Favourite Max Shreck scene?

Started by The Laughing Fish, Sun, 6 Aug 2023, 11:29

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What is your favourite Max Shreck scene?

Surrendering himself to save Chip
2 (50%)
Introducing Oswald to his own election campaign
0 (0%)
Attempted murder of Selina
1 (25%)
Public speech at Gotham Plaza
0 (0%)
Meeting Bruce Wayne
0 (0%)
His demise
0 (0%)
Other (please specify)
1 (25%)

Total Members Voted: 4

For me, it would have to be that moment when he sacrificed himself to get kidnapped by the Penguin to spare his son, Chip. Just a little reminder that the man still had a bit of humanity to protect his own son, despite being a corrupt businessman.

What are your favourite scenes?
QuoteJonathan Nolan: He [Batman] has this one rule, as the Joker says in The Dark Knight. But he does wind up breaking it. Does he break it in the third film?

Christopher Nolan: He breaks it in...

Jonathan Nolan: ...the first two.

Source: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=uwV8rddtKRgC&pg=PR8&dq=But+he+does+wind+up+breaking+it.&hl=en&sa=X&ei


Probably the entire scene of Shreck returning to his office to find that Selina has uncovered his secret agenda. Added with the slow, menacingly way he walks towards Selina, along with revealing that it's also about his legacy and what he leaves behind for Chip (which basically goes along with what you're saying), relieving the tension, only to push her out the window abruptly, it all just makes the scene work for me.


"Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humour was provided to console him for what he is."

I found this archived article featuring Christopher Walken's comments on Max Shreck, shortly after BR came out in theaters:

QuoteMax Shreck, the villainous tycoon in "Batman Returns," would cut sleazy deals in a restaurant like Lucy's El Adobe. Dark. Anonymous. Nondescript. A Barry Manilow song crooning on the radio. Nestled on the unfancy eastern side of Melrose Avenue.

Christopher Walken enters to an enthusiastic welcome by the two waitresses. The actor, who portrays Shreck and is in Los Angeles to promote the movie, grins broadly as he strolls into the back room of his favorite L.A. restaurant. The food is zesty, the prices cheap and the cheerfully no-nonsense style reminds him of Queens, the borough whose accent lingers heavily in his voice.

In Hollywood, Mr. Walken is viewed as a skilled, untemperamental New York actor who has never quite reached stardom (despite an Academy Award), in part because of the eerie, ambiguous and sometimes quietly violent men that he portrays. Although he lives in New York, Mr. Walken, 49 years old, looks very much like a Hollywood actor: tall, tanned and lean, with sunken eyes. He wears a loose-fitting Italian-style suit over a casual shirt. His hair is fashionably spiky, and he's wearing dark glasses. As the Machiavellian bad guy in "Batman Returns," Mr. Walken virtually chews up the scenery playing Gotham City's Santa Claus with a heart of ice.

"I like Max," Mr. Walken said. "I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people. Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look. If you do something effective, producers want you to do it again and again. I've been in show business so long. Maybe there's a strangeness connected to that.

The customers in the restaurant are very cool about Mr. Walken, even though he has a leading role in the biggest film of the year, playing a power-starved industrialist in Gotham City who specializes in industrial waste and, worst of all, tosses Michelle Pfeiffer out the window of a high rise.

In the movie, Mr. Walken wears an outrageous wig, some fancy costumes and struts around, barking with a New York accent that reminds more than a few filmgoers of Donald J. Trump.

"I've heard that," Mr. Walken said. "Other people say that I speak like him. Well, we both come from Queens. It's true in most movies I don't use my own voice. I'm always from somewhere. Gotham City is really New York. I was born there. So I used my own voice. That's it. I never thought about Donald Trump. I thought about the big show business moguls I read about. Sol Hurok. Sam Goldwyn. Those guys who fought their way to the top. And then I thought of a lawyer I know. An older guy. Real tough. Real New York. Real smart. You wouldn't want to cross this guy. I thought about him a lot in this part. He's one of those guys -- too mean to die." The actor laughed.

Mr. Walken pushed aside his plate, leaving lunch half eaten. He said that his current role turned out to be one of the most pleasant of his career. And the name of his character, Max Shreck, is actually an "in" joke by Tim Burton, the film's director. Shreck was a German actor who starred as the first Dracula in F. W. Murnau's 1922 classic, "Nosferatu."

