Secret to great film scenes

The most sizzling scene I have ever witnessed in a movie involved no bare flesh, no heaving bosoms, no crashing waves or other corny metaphors, and certainly no obscene or risque language.It was that supercharged encounter in the hayloft between Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis in the thriller Witness.What a piece of theatre, and one, incidentally, for which we can thank an Aussie director, Peter Weir.It's been years since I saw it, but I retain powerful memories of the atmosphere it evoked - the hay, an old car, and some rock'n'roll music playing softly on the radio.There was a kiss, of course, and you can't expect a primly clad Amish girl to go much further with a New York cop.But I don't think the cameras even lingered on that.The scene, nevertheless, absolutely throbbed; it burned incandescent.Why? Because of the subtlety employed.Similarly, one of the most heart-wrenching scenes ever was in Saving Private Ryan - and it had nothing to do with the graphic violence on the beaches of Normandy that made the Tom Hanks movie so controversial.It was the poignant scene back home in the US where a soldier's mother on a remote farm is washing dishes, and through her window sees the dust of approaching cars carrying military brass and a chaplain.She knows what's coming, and crumples wordlessly to the worn boards of her front porch.There isn't a single word of dialogue, yet nothing could better portray her soul-crushing agony.Again, the hallmark of this scene is its stark minimalism.The same applies to comedy.What about the crowd scene in Monty Python's marvellous Life Of Brian, where poor old Brian Cohen is trying to convince the multitudes who believe he is Jesus that they shouldn't follow him, or follow anyone, because they are all individuals."Yes, we are all individuals," the throng replies as one, before a lone voice pipes up: "I'm not."How about the "first date" scene in Brassed Off when Ewan McGregor is saying goodnight on the doorstep and Tara Fitzgerald asks if he'd like to come in for a coffee?"I don't drink coffee," he says."I don't have any," she replies.And what of the great dole queue scene in The Full Monty?The unemployed north-of-England miners who are secretly practising their Chippendale-style strip act to raise a few bob are standing in line when music starts playing on someone's radio, and they all inadvertently start bumping and grinding.These are all classic moments precisely because they are not overplayed.Here are a few more of my own favourites:The look on Walter Matthau's face at the end of Taking Of Pelham 123 when a sneeze gives away the extortionist;The James Bond scene where Roger Moore skis off a cliff only to be saved when his parachute opens - it's the total silence in between those two moments that makes it so dramatic;The moment from "Goal!" when Germany equalises in the 1966 World Cup final. You hear the crowd and other sound effects, but the only things you see are the faces in England's defensive wall. They're enough to tell the story.The great scenes in movies work so well because of one guiding principle.Less is more.