The Greatest Scene in 'Scent of a Woman'

No, not that one. The other one.

You might reasonably think the greatest scene in Scent of a Woman is the courtroom scene at the end. I think the greatest scene is the one that comes before it. But let’s talk about both of them.

Scent of a Woman is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. The theme is plainly stated on page 34 of the script.

At the beginning of the film, Charlie is in a bind. He’s a student on scholarship at a prestigious prep school. The moral dilemma facing Charlie is simple, rat out his classmates (not even friends really) and become one of America’s elite, or keep his integrity. I want to believe that this is just a story and that’s not what it takes, but looking at our elites lately, this part of the story takes on something of a documentary feel for me.

What interrupts the beats to this story is that Charlie is hired for the Thanksgiving weekend to look after Col. Frank Slade, who is recently blind, depressed about it and seemingly a real son-of-a-bitch. But rather than tamely hang out at the house, Col. Slade has booked a trip to New York. He’s going to enjoy the finer things one last time, then commit suicide.

Along the way, we have a lot of adventures with Frank and Charlie, and learn about both of them, but it all comes down to the scene where Frank is going to commit suicide. This scene:

When Frank raises the gun to his temple, Charlie grabs for it. They struggle and Frank gets the gun. He points it at Charlies and roars, “Get out of here. I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

But Charlie doesn’t go. He shows courage. He shows real courage to save Frank, a man who hates himself and doesn’t believe he’s worth saving. The same guy who, earlier in the script tells his own brother, “I’m no fucking good and I never have been.”

The crux of the attempted suicide scene is Pacino roaring, “I’m in the dark here!” And so he is. He’s deep in the darkness, he’s going to take his own life. He thinks he’s so worthless that there’s nothing useful left for him to do on earth.

Charlie calls his bluff. He tells Frank to the pull the trigger, because he doesn’t have anything to live for either. “Pull the trigger you miserable blind motherfucker,” is a beautiful line in this context and delivered with an innocence that perhaps the whole scene turns on. The line is awkward, because Charlie doesn’t use this kind of language. He’s a good kid.

Frank says, “You don’t want to die.”

And Charlie caps it perfectly with, “And neither do you.”

The tension resolved Frank asks, “Oh, where do I go from here, Charlie?”

They go back home. In what appears to be the greatest scene in the movie, Frank defends Charlie at his disciplinary hearing. It is a fantastic courtroom scene. One of the best of all time. But, for me, without Charlie’s redemption of Frank in the attempted suicide scene, it wouldn’t hit nearly as hard.