Scene Anatomy 101 - Episode 03

Back in 2002, my roommate Joe Pospisil and I put together the book to a children’s musical we produced for the Central Park Conservancy, called “Halloween at Belvedere: A Monster Musical Adventure.” Our friends came in with us to perform it in NYC’s Central Park on Halloween weekend in 2002, and again in 2003, 2004, and one more time in 2010. There were a lot of great memories from that first year, but probably my favorite memory was after the show when my father told me, “You were my hero that day.”

And I couldn’t help but be so happy that he supported me in what I wanted to do, and didn’t try to force anything on me so that he could, in a sense, “live through me.” We’ve all seen so many parents do that, whether forcing the kid into sports, show business, beauty pageants, etc., and one summer, audiences saw that type of father-son relationship played to the extreme. So I thought I’d take this week to cover my favorite scene from one of the more underrated comic book films, 2003’s Hulk.

David Banner (Nick Nolte) is a scientist who experimented on his own DNA code and passed along certain genes to his son Bruce (Eric Bana). Those particular genes are awakened after a gamma radiation accident, and they come to full fruition after David and Bruce meet on-screen for the first time, when David jars loose some traumatic memories that Bruce had kept bottled up for so many years. It is those memories that trigger Bruce’s transformation into the Hulk.

By the time the father and son encounter each other face to face for the second time, Bruce has been captured and David’s wish to meet with him is granted. Of course, General Ross (Sam Elliott) is monitoring this meeting from a distance, and if one of them makes one false move, he will release enough electromagnetic energy to incinerate them both.

When David walks into the airplane hangar where the meeting takes place, the music provided by Danny Elfman gets quieter and quieter, until it finally stops. There is dead silence as David sits down in front of his son, a very un-comic book like moment in a very un-comic book like movie. You already get the sense that this is a very special scene just from the way it is handled. No explosions, no cataclysmic battle for humanity, just a father and son having a little chat.

And the first thing they say to each other is…

BRUCE: I should have killed you.

DAVID: Maybe I should have killed you.

BRUCE: I wish you had.

So right away, we see the bitterness that each man has towards the other. Bruce had a chance to kill David when he had his first transformation in his lab, and instead he ran off, unable to handle the anger that he finally had let out after bottling it up for so many years. Also, years before, when Bruce was just a baby, David had a chance to kill him with a kitchen knife, and would have if his wife hadn’t blocked the blow with her own body. And if David had gone through with it, then Bruce wouldn’t be physically and psychologically torn apart by the power he has within him.

The two men stay silent for a moment before Bruce brings up the recurring vision that he saw more and more of as the film went on. David looks disinterested but listens anyway.

BRUCE: I saw her last night. Saw her face. Brown hair. Brown eyes. She smiled at me. She reached down and kissed my cheek. I can almost remember a smell. Almost like desert flowers.

David nods, knowing the woman Bruce is talking about.

DAVID: Her favorite perfume.

BRUCE: It’s my mother… and I don’t even know her name.

Bruce starts to cry.

Now, here is one of the instances where David Banner reveals himself to be one of the most evil of the Marvel villains that have made it on screen. He has an opportunity to ease his son’s pain and TELL HIM HIS MOTHER’S NAME! But he won’t. It doesn’t even enter his mind. He just lets Bruce cry. He encourages any type of emotion that Bruce dares to show, since he knows the right kind of emotion lets out the hulk within. He’s a bastard who cares about nothing but himself. He always has been, no matter how much he tries to look like he’s doing or saying the right thing.

DAVID: It’s all right, son. You go ahead and cry. Go ahead and cry.

David gets out of his chair and puts his hands on Bruce’s shoulder, showing at least an illusion of a typical father-son moment.

DAVID: Cry. Crying will do you good.

But Bruce knows what David wants from him and he shoves him away.

BRUCE: DON’T TOUCH ME!

He looks right into David’s eyes as he spits his words out at him.

BRUCE: Maybe once you were my father. But you’re not now and you never will be.

David nods at him. Time to bring out the heavy artillery. He steps in front of Bruce, and even though Bruce keeps looking down and away from his father, David moves with him, keeping his eyes locked on Bruce’s the whole time.

