Help me appreciate beauty and excellence.

April 13, 2012 4:22 PM

I need to find a youtube clip, or a part from a movie, that shows "an appreciation of beauty and excellence". Problem? I don't watch movies, and have a super slow internet connection so I can't spend hours trawling through youtube clips. Help me narrow the search.
posted by MT to Grab Bag (13 answers total)

To clarify, do you want:
a) a clip of something beautiful/excellent, which you can use to demonstrate that you have an appreciation for beauty/excellence, or
b) a clip that shows someone in the act of appreciating beauty/excellence?
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:25 PM on April 13, 2012

This is an important theme of Amelie, and features several montages in this vein--especially in the first third of the movie.
posted by rumposinc at 4:27 PM on April 13, 2012

There is a famous running theme in the movie American Beauty where a teenager makes videos of plastic bags being blown around in a gutter by wind, because he sees beauty in unconventional places.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:28 PM on April 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: LobsterMitten, it could be either of your options. Something that shows beauty & excellence, or that shows someone appreciating beauty & excellence. Thankyou.
posted by MT at 4:36 PM on April 13, 2012

People Are Awesome
posted by sdrawkcab at 4:45 PM on April 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

The scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off where they go to the art museum is an obvious one.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:12 PM on April 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Boom-de-yada
posted by pmb at 6:00 PM on April 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

This scene in Forrest Gump.
posted by cashman at 6:17 PM on April 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Orson Welles' reflection on Chartres cathedral in F For Fake.
posted by Mothra Pisces at 6:23 PM on April 13, 2012

The final scene from The Big Night, shot with a single camera and no cuts, showing the simple act of cooking and eating eggs. 5 minutes 9 seconds. The simple beauty of daily life observed by a great cinematographer.
posted by alms at 7:45 PM on April 13, 2012

The scene in Shawshank Redemption where not just Andy but the entire prison comes to a standstill listening to opera.

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. The truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words...and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared... higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
posted by platinum at 8:04 PM on April 13, 2012 [4 favorites]

Came in to recommend that exact Shawshank clip.
There is also a good one in the movie Philadelphia of Hanks enjoying a beautiful piece of music.
posted by mazienh at 8:07 AM on April 14, 2012

I really like the short film "Out of Print" by Danny Plotnick. It's about searching for rare media in the days before the internet, and how it made one appreciate the beauty of such media so much more.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2012