November 25, 2014

10 best movie ice sculptures (real and fake) of all time, part two

updated 7/16/23 and 7/18/23 with formatting, links, and seo, mostly

#1-#5 of the best movie ice sculptures of all time!

Did you miss part one of this list? Well, then go back to numbers 6 through 10 and see what you’ve missed before checking out the top 5!

#5: My Best Friend’s Wedding

My Best Friend’s Wedding takes a popular misunderstanding about ice and ice sculptures and turns it into a gag. The movie features a backside shot of an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s “David.” One of the bridesmaids has managed to get her tongue stuck to an intimate part of the sculpture.

There’s definitely some suspension of disbelief going on here as the sculpture is fully tempered and it would be impossible for her tongue to get stuck. Still funny, however, in a crude humor sort of way. Once again, though, the ice is out in full sunlight. The ice sculptor would have probably have had a fit in real life. And where did she plug in that unnecessary hairdryer?

My Best friend’s Wedding domestic gross: $127.12 million
released 1997
positive Rotten Tomatoes ranking: 71%
who did the ice sculpture?: so far unknown
why this sculpture made the list: gag based on the ice sculpture

Zucker Brothers Productions / Via bellecs.tumblr.com

#4: Citizen Kane

In my Q&A on jobstr.com, I’m asked if a particular movie is the ice sculptor’s version of Citizen Kane, since it incorporates ice sculptures into the movie. My reply is that actually, Citizen Kane could be seen as our Citizen Kane, since it has three ice sculptures in it. Two of the sculptures are remarkably well done face sculptures. The other sculpture has a newspaper frozen into it.

All three of the ice sculptures in the movie are well ahead of their time, as was the movie. Notice that the movie gets an amazing 100% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie has long been regarded as one of the best movies ever made and it’s pretty cool that there are some well done ice sculptures in it. It’s also the only entry on this list that’s old enough to be in black and white. If you’ve never seen it, you should definitely check it out, even if you already know who Rosebud is.

Citizen Kane domestic gross: $1.6 million
released in 1941
positive Rotten Tomatoes ranking: 100%
who carved the ice sculptures: In Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane: A Casebook, Orson Welles indicates that they “got them from the Brown Derby or someplace like that.” (page 47) And several duplicates might well have been required as he also says that it took 5 days to shoot the sequence that includes the sculptures.
why this ice made the list: legendary classic movie, two fantastic portrait bust sculptures and one fairly innovative one (Freeze-ins weren’t completely new, but they were surely unusual.)

Here’s how trailers used to be, apparently. No chance of catching a glimpse of an ice sculpture in this one. They’ve certainly changed for the better.y

classic ice in a classic movie

A quick look at the ice sculptures in Citizen Kane.

impressive portrait busts with props in Citizen Kane (1941)

an unusual freeze-in ice sculpture in Citizen Kane. Keep in mind also that doing freeze-ins in can ice would be quite a bit harder than in a Clinebell ice block machine.

#3: Frozen

At least one of the movies listed so far uses fake ice sculptures. Frozen uses fake everything, but the ice is faked especially well. Elsa’s ice castle is particularly amazing; it’s like the Brices had unlimited ice, time, and money and then absolutely went nuts.

Unfortunately, the ice portrayal stumbles very slightly later with an important ice sculpture. But that’s easily forgotten; not only has this movie incorporated ice sculpture as a major element, it’s also inspired a LOT of real-world ice sculptures. It’s also the closest thing to an ice sculpture musical that I’m aware of. I know they did the musical, but I missed my chance to see it in Nola and they didn’t respond to my suggestion that they have an actual ice sculpture at the opening 😞

Frozen domestic gross: $400.738 million
released 2013
positive Rotten Tomatoes ranking: 89%
who carved the ice: n/a, cgi
why this ice made the list: The movie features an iceman, an ice queen, and a snowman as main characters and almost all the computer generated ice is done extremely well.

Can’t really post the whole movie here, but here’s a scene with the ice castle:

And here’s a REALLY closeup look at goofy Olaf, who’s now a popular subject for sculpting.

You get a taste of the great computer ice very early in the movie. And they do a nice job of portraying an ice block harvest, the way it used to happen all the time, before artificial refrigeration. There’s a minor goof or two, but mostly it’s good. (You’ll probably have to click through to YouTube to see it, due to content ownership.)

