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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Dinner Scenes

E

Essor

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I'm shooting a short in a few days, and half of it revolves around a dinner table, three people talking, five-six extras. Lots of dialogue.

I'm interested in seeing what some of your favorite scenes that revolve around a table (with or without food) and involve two or more people are.
 
In no particular order: The beginning and end of Pulp Fiction, 'that' scene in When Harry Met Sally, Jeffrey Jones and Howard the Duck at the truck stop, one or two lovely diner scenes in Se7en, also The Game and Zodiac (Fincher does them particularly well all the time), De Niro and Pacino in Heat, David Bowie and Rip Torn in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bill Murray and Andy McDowell in Groundhog's Day, any of the scenes around tables in cafes and on trains in The Limits of Control, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie also has great scenes set around tables.
 
The scene in Death Proof of the four girls talking around a table is pretty crazy. It's like 10 minutes long and if there's any cutting, it's minimal.
 
My Dinner With Andre - An Inspector Calls - Gosford Park - How To Get Ahead in Advertising - Big Night - Babette's Feast
 
Hands down the opening sequence from Hou Hsiao-hsien's 'Flowers of Shanghai.' It's a single 8-minute tracking shot, which is remarkable in and of itself, but what's really remarkable is the camera movement. It's beautifully subtle, and it doesn't exactly follow the conversation, Rather, it's one of the few scenes I can think of where the camera can be said to be in perfect counterpoint to the action/dialogue in the scene.
 
Nobody suggested the dinner scenes in Godfather? There's some great ones, particularly with Gordon Willis' memorable lighting style. Lots of overlapping dialog, moving camera, very interesting editing choices.

Oh, and let's not forget the assassination scene in the restaurant, also a dinner scene (but of a different nature).
 
As expected, I had seen a lot of these but didn't specifically remember the dinner scenes.

They're all interesting and watching them is becoming extremely time consuming but a lot of fun.

Thank you all, it's very very useful to me right now.
 
Look no further than Hannah and her Sisters when the three sisters meet in the restaurant. You can't get a better dinner scene than that one, it stuck in my head for 10 years.

A different scene I love in that movie is when Michael Caine speaks with his wife's sister a slow Bach is playing in the background on the gramophone, and then as he tells her that he is secretly in love with her he hits the gramophone so the needle jumps and the music changes to be much faster, all hectic and jumpy, and then her husband walks in... the scene is a masterpiece... the whole movie is.
 
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