‘Brilliant cinematic moment’: Forrest Gump director calls it best scene ever

A flying DeLorean that goes back to the future at 88 miles per hour, a feather blown by the wind and placed by an invisible hand in front of Forrest Gump’s shoe, a Hollywood version of flesh and blood actors and characters from cartoons, a dead Tom Hanks whose best friend is a volleyball…

In a 40-year career ranging from the Back to the Future trilogy to Who Framed Roger Rabbit via Contact and The Pole Express, Robert Zemeckis has given us many cinematic moments we’ll never forget.

• ‘It’s pure cinema’: For La La Land director, it’s the best scene in cinema!

“One of my favorite scenes of all time…”

But what about the scenes that forged his memories as a viewer before he became a filmmaker himself? In 2013, when he came to promote his new film, Flying with Denzel Washington, Robert Zemeckis agreed to reveal (and describe) one of the sequences that he saw in the pantheon of cinema:

“One of my all-time favorite scenes in The Godfather is when Michael throws a solo at the restaurant.”He told us he chose Francis Ford Coppola’s classics, which are truly the greatest works of cinema for many moviegoers.

“It’s truly a brilliant moment of cinema”

“It’s a really brilliant moment in cinema. It’s very well done. You understand the character’s dilemma and what he has to do. It’s full of sessions, but it’s still very elegant and simple. When we see this scene, we really feel everything. Michael’s head is full of emotions. The voice, The staging…everything is very well handled in this scene.”

In the middle of Coppola’s feature film, the sequence in question follows the assassination attempt of Don Vito by his nemesis Sollozzo, and represents the beginning of Michael’s rise through the family and the Mafia, as well as a personal turning point since then. Here he commits his first crime. Truly crucial on a narrative level, it is also flawless on a staging level.

What is your favorite episode of The Godfather?

(re)discover the trailer for the film…