>> Speaker 1: You only get one first impression and that goes extra for movies.
How we meet a character can define how we feel about them through the entire film.
So we're breaking down all the different ways characters show up with our picks for
the ten best character introductions of all time.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 1: At its best, the character introduction is a reveal.
A sequence with its own set up, its own suspense,
building its own anticipation towards the moment we meet our hero.
And one of the most classic examples of this kind of reveal is what we
like to call the introduction by parts.
We see their hands, their feet, their clothes,
their morning routine, everything but their face, it's a small
montage striptease of details towards the money shot that is our hero's mug.
All the while giving us a front seat tour of all the important details that make our
character who they are.
Think Oskar Schindler and Jesus from The Big Lebowski, Patton, Patrick Bateman, and
even sort of the Strangers on a Train.
However, for our first pick, we've got to go with the one and
only Indy from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
>> Speaker 1: This sequence is pure genius.
Not only do we see his hands, his feet, his hat, and his whip,
all before we're giving the privilege, nay, the pleasure of Harrison Ford's
grizzly visage, we also watch the small parts of him tell us the story.
All we see are the little details, but they tell the whole tale,
building up the suspense for our mystery hero before his reveal.
Of course it's not always about the immediate tease.
Sometimes characters spring fully formed into the narrative in abrupt and
surprising ways that grab us by the collar and
growl at us like a bad Christian Bale Batman impression.
Think Quint from Jaws or
Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element The Joker from The Dark Knight.
Dr. Strangelove, from well, Dr. Strangelove.
And our number nine pick John Doe from Se7en.
>> Speaker 2: I knew I say yes.
>> Speaker 3: Hey, we're here.
>> Speaker 4: Wonderful.
>> Speaker 5: You're wife before, get yourself an answering machine.
>> Speaker 6: Detective.
>> Speaker 7: After this, I'm gone.
>> Speaker 6: Detective?
>> Speaker 2: No big surprise.
>> Speaker 6: Detective! >> Speaker 1: If you haven't seen Se7en
by now you might wanna go ahead and skip forward about 45 seconds.
Because otherwise, we're about to mess up your day.
>> Speaker 6: You're looking for me.
>> Speaker 1: Se7en is 95 minutes into its 120-minute run time with detectives
Pitt and Freeman not much closer to their serial killer than when they started,
when he just shows up, in the police station, covered in blood.
And it's Kevin [BLEEP] Spacey.
You go to the movies, the poster says Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey.
And 95 minutes in, you haven't seen Kevin Spacey.
Who do you think's gonna be Kevin Spacey?
It doesn't take a detective,
but Kevin Spacey basically gave the studio an ultimatum.
Told them he'd only do it if they didn't give him top billing, and
then went completely ninja on the press.
He shows up 80% of the way through, and we never see him coming.
And Goddamn, does it work.
Next up at number eight,
sometimes the character is introduced with a singular moment.
A singular image that so perfectly exemplifies their essence,
that in that instant you know them down to their very soul.
This is Jack Sparrow, a proud pirate atop a sinking mass, or Renton,
grinning like a madman while slapping the hood of the car that almost flattened him.
Or Rick Blaine, sitting between a cigarette, a drink, a checkbook, and
a chess set.
It's Bronson, telling the camera he always wanted to be famous.
Holly eating her breakfast.
Luke, grinning at his beheaded meters, Alex, sipping his Moloko Plus.
And the dude sampling some half and half.
All of these films managed to take a thousand words about their characters and
distill them into a picture.
But, we think none better than The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly with Tucco.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 1: Let's count all the things we learned about the rat in all of about
two seconds.
He's a gluten, a drunker, a wanted man, armed creative any massive buffoon.
Combine an almost too hilarious bevy of hand props with a,
let's say creative method of entry.
And button it up with the iconic good, bad, and
ugly freeze frame music combo, and you got the makings of a legend.
>> Speaker 1: Other characters are introduced not with an imagine, but
with an action.
