“So Long…” animated GIF by aforgrave, from The Princess Bride 600px at 32 colours,
This is one of my favourite moments from Rob Reiner’s classic, The Princess Bride, released in 1987. It comes right at the end, in an incredibly touching scene, when the Grandfather (wonderfully played by the late Peter Falk), uncomfortable with what to say as he is leaving, fumbles to make sure he has everything (is he checking for his glasses?) before departing. In the end, he just throws up his arm, already looking away, and says, “So long.”
What doesn’t show in the GIF is what comes immediately after, where, at the door, he pauses as his grandson (Fred Savage), initially dis-interested his grandfather at the beginning of the film, stops him to say, “Grandfather, you could come back, and read it to me again, sometime, if you want.”
The grandfather’s final words, so telling after we’ve just seen the story, are priceless.
“As you wish …”
I GIFfed this over a month ago, originally intending it to be part of a larger series of GIFs from the film. That will still happen, at some point, but other GIFs came along in the interim as a result.
However, this was one of the first GIFs I worked at reducing in size through the use of a mask. The file size, at 32 colours, when saved at 280 pixels wide, is on the order of 450 KB. This one, at 600 pixels wide, is larger. While the number of frames is high, that is intentional because each one highlights a decision point in Peter Falk’s movements — leaving out any one would make his movements seem less detailed, less absent-minded than he intended. About the only thing better than seeing this as a GIF, is seeing the actual clip, with his, ongoing utterances “alright, …. okay ……, alright, ….. okay, ….. so long…”
So good.
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