KC
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« on: December 28, 2003, 12:22:35 AM » |
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I remember when we did that scene in the car. Frightening!!! I think it....was shot on a Sunday. We were up in San Francisco, you know....with those hills? Clint got in the car and did the driving. I thought, "Well, you know, he won't go too fast. He's not a stunt driver, you know." Well, man alive, I was scared out of my wits because, when we started down that thing back and forth, he was roaring down that thing. I thought, "Good grief, if anybody steps out in front of us, they're a goner." You know? He really handled a car well. I think he got a big kick out of it, probably, he knew he was scaring the living lights out of me. You know, I think he got a big kick out of that. (Hal Holbrook from Dirty Harry: The Original from the Dirty Harry DVD Special Features) Holbrook told Richard Schickel ( Clint Eastwood, p. 303) that Eastwood actually directed the scene in the car, as well as acting his part and doing the driving, because with all the camera equipment there was no room for the director in the vehicle. What do you think of the final scenes of the film? Can you name any directing techniques that help keep these scenes interesting and exciting? What do you think of the pace of these last moments of the film? If you were at all dissatisfied with them, how do you think these scenes could have been improved?
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Brendan
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« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2003, 08:10:23 PM » |
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A scene like that is where good editing comes into play. You need to know when to cut and what to cut to, too make it interesting and exciting.
One thing, well actually two things, I liked about this chase was that there wasn't alot of damage done. In other chase scenes you see cars smashing into each, cars blowing up, crap just getting destroyed.
But in this chase scene, not alot of stuff was destroyed. Harry just nicked that one red car, and he took out some vegetable boxes, but other then that, not alot of city or private property was needlessly destroyed.
The other thing I liked about it was the fact there was hardly any music playing during it. It was just the sound effects and visuals playing. That was nice.
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Brendan
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« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2004, 05:17:24 PM » |
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KC
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« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2004, 09:58:00 PM » |
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We had a thread about this in the old, old days ... It's long gone, but it seems to me that we never really cleared up a couple of questions. I just took a really close look at the scene, paying attention to what happens to the guns. 1) Briggs pulls out his gun and levels it at Harry: "Let me have your gun." Harry pulls it out of his holster and hands it to Briggs. 2) Briggs takes Harry's gun and unloads it, dropping the shells on the floor in front of him. Then he tosses it into the back, presumably on the floor. 3) "Now the shells." Harry starts to hand him a speed loader. "Three. You always carry three ... Throw 'em out the window." Harry does as he is told. (It looks to me as if he is taking out and discarding TWO of these items, not three, but Briggs doesn't object, so who am I to complain.) So, at this point, presumably the only ammunition for Harry's .44 Magnum are the shells scattered on the floor of the car in front. If, when the car finally stops, he were to try to re-arm himself with the Magnum, he'd have to take time to recover the gun from the back seat, and dig around on the floor of the front seat to find the shells. You can already hear the motorcycles of Astrachan and Davis approaching ... Harry doesn't take the time. (I'm sure this all actually happened this way because the screenwriters wanted to make an ironic point: after all the talk about guns and all the demonstrations of firepower and shooting ability in this film, when it comes to the climax, Harry doesn't even need a gun to dispatch three of the killer cops and their leader.) OK, but what about Briggs's gun? 4) Early in the chase scene, Harry and Briggs struggle for possession of Briggs's gun ...  ... and shortly before Harry knocks Briggs out, he succeeds in getting his gun away from him and throws it out the window. I suspect it ended up being the gun with which Warren Russell robbed Pocum's Grocery in True Crime ... at any rate, it's unlikely it ever came back into the possession of the SFPD. 5) The chase continues up hill and down dale and through the vegetable carts, apparently for several miles. Finally, shortly before Harry spins his car around to collide with Grimes's motorcycle, the still-unconscious Briggs is thrown out. The rest of the climax ensues ... With Astrachan and Davis dead, the bruised and weary Harry stumbles back to the shell of Briggs's car, where he finds ... Briggs, who has not only recovered sufficiently from the injuries he received in the car and his fall to confront Harry, he's managed to find his way from where he was thrown from the car to where it ended up (which would seem to be a considerable distance away) ... and he's got a gun ... and it is NOT Harry's .44 Magnum, which is presumably still unloaded in the back of the car.  Where did he get it? Only place I can think of is the motorcycle wreck ... which means he not only had to recover and find his car, he had to first find the wreck, and get there before any locally patrolling police or concerned citizens ... but where are they through this whole episode, anyway?  . Gun experts, could the gun Briggs is holding in the capture above be Grimes's? 
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KC
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« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2004, 10:30:37 PM » |
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About the "three clips of ammo", I would assume it would be the one already in the gun (which was then unloaded), and the two Harry had one him. That would be three.
Nope. From the script ... BRIGGS: Now the shells --
Harry takes out two speed loaders.
BRIGGS (continuing): Three -- you always carry three.
Harry takes out the third one. The script isn't helpful in the other details. It doesn't explain what Briggs does with Harry's gun after taking it from him, nor what becomes of Briggs's gun, nor does it mention when, or indeed if, Briggs is thrown from the car. But it DOES specify that the gun Briggs is holding in the final scene is "the .44 Magnum" ... and that would have made sense. Assuming he could use his magical mystical movie star powers to recover from his swoon and home in on his vehicle, no reason why Briggs couldn't have recovered Harry's gun and reloaded it while waiting for Harry to return to the car. But, that is NOT the gun Briggs is holding.
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