DAVID: Ohhh, is that so? Well, I got news for you. I didn’t come here to see you. I came here to see my son. My real son. The one inside of you! You’re nothing but a… superficial shell. A husk of flimsy consciousness ready to be torn off at a moment’s notice.

Bruce knows David just wants to get him angry. He won’t take the bait. All he wants is for David to leave him alone, to get out of his life completely.

BRUCE: You can think what you like. I don’t care. Just go!

David keeps looking at Bruce, letting that moment pass before speaking again, blatantly disregarding his son’s wishes.

Here is where David fills his son in on a big chunk of the story that he missed. David tried to use the same gamma radiation that jumpstarted Bruce’s dormant genes on himself, but the result was completely different. (Since everyone has a different DNA code, what happened with Bruce couldn’t possibly be the same as what would happen with David.)

DAVID: No son, listen to me. I found a cure… for me.

Very important words there. For me. Not for you, Bruce, my son. For me.

DAVID: My cells can transform too. Absorb ENORMOUS amounts of energy. But unlike you, they’re unstable. Son… I need your strength.

And right here brings me back to my opening remarks about fathers trying to live through their kids. David, God help him, is jealous of the gift that his own experiments have forced upon his son. While Bruce wants nothing to do with his powers or his father, David wants to revel in it, use it to make himself a better person. Show General Ross the mistake he made by kicking him off the project he started so many years ago.

When Bruce doesn’t answer, David gets right into his face, raising the tension between the two considerably and bringing to the surface just how much of a villain he is.

DAVID: I gave you life! Now you MUST give it back TO ME! Only a million times more radiant, more powerful…

Bruce can feel himself getting angry, but he does his best to fight it off. He shakes his head no at David.

BRUCE: Stop it!

And David just erupts, disgusted by his son’s rejection of something as simple as emotion.

DAVID: STOP! STOP WHAT?! STOP… WHAT?!

Stop making him feel human? Stop pushing him to emote? To let out the energy that he has bottled up inside him? David prods a little harder to get Bruce to see things his way. Bring back memories not very distant, not very repressed. Remind him of what has so very recently happened, and remind him that the forces outside that room have been keeping both David and Bruce Banner down for far too long.

DAVID: Think about all those men out there in their uniforms! Barking and swallowing orders! Inflicting their petty rule over the entire globe! THINK OF ALL THE HARM THEY’VE DONE! TO YOU! TO ME! TO HUMANITY! And know this, that we can make them and their flags and their anthems and their governments DISAPPEAR! In a flash! You in me.

Bruce’s teeth gnash as he continues fighting his emotions and his father’s wishes.

BRUCE: I’d rather die!

The kid STILL doesn’t get it! David walks around Bruce as he continues ranting, completely absorbed into the moment. And as he speaks, he looks up into the cameras watching them, accusing them of giving his family nothing but pain. He’s gonna make them pay for that. Both of them will, even if one of them doesn’t want to admit it.

DAVID: Ohhhhh, that’s your answer. Then indeed you shall die… and be REBORN! A HERO! Of the kind that walked the earth long before the pale religions of civilization infected humanity’s soul!

Bruce finally lets out as much emotion as he can without completely losing control.

BRUCE: GO!!!!!

David slumps down in his seat, pissed. He mocks his own son by pretending to throw a tantrum, then speaks with total disgust the one thing that, according to director Ang Lee, is the worst thing a father can say to a son.

It was an incredibly ballsy move on Ang Lee’s part to even have a scene like this in a comic book movie, much less have it be the first part of the movie’s climax. But it works perfectly, since the very heart of the movie is the conflict between the father who aches for the gift he never had and the son who despises the man who bestowed that gift on him.

And since the two adversaries have such an intimate connection, it was only right for the main confrontation between them to be filmed as intimately as possible. No music, no grand hero triumphing over the forces of darkness, just two chairs, two men, and two spotlights on them. It’s such a simple set-up that this scene could very well be used in acting classes.

Despite the fact that the scene moves straight into an action sequence that reveals the true forms of Bruce and David Banner, the real strength of their confrontation is when they are in their human forms, when you can see just how different the son is from the father. Even though Bruce followed in his father’s footsteps by being a scientist, he still showed that he is his own man, in control of his own life, and no matter how much David wanted to believe differently, he will never relinquish that control.

Again, I have to say, thank God I don’t have to deal with this from my father.