2019 in Film Halftime Report: The Scenes

Lorde’s “Supercut” – Someone Great

In Someone Great, music journalist Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) has just broken things off with her longtime boyfriend after she accepts a job offer in San Francisco. Completely shattered, Jenny tries to put her hurt aside and enjoy one final night in NYC with her best friends. Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson does an excellent job at not only representing realistic female friendships, but also at illustrating the misery, longing, and anger felt after a breakup in this age of social media. One way she does this is with her pitch-perfect soundtrack.

Early in the film, Jenny, drunk and waiting for the subway, looks back on her relationship while scrolling through her phone. As Lorde’s “Supercut” plays, the scene turns into a social media montage of Jenny’s whole relationship. We see everything from the first cute Instagram photos to the final, heart-wrenching “I love you” that punctuated the breakup. This scene paired with Lorde’s relatable lyrics—“In my head I do everything right/When you call I forgive and not fight/Because ours are the moments I play in the dark”—completely captures the pain of looking back on a relationship, especially one so fervently documented, and thinking: how did this happen? — Emalie @esoderback

Fuckbox – High Life

Claire Denis’s first English language film is a violent slice of claustrophobic sci-fi set on a spaceship, where Juliette Binoche’s ‘shaman of sperm’, Doctor Dibs, subjects prisoners – including Robert Pattinson’s Monte – to experiments in artificial insemination. No one in High Life has actual sex, instead they achieve gratification in an enclosed chamber, nicknamed ‘The Fuckbox’, which looks like Sleeper’s Orgasmatron reimagined by HR Giger.

The scene in which Binoche makes use of the box’s, erm, devices is little short of jaw-dropping – part sex act, part satanic ritual, part mechanical bull ride. It’s carnal and erotic, sure, but also queasy and thoroughly disturbing. No more so than when Dibs’s bodily fluids ooze out of the box into a drain when she’s done. We’ve seen films where masturbation is amusing (American Pie), voyeuristic (The Doom Generation), and even uplifting (Pleasantville), but in High Life, it’s just plain scary. — Andrew @andywinter1

The Title – Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Chinese filmmaker, Bi Gan, dazzled the few audiences that saw his very first feature, Kaili Blues. His follow-up, then, was hugely anticipated. Long Day’s Journey Into Night premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. And truth be told, there are so many vivid moments here, you are spoiled for choice. I’m not even going to select the hour-long single take in 3D.

It’s a progressive, hypnotic film, and one I was quite content being swept up by. And then the title appears on the screen. I was so bedazzled by this motion picture, immersed in its fluid beauty, part of me actually thought that was the end of the film. Just for a second or so. And somewhere in the common sense of my psyche, I accepted that. It hardly registered that the film was just past the hour mark. Genius. — Robin @Filmotomy

Aretha Franklin’s Appearance – Amazing Grace

The moment that strikes me the most in Amazing Grace is the first time we see Aretha Franklin come on screen. It’s hard to believe it has been less than a year since we lost Franklin, who possessed the strongest voice in all of music. Filmed in 1972, but not seeing the light of day until earlier this year, Amazing Grace puts the Queen of Soul in her element, returning to her roots of gospel music, and recording a live album at the New Temple Missionary Church in Los Angeles for a two night occasion.

Accompanied by Southern California Community Choir, along with Reverend James Cleveland who acts as singer/master of ceremonies, the film celebrates Franklin’s voice as a gift from God. When we first see her, she’s wearing a silk white kaftan, and the youthful face of an Angel. As she opens her mouth to sing, it’s powerful enough to tear down the walls of heaven. What a legend we lost, but what a film for her legacy. — Jeremy @jeremytwocities

The Songwriter – Under the Silver Lake

David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake is a confusing amalgamation of riddles, the most enigmatic and uncomfortable of which is the Songwriter scene. An elderly pianist has composed every pop song in existence, revealing to Sam (Andrew Garfield), the film’s code-finder, that culture is entirely fabricated.

There’s no point in trying to extract one meaning from this scene, many keyboard warriors have tried, but it gets to me. An existential dread seeps through, a realisation that most of culture is artificial to some degree – recycled, rebought, and repackaged for profit. Is it worth being creative, knowing that the result will be ‘the shell of other men’s ambitions’?

The Songwriter is like a symbol of the mainstream, and he has a fitting finish: decapitated by Kurt Cobain’s guitar. After Mitchell’s success with the horror film It Follows, Under the Silver Lake is like that guitar: crushing the mainstream with violent and rebellious pleasure. — Euan @euanfranklin

Captain America Holds Mjolnir – Avengers: Endgame

When it comes to audience reactions to moments in film, none this year will top Captain America holding Mjolnir in Avengers: Endgame. A moment which was hinted at back in 2015 in Avengers: Age of Ultron, this has been a moment that we hoped to see, yet did not expect. In the midst of all the glorious action between Thor, Iron Man and Captain America against Thanos, this was the peak of the battle.

What makes this moment so special to me is the meaning behind the moment. For Captain America to even be able to hold Mjolnir, he has to be worthy. To see my favourite comic-book character go through an eight-year journey like this and to be deemed as worthy is a fitting end to his character arc, and it is a moment that many people were hoping to see, but were not anticipating until it happened. — Amy @film_thought

Waltzing Matilda – Deadwood

More than a decade after the sudden cancellation of HBO’s Deadwood, creator David Milch returns with a beautiful two hour conclusion that catches up with all of the series’ major characters. Instead of taking the opportunity to answer or name check all of the loose ends that followed the Season 3 finale, Milch leaps ahead in real time to focus on just how much has changed and how much hasn’t.

The meat of the this functions much like an extended episode of the series, but the last thirty or so minutes dig into the series’ emotional bedrock as certain characters finally face their fears and accept the passing of time, evolving into the final versions that Milch never got to depict on TV. As the Australian ballad, “Waltzing Matilda,” plays over the film’s final few moments, Deadwood finally gets the ending that it always deserved. — Michael @MykeMurfee