Tony Palmer started it, Scorsese and Peckinpah refined it, but John Patterson reveals his most brutal head shot of them all
The best scene in Anton Corbijn's The American is its first, when contract killer George Clooney, ambushed by gunmen during a stroll with a new lover, shoots his two unknown assailants before dispatching, with extreme and chilling pragmatism, said lover and sole witness with a bullet through the back of the head. Surprise and moral revulsion are what make the moment so potent, but the horror of it is undoubtedly magnified by the fact that the bullet goes into her brain.
I'm obsessed with brutal head shots in movies, perhaps even become a connoisseur of them, because I've watched their rise from rarity to ubiquity, marvelling at how used to them I've become, despite once hating them so much. My obsession began when I first saw Tony Palmer...
The best scene in Anton Corbijn's The American is its first, when contract killer George Clooney, ambushed by gunmen during a stroll with a new lover, shoots his two unknown assailants before dispatching, with extreme and chilling pragmatism, said lover and sole witness with a bullet through the back of the head. Surprise and moral revulsion are what make the moment so potent, but the horror of it is undoubtedly magnified by the fact that the bullet goes into her brain.
I'm obsessed with brutal head shots in movies, perhaps even become a connoisseur of them, because I've watched their rise from rarity to ubiquity, marvelling at how used to them I've become, despite once hating them so much. My obsession began when I first saw Tony Palmer...
- 11/20/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
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