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I'm now going to ad-lib my long-threatened thread about Mission: Impossible and my single favourite sequence in motion pictures (take that, Red Shoes ballet sequence). Here's the film on the iPlayer right now. The sequence in question is the one in the thumbnail. Of course!
The sequence really begins with a choreographed bit of sitting-on-a-train, wherein Ethan Hunt gives a broad sketch of his plan. Essentially he says "We all have jobs to do" but what those jobs are is basically secret. Heist movies can go both ways. This one hangs on surprise.
The heist target is an IMF mainframe - they're going rogue and infiltrating their own agency. It's crucial to what the scene, and film, means at the most basic level. The institution is corrupt, our 'heroes' are pitted against it. Lots of the film is foggy but *this* is clear.
The remainder of the early train scene has one major purpose: to tell us the mission is impossible. This sequence delivers on the basic promise of the film (the whole series, arguably). The impossibility of the mission is exciting for the crew, compounding audience excitement.
Though this scene doesn't tell us what Hunt's solution is, it's crucial that it lays out the problem in a very clearly readable way. The vault's high security is hammered home. We're shown *and* told at the same time.
In a way, it's like being presented with all of the evidence in a murder mystery - the things we remember later when the crime is solved so the resolution is satisfying. At the same time, it's more raising of the stakes. Every locked door is another puzzle that needs solving.
Some of the problems seem like total red herrings - the key code on the door, the retinal scan - because Hunt and co. are going to bypass them entirely rather than take them head-on. But they have another use later...
What an eccentric keypad, by the way. Numbers and... well, why not just letters? As Donloe only uses the numbers maybe the symbols have another specific use. Nothing ever comes of them - maybe it's something to revisit and twist in Mission: Impossible 7 and 8.
When we first see the 'black vault' it's nothing of the sort. It's an interesting design - divergent from the description in the shooting script (the one credited to Robert Towne). Oh - and note the clock on the wall. It's 10:00 right now.
In the script, "the glass and tile walls of the room overlook computer storage towers." On the screen, the walls themselves seem to be computers. The production design feels like the room is "inside" the data, that getting in here is getting to the centre of things.
Now some rules that ARE directly important: three systems operating whenever the the technician is out of the room. Again, De Palma *shows* us what he can while we're also being told.
Cutting back to "Oh crap" reaction shots is a simple, effective bit of stakes-raising.
The room changes dramatically when the Intrusion Countermeasures are active/not active. Why? Well, it's for our good, really. The change is very plainly established during another bit of show and tell.
(You'll see the time tick over to 10:01 in the same shot, in fact - time pressure becomes a thing later on)
Now we come to the most interesting element of the whole scene. The iced tea.
That's a heck of a place to put your tea, isn't it, Mr Donloe? It's almost as if he wants it to fall on the floor. A cheeky bit of cheating to make the next bit work - showing us that the security system works and what that looks like.
The 'red for danger' colouring is pretty straightforward. I think there's a little more going on. I think this sequence adds up to a war against the body. Against the rubbishness of biology. Against human imperfection. So, the tea is organic and wet in a crisp, dry machine world.
So far, all of this has been established in a scene without score, with emphatic, 'signposting' sound effects in a tense silence. What a perfect mood to explode with the exciting Mission: Impossible theme - and what a way to say "We're off an running." Music and sirens blaring!
The first portion of the heist is the infiltration of the Langley campus, done with good ol' disguises and IMF maskcraft. We had no idea at all this was coming, but it's well-told and exciting to watch unfolding. The dialogue is as urgent and active as the camera.
We've learned all about the videofeed spy glasses earlier. Reprising them now works well in a "rule of three" sense, bolstering a crucial late sequence in the film, but they're also put to good use right now, to quickly and simply show us the alarm hack unfold.
I could single out tiny, elegant details all day. Even simple choices like the hand on the shoulder here, pre-empting/motivating the camera move, are cinematic, clear ideas.
We're quickly back with Donloe, leaving the 'black vault' and the 'explanation' sequence from earlier is tied up with the real-time, ongoing drama. Dots have been joined. As Donloe walks out into the scene, he looks both ways...
There's a lot of that in this sequence.
An awful lot of walking through doors and then taking a look around.
Everybody's on the lookout - and everybody's moving around in the same space. The idea of people running into each other is where some of the threat comes from.
It comes to a head when the security guard walks in on Hunt and Krieger before they've had a chance to shed their disguises and vanish into the air ducts. This is the first time a solution needs to be urgently improvised in order to keep the plan on track.
