Scent Of A Woman

Imagine a man whose biggest passion in life is women. Usually, when I see a hopeless romantic protagonist in a movie who is willing to go to any lengths for the woman he loves, I feel jealous thinking - where are such men in real life? But while watching Scent of a woman, I didn't feel jealous. Colonel Slade is not in love with A woman. He is in love with the whole womankind. The way he feels deeply passionate about women, for the time in my life I wished I were a man, so I could be as awestruck by the biggest miracle God ever created- WOMEN!

Welcome to my new venture, or I should say the new kind of nonsense that is dying to churn out of my brain on this blog - an outlet I use to quench my need to express, to evolve. I have been learning a lot about screenwriting and I have been watching some classics that I would have never watched otherwise. I have started watching these masterpiece movies the way they were meant to be watched. Each movie has left an impression on my mind for eternity. I am hoping to leave those impressions on this blog and immortalise them. 

If you decide to read further, let me warn you it will be full of spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. 

Coming back to Scent of a woman, when I saw Colonel Slade pouring his heart out in this scene, I was just devastated to realize that I have never been so passionate about anything in my life! 

Lt. Col. Frank Slade : You know what's kept me goin' all these years? The thought that one day... Never mind.

Charlie Simms : The what?

Lt. Col. Frank Slade : Silly. Just the thought that maybe one day, I'd... I could have a woman's arms wrapped around me and her legs wrapped around me.

Charlie Simms : And what?

Lt. Col. Frank Slade : That I could wake up in the morning and she'd still be there. Smell of her. All funky and warm. I finally gave up on it.

Damn! I would have kissed Bo Goldman's hands for writing this masterpiece. One could easily think of Colonel Slade as a sex addict. But Slade's feelings for women is not shallow and limited to the physical act of love, it goes much much deeper than that. 

Of course, the movie has multiple themes, and the scent of a woman is just one of the themes. I am not writing a review here, just trying to verbalize what impacted me the most. There's a lot been said about this movie and all great movies. I can't add anything more valuable to that. But years later, this is what I would remember about this movie, how it made me feel about being passionate in life. 

Slade and Charlie's relationship is as unusual as it could be. The writer must have thought, let's put two people together whose personalities, head-space, life experiences and percpetions are poles apart, and see what happens. Characters that have layers and depth is what I find the most difficult to create. Slade seems a very one-tone character at first, but as you go along, you realize Slade's assoholery is a cry for help. 

I learned something very important about screenwriting in the scene when Slade goes to meet the escort. The character of the escort is built up so much by the Limo driver that I wanted to see her and I was expecting a romantic scene coming up. But the escort is never shown on the screen. We never see what happens between Slade and the escort. That's the intrigue and mytery that remain with the viewer about the escort. Since Slade couldn't see the escort, we, the viewers also must not see the escort and live through that experience through colonel's eyes. 

The tango scene is undoubtedly one of the most romantic scenes of all time. Not a word wasted. To see the whole scene without a word being uttered by the actors and still create the kind of impact it creates on the viewer, that's the kind of writer I want to be some day. 

I'll end with my favorite quote from the movie:

"The day we stop lookin' is the day we die."