2018 was a year of tumult, of wild emotional swings from tragedy to triumph.
The movies released this year seemed exceptionally well-tuned to the current moment — as IndieWire’s Chief Film Critic Eric Kohn noted in his picks for the best films of 2018, this year’s films were the first largely to be greenlit or developed following the geopolitical upheavals of 2016.
To that end, a lot of the moments that stand out from movies of the past 12 months could be called twists — but “twist” feels too sleight to convey the horror of the ending of the Gal Who Got Rattled segment of “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” or the sadness of the birth scene in “Roma.” It’s more a feeling of anything bad that we fear might happen might really happen, that when we think life is going to zig it just might zag in the worst way possible. You might plunge headfirst off an airplane into a thunderstorm, worried you might get hit by lightning, and then, yep, right on schedule, your skydiving partner gets struck by lightning.
So it’s amazing just how many joyous, absolutely triumphant moments there were in the movies of 2018 too. Dread may be our baseline emotional state now, but when things go well — such as for rising singer Ally in “A Star Is Born” when she first takes the mic at a stadium concert or when convict Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) finally gets to live out his Sondheim fantasies for his captive audience in prison — it’s ecstatic.
For the IndieWire film team, these are the scenes that stand out the most from the movies of 2018.
The Gal Who Got Rattled, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
Netflix
All six chapters in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” begin like an actual book, complete with a hand-drawn color-plate illustration and a bit of text suggesting what awaits. None is more enigmatic than that of “The Gal Who Got Rattled”: “Mr. Arthur had no idea what he would say to Billy Knapp.” By the end of the segment, which is easily the most melancholic and moving in the Coen Brothers’ anthology Western, neither do we. Zoe Kazan plays the gal in question, a well-to-do young woman named Alice on a wagon train to Oregon at the behest of an older brother whose death early on in the journey leaves her alone.
Out of this loss comes the potential for something more meaningful, as Alice forms a bond with one Billy Knapp (a brilliant Bill Heck) that eventually leads to a marriage proposal. It also leads to her and the wagon train’s leader, Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines), advanced upon by a Native American war party while out looking for her dog; their low chances of survival in mind, Mr. Arthur instructs Alice to shoot herself should he be killed in order to spare herself from the torturous end that otherwise awaits. What follows is the most tragic end imaginable in such a scenario, the kind that few others besides the Coens could — or would — think to portray so wistfully. —MN
Ally Sings “Shallow” at Jackson’s Concert
Everything about Ally’s (Lady Gaga) big coming out in Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” should have been spoiled long before the fledgling superstar set foot on Jackson Maine’s massive stage. “Shallow,” the song the duo croon at each other, understandably starry-eyed, had already been at the center of a trailer and an earlier scene in the film, as Ally and Jackson workshopped the showstopper in the middle of a parking lot after midnight. We already know the lyrics, know the meaning, get the emotion it stirs between the pair, and yet, the moment a trembling Ally strides out in front of her first big crowd, opens her mouth, and lets out the first “tell me something, boy,” it’s all over. Chills, tingling spines, it literally hits every note. The scene — and its song — tell us the full story of what’s to come in Cooper’s masterful first film. It’s Jackson who pushes Ally to show her full potential, even if it’s scary, but once she’s out there, her confidence builds second by second, until she literally grabs the mic with both hands, pours out that “ah ah aa ahhh ah hh AHHHHH!!” that was always poised to be become the aural staple of the film, and lets rip. She’s a star, and everyone knows it — especially the audience.—KE
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