Picking a Scene Apart: There’s more here than the audience perceives:
I’m beginning a new series of articles where I literally pick a scene apart to show the reader what each little bit of the scene means. What that part establishes about a character or a character relationship. What is being done subliminally, symbolically, and what is being telegraphed to the audience.
A good scene doesn’t hit you over the head with these. Rather they’re supposed to affect you on a deeper level without distracting you. Our minds are very quick and you can perceive these things and have an understanding of what is going on while also progressing with the story.
You can think of it as embedding itself in your subconscious, or something you can’t put into words but you just have a feeling about. There are times when these come back to you later in the movie and you say to yourself “I had a feeling that was going to happen.”
Blake Edwards
Since a Blake Edwards scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspired me to start this series, I thought it appropriate to start with him.
We’ll be looking at two of his scenes from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The first is early in the movie and is very important to establishing many things about Holly and Paul’s relationship throughout the move. It’s so well done that the audience thinks it’s really nothing at all.
The second is the end of the movie.
People tend to think of Blake Edwards as a director of mostly superficial, light comedies that are good for some laughs, but without much substance or artistry involved. You are about to discover otherwise.
Scene 1: Holly and Paul are drawn together
There is a scene very early in the movie that the audience doesn’t take much notice of but it actually tells us volumes, and establishes volumes for the characters. It’s actually a very important and very beautiful scene in every way.
Holly climbs out onto the fire escape to get away from a drunk man being overly aggressive. She’s running from her problems. Note the bars. Holly has said she doesn’t want to be in a cage. But as Paul establishes at the end of the film, her current life has put her in that cage. She’s going up to see Paul, whom she feels safe with.
She climbs the fire escape and sees Paul asleep in his bedroom. Note that she could have dressed differently and gone down the fire escape. It’s an early clue that she is forming an attachment to Paul. Then she sees that 2E is with him and that she is leaving money on the table. Commonality is established between Paul and Holly–leaving money on the table is a classic characteristic of high end sex work.
Holly enters the room and the journey begins
With 2E safely gone, Holly enters Paul’s bedroom. Note the distinct bar pattern on the curtains. Edwards subliminally reminds us she’s in her cage but it also symbolically shows that Holly can come out of her cage for a real life with Paul.
Paul is startled, as anyone would be and he’s anxious that 2E might still be there. He doesn’t want her to see him with another woman in his bedroom who is only wearing a bathrobe. A crash from Holly’s apartment established urgency and Holly is allowed to enter. He can’t just shush her away because of the danger. It gets her in the room and it’s brilliant.
Holly and Paul become more comfortable with each other
Edwards establishes early on that there is instant comfort and chemistry between the two of them. Holly tells Paul he is “sweet,” establishing that there is potential here for more than friendship. The third one is a big one. Holly then remarks that Paul looks like her brother Fred and asks if she can call him that. Paul replies “sure.” There is no one whom Holly cares about in a real way other than her brother. It’s telegraphing to the audience that Holly has brought Paul in very close. She’s connecting him to something very close and real to her. Throughout the movie, the only time Holly is her real self is when she is with Paul.
Holly notices the $300 2E has left for him. Holly comments “$300. She’s very generous.” Edwards cuts to the next shot, where Holly is telling Paul she understands and he shouldn’t be offended. Notice the bars on the left half of the screen where Holly is. She’s talking about what she does, and Edwards tells the audience she is back in the cage of her own making.
Things get intimate without being overtly sexual
Holly lies in front of Paul on the bed and tells him about her future dreams. It’s subliminally speaking volumes to the audience. She’s letting Paul see the real Holly. Sharing very intimate personal things about yourself is something couples do in the early stages of romance. Could it be any more obvious this is where things are ultimately heading? Holly then asks if she can spend the night there, nothing funny “just friends, that’s all.” She joins Paul, he under the covers and her on top. But they are now in a very intimate semi-embrace. This, and they way they are looking at each other, screams at the audience that highly potential romance is in the air.
Subliminally, a potential bright, happy future is conveyed
Paul turns out the lights and Edwards begins a brilliant dissolve. We first see Holly in her cage, ending with her beside Paul outside the cage. It’s a brilliant tellegraphing that tells the audience she has a realistic chance of getting out of the cage she has made for herself and have a real life with Paul. Paul is looking towards the darkness, symbolizing the place in life each of them find themselves.
He looks to his right. As the moon light begins to come through the window and illuminate them in a beautiful, soft white light, Paul looks towards the window and into the light. Symbolizing that they can get out of the life they are in, go out through the window and into the beautiful, romantic light of the future together.
