Great Hollywood Kisses Part I

I am stumped right now on the kissless movies post. I know there are more, but I will have to revisit the post as they come to me. For now, I'm going to move on to the more overtly romantic movies that do provide their audience with a heart warming kiss. I have to confess, I'm going to leave out movies before the 80s. I don't know movies before that decade well enough to put them in this post. Also, kisses from that era are wonderfully chaste and therefore make it hard to compare to today's tactics. So trust me, the kiss from Gone with the Wind is clearly one for the books, but I won't discuss it here.

There are a number of factors that make a silver screen kiss great. I will try to give a run down.

Tension/Anticipation: It's no surprise that most kisses happen right before the credits roll. Filmakers want the audience begging for the romantic union of lips by the time it happens. But there's more to a kiss than simply allowing a lot of time to lapse between the two love interests entrances. There clearly must be a charge behind filmmakers wanting to get over the 2 hour mark before the leading lady can lock lips with her leading man (or lady, depending on her preference).

Kissing Chemistry: This is not to be confused with onscreen chemistry. There are movies where actors mesh wonderfully with flirtatious witty banter (or verbally spar if they have that love/hate thing going), only to let the kiss epically fail. You've Got Mail would be a perfect example of this. America loves Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks's chemistry, but their Riverside park kiss is awkward. Or there are movies when the actors forget subtlety and frantically kiss as if in a pie eating contest.

Novelty: Some kisses are memorable because they are markedly different from the kiss in front of a sunset or in the midst of the climactic action scene. Again, the actor's kissing chemistry helps tremendously, but the novelty can often override any mediocrity on the actors' part.

Alright! Here we go.

The Princess Bride Fred Savage has cut off his grandfather and narrator, Peter Falk, every time Wesley and Buttercup are about to kiss. So the final kiss is well anticipated by the viewer. It is not just the anticipation, however. It is the lovely but concise description of the kiss by Peter Falk that makes this one a bit more memorable: "Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind." [Note: Can't find a clip of the kiss at the end. Will dig it up soon.]

Spiderman It's hard to judge Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst's kiss chemistry because how can one tell if an upside down kiss is going badly? But, this is clearly something new and different for Hollywood. They took our expectations and turned them upside down.



Twilight
Okay, okay. I know I need to cut back on the Twilight obsession, but I simply must include this kiss. It's pretty rare to have the male protagonist stop a kiss right when it's getting hot and heavy, so there's a novelty factor here. It's also undeniable that these costars have chemistry.



Pretty Woman
Vivian lays out her rules very early on and makes it clear even to the soul crushingly handsome Richard Gere that she does not kiss on the mouth. So when she finally does kiss him in his sleep, it is sweet and pious--even for a prostitute.


The Empire Strikes Back
This kiss isn't actually that great, but it is made better by Leia and Han Solo's interchange afterward. Harrison Ford suggested that, instead of saying the scripted "I love you too," that Solo say "I know." We are made to believe that Han Solo is sort of a ladies man and his goodbye kiss followed by the closest declaration of love he can manage puts it on this list.



Brokeback Mountain
This kiss, controversial to begin with, has become even more complex because not only because of Heath Ledger's death, but also knowing that he and Michelle were romantically involved and subsequently separated. Her emotional shock and betrayal seem so raw in this scene. My heart goes out to her character here, and to the actress herself. Perhaps this kiss fits in because of the novelty of it. Two coveted heterosexual actors passionately engaging in a homosexual kiss. There is love, anger, frustration and lust all wrapped up in their rough yet tender kiss.


I'm getting carried away and don't want to put up too many here. So, I'm cutting myself off. Stay tuned for Part II.