Top 10 Swimming Pool Scenes in Movies

I turn on my computer this morning, after two days of detox, and the first thing I read is that yesterday was International Kissing Day. Or was it the day before yesterday? Conflicting news. The second thing I see when I open Facebook it's a slew of more or less amateur shots of my social friends on holiday paradises or sipping drinks by the pool. Passed the initial envy (yes, I have finally given me four days of sea, without separate me from my beloved Mac, of course) these two elements, the kiss and the pool, they put in motion the mechanisms of my brain, a little ankylosed by the rhythms of the Emerald Coast, making me rethink at the "best pool moments" in movies, those that have become emblematic. For many directors the pool was more than just a location: it was the first actress that allocated the lead role; it became an icon, a symbol of the possibilities of the place, the oasis of rebirth or the escape bubble from problems. Many crucial roles remained etched in our minds that we want to propose you in our top 10 of pool moments in movies:

 

# 1 - SOMEWHERE

Sofia Coppola, you know, always hits the target, but with the scene of Underwater Tea Party she reaches the pinnacle of beauty among all pools moments. Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, father and daughter for fiction, are the protagonists of children's play and the cuteness of the moment, a magical frame that represents the awakening of his father-actor from an anesthetized existence, stuck in time thanks to memorable ‘I'll try anything at once’ by The Strokes, who helped to make, that of Somewhere, one of our favorite soundtracks ever.

# 2 - ROMEO + JULIET


The love story par excellence reinterpreted by amazing Baz Lurhman has made us relive the Shakespearean myth of love, making us fall in love with the young Leo, destined to become our iconic guy in the 90s (see the next year with the release of Titanic). The pool here is the place of purity and transport, the secret place of the two young people of opposing factions whose destinies alas we know exactly where to turn aside.

# 3 - RUSHMORE 


Obsessive attention to detail, color palette and an unforgettable tenderness stolen from children's fairy tales: the characters of Wes Anderson are wonderful creatures, surreal but incredibly concrete, first of all, the figure of the steel magnate in Rushmore. Max Fisher aka Bill Murray (as one of Wes’ favorite present in almost all of his screenplays) embodies the frustration of modern man, with a wife who no longer he loves and children without brain. Climax of its status is the pool scene in which, he slowly throws, one after the other, the golf balls in the water; he doesn’t care about not hitting bystanders, even when, swallowed a glass of whiskey, takes a running start and dives from the springboard with tsunami effect, to go to find the total insulation below the water surface.

# 4 - THE GREAT GATSBY 


Okay okay, that we like Leo is not a mystery. The fact is that the more years pass more his performances improve (although still no Oscar awards for him) and most we enjoy his films. The Great Gatsby has made ​​headlines for the past year for various reasons (the costumes, the scenery, the amazing soundtrack and, of course, the performers); here we present a character quietly passed and yet with a significant role: the swimming pool. We do not talk about her in the dramatic final scene, with our hero mortally wounded, but at the most exhilarating moment of the film: the first party chez Gatsby. A turbillon of Charleston clothes, glitter and sequins, champagne glasses and tails, breathtaking beauty and 20s mustaches, puppets that, intoxicated with alcohol and music, are cavorting on a stage that rises directly from the indoor pool at the château.

# 5 - SUNSET BLVD 


One of the great classics of American cinema, opens with the corpse of the main character, Joe Gillis, which floats on the surface of the water in a swimming pool in a villa on Sunset Boulevard - Los Angeles. The pool as a crime scene, like a silent witness in a noir that is a long flashback relived in the first person by the character we meet the first time when he’s prone on the surface of the water, in the opening scene.

# 6 - BATHING BEAUTY 


With this pool moment let's jump back to 1944. How can we forget the star of the underwater musicals Esther Williams? Which child couldn’t stand as hypnotized in front of the graceful elegance of these figures who spent most of their time with their heads under water yet with a dazzling smile always on their face? Well I did, hence the need to bring this pool (emblematic of all the olympic used as locations in Williams’ movies), a place populated by faeries, mermaids-women and femmes fatales who wanted to seduce, succeeding very well, the double-breasted viewer.

# 7 - THE GRADUATE 


Reams and reams of paper have been filled with brainy paragraphs trying to investigate the significance of Ben’s pool. The pool as a mother's womb, the air mattress as a raft, as a vehicle for landing to adulthood. The moment of reflection of the protagonist is the moment of suspension of the narrative and the bittersweet waiting for us, when we lull before being catapulted into the adventures with the Robinson family, led by the unforgettable soundtrack by Simon & Garfunkel.

# 8 - WATER LILIES

French film (Naissance des pieuvres the original title) sees the synchronized swimming once again as the protagonist. This time, however, the the fantastic and sweetened vision that we find with Esther Williams and his Bathing Beauty gives way to the drama of a teenage unrequited love between Marie and beautiful Floriane. Just to be near her, Marie follows all the workouts of the friend and the pool becomes the scene of the birth of a new friendship, not without its côtés noirs.

# 9 - SCARFACE


Stone and De Palma could not be missing in our top 10, especially with the frame of the pool of the Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami (the one chosen for other famous American movies). Tony Montana has just landed in the U.S., has not yet become a gangster and here for you the cathartic scene in which he observes Manny’s (unsuccessful) attempts at seduction by the pool.

# 10 – LA PISCINE


Impossible not to include it in our top 10, La Piscine by Jacques Deray caught the imagination of our mothers, our grandmothers, and, let's face it, even us. Not so much for the tangle film and the couple exchanges (monogamy forevah girls, right?) But rather for the unique Alain Delon, whose charm resist even now  that he’s 79. If you have not yet seen it, the problem need to be addressed immediately and, unless you have a pool nearby, go find this French pearl and taste it, as soon as possible.