and spend some time appreciating the beauty and the details.

Pointing out some of the subtle ways films speak to us in this

little moments you might have otherwise missed.

These are five unranked brilliant little moments in great films.

>> [MUSIC]

>> CineFix Host: Cinema is a distinctly active visual media,

where novels have the ability to dedicate pages of their story to the internal and

the complex, cinema is forced to find a way to show it happen.

So one of the things we really wanted to highlight with this list is how

clever film makers have found ways to visualize the un-visual.

How films managed to reach beyond the surface,

how they render the internal external in a clear and understandable way.

And what gave us this idea was a tiny little moment

from Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

When the green destiny sword is stolen by a masked thief and

the thief is track back to Governor Yu, Shu Lien sets out quietly investigate

the Governor's household, including his suspicious daughter Jen.

Now Shu Lien has already fought the thief and

she already notice the thief's particular martial arts skills.

Then we get this sequence and something important happens.

>> Jen: [FOREIGN]

>> CineFix Host: Without saying a single word, we get to watch Shu Lien

realize that Jen is a gifted martial artist and possibly the thief.

In just a few simple shots, Ang Lee has rendered realization visual.

Now, this doesn't happen in a vacuum.

He's already established Shu Lien's suspicion but

let's unpack this brief moment and how it works.

After establishing the scene, he cuts to a closeup of the brush tip and

what starts as a rather ordinary static shot lingers longer than you might expect.

Devoting extra time to gliding along with the brush stroke.

This extra time cues us to mark the beauty and rhythm of the writing and

pay a little closer attention.

The film cuts to the top of the brush and Jen's hand holding it.

Two long close-ups of different parts of the same object

in succession ,which will be a relatively unusual coincidence in a well-made film.

Of course, it's not a coincidence.

A well placed close-up doesn't just show us an arbitrary detail,

it shows us a specific one.

And in a place where we might not ordinarily expect it,

the close-up insists upon itself.

It asks us to consider why we're watching this close-up,

giving an ordinary object extraordinary importance.

Not only that, but this second shot specifically excludes the brush.

We are focusing on a handle and how it is held, its movement, its precision,

separate from its use as a writing instrument.

With this amount of time dedicated to it, it's hard for

the audience not to start making connections.

Finally to complete the sequence, we cut to a medium close up of Shu Lien

shifting her eyes from the brush to Jen, revealing the previous shot to be a POV.

This extra importance we've given to the brush tip and

the brush handle that wasn't just us.

We can conclude that the importance with which we regarded that object

is the same importance with which Shu Lien did.

And in three simple shots we see that Shu Lien is paying extra

special attention to the way Jen holds her brush.

And with a little inference has realized that Jen knows how to wield a sword.

Of course as an added bonus and if anyone hasn't picked up on it yet,

check out what Shu Lien says next.

>> Shu Lien: [FOREIGN] >> CineFix Host: What

she's really saying here, is I now know you know how to use a sword.

And from the look on Jen's face we're not the only one's who pick up on it.

Now while we're talking realization, Crouching Tigers reminds us

of another one, one that's even more technical and precise.

Because while there's no denying that the wonderful human performances of

Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang help us along, could a film show us realization in

the mind of a character who has no emotion at all?

And it obviously can,

as seen in the lip-reading scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When Bowman and Poole go into an insulated pod to talk about their concerns over

their artificially intelligent computer system HAL, without it overhearing,

things don't quite go as planned.

>> Dave: You know another thing just occurred to me.

>> Frank: Hm? >> Dave: Well, as far as I know,

no 9,000 computer's ever been disconnected.

>> Frank: No 9,000 computer's ever fouled up before.

>> Dave: That's not what I mean.

>> Frank: Hm?

>> Dave: I'm not so sure what he'd think about it.

>> CineFix Host: First the set up,

the two astronauts talk privately about their concerns about HAL.

And traditionally they would be the focal point of the shot but

the drop dead centered deep focus framing of HAL along with their constant looks

towards him keep us ominously shifting our focus to

him throughout the entire conversation an unblinking and ever present threat.

And then we cut a closeup on HAL, the sound is dead silence, eerie silence, and

there's something odd about this.

At first it seems like we're getting this close-up off of the astronaut's

reference to him.

>> Dave: I'm not so sure what I think about it.

>> CineFix Host: But if we were still operating out of their perspective,

we would expect to still hear their voices in the background,

as if this was their POV.

But we don't, and we soon realize it isn't.

We've shifted perspectives to HAL's point of view,

which immediately signals to us that something else is going on.

And when the shot cuts again, we see what?

HAL is doing something, from his POV,

we see that he's following the entire conversation and no, we can't hear it but

the ultra-tight framing on their mouths tells us he's focusing on their lips.

It's an unusual composition.

It's not how normal people experience a conversation,

either in real life or cinema.

And this traditional breach lets us know that something different is going on,

which allows us to infer that he's reading their lips.

Imagine this shot if it were just a close-up, panning back and

forth between their entire faces, we would read it an entirely different way.

It might seem like HAL was struggling and failing to follow the conversation,

helplessly looking back and forth, but

by singling in on exactly what matters, their lips, we catch the real meaning.

Next we wanna take a look at Inglourious Basterds' pub scene.

