle to his face, while responding: “something like that”. To me - that’s just stone cold fuckin heavy - puts up the hairs on the back of my neck…..

- at the end of Marathon Man - Dustin Hoffman forces Laurence Olivier, at gun-point, to eat a bunch of diamonds and gems. LO attempts to chomp away at his expensive mouthful, but then…….that gradual look of realisation, as he slowly stops chewing - a look that so deftly shifts from abject humiliation to scheming predation - thinking he can call out DH’s innate cowardice (to eventually overtake DH’s gun).

- in Vera Drake - as she sees the police outside her house, approaching her front door, the look of the most anguished (and infectious!) dread washes over her face, which, up until that point in the film, had been a virtually imperturbable visage of compassion and content. (again - heavy shit)

- DeNiro’s bloody-fingered “pow-pow” gesture at the end of Taxi Driver

- Pulp Fiction - that annoying sideways-peace-signs-under-the-eyes gesture that was very significant for the film on a commercial level (being the most memorable image in its ads) and a social one (all those goony-birds breaking out the move on a dance floor near you)

- when meeting Death at the end of the Seventh Seal, the gal with the long, blonde hair - her look - WHOA.

tried repeatedly to upload film examples and after a while I'm like - ok fuck this.