Culminating in this crucial shot. This shot sets up multiple important things, and also gives Hunt a chance to state his 'zero body count' rule, establishing his heroic credentials. Krieger's instinct was to kill.
If you read the scene as Ethan Hunt trying to be perfect, a ghost in the machine, the classifications for Krieger are that he's imperfect, untrustworthy, volatile, prone to mess.
This sequence is exciting because we're tracking the plan as it unfolds (right now, a first time viewer has to bridge the gap between the actions being taken and the problem as earlier established, and that's active, fun viewing) and also seeing sudden new problems arise.
To quote the great Alexander Mackendrick on the energy and impetus that drives stories forwards, "What is happening now is less interesting than what may happen next." This sequence targets us brilliantly on "What's going to happen?!?!"
The costume/set design, the framing, the focus of the lens and the staging (ie. who is moving and when) make this bit of business easy, clear and a pleasure to watch unfold. Our attention is controlled entirely. It's a moment of 'closing in' on multiple levels.
This is where we see the messy volatility of biology is used against Donloe/the IMF/CIA. Bodies are squishy and will betray us.
The first time I saw this film in the cinema I honestly thought that was Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball in The Washington Post.
The story on the front page is something about an intruder, though, so that's amusing.
Did the filmmakers fall into gender stereotyping in devising this plan - or did the characters mean to deliberately exploit it? Would Donloe have reacted differently if another member of team had behaved like Claire Phelps?
We get several scenes of Hunt battling against the limits of his physicality. This is a vivid image of a man against gravity too. This all comes back into play.
Air ducts big enough to crawl through are a security liability in countless movies. This seems like the perfect version of that cliche, however - just claustrophobic enough, and with no apparent risk of getting cut on the sheet metal or even being heard in the rooms below. Ideal.
Now for the most famous part of the sequence, as well as the most formally striking and most exciting. It's original too; while it's a spin on some old ideas, it refreshes them and adds new ones of its own. It has become genuinely iconic - I don't say that lightly.
If you have never seen Jules Dassin's Topkapi, you might be amazed at some of the similarities to Mission: Impossible. The 'Ssshhh! I'm doing a robbery hanging on ropes' bit is a direct homage.
But there's also some material and aesthetics that come directly from Dassin's Riffifi and its extended, dialogue-free heist.
This little device is a hi-tech analog to the umbrellas used in Riffifi.
Now Hunt is about to go, machine man-like, into the black vault, and things must be quiet and cool, it's time for squishy biology to kick it up a gear. There's lots of unpredictability in what comes ahead, and it's all of the organic variety.
Yeah, it looks like a spider's web.
So here we are, in the centre of the web, one job left to execute, albeit a difficult one. Claire, sadly, has nothing else to do in the sequence. We know that noise, temperature or pressure on the floor will wreck things. Hunt has to be more than human - and so does Krieger.
The extra pressure is time - they have until Donloe returns. He'll be gone as long as the stomach-distrupting fluid does its work - but his return can at least be monitored. A clear indicator of approaching (tension-influencing) threat.
One masterstoke is that Donloe's stomach upset is unpredictable. He can come back once and then leave again, giving us a rehearsal for Hunt being caught and then one more, this time more dangerous, run at the same danger.
I was *very* surprised when I saw this time on the clock the first go around. I had assumed we were on the same day as the 'ice tea mishap' but from this, that incident seems to have been Donloe's last black vault alarm. I guess he looks essentially the same, day in, day out.
The sheer fluidity of this shot (there's no hanging about, Krieger starts lowering Hunt right away) the smoothness of the composition and starkness of the set put us in Hunt's winning space, where his plan is perfect and he outwills the frailities of biology.
What we're watching in this section are incredible feats. Of physical prowess. Of heist planning. Of cinematography. Of editing. Everything is running at the top of its game, both inside and outside of the narrative. It gives us the thrills of hardcore competence.
Everything turns quickly, of course, as the multiple established threats come good. The first domino is introduced with this shift of focus.
The clear cause and effect in this shot sequence is perfect: rat comes closer, man's allergies increase, man struggles more with suspension rope, rope is volatile and risky. Rat comes closer = rope stunt gets more prone to failure.
There are three timers running - the download of the NOC list, the rat coming closer, and Donloe returning. That's two against one. The odds are stacked against Hunt with the arrival of the rat.
I think I accidentally broke the thread but you can pick it up here: https://twitter.com/brendonconnelly/status/1347208834591420417
