Via Glenn Reynolds, here is a list of what are characterized as the “Top 10 Manly Movie Deaths”,
rare cinematic moments where an emotional response is justified — times when a worthy male protagonist dies a noble and/or tragic death following a great and just struggle
What constitutes a “manly death”? I’m reminded of the phrase from Macaulay:
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?
In the comments to the post linked above there are numerous examples given. Some in the list and in the comments, like William Wallace’s death in Braveheart, fit the bill. Others, like Goose’s death in Top Gun almost certainly do not.
I won’t present a list of ten but I’ll give a list of some of my favorite “manly movie deaths”.
You wouldn’t think that a hoodlum going to the electric chair, screaming for his life would be a manly death but when it’s Cagney and he’s pretending to be a coward to save a gang of kids from following the same path he did, it’s tops.
I hate and despise the execrable phony Portuguese dialect that Spencer Tracy affects but when Manuel goes down to his watery grave, doing his best to save Harvey any pain, it’s a great moment in motion pictures. And it won Spencer Tracy an Academy Award.
Sidney Carton. Ronald Colman. “’Tis a far, far better thing…” Need I say more? This is the very first motion picture I cried at the end of.
David Niven preparing to bail out calmly from his burning and spiraling plane without a parachute to fall to certain death is a most remarkable thing in cinema: a death scene without a death. If you haven’t seen the picture, I won’t reveal any more. You’ve just got to see the picture.
Other candidates?
Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic? No, I wasn’t moved, at that point in the movie I was anxious for [er] resolution.
I’m not sure I’ve been emotionally moved by death of a male protagonist, in contrast to the death of a child, or the loss of love or dignity. I’m more moved by the man who survives the beating, but leaves a big chunk of himself on the floor. “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” (Albert Schweitzer)
Obi Wan Kenobi? Good grief!
In my view one of the components of a “manly death” is that you must recognize that death is imminent. That’s why Obiwan Kenobi, Goose, and Capt. John Miller don’t qualify. Ryan is a more tragic figure than Miller.
In the sub-category “Going Out in a Blaze of Glory” J. B. Books in “The Shootist” qualifies on all counts.
Ol’ Kenobi poses a few problems for me. First, he is sort of an aloof, mystic who dies too early to elicit much of an “emotional response.” More importantly, he dies just before saying that if he dies, he will be back. And third, I think his death is pretty ambiguous as to whether Vader defeated him, he committed suicide or he just screwed up.
If I could expand the meaning of death, I might suggest Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. He starts out the movie with a fatal diagnosis, he lives out his sentence with an indomitable human spirit, and his death at the end of the move had a strong emotional pull.
Since I’m not a particularly big movie guy, my potential list is limited.
But my first would be Denzel Washington’s character in ‘Man on Fire.’ A troubled ex-Military hit man, he trades – straight up and explicitly – his life for the life of the little girl he was stewarding, kidnapped by the Mexican kidnapping machine. He walks over the bridge to certain death, and the little girl walks over the other way back to her mother. (As the protagonist Mexican kidnapper had said: “..your life, for a life..”) Could it get any more direct?
Its supposedly based on a true story. Now, you never know what that really means, but…….
On the really cheesy movie front…….
There was some C-grade movie with Bruce Willis where he pilots a rocket ship into an asteroid and sets off an atomic bomb to save the world……….with flashback images of him with his young daughter swinging on a swing set as he detonates……..
Really, really cheesy. But hey, I’ve got an 11 year old daughter, and this is movie stuff, right? It makes you pause at least.
Speaking of cheesy…….Spock in the movie where he kills himself saving the rest from radiation? Too sci-fi for me, but…
After Man on Fire, its got to be Braveheart, right?
And then:
Clint Eastwood in the plot twist in Gran Torino? My life for the destruction of the gang, and the peace of the community.
Tom Hanks (or his Sarge) in Private Ryan? But they had orders.
“French” in The Departed? But he wasn’t a sympathetic character.
Butch and Sundance? They didn’t get it.
I think Spock is close — a popular character who follows his own damnable logic to its bitter conclusion. It’s just that even where sci-fi fantasy doesn’t obviously telegraph a “reserection” scene, the viewers always thinking its possible.
“Fly you fools!” Okay, so Gandalf was reborn. But maybe he didn’t know that.
Marv in Sin City. “Is that the best you can do, you pansies?”
Jesus in The Passion of the Christ. “Is that the best you can do, you Roman pansies?”
I agree with you on Marv, Michael. However, I found the technology of Sin City distancing which reduced the impact for me.
Dave:
I had not read the books, so I really found the visuals fascinating. For a brief while I thought about writing comics.
Gandalf was a Maiar of Valinor as such he is imortal or nearly so. As such it really shouldn’t be counted.