I could watch this scene for eternity and never grow old of it. What Hopper does to protect his son is not only heroic but it also is self serving as he goads Walken into killing him faster as opposed to a dragged out torture for information. Well played sir!
Yes, that is indeed the point of antagonising his armed-n-dangerous captor/ tormentor. What I like about the scene is that Tarantino doesn't hold our hand and explain to us that _'this' is what Dennis Hopper is doing and here's 'why' he's doing it, too!_ It's rare for film studios these days to want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a movie and then have to leave some (any) aspect of the plot for the audience to understand on their own. They (correctly) assume that people are mostly fucking idiots and that the lowest-common-denominator doesn't understand what isn't spelled out for him (or her, I guess). While it's frustrating for people of average, or above average intellectual capabilities to have to sit through the kind of hand-holding that so many movies force us all to endure, the studios/ producers/ people financially invested in a film are going to *insist* that every detail MUST be explained to the audience, so that no ticket-buying-dunce gets left behind. It's just too much of a gamble for them, otherwise. They don't want to risk having a bunch of idiots attracting an ever-increasing group of idiots, complaining to one and all (and more importantly, to those who haven't bought tickets yet) that the movie doesn't make sense, or that this or that important part of the film doesn't make any sense, that no one would behave that way, etc...
It never gets old ... you are correct. I wonder what it would've looked like if Tarantino directed it ... I'd argue Tony Scott did it perfectly .. and it's fun to see Tarantino's script done by another expert director.
The first Tarantino movie i ever saw was Reservoir Dogs 29 years ago in a cinema in Cape Town. I had heard so much about the movie but missed it's cinema release in the UK. It was banned in the UK for video release and only just been passed by the censor in South Africa for cinema release. We have to remember how attitudes were different at the time. Nelson Mandela had just become President and apartheid was over. I am white and so was my Friend. The majority of the audience that day were Black ot coloured so it added to the atmosphere and shock for us with the profuse use of the N word, spoken by white actors actually saying "Nigger" with no Censorship or disclaimer. The audience fell silent and a sense of unease was clearly obvious. My friend (female) told me after the film, who is South African and understood the subtleties of her fellow countrymen explained how the majority of the audience with the way they appeared to take it was the most volatile situation she'd ever experienced which had nothing to do with anything with the former white South African racially fucked up regime
The look on Hoppers face as Walken gets up to get his gun while laughing is some of the best acting you will ever see , he knows he is about to die and hopefully has kept his kid safe.
I literally just said the same thing to my wife and then rewinded it a few times! She didn’t appreciate it like I did though. 😂🤷♂️ Man, Hopper was so awesome
Christopher Walker's physical acting in this scene is some of the finest acting in the history of movies and Dennis Hopper at the end of it all asking Christopher Walker "am I lyng" after he just talked about being basically a human lie detector was was just so damn perfect
@@seeharvester "Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to give her dog a bone, the sweet lady bent over, Rover took over, and gave her a bone of his own...oh!" Two of my brothers did the DNA test and found that we are only 78% Italian, the other 22% is mixed including African American, Jewish, Arab, Greek, and one or two others I can't recall. I'm very proud of my heritage, and I know that Northern Italians look down on Sicilians because we are not "pure blood" Italian. In turn, I would look at them and see snooty, arrogant guineas. So, to this day, when someone says, "he's Italian", I say, "no, I'm Sicilian", and a NY City Sicilian is in a class of his own. Reply
@@Pbadome1 It's a good thing to be proud of your heritage. Diceman's nursery rhymes... haha "Little Boy Blue... he needed the money. OH!" "Mary had a little lamb she kept in her backyard..." ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-19b3N4NuDVg.html
What makes the scene even sadder is that Clarence establishes that he and his father are estranged, yet his father helps and dies for him anyway to make up for all those years.