When Lieutenant Hicox goes to a German tavern to meet with an undercover Bridget

von Hammersmark, the Gestapo Major Dieter Hellstrom becomes suspicious of his accent

and invites himself over to investigate.

And while Hicox manages to explain away the accent,

something else happens to give him away.

>> Hellstrom: [FOREIGN] >> Hicox: [FOREIGN]

>> Hellstrom: [FOREIGN]

>> Bartender: [FOREIGN]

>> Hellstrom: [FOREIGN]

>> Bridget: [FOREIGN]

>> Hicox: [FOREIGN]

>> CineFix Host: Sometimes it's

helpful to think of every shot as a close-up.

Even the medians, even the two-shots, even the wides.

That's because a director truly in control of his medium, is trying to show you

exactly what he wants you to see at any given moment, nothing more, nothing less.

If you're suppose to pay attention to just one thing, exclude everything else.

If you want to connect two things, put them together in a frame.

If you want to look at a big picture, you put it all in the frame,

and this way a two shot is a close up a relationship and a wide shot is

a close up of an entire room and a close up, is a close up of, well, the close up.

So, how does that play out here?

Well, it primarily hinges on one single shot, this one.

>> CineFix Host: Breaking this moment down into plain

English as we come to understand it, Major Hellstrom notices Lieutenant Hicox's

distinctly English gesture and realizes he is not a German after all.

Instead of breaking it into three different shots,

like Lee and Kubrick, Tarantino goes for it in one.

The shot begins as a closeup of his fingers holding up three, and

then turns into an over the shoulder on Hellstrom as he looks between Hicox's

fingers and his face, bringing the conversation to a dead stop.

Notice how this one shot starts with Hellstrom's dramatic head snap.

His attention shifts rapidly and

obviously, letting us know that something important has happened.

Note also that Tarantino's over the shoulder here provides actual information

about what Hicox's is doing by being wide and in focus enough to read, as opposed to

the over the shoulder earlier in the scene that provides far less information.

This keeps us thinking about the dramatic relationship between the two men

as opposed to just Hellstrom.

We're also cued into the shift in the nature of the scene by the immediate

rhythmic and sonic change.

What was previously a scene of snappy back and forth dialogue.

>> Bartender: [FOREIGN] >> Hellstrom: [FOREIGN]

>> CineFix Host: Turns into one of

silence.

>> CineFix Host: All we can hear are glasses clinking, water pouring, and

a low murmur in the background.

While Tarantino's directing choices here are certainly more efficient than our

previous example's, we're not sure they're clear enough to sufficiently convey

specifically that Major Hellstrom has noticed Hicox's hand gesture to any but

the savviest audience members on a first viewing.

While we certainly notice and abrupt shift, and

understand immediately that the jig is up and Hellstrom is now a dangerous enemy.

And this is probably all that Tarantino was going for,

the how is better explained later in dialog.

>> Lt. Aldo Raine: How'd the shooting start?

>> Bridget: Englishman, gave himself away.

>> Lt. Aldo Raine: How'd he do that?

>> Bridget: He ordered three glasses.

He ordered three glasses, that's the German three.

>> CineFix Host: This verbally pings us and asks us to recall the previous shot,

which we do because attention was drawn to it.

But it wasn't quite enough of a breach of expectation at the time to draw us

into a fully aware realization.

Enough of realizations, what about another supposed unfilmable?

How about a decision?

In The Godfather, Michael has volunteered to kill a rival of his family and

the dirty cop works for him during an apparent truce talk.

Michael has never worked for the family before, nor has he assassinated anyone and

while the plan was for him to go to the bathroom, retrieved the planted gun and

come out shooting, he doesn't.

>> [MUSIC]

>> CineFix Host: After a brilliant moment of indecision we don't have time to unpack

here, but extra credit if you do it in the comments,

Micheal sits down into a simple over the shoulder shot at the table.

But once included shoulder connecting him with Micheal and pointing toward

the dialog between them, soon becomes a clean single as the camera pushes in.

>> Speaker 11: Too bad,

[FOREIGN]

[NOISE].

>> CineFix Host: In keeping with the concept of every shot a closeup,

by excluding the other characters at the table,

the film is signaling to us that they're not important right now.

The plot isn't happening with them, it's just happening with Michael.

And pushing centrally inwards reinforces, intensifies, and

lets us know that this is intentional.

It makes our close up more close up, it asks us to focus more, to exclude more,

to be distracted less.

It invites us to heighten our focus on the subject in exclusion of the environment.

This leads us inwards, and to Pacino's performance.

Here, it's all in the eyes.

Now, I don't know if it's fair to call this performance realistic or not.

It's certainly believable,

no one's questioning whether Pacino is convincing us here.

But does someone making a decision move their eyes like this in real life?

I'm not sure.

It's hard to remember seeing anyone do this, and harder still to do it yourself.

What it is, is expressive.

Watch it without his eyes and see how much of a difference it makes.

>> Speaker 11: [FOREIGN] >> CineFix Host: They signal to us

inner movement, the wheels are turning, he's deciding something.

And it doesn't take much effort for the audience to intuit what.

And finally there's the sound.

>> Speaker 11: [FOREIGN] >> CineFix Host: What if we

extended our concept of close up to more than the image?