I’m trying to compile a list of movies with longish silent scenes — not atmospheric mood passages but scenes in which important story information is conveyed. No music, no dialogue, no urgent cutting — no prompts of any kind to tell the viewer that they need to pay attention. Prime examples are the cropduster sequence in North by Northwest, which uses music only at the very end, and the photography in the park scene in Blow-Up, in which the only thing you hear is the wind in the trees and bushes and the shutter-click of David Hemmings‘ Hasselblad. I’m just trying to get my brain working. There must be at least a short list of these scenes. The basic compositional tendency of the last 30-plus years, of course, is to assume that audiences are ADD-afflicted and to constantly goose and prod them into paying attention to this or that.