Movie moments

When we remember movies seen in years past, what we mostly remember are certain moments from those movies. These moments stick with us even after most other details have faded away. That is the point film critic David Thomson makes in Moments That Made the Movies (2013), and I think he has it right.

We don't, of course, necessarily remember the same moments, or even moments from the same movies. And so Thomson's choices are very personal: his movies, his moments. We can choose are own.

His book is generously illustrated with stills from the chosen films, which go from a movement study of two nude women by Eadward Muybridge in 1887 to Burn After Reading, a Coen brothers film from 2008. Actually his last "film" is a still photograph taken during a violent Stanley Cup victory celebration in Vancouver in 2011, chosen because to him it seems like a moment from a movie.

Readers are likely to most appreciate Thomson's commentary on familiar scenes from familiar movies, whether or not they represent the moments we most remember. These might include Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) restaurant shooting of a police captain and the man responsible for the attempt on his father's life in The Godfather; the meal Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) shares with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Psycho before she is slaughtered in the shower (the moment other viewers might remember best); David Huxley (Cary Grant) ripping Susan Vance's (Katherine Hepburn) dress in Bringing Up Baby; and the fake sexual bliss demonstrated by Sally (Meg Ryan) to Harry (Billy Crystal) in When Harry Met Sally.

 Most of Thomson's choices are more obscure. He has a fondness for Japanese films of the 1950s and French films of the 1960s that few readers of his book are likely to have seen (although sometimes his commentary may make us want to see these films). Even his English-language choices tend to be rarely viewed films. Regarding Mickey One, a Warren Beatty movie from 1965, he says, "This a real film -- you can look it up." One film is unavailable on DVD in the United States. The moment he chooses from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid does not appear on most DVDs.

So there's a lot of showing off in Moments That Made the Movies. "I've seen this, and you haven't," he seems to suggest. Still, we are free to write our own accounts of the movie moments we most remember. Chances are they would not be as readable as his.