“Hey, have you seen this movie? What did you think about THAT SCENE?!” We have all used that phrase at one point during our discussions of movies with the other person’s eyebrows raising, “Oh yea, THAT SCENE!” You go on to pick that memorable scene apart by listing what you loved or didn’t like, how it made you feel and the impression it left on you.
In this series, we will do just that. We will take a scene from a movie and discuss its impact on us. Some of these scenes may be frightening, weird, iconic, controversial, hilarious, and everything in between. Let us know your impression of the scene and the impact it left on you the first time you watched it down below in the comments. Enjoy!
*Warning: May Contain Spoilers*
Movie: Glory (1989)
Scene: Trip Gets Flogged
THE PLAYERS
Director: Edward Zwick
Characters: Private Silas Trip (Denzel Washington), Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) and Major Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes)
THE SETUP
After Trip goes AWOL and after he is caught, Shaw orders him to be flogged in front of the regiment. It’s only after the flogging that Shaw learns that Trip only left to find regular-issue shoes because his men are being denied these supplies.
THAT SCENE
THE EXECUTION
It’s a very simple scene, but it is also a very powerful one. The slow closing in of Washington and Broderick’s faces with the sound of the flogging is just intense.
A little trivia: Edward Zwick claimed that, for the flogging scene, Denzel Washington was lashed at full contact with a special whip that would not cut his back.
That is some dedication to the craft!
What do you think of this scene? Did you find it intense and well done?
