My Favorite Ralph Fiennes On-Screen Moment

[fiennesite]

Well many who have known me over the years won't be surprised by this one. My favorite onscreen Ralph Fiennes moment is the kiss in Strange Days at the end. All that sexual tension building throughout the movie on Mace's side, and it's like the lightbulb finally goes off for Lenny, and he get's it. Any of us who have had crushes on guy friends that have gone a little farther than friends know this moment...it's a blissful treasure when it works.
LOVE IT!!!

Second favorite (yes we can post more than one)...the scene in Quiz Show where he's eating cake and puts the milk bottle to his face, talking about how we can never get that same feeling we had as kids...etc...and when his father says "not until you have a son...". I always almost boohoo at that part, partly because RF won't ever know that feeling...I know it's a fictional character...but it makes me sad sometimes that in reality Ralph won't ever know that...oh well...

Those are mine! Mary

Duh...I GET IT NOW!!!

[Zsuzsanna]

Dear Liza you're right. Acting is finally indescribable like paintings. It's an audiovisual art. And Ralph is the master of all: voice mimics and pantomimics he does them on the highest level possible. But these are only tools. His performances express the philosophy of the text a bright spectrum of emotion . Simply: he's bewitching.

[Liza]

It's hard to post a favorite moment because there are entirely too many to choose from. Like you all described...a glance, a simple blink of an eye! Sometimes I think this artist's finest acting is in the very smallest of moments!

[Zsuzsanna]

I'll never forget several scenes from 'Sunshine" . From the first part: this terrible scene of the rape when Valerie announces him their split and later the old Ignác who commits suicide by eating salt having a severe cardiac insufficiency . This young and beautiful actor (he was about 36-37 when he made this film) grew old without special make-up became unbearable and pugnacious in his disappointment hating the whole world around him which changed totally. In the second part the wellknown (and true) story of his execution is unforgetable. In the 3rd part the scene between him and the stupid b ut dangerous general standing there nude and humiliated expressed the whole era.

[trugannini]

My favourite on-screen moment is when Almasy is dancing with K. I know it's been done to death but the sexual energy he transmits without saying a word almost makes me faint........

[Liza]

You're right Zsuzsanna, he was completely brilliant in that film! : )

[Zsuzsanna]

Ralph is the artist of nuances of restrained tools of maximal empathy of actor's humility of complete metamorphosis. Strange Days is neither my biggest fav. although he's very good in this film too.
Now I prefer 'Bernard and Doris' and my favourite scene is : when he transmogrifies himself into a woman bringing Doris in his hands to the birthday-party with an ethereal smile on his made-up face in golden lurex blouse and lilac skirt, where his (arteficial) tummy is conspicuous - it's slightly comic and terribly sad even tragic at the same time...it makes me nearly weep. It shows the concentrated tragedy of a man without certain sex. But there are others too. (alcoholic stupor, the song and collapse when he's in a drunken stupor etc.)

[Liza]

I'll admit that Strange Days is not one of my favorites of Ralph's films, though I really do love all his movies, but I did grow to enjoy this one more each time I watched it. I like Lenny's playful, childish qualities. The way he milks Mace's kindness for all its worth. It didn't come off meanly. He genuinely cares for her, but he is so dense in not realizing how much she cares for him. It's sad and funny at the same time. And there is a heart to Lenny that comes out in one small gesture in one small scene and I completely love it! Its the part where Lenny is at the nightclub to see Faith and stops by what I think was the sound booth and gives his friend in the wheelchair a gift, the clip which allows him to experience running on the beach. I thought that small moment showed Lenny's heart. Ralph plays these small, subtle moments exceedingly well in all his films. They're what give his characters their depth and its worth watching his movies a few times to catch these small details, the things that can be missed the first time around when you're focusing on the bigger story.

[trugannini]

When I first saw Strange Days, I was irritated by the noise (I turned it down during the noisy bits)
and I thought our boy was lost in all of the business, lights etc. I got it out again a couple of weeks and have watched it about 4 times since then, appropos. of you naming it your fav. film.
Well, well...I've enjoyed it more each time I've watched it, (I've 'dealt' with the noisy bits). He is just marvellous in it, the only crit. I would have is the nasal quality he brings to his US
accent, but knowing him I'm sure he is doing it on purpose. his movements, facial expressions, even when he is alone in his flat, eating an ice block, and it drips on his chest,
he just flicks the drip into his mouth and gets on watching the TV, stuff like that. The scripting
for his part is quite clever and he delivers perfectly. The part that made me laugh out loud
though, and it's a sort of dramedy, was in the beginning when he is bargaining with his friend (name?) about the cost of the black-jack clip, "I have ethics"....Friend "When did that start...."
doesn't sound funny when I write it here, but the way they deliver it is terrific. So, after all of that, if anyone who reads this has dismissed Strange Days as I did, give it another whirl, or
two, and you will see what MaryK is talking about. :)

[Zsuzsanna]

IYou're right, he visibly loves his family and helps them wherever he can. (helped his archaeologist foster-brother when he aspired to an excavation, took part in Martha's 'Chromophobia' , recommended her children to his films (Harry Potter and Duchess etc.) . It's true: we aren't Pythia to tell the future. Maybe he'll change his opinion about having children or not. ..Richard Gere had a child in his sixties. He has lot of time...

[Liza]

I think he would be as wonderful in fatherhood as he would in anything else if that's what his heart was set on. That it isn't is not a bad thing. Not everyone is meant to be a parent, just as not everyone is meant to be a doctor or an actor. I think what matters most is to be true to whom you were meant to be. He seems to have a wonderful and lovely family in his siblings and their children and they seem very close. Perhaps that's enough.