It's like the almost now cliche advice to write a strong character by showing your
hero save the cat.
You prove to your audience that he's kind, capable, active, and heroic all at once,
and they fall in love.
Of course, Frank from Once Upon a Time in the West does just about
the opposite of this, but he's still an honorable mention on our list.
The same with Harmonica.
The same with Angel Eyes.
The same with the Man With No Name.
It turns out Sergio Leone's pretty damn good at these types of intros.
Marion Ravenwood's drinking contest victory is another great example of this,
as is Daniel Plainview's oil prospecting vignette.
However for our number seven, we're going with Kamebei humbly cutting off his top
knot in order to pose as a peasant to rescue a young boy from seven samurai.
>> Speaker 1: Although we haven't seen every movie in existence,
we're with Roger Ebert in thinking that this
might just be the original example of the now
pervasive tradition of the action hero starting
off the story with an unrelated act of heroism.
Perhaps even the first saving of the cat.
It's also probably where Leoni got the idea for all the iconic
character introductions that color the beginnings of his spaghetti westerns.
Seeing is how he drew so much on Kurosawa for
inspiration in just about every other way.
Kamebei is a brief foray that speaks to both his capabilities and
his moral character.
It combines cunning, compassion, sacrifice, and
violence to quickly teach us about and make us like it, and it works perfectly.
Kamebei is a bad ass for the ages and it takes us all of 2 minutes to know it.
Our next two slots go to those iconic star moments where a character
bounds into the story with a wink and grin, and all the charm and
charisma in the world, and we see how Goddamn awesome they are.
The kind of unforgettable entrance that's quintessentially classic Hollywood.
And we're splitting this category up into two slots because we're dividing it down
gender lines so we how kinda fucked up the difference is.
See if you can spot the pattern.
Male stars are introduced like this.
>> Speaker 9: Hold it!
>> Speaker 10: Ho steady, steady, ho, ho.
>> Speaker 1: While female stars are introduced like this.
>> Speaker 11: Gilda, are you decent?
>> Speaker 12: Me? >> Speaker 1: Men are objects of
admiration and capability the audience is meant to want to be them.
While women are objects of well, being objects.
The audience is meant to want to possess them, men hold weapons, tools, guns,
while women wear towels.
And we think the clearest example of these kinds of introduction belongs to
James Bond, in Dr. No and Lisa Fremont in Rear Window.
>> Speaker 13: Card. >> Speaker 14: Card.
[FOREIGN] >> Speaker 13: I need another thousand.
>> Speaker 15: I admire your courage Miss?
>> Speaker 13: Trench, Sylvia Trench.
I admire your luck, Mr?
>> Speaker 15: Bond, James Bond.
>> Speaker 1: This is a classic instance where spectatorship theory comes in
handy to see the gender difference.
Notice how Bond does the looking, while we look Lisa in the eye.
Bond is shown in over the shoulders while Lisa is shown in direct POV.
James Bond is effortlessly cool while Lisa has us falling in love.
Now we are condemning the use of men as objects of cool, or
the use of women as object of romance it happens in the world all the time, both of
these are natural normal things, they're just is not the only natural normal thing.
The problem is that in movies women are almost exclusively objects of romances
while men get to occupy lots of varied roles.
But even they are of pigeonholed into the uber-masculine, uber-suave,
action-fantasy archetype.
In fact, almost every woman with a notable character introduction is in
this category on our list.
Which should speak significantly to the role of women in classic cinema.
>> Speaker 1: At number four, sometimes a character introduction comes with
a serious sense of doom.
These are usually reserved for the big bad and a big reveal that immediately says,
[BLEEP] 's about to go down.
Think Sexy Beast's Don Logan, the new hope's Darth Vader and Tim Burton's Joker.
However come on, who does this better
than Fritz Lang with his murderer in M.