It’s a very soft and intimate scene. Very softly lit and photographed. Very soft speaking voices. Most people don’t notice it in their real lives, but when you’re with someone you are romantically interested in your voice (particularly women’s) gets much softer. The scene is about drawing them together and establishing very early on there is a very special connection between them.
And you thought it was a transitional scene that wasn’t saying very much about the characters, their current place in the story, their awakening romantic feelings, and a potential different future for both of them by coming together.
Scene 2: The ending of the movie
WARNING: Scene Spoiler. If you haven’t seen the movie, reading this will destroy the entire movie for you. Come back and read about this scene after you’ve seen it. The scene will lose all emotional impact for you if you read this part first.
Everyone who has seen it remembers the ending scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Endings are where resolution takes place. The resolution for the audience here is what they’ve wanted almost all the way through the movie: for Holly and Paul to be together and start a happy life.
Some may consider this to be two separate scenes: one in the taxi and a final end scene outside. It’s really all just one, because they flow together without a transition and you can’t have the one part without the other. Without the taxi “scene” you never get to the end scene.
Part 1: The Taxi
Holly still in her “cage”
We see Holly exiting jail the next morning. Notice that Edwards once again uses bars to telegraph that she is still in the cage of her own making.
She has a big hug for Paul, who is waiting with a taxi for them. This is a typical reaction for someone getting out of jail for the person picking them up.
For most of the rest of the movie, you can literally watch Holly’s face frame by frame, reading her exact emotion or thought, hiding or revealing her true feeling. Changes can happen within mere frames of each other and it is fascinating to watch. It’s all extremely important for setting up Holly’s giant transition at the end of the taxi sequence, and later as she looks to Paul for forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
Frame by Frame
Holly and Paul hug by the waiting taxi after Holly gets out of jail.
Holly has said that once she marries Jose she "will have diplomatic immunity, or something." Paul lets her know that a letter has come from Jose. Suddenly her whole demeanor changes. Her face shows that she intuitively knows what's in it.
She asks Paul to read the letter to her. Her voice tells us she's trying to appear unconcerned. She picks up a mirror to put on lipstick in order to keep herself distracted just enough to get through it. We notice that her hand is trembling while holding the mirror. This signals the audience that she is nervous that her suspicions are true about the letter.
Paul begins gently reading the letter to Holly.
Holly hears the beginning of the letter. The very tone distracts her from her mirror. She realizes that this is indeed not going well.
Holly is then stunned to hear the actual words "how different you are from the manner of woman a man of my position could hope to make his wife." Jose says that he has his family and name to protect, and that he is a coward for dumping her. She knows her intuition was correct, but she wasn't expecting all this. We see that the words have struck deep into her self image. Almost as if she's thinking "is this the way all these rich men see me, or will in the future?"
As Paul finishes the letter, Holly wraps herself very tightly in her coat. Edwards subliminally tells us she is doing this because she is now vulnerable, and the tightness of the coat helps bolster her. Symbolically, it's almost as if the coat serves as a tight hug to comfort her. She's trying not to let it show, and it tells us a lot about her.
Paul: "At least he says he's a coward." Holly: "Alright he's not a rat, or even a super rat, but Gggolly!" Holly rarely shows strong emotions, but this is something that must be let out. It's not just that she's failed, it's also about the blow to her self esteem she has just taken. We use anger to shut out pain.
She continues "Geeze, Damn!" We can see the pain on her face. She's failed again. She was so close this time to getting out. The hands on her face are a sign of shame, and the open fingers aren't coincidental. Here again, Edwards is symbolizing Holly in her cage in her deepest moment of despair, looking out through the bars. She's trapped in there, though she doesn't comprehend that she is in a cage of her own making just yet.
She turns her head away. This is a sign of embarrassment. She's embarrassed by both her reaction and that Paul has seen all of this. It's yet another clue, though we hardly need more by this point, that Holly holds Paul in a special place. We're particularly embarrassed when the people we care most about see it.
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Frame by Frame: Facial expressions and body language
You can often tell so much about what a character is really feeling and doing by their facial expressions and body language. Holly can say one thing, but throughout the rest of the cab ride her face and body language tell us everything we really need to know. You can literally click though several frames (or less) at a time and watch these changes happen. You can see what exact word was said or spoken that causes a change–and know what the change is saying. It’s a fascinating exercise, and I’m not even covering one quarter of the content here.
The scene continues. After getting over her catharsis, Holly summons the courage to tell the driver to still take her to Idlewylde Airport.