....and then they find the address anyways... that's what makes it even worse. It makes the audience debate whether he died in vain, or not. I say no, because he knew he was dead anyways, hence this scene, but still... there are so many little things going on here. An absolute masterpiece of movie writing
Tarantino at his finest!! He considers this his best scene he’s ever written. He didn’t direct the film, but it’s his screenplay! -the eggplant/cantaloupe part was an Improv from the 2 actors. And Tarantino was cool with it…
@@mikewallace8087 and... how many people in Hollywood have had multiple wives or husbands? Easy chat 💩 on someone you've never met who's life is under media scrutiny, plus none of us are perfect and have aspects of our own lives people would say " oh he's a difficult person "
At 3:56, James Gandolfini knows EXACTLY what Dennis Hopper is doing (and seems to respect him)...pushing Walken to immediately kill him, rather than slowly torture him for information about his son. Hopper knew he was dead, that's why he accepted the cigarette, after refusing it - and why Tarantino began the music behind him. So much in this little scene. And when Walken turns away to get the gun...Hopper knows he has won and the fake smile drops from his face as he prepares to die.
@@johncoons1666 i agree he does play similar for every character :) yet sometimes its just 100% fitting .. and here was no different , same in king of new york , and of course pulp fiction :)
@@geraldbrowder5806 Wasn't racism. He used those words to verbally stab Walken. I'm Sicilian, been hearing about black blood in my veins my whole life.
@@Pbadome1 Here is the racism; if the 'verbal stab' is saying one has black blood, what is the implication that is supposed to offensive? Is being of black heritage a negative trait 🤔 If not then there really is no stab, if so then the stab is implying that you have black descendants which would only be offensive if you were to subscribe to the idea that there's something lesser about being black. Get it?
I even liked the little “no” in acknowledgement from Walken in that moment (3:10). Great table turn from Hopkins character after insulting him to such a degree and spinning it back to “Sicilians are the best liars”
I beleive Hopper said before he passed that this was his favorite scene he ever played. Think about that for a moment- Easy Rider - Apocalypse Now - Giant - Blue Velvet... True Romance opposite a stone-cold Walken.
Being part Sicilian I love the hell out of this scene. I showed it to my 18 y/o daughter. After it was over she asked if that meant she could say the “n-word”
The only thing I noticed about "wiping the egg off his face was dipping the handkerchief into fish water". I have watched this scene probably 50 times and have passed it along to others. The entire movie is great, lots of cameos.
Absolute classic ,before I saw It my bro said wait until you see the scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken , I said don't tell me and he said I'm not but its worth seen that film just for that scene ,He really pissed of Don Vincenzo , "If that's a fact ,tell me am I lying?"
in cinema is when you don’t see an actor acting you don’t see an actor delivering lines. You see that person that character they become that character……. brilliancy.
The moors that went to sicily were mainly carthaginians (Tunisians) and they were not black but mediterranean in appearance. Maybe more tanned than the average southern european
@@J2-M172it's wild that you ppl think we don't have the evidence or the internet to prove these things. Look up the term "Blackamoor" look up moorish statues in europe. None of them look pale.
when he asks for the ciggerette and he already knows he is a dead man but he had one last pleasure and pushes them to kill him fast and no more torture, masterful by both Hopper steals in but Walken needs props too his movement and glare.
Cantaloupe......mixed fruit lol. Walken cracking up at Hopper makes this scene that much funnier. Hopper almost loses it at some point which, in turn, cracked up Walken. They can say whatever they want, I think they just turned the camera on and told them to have a go at it. I think that 90 percent of the dialogue in this scene was ad-libbed as the interaction between Walken and Hopper is almost childlike.
People are discussing whether Sicilian ancestry contains Black African blood , & it's probably more likely it's from North African peoples as can be deduced from the distribution of ancient peoples in antiquity. But I think the scene has more recent resonance than this debate. When poor Italians came to America in the 19th century , they were considered "nonwhite" and found themselves in competition with Blacks & the Irish for the low end jobs available. History details the riots & animosity among the groups at the time. Remnants of the period still exist in social attitudes today. As a Black kid , it was common knowledge that trying to date an Italian girl would probably earn you an ass kicking from some Italian guy. Even today going into Bensonhurst , a tight knit Italian neighborhood here in NY is not the greatest idea for a black person. To accuse an Italian of having Black blood would be one of the worst insults you could deliver. As Hopper is trying to goad Walken into killing him quickly , that's the reason his taunts were effective , even if the historical accuracy is not quite there.
