I just wanna talk for a minute about this shot. This right here is a triumph of writing, directing, editing, acting, and everything in between. All of it comes together, but the performance is the glue of it. Sebastian Stan sells this look so well, and it tells you everything without a single word uttered. Lesser filmmakers would have stopped the scene dead here to give us a series of flashbacks to spell out what’s going on in the mind of James Buchanan Barnes as his memories come back in a flood of pain and grief and loss. Instead, they just let the performance speak for itself, because the actor fucking crushes it here. I am a huge, HUGE fan of scenes where the filmmakers don’t spell it out in some flashback montage or exposition, and just rely on the film storytelling adage, “show, don’t tell” by letting an actor act. It’s such a perfect moment, the climax of the Steve and Bucky arc for this film, in a movie full of great choices, resulting in a direct assault on the feels. Fuck, I love this scene. fuck-me-barnes
like, I saw the tears in his eyes the first time in the theatre and I just lost it. 15 months later: still not over it.