"Max is absolutely out there," the actor said. "He makes no bones about his intentions. He's good to his family. He wears spats. I always wanted to wear spats." He smiles.

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/24/garden/lunch-with-christopher-walken-new-york-actor-takes-stardom-with-grain-salt.html
QuoteJonathan Nolan: He [Batman] has this one rule, as the Joker says in The Dark Knight. But he does wind up breaking it. Does he break it in the third film?

Christopher Nolan: He breaks it in...

Jonathan Nolan: ...the first two.

Source: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=uwV8rddtKRgC&pg=PR8&dq=But+he+does+wind+up+breaking+it.&hl=en&sa=X&ei


Quote from: KeatonisBatman on Sun,  8 Oct  2023, 23:27I picked "Other" for this. :D

Same. All of his dialogue in that bit is top quality.

Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sun,  8 Oct  2023, 06:51I found this archived article featuring Christopher Walken's comments on Max Shreck, shortly after BR came out in theaters:

QuoteMax Shreck, the villainous tycoon in "Batman Returns," would cut sleazy deals in a restaurant like Lucy's El Adobe. Dark. Anonymous. Nondescript. A Barry Manilow song crooning on the radio. Nestled on the unfancy eastern side of Melrose Avenue.

Christopher Walken enters to an enthusiastic welcome by the two waitresses. The actor, who portrays Shreck and is in Los Angeles to promote the movie, grins broadly as he strolls into the back room of his favorite L.A. restaurant. The food is zesty, the prices cheap and the cheerfully no-nonsense style reminds him of Queens, the borough whose accent lingers heavily in his voice.

In Hollywood, Mr. Walken is viewed as a skilled, untemperamental New York actor who has never quite reached stardom (despite an Academy Award), in part because of the eerie, ambiguous and sometimes quietly violent men that he portrays. Although he lives in New York, Mr. Walken, 49 years old, looks very much like a Hollywood actor: tall, tanned and lean, with sunken eyes. He wears a loose-fitting Italian-style suit over a casual shirt. His hair is fashionably spiky, and he's wearing dark glasses. As the Machiavellian bad guy in "Batman Returns," Mr. Walken virtually chews up the scenery playing Gotham City's Santa Claus with a heart of ice.

"I like Max," Mr. Walken said. "I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people. Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look. If you do something effective, producers want you to do it again and again. I've been in show business so long. Maybe there's a strangeness connected to that.

The customers in the restaurant are very cool about Mr. Walken, even though he has a leading role in the biggest film of the year, playing a power-starved industrialist in Gotham City who specializes in industrial waste and, worst of all, tosses Michelle Pfeiffer out the window of a high rise.

In the movie, Mr. Walken wears an outrageous wig, some fancy costumes and struts around, barking with a New York accent that reminds more than a few filmgoers of Donald J. Trump.

"I've heard that," Mr. Walken said. "Other people say that I speak like him. Well, we both come from Queens. It's true in most movies I don't use my own voice. I'm always from somewhere. Gotham City is really New York. I was born there. So I used my own voice. That's it. I never thought about Donald Trump. I thought about the big show business moguls I read about. Sol Hurok. Sam Goldwyn. Those guys who fought their way to the top. And then I thought of a lawyer I know. An older guy. Real tough. Real New York. Real smart. You wouldn't want to cross this guy. I thought about him a lot in this part. He's one of those guys -- too mean to die." The actor laughed.

Mr. Walken pushed aside his plate, leaving lunch half eaten. He said that his current role turned out to be one of the most pleasant of his career. And the name of his character, Max Shreck, is actually an "in" joke by Tim Burton, the film's director. Shreck was a German actor who starred as the first Dracula in F. W. Murnau's 1922 classic, "Nosferatu."

"Max is absolutely out there," the actor said. "He makes no bones about his intentions. He's good to his family. He wears spats. I always wanted to wear spats." He smiles.

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/24/garden/lunch-with-christopher-walken-new-york-actor-takes-stardom-with-grain-salt.html

Pretty cool read!


"Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humour was provided to console him for what he is."

Quote from: KeatonisBatman on Sun,  8 Oct  2023, 23:27I picked "Other" for this. :D

What I like about that moment is how Max is being his true self there, secretly whispering one on one to Bruce, a man who knows who he is and what's really going on. And this is happening in a public setting where he's projecting a false image to everybody else.