Moors were black in some instances. I just went through Qatar in May and saw some black people, but I think the majority of Moors would've looked like Libyans and others from North Africa. My brother in law is Italian and one niece has dark brown curly hair and the other is blonde like my sister. It's interesting how genetics can last for thousands of years. It's a fantastic scene between 2 legends
The whole monologue here isn't actually historical fact, the Moors aren't actually n-words. And the Silicians never were blonde and blue eyed. Dennis Hopper's character is basically giving the head mafioso guy a 4 minute long insult to his face in an effort to enrage, provoke and humiliate him in front of his men. Calling Silicians n-words is a major insult because it targets their deep seated insecurity, along with of course "your grandma f-ed a n-word". He does this tactically to avoid a long and painful torture he'll face at the hands of the mafia followed by a swift death, he was a cop and knew very well he wasn't making out of this situation alive either way.
He insults the entire Sicilian race and gets a quick merciful death, they could have tortured him. But incredibly acted by 2 legends , in my opinion the best film scene ever. This film is brilliant, the other scene with Gary old man as Drexel the pimp is also incredible, “ He must have thought it was whiteboy day, it ain’t whiteboy day is it” brilliant
Mansa Musa, Moors, Egypt....kingdoms rise and eventually fall, America (the melting pot) is the only nation that stood the test of time... Park your racist beliefs. Get educated.
Well, it wasn't just the church, it was also the Muslim scholars along the Tigris and Euphrates that preserved a lot of it. And while religious folks preserved the older stuff, the problem was that they didn't produce nearly as much stuff of their own as the ancient Greeks and Romans did.
Portugese and spanish "nword blood" also...italy siciliy portugal and spain all cohabitated with blax since 900ad but they were asked or forced to leave europe due to a difference in religion.
The credit doesn't go to Tarantino..he said..decades ago..that he sold the rights and script of "True Romance "..for 100 thousand dollars...so he can go to Amsterdam for 1 year and write ..HIS.. Citizen Kane.. which was..PULPFICTION...Director Tony Scott (RIP )...and musical producers...Hans Zimmer and Mark Mancina ...who put that song ..specifically..for this scene..for effect...should get the credit..and it works perfectly.. Like a well practiced dance..and thats exactly what the scene is..a dance...!!! Hopper and Walken are dancing...and Hopper is leading..knowing that he's about to be tortured & killed. 😮for information about his son Clarence..so he "gives Walken a history lesson"... and ..BTW.. "You're great, great, great, great grandmother..was fucked..by a #!$$@&...and you..youre part eggplant" ..simply amazing dialog
One of my favorite details in this scene is when Walken calls Hopper a "cantaloupe" -- it's perfect. A cantaloupe is white, it's used for target practice, and it sounds like "can't elope."
Possibly the best minutes you'll ever see in a film. Walken and Hopper were just a masterclass and you can see and feel Walken getting more angry despite the laughing.
This is how you do it, he knew he was going to die, he knew they would have tortured him until he talked and left him bleeding out. So instead he pisses them off, he hurts them in such a way that they kill him right there. And in the end he gave them nothing.
I think Christian Slater is Nicholson's kid, or test tube clone ... Too bad he didn't make more movies, because for some reason that guy was in a ton of great ones back in the day. .... "Fair is Fair" ... buy me a new Honda scooter
Narcissists can't imagine these things happening to them. I mean they see themselves as better why would they accept. North European vs South or Eastern = Balkans.
The Emirate that conquered Sicily, were not black. They were Arabs and Berbers and both originated from Middle-East and had a light skin tone. You still see that North Africans today are mostly light skinned like the rest of the Middle-East and Turkey. All prone to skin cancer, seeing they arent the original inhabitants of the area. They were hardly much darker than many people already settled in the Byzantine Empire or Spain etc.
They were Moors....I am a descendant of a Moor and our History proves what you say is not true...I mean this in the most respectful way....Truth is Truth...
@@elibrunson6189 Moor is a term given to a group of Berbers by the Christians. So, please look up your inheritance before you speak. You are a descendant of Berbers. And Berbers where mostly light to bronze skinned, like many middle-easterns today. They were not black and they were Berbers.
@@elibrunson6189 no he's right North Africans were and still are mostly Arabs. The moors never took away control from Byzantine in Sicily they just carried out raids but Sicily was conquered by the Normans in the 11th century since then Sicilians have been mostly from Norman blood.
I read a lot too.And Hannibal was not black.He had black troops in his army but was a small amount.And you know that's not exactly correct?What he's saying but i'm sure there is some north african and sub sahard african and lineage
