Of course, as much fun as this category can be, it's something of a challenge for the person tasked to write about the scenes themselves, especially since one doesn't just want to rattle off a description of what one can easily see and hear. I hope you'll agree with me that the person I tasked to write about this year's winner (a particularly challenging selection) was up to the task.
Third place:
Whiplash – Ending (133 points / 11 votes)
Second place:
The Immigrant – Ending / “You are not nothing” (139/12) [No video, alas]
And the Muriel Award goes to...
Goodbye to Language 3D – Double vision, take one (172.5 points / 14 votes)
Click here to view the winning scene.
(Note: yes, I realize this scene just doesn't have the same magic in 2D seen on an Internet video. All the more reason to catch this in 3D if and when it comes to your area)
"A static medium shot of a man in a park paging through a book might not necessarily scream 'scene of the year.' Nor might a pan from left to right and then back again, even if it involved a woman’s husband waving a gun in her face. If, however, that latter shot broke off from the former, taking place on a separate, concurrent visual plane until they merged back together, with each half intended for just one of the viewer’s eyes, well, now we’re getting somewhere. Such is the new 3D technique devised by Jean-Luc Godard and his cinematographer Fabrice Aragno. They deploy it early on in the sketchbook cornucopia of Goodbye to Language, then reprise it later, each time with minimal fanfare. But in its aftermath, a rumbling is audible off in the distance: the movement of film grammar’s tectonic plates.
"The shot(s) in question pull off a number of impressive feats very quickly. To wit: they indicate editing without an actual 'cut'; they echo the dualities that structure and pervade the film; they suggest the simultaneity of Cubist painting within the context of a movie; and they toy around with the sensory capabilities of the viewer’s body. Although every movie’s visual data may be processed through the same eyes, optic nerves, and brains, it’s rare for a filmmaker to interfere with the viewing experience on a biological level as Godard does here. As the images split, wander, and reconnect, the confused firing of the synapses may be palpable; the sinews of binocular vision twist, then unwind. Executed though it may be on a minuscule budget, this casual stunt nonetheless tends to elicit the same teeth-rattling awe as the greatest magic tricks.
"Maybe someday, scenes like this one will have become old hat. More likely, it’ll turn out to be a glorious evolutionary dead end. Whichever path film history takes, this will still stand as an example of how new possibilities are brought into existence: through playful formal experimentation. 'There is nothing new under the sun,' claimed the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. It never reckoned on the likes of Godard." ~ Andreas Stoehr
Oh, what the hell. Some more of our favorites:
Boyhood - "I just thought there would be more"
X-Men: Days of Future Past - "Time in a Bottle"
Nymph()maniac: Vol. 1 - Mrs. H and the Whoring Bed
Force Majeure - Avalanche
Snowpiercer - the classroom car
Two Days, One Night - meeting Timur
Noah - the story of Creation
John Wick - the Red Circle
Finally, I decided against posting the "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" scene from The Skeleton Twins because I didn't want it to get stuck in your head like it did in mine. You're welcome.
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