Holly starts applying makeup to distract her just enough from Paul to convince herself this is what she wants to do. Because she really doesn't know. Throughout the movie, we have consistently seen Holly run away from her problems, and she falls back on that now. Very determined and calm, she says she's going to be on that plane and that Paul shouldn't think she's chasing Jose. As far as she's concerned "he's the future President of nowhere. Only why should I waste a perfectly plane ticket?"
"Besides, I've never been to Brazil before." She appears hard, but not rigid. She avoids looking at Paul because she knows that in her weakened state she might equivocate. Note the way he looks at her after all this.
Holly sees Paul's reaction. She turns her head away and down while also closing her eyes. For the rest of the movie, whenever she's unsure, or feels bad about what she has said, or feels bad for hurting Paul, she makes this move. It's in these moments that we see what is really going on inside Holly's mind. One of those things is that she's denying to herself that she has feelings for Paul. But inside her head she knows exactly how she feels.
"I'm going and that's the way it's going to be." Between the times we see her like this and the times we see her turning away, looking down, or closing her eyes, we can tell that when she's talking like this she's putting up a front.
She continues to look forward. Determined, or at least she's feigning that. She grabs the handle on the door subconsciously to give her strength. Then she turns to Paul.
Look at her eyes. She slyly looks at Paul and tells him that when he get's back to his office he should make a list of the fifty richest men in Brazil for her.
With a fire in her eye, Holly says "The fifty RICHEST." She's trying to convince herself too, not just Paul. She feels that all she has to do is get through this one cab ride and everything will be alright.
But she can't look at him and closes her eyes immediately. She knows if she looks at him when she is vulnerable like this that Paul might talk her out of it. Sticking to the plan to marry a rich man is what Holly is using to get through her pain. She wants the hard determination to mask over her pain. She had come to believe that she was going to have a normal, happy marriage to Jose. But that has come crashing down. It's why she's so hurt right now and she's trying everything she can to blot that out.
Paul is becoming worn down. But he tells Holly he's not going to let her do this.
She still can't look at him. She keeps her eyes closed the whole time. She hardens and says "you're not going to let me?"
Paul tells Holly he loves her. She still looks away, with her eyes closed. She knows if she looks at him she might soften. She replies "so what?" Paul tells her he doesn't want to put her in a cage, he just wants to love her.
Finally Holly softens just a bit. You can read it on her face. But she still looks away with her eyes closed and says "it's the same thing"
Paul keeps talking. When he says her name she jumps and says "stop calling me that. I'm not Holly! I'm not Lulu Mae either!" When we get to this frame, she ends with "I don't know who I am." That look on her face says everything. She's completely exposed and raw now. She's been trying to fight that off but she's been failing the whole time. Through this whole sequence, we've seen that time and again.
But she's still fighting it. She says "I'm just like cat here. We're a couple of no name slobs. We don't belong to anybody and nobody belongs to us." She tells the cab to pull over and she pushes cat out, shooing him away. She's doing this to convince herself that she doesn't have feelings for anyone--because she knows that she does and feels it holding her back. She's getting rid of all emotional attachments. Paul thinks if she's willing to throw Cat away just like that, then she can do the same to him.
Look at the faces. Paul can't believe what she's just done. Holly's face is hard, but she's also looking down. She doesn't want to have to look at him.
Paul has reached his breaking point. He tells the driver to pull over. Holly has been distracted by her cigarette.
Look at both their faces. For Paul it's disappointment. Holly's eyes pop open the second she sees that $10 bill. Her face is hard.
Holly wasn't expecting this. Paul was her last link and the one she cares the most about. It's gone now. Looking down, eyes closed, with a emotionally pained expression on her face. She's thinking to herself that she's ruined everything now. He's given up on her.
In just two or three frames, she takes what she thinks is one last look at the only man she has ever cared about in a romantic way.
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Part Two: The ending
All through the movie, we have heard Holly say she is a free spirit and a wild thing. She repeatedly says she’s not going to let anyone put her in a cage. Throughout the movie, Blake Edwards has placed cage imagery around Holly. We saw a demonstration of that in the Scene 1 discussion of this article. It’s been a subliminal way that Edwards has hinted that Holly is already in a cage.
Throughout this scene, Paul and Holly have also been in a cage of sorts. They’re in the taxi. Neither one can just jump out on impulse. In that cage, they are forced to look at each other and make an assessment. Where am I going? Who am I going there with? The cab is a cage for Holly in particular. Already vulnerable, she is forced to decide who she is, and realizes that she doesn’t know. She’s always ran before. But now she can’t because she is essentially trapped in that taxi. All of her self imagery is slowly stripped away in those few minutes. When Paul has the taxi pull over it’s the end of the line for him. He escapes the cage and makes the move towards a new life.
Holly hadn’t expected it to end this way. Now completely vulnerable, she has one last choice to make.
