Great Bit: L.A. Confidential
Maybe my favorite moment in the film, L.A. Confidential, comes after Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) has just delivered the monologue about why he became a cop. It involves the murder of Exley’s father by a killer who was never identified—a killer that Exley has given the made-up name of Rollo Tomasi, just to have something to call him. Tomasi represents all those guys who get away with it. Once Exley has given this speech that explains his character, which David Mamet might call a Dead Kitten Story, Exley asks the older, semi-crooked vice detective, Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), why he became a cop.
Vincennes’ face slowly falls, his eyes drifting away, and he says, “I don’t remember.”
Great bit.
Also my favorite bit.
A lot of it falls to Spacey there — he almost looks like he’s about to cry. So much said with so little said.
– c.
For sure. That moment could fall a couple of different ways, and Spacey’s choices in that scene are cunning. It’s that it communicates so much with so little, but also how it turns around the Dead Kitten Story into the setup for this other great character moment, that makes it so great.