EWS scenes [spoiler]

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, ahague wrote:

> These are the scenes I found to be the best in EWS:
> 
> *The billiards scene with Sidney Pollock.  His performance was just
> incredible.  The stuttered dialogue was good, but Pollock just made that
> scene.  His dialogue was among the most genuine and realistic eveer spoken
> on screen.

Pollack was good even through as some reviewers have opined  he may have
explained too much. Better to have left more mystery especially since the
story wasn't very profound and hardly  needful of  a lot of explaining.
Bill wasn't reassured anyway. Cruise's mannerisms in the scene were a bit
much here as they were elsewhere I thought. Incidently, why did Bill not
seem to connect that Mandy was the girl he had saved at the party.
He had taken the trouble to find out her name  so he could address her
and had again stared into her face at the morgue. Seemed to be a bit 
of confusion in putting the movie together.
 
> *The very beginning of the orgy was also very well done.  The entire scene
> was well done, but the opening with Nightengale playing the keyboard and the
> congregation gathered around a central point.  The sound was also great, the
> crack of the cane for instance....

Both the sound AND the look of the film were breathtaking  for my money.
Along  with the set pieces these more than made up for deficiencies in the
material.  Nightengale opened with  "I'm in the Mood for Love" if I
remember rightly. Very apt. The first six notes of the theme at the orgy
sounded like they  might turn into a harshly rendered "Serenade in Blue"
though of course the mood was color red.

Appropos of another post this morning, the most painful scene in the
movie for me was Alice's picking the fight with Bill. I'm sure many
of us have survived such godawful drunken or pot induced behavior. (there
are male versions of Alice of course)

			P.