Shana, Children of Men
Here’s the scene. Unfortunately, there’s no embedding allowed, so just click through to youtube to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQLrnN3qsDs
Though I haven’t seen all of the other films on this list, I’m pretty confident that Alfonso Cuaron’s epic Children of Men has the best baby-related gunfight by far. Why?
1. The fight is realistic.
Although Children of Men takes place in a postapocalyptic future in which the world’s women are infertile, Cuaron went out of his way to film the movie in a super-naturalistic manner. Many scenes have no cuts and are filmed with only one hand-held camera, and the special effects are, for the most part, done without computer animation. Cuaron and his art director and cinematographer went out of their way to create a world that was slightly different from ours but wholly believable.
Which brings us to our baby fight scene. The seven and a half minute scene is done with no cuts. The setting is obviously meant to bring to mind urban fighting in, oh, I don’t know, Baghdad. And in this film, unlike some of the others, the baby is mostly obscured from view, because its mother is realistically shielding her head from all the bullets. In fact the whole thing is so realistic I must assume Cuaron gave a baby to a Marine in Iraq and filmed the ensuing battle in preparation for this film.
2. The baby is important.
In Children of Men, unlike some of the other movies we’ve been discussing today, the baby is vital to the plot. She is the MacGuffin, if you will. Also, she is the “child” in the title. (She’s actually the child of a woman, though.) This is some important baby.
3. The baby wins.
So after surviving seven and a half minutes of gun fighting and grenade pitching, our little baby starts crying for some reason. When the soldiers and terrorists hear that sound and see that–holy crap!–there’s a baby, they stop shooting and look on in awe. In other words, the baby won the battle. Baby 1, Army Men 0. Beat that, Battleship Potemkin Baby!
Willow is just….inspired! If only fenzel could have shoehorned Madmartigan, the single greatest swordsman ever, into his post…
German Hard Boiled, that’s got to be best breakfast ever!
I went with Children of Men. It’s got tank shells going through walls with a baby involved. Tank shells beat deconstructionist faux reality TV shows by about 146mm (155mm tank minus the 9mm Beretta she’s using).
It’s a little ridiculous how few of these gunfights actually involve shooters holding babies.
Children of Men. Because A) the baby is relevant to the story, B) the battle is one of the most intense I’ve ever seen in cinema, and C) long-takes are uber-cool.
Wow, I’ve seen _The Contenders_! Years ago, late at night on HBO.
That is one low-budget movie with some low rent production values, but you can tell it was a labor of love.
And sorry Jonathan, while I was typing my post Madmartigan was busy outside fighting the giant troll/dragon monster.
Hardboiled ahs a pretty intense gunfight while holding a baby, and it takes place inside of a hospital.
If only there had been a baby involved in _Unforgiven_, since that is, indeed, my favorite western.
Alack, alas, ’tis not the case. I went with _Children of Men_, too.
Immediately thought of Lek (Leak) a Dutch crime movie from 2000. Devoted father and drug dealer Jack shoots his way out of an ambush strapped with his 8-month old kid in a frontal carrier bag.
Actor got the highest Dutch acting performance award for the role.