21 Rev Smith – Deadwood (1960) – 49 points
(2 of 14 lists. Highest ranking - #1 Wurwolf)
This scene was the whole reason why I requested that television shows be included in this list. The whole of Deadwood is epic, but this scene in particular stands out. As long as I live, I will never forget it. When I sent Anais my list, I included my own feelings about it, and this is what I wrote. (By the way, Deadwood was made in 2004 and not 1960.)
I'm not going to give explanations for most of these, but this deserves one. In the episodes leading up to this scene, the Reverend was one of many of the cast of characters in Deadwood, eccentric but good-hearted and humble. He served the camp as the minister and wasn't too proud to sleep in a tent, and he was friendly with everyone, saint and sinner alike. As time went on, however, his eccentricities became alarming. His odd mannerisms, which at first were dismissed as quirks of his personality, were becoming odder by the day, and then he began to physically change -- his hands trembled, he blacked out, and one eye began to bulge from its socket, which suggested a brain tumor. Toward the end he was a rambling, incoherent mess, shaking, sweating and crying on a whore's bed in Al Swearengen's saloon because he was too sick to stay in his tent by himself.
I think one of the reasons his death moved me so much was because of the performance of two men: Ian McShane and Brad Dourif as Al Swearengen and Doc Cochran, respectively. In the video I linked, there is an amazing scene where Brad Dourif knocks it out of the park when he goes to his knees and begs a God that he's not even sure exists to please put the minister out of his misery. Ian McShane as Al plays his part full of barely buried emotion as he teaches his underling a lesson on how to deal out death. And when he whispers, "You can go now, brother" as the Reverend passes on, in some strange way it's just the most heart-breaking, yet fitting and dignified finale for a man who lived in a town where dignity in death was a rare commodity.
Later, I think, or maybe in that same episode, you find out that Al had a brother who suffered an illness with similar symptoms, and he watched him suffer until he died. His killing of the Reverend was an act of mercy based in past experience.
Topic: Top 50 Deaths! (Entire thread has been marked NSFW) (Read 51719 times)
