“He’s so good in that movie”: the 1990 scene Matt Damon called the greatest of all time
As much as there’s no such thing as the single greatest movie scene of all time, since all art is subjective, the one Matt Damon has been obsessed with since 1990 is hardly one of the usual suspects.
He’s been in a movie that features one, though, with Saving Private Ryan‘s D-Day landings right up there with the best the art form has ever seen, even if he wasn’t in it. Still, rom-coms aren’t usually associated with cinema’s most breathtaking sequences, but Damon would fight you to the death on that front.
The final moments of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane‘s Rosebud revelation, Sylvester Stallone running up the steps in Rocky, Janet Leigh meeting her end in Psycho, and the first glimpse of Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone in The Godfather have all become iconic moments that will be forever remembered as some of the most recognisable in Hollywood history.
Of course, those are just the tip of the iceberg, but has anyone watched Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Joe Versus the Volcano and thought that the exchange where the former’s Joe Banks encounters Barry McGovern’s luggage salesman ranks among the finest isolated exchanges ever committed to celluloid?
As it turns out, yes, there are at least two, and they are Damon and Ben Affleck. Commenting on the art of acting, the former noted that “it’s beautiful watching someone else with true purpose.” A borderline existential statement, sure, and not one that you’d think is applicable to a fella selling suitcases.
And yet, the Academy Award-winning Good Will Hunting scribe would disagree. “He loves nothing more than luggage,” Damon continued. “And it’s the greatest scene. I asked Tom Hanks about that when I did Saving Private Ryan. I was like, ‘Can you tell me about that scene?’ Because we love that scene so much.”
McGovern is nothing if not committed: it’s a simple scene, with Hanks doing nothing other than buying luggage, but the salesman is so clearly dedicated to the cause, and obsessed with the concept of luggage, that Damon has been awestruck for over 35 years by the gusto with which the day player embraced the part.
“The guy came in, he worked for like one day on this scene, and he’s so good in that movie,” the star marvelled. Hanks is presented with the greatest steamer trunk known to man, and when he says he wants to buy four of them, the luggage salesman is so thrilled that he tells his new favourite customer, “May you live to be a thousand years, sir.”
It’s maybe not one that film scholars and historians will be writing about centuries from now when looking back at the medium’s definitive scenes, but if Damon was writing that book, it’d be number one.
