A week or so ago, we launched the inaugural Guardian Film Awards. Now, we're taking a closer look at the longlist in each category. Today: best scene
A movie in microcosm. A watercooler fave. A possibly-dodgy YouTube rip. An endlessly emailed link. What are the moments that stick with you from this season's contenders? And which great sequences are missing from our longlist?
Alan Partridge lip-synching to Roachford in the car in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
Simple pleasures here: just a man silently singing along to an 80s classic. But what a man, and what a lip-synch. This acts as a lovely re-introduction to the character - faintly more funky yet still the old Alan ("Your fog lamps are on") - as well as a stirring start to a feelgood movie.
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The opening scene of Gravity
This, surely, is how Alfonso Cuaron always dreamed audiences would watch his masterpiece: on a tiny screen, snipped down and context-less, preceded by footage of a middle-aged man bopping along in a Kia. In the cinema, though, this is just mind-blowing.
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The first party in The Great Beauty
Another cracking opener - though, in fact, it's not quite the start (there's the choir, the tourist fainting) - but this does provide a captivating first look at Jep Gambardella, playboy extraordinaire and sardonic centre of Paolo Sorrentino's damnation/celebration of Roman hedonism.
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Patsey returning with the soap in 12 Years a Slave
It's not really about bathroom hygiene, this bit, but to explain in more detail might be a bit of a spoiler. Suffice to say, this is probably the most harrowing scene in a film with some stiff competition. It's also one of the most superb (again, a bit of an embarrassment of riches). Plus, it was all shot on one camera, in one take.
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Cate Blanchett giving advice to her nephews in Blue Jasmine
A perfect car crash of self-awareness and absolute loopiness, of comedy and tragedy, of right words, wrong audience. Allen's script and Blanchett's class act work in perfect harmony. "Tip big, boys, tip big."
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The taping of Please Mr Kennedy in Inside Llewyn Davis
Spontaneous applause broke out after this scene at the premiere of the Coen brothers' movie in Cannes last year. No wonder: it's an absolute doozy, its sheer daft pleasure in contrast to Llewyn's terminal dolefulness. We've been watching this one over and over.
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The bedroom row in Before Midnight
Another movie this year that's just packed with keynote scenes. But this penultimate 20-minuter manages to pack in the most hairpin emotional bends yet still stay brutally true to life.
The opening scene of Post Tenebras Lux
You can actually watch the whole of Carlos Reygadas' movie on Vimeo, and it'd be hard to stop once you're into the first scene, all dogs and toddlers, magic light and the promise of madness.
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The cafe reunion in Blue is the Warmest Colour
There's a fair few bootleg scenes from this title kicking around online. This is one of the few sans-nudity; a third act whopper in which the pair nearly get back together in a cafe. Disclaimer: I was pretty unmoved by Blue is the Warmest Colour, other than in this scene, which had me blubbing with the best of them.
The struggle back to the car while overdosing in Wolf of Wall Street
There's a few dubiously-sourced versions of this online, but we're illustrating with a picture of Scorsese directing DiCaprio in a piece of physical comedy miles funnier than we'd ever imagined he could pull off.
So what nearly made the cut?
1) The live and let die scene from American Hustle.
2) The graveyard flashing scene from Nebraska.
3) Almost any scene from The Act of Killing.
4) Liberace sleeping with his eyes open in Behind the Candelabra
5) The FBI bribe scene on the yacht in Wolf of Wall Street.
Chip into the comments below, and vote here.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/jan/27/guardian-film-awards-longlist-best-scene
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