I actually liked The English Patient, even though it was rather long. However the only part which I actually hated, and will fast forward through it if I see the movie again, is where David Caravaggio (played by Willem Dafoe) is about to get his thumbs cut off and he's screaming and crying. It's extremely painful and upsetting to hear. And they don't even show anything.
shareI agree that scene was horrible but honestly I found his character very creepy the whole time.
shareI remember the first time I saw the movie. It was a weekend night and it came on tv, (I was just a kid in elementary school when the film first came out, so never got to see it till years later), but yes that scene was so painful that I changed the channel the first time I saw it. The way he was trembling in fear and screaming and crying as they tortured him really got to me...I couldn't watch because of a profound sense of empathy (a testament to the brilliance of the scene and acting). It made me feel so sad for his character.
shareI actually think it helped do an effective job of illustrating the situation without going into a gruesome detail as possible to help us understand somewhat Caravaggio's position. It actually reminds me of Jose Ferrer's scene in Lawrence of Arabia in terms of palpable escalating tension that ends with horrible things about to happen, though they eventually actually do begin but are mostly done off screen. (Though the somewhat similar situations in a broad sense is probably what leads me to thinking of that scene in specific) The fact that it gets such a visceral reaction in my opinion just shows that they did a good job at what they were trying to accomplish.
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