>> Speaker 16: [FOREIGN]
>> Speaker 17: [FOREIGN] >> Speaker 1: He
shows up as a shadow over a wanted poster for himself.
You don't even see him, but he's introduced in the vilest, evilest,
scariest way possible.
The bouncing ball, the dialogue, the lean, the cut to her mother.
Ugh, what a villain, what an entrance, what an introduction.
Next up at number three,
we're looking at the arrival that is itself, tension-filled.
Where the characters very approach to the screen fills us with apprehension.
It's not a scary reveal as much as it's a long, slow entrance that gets worse and
worse the closer we get.
Think Henry V, Silva from Skyfall, and the original Dracula.
They're all larger than life characters starting small in the frame and
then walking towards us, filling it with their stature.
Of course, no one's ever done the slow axial approach better than David Lean,
which is why we really have no choice but
to give the spot to Sharif Ali from Lawrence of Arabia.
>> [SOUND]
>> Speaker 18: Tex?
>> Speaker 1: Rendering the wide expanse of the desert as claustrophobic
as a coffin, Lean's iconic cinematography has him emerging as if from a mirage,
shimmering in the heat of the distance and creeping closer for what seems like ages.
And then, when if feels like it can't get any more unbearable,
his Bedouin guide lunges for his gun and is brought down in a single shot and
then more quiet Ali slows, dismounts and only then speaks.
>> Speaker 19: He is dead.
>> Speaker 18: Yes, why?
>> Speaker 19: This is my well.
>> Speaker 1: Is he a bad man, a good man?
A righteous man, an enemy?
That we don't know, but we do know, you probably shouldn't [BLEEP] with his well.
Closing in at number two, we have the long awaited reveal.
The character whose reputation precedes him.
Who has been talked about and rumored, pursued and sought after.
Who is by now more myth and legend in our mind than a face.
A symbol of something rather than the thing in itself.
This is Bill from Kill Bill, Oberhauser from Spectre,
Superman and Colonel Hurts in definitely Hannibal Lecter.
However, if you know us, you already know who we're gonna pick.
Harry Lime, from the third man.
What kind of a spy do you think you are satchel foot?
>> Speaker 20: What are you tailing me for?
Cat got your tongue?
>> Speaker 20: Come on out.
Come out, come out, whoever you are.
>> Speaker 20: Step out in the light and let's have a look at you.
Who's your boss?
>> Speaker 21: [FOREIGN]
>> Speaker 1: If you were to accuse our
list maker of having a hard-on for Harry Lime, you wouldn't be far off base.
With so much time dedicated to rumors of his notoriety how could the actual
man possibly live up?
But that is the magic of cinema,
sometimes the man on the screen can be larger than life.
And I don't think it happens anywhere else better than here.
First of all, it's Orson Welles at his most mischievous, and that face.
Maybe it's our rose tinted nostalgia glasses talking here but for
our money, we've never seen a face that gives us more boundless unending glee.
Combined it with the lighting cue, the music, the camera move and
the classic Third Man and somehow Orson Welles makes the rumors look small.
And finally number one,
we're looking at the introduction that comes with a reversal of expectation.
Maybe we heard one thing or anticipated something else, but
the person we meet surprises us all together.
Often played for comedic effect, this is Inspector Clouseau from Pink Panther or
Mozart from Amadeus or Bela Lugosi from Ed Wood.
But today,
our number
one goes to
no other than
Willy Wonka.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> Speaker 1: There is perhaps no better
time to reminisce about our hello's as when we say goodbye, so here's to Mr.
Wilder and all the entrances he ever made, thanks for the laughs Gene.
>> Speaker 1: So what do you think?
Do you disagree some of our picks?
Did we leave out any of your favorite introductions?
Let us know in the comments below.
Come check out our bi-weekly movie list talkback on Facebook Live,
Thursdays at 3:00 PM Eastern after every episode,
where we answer your questions and respond to your comments.
And be sure to subscribe for more Cinefix movie lists.