Frame by Frame: Transition
Paul makes his final confrontation with Holly. "You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness."
Paul continues "You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself."
"And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run,"
"you just end up running into yourself."
While Paul digs in his pocket, Holly takes another look at him.
Paul looks at the box containing the Cracker Jack ring they had engraved at Tiffany's. Holly once again looks down and closes her eyes, not wanting Paul to catch her looking. Another classic signal that someone cares about the other.
Now that he's looking again, Holly has returned to the act that she has been playing of appearing hardened. Paul tells her "Here" and tosses the box into her lap. "I've been carrying this around for weeks. I don't want it anymore." He slams the door and walks back toward where Cat had been left.
This now becomes Holly's transitional moment. The pained look on her face tells you everything you need to know. She's deeply wounded and for the first time has been confronted with herself and realized exactly what she has become.
As she looks at the ring her emotions begin to build up. The symbol of unity, Paul has tossed that away, symbolically ending his unity with Holly.
She thinks "he's the only one who wants "me" the others only want "Holly"
With the ring fully on her finger, her union with Paul is complete.
She takes this moment in. It's a new world she's entering.
She takes a very hard look back towards where Paul went. She's made up her mind.
She has to get out of the cab and catch him.
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Frame by Frame: Resolution
Holly steps out into the same driving rain as Paul did. It's not a coincidence that it's raining. It's a choice. You couldn't possibly rely on the weather to produce rain on que.
It was an artistic choice made by Blake Edwards. Just like the ring, it's symbolism. The rain symbolizes purification and renewal. They're both being washed clean of their pasts.
Holly finds Paul back at the alley where she left Cat. By looking for Cat, it turns out Paul didn't quite shut the door on Holly afterall.
The moment someone offers themself to another and faces the possibility of rejection. She plays it beautifully and almost entirely with her face.
Acceptance. The face says it all. Throughout the entire end scene, Edwards is showing us rather than telling us. It let's the audience take it in for themselves and feel smart that they figured it out, rather than a long Hollywood monologue explaining everything as it happens. It adds to the power of the end of the movie.
Holly begins looking for Cat as Paul looks on. He's taking in the transformed Holly who is suddenly allowing herself to show great caring. Letting her go alone while Paul watches from a distance accentuates that.
Holly is someone who has always hidden her true feelings, especially about caring for others.
Again, just by reading her face and the timbre of her voice, we see that she has completely shed her former self.
Looking for Cat was a brilliant way to demonstrate this.
Unable to find Cat, Holly looks back towards Paul.
Paul also shows concern Not just about finding Cat, but about how Holly is going to take all this.
She hears Cat meow and becomes overjoyed. It's another demonstration of how she's changed herself when confronted with a choice.
It's also practically the first time we see her in a truly caring moment.
By wrapping Cat in her coat, Edwards is telegraphing something else to us. Nurturing, and yes even maternal instincts. It's a way of telling the audience she and Paul are going to be okay in every way.
She approaches Paul.
Holly looks to Paul for final acceptance. We can see she is going to get it.
She looks at him, in this completely vulnerable state.
waiting for an answer.
As she becomes more and more vulnerable
Paul reaches out his arms to take her.
It's slow played just enough. We can really take in the moment and Edwards allows the anticipation to build--providing a much more powerful satisfying experience...
...when they finally get the big, romantic kiss.
Edwards pulls back, both to allow them their moment and...
transitioning the audience to the conclusion.
As the kiss lasts and lasts, the final strains of the very appropriate lyrics of "Moon River" play out in a soft women's chorus. "Two drifters, off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. We're after the same rainbows end. Waiting 'round the bend. My Huckleberry friend. Moon River, and me. Holly and Paul have made it. They're going to go out into the world and live the happy ending.
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It’s one of the most beautiful endings in movie history and has contributed greatly to the love people have for Breakfast at Tiffany’s to this day. For me, it’s in my top five deeply loved movies along with An Officer and a Gentleman, Silver Linings Playbook and The Graduate. See a pattern there?
One thing that should strike you as you work through this article is that there is so much going on that you only receive subconsciously as you watch the movie. You should get a feeling that “this is hard work.” And it is. It’s hard creating an artistic endeavor. Every tiny detail has to be considered and the absolute correct choice must be made each time. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those magical unions where Director, Actor and Writer all come together in perfect collaborative harmony. But it’s a damn hard job for everyone.
It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
You can rent Breakfast at Tiffany’s on these streaming services:
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By Bill Grinnell
Bachelor's Degrees in Drama and History from the University of Washington in 1997. 144 credits in Drama and 90 in History with a 3.45 gpa.