Frozen, overall, does ice VERY well. But there are some goofs. One guy went to the trouble of compiling a list of 33 mistakes of all kinds in the movie. (below) Regarding ice, check out mistakes 1 and 18. Also, take a look at #31. (Why so BLUE, Anna?) See if you see right away what’s wrong in that last one and it’s not the mistake that’s listed in the video. And you can prove how smart (or dumb) you are by commenting below!

#2: Groundhog Day

The “particular movie” that I mentioned when talking about Citizen Kane earlier is this movie: Groundhog Day. In it, Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors, has a lot of spare time on his hands and one of the things that he decides to take up is ice sculpting. He actually uses a Makita chainsaw and a chisel in this movie to do a bit of carving and it’s clear that it’s not a double. (See the video.)

Phil also creates a face ice sculpture, although you might argue it’s a molded snow sculpture (or possibly not even frozen water), in a very important part of the movie. But real life ice sculptor Randy Rupert gets credit for carving the angel sculpture that Phil uses the chainsaw and chisel on.

Groundhog Day domestic gross: $70.91 million
released 1993
positive Rotten Tomatoes ranking: 97%
who carved the ice?: expert ice and wood sculptor Randy Rupert
why this ice made the list: ice sculpting is important to the story; the main character actually does a little bit of real carving (on the base of the sculpture)

also (although this is likely fake ice/snow):

just how long would it take?

At one point, I wondered how long it would have taken Phil to learn to carve at a Randy Rupert level. Of course, somebody tried to figure the whole thing out. For the ice sculpting, they decided it would take around seven years (the ice sculpting starts at 5:26), which is probably reasonable, as long as he has some talent. It might be less, though, if he were to try carving that one sculpture over and over again. Incidentally, he has no need for safety equipment. If he kills himself, no biggie!

#1: Edward Scissorhands

Yes, the big angel ice sculpture in Edward Scissorhands is fake. Very fake. And so are the ones at the end of the movie, mostly. However, if you look very closely, you can see Edward “carving” away at some real ice in the closing scenes. You can even see the stacking lines of the ice blocks. So Edward Scissorhands does incorporate real ice sculpting…barely.

More than that though, Edward Scissorhands is pretty much a modern fairytale/romantic tragedy about an ice sculptor that manages to weave together threads of Frankenstein and Pinocchio. And the ice sculpting is absolutely vital to this movie. The movie couldn’t be the same without the ice sculptures.

Since so many things in Hollywood are complete fabrication, I can’t keep Edward’s ice off the top of this list when it has ice sculptures so deeply and cleverly woven into the fabric of the story. In Frozen, snowfall is simply magical powers gone amuck. With Edward, snowfall becomes an ice sculpted expression of deep sadness and a love lost.

Edward Scissorhands domestic gross: $56.36 million
released 1990
positive Rotten Tomatoes ranking: 91%
who carved the ice?: Most of the ice is fake, but there is that last little bit of ice that needed a carver. I need to verify who did that part.
why this ice made the list: No other movie that I’m aware of ties ice sculpting into the story so tightly and thought provokingly.

the ice angel:

This video explains one of the fairytale aspects of the story and is a bit of a spoiler 😱 but you get a good look at the end scene ice sculptures. Notice the real ice in the middle, complete with can ice blocks and easy to see stacking lines.

what's on your list of the best movie ice sculptures?

I hope you found my list to be well thought out, informative, and entertaining. In closing, I’d like to add a couple of things. First, I’m very interested in giving credit where credit is due. If you have any inside info on these sculptures, and especially if you know who carved them, please say something!

Second, like most things on ice sculpting secrets, this article is a work-in-progress. If I have my way, this list will grow and/or change over time. Certainly, there will be new ice sculptures in new movies that merit inclusion. I may have already missed one or two as it is! You can help me out by commenting and telling me what you know. The only bad comments are hate-mongering, personal attacks, and obvious spam; those will be deleted. Legitimately critical comments are quite acceptable. Thanks for reading!

additional notes

Again, this entry contains quotes, videos, and photos from the works in question. I do not hold any copyright claim to these materials and they’re used under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. Code, title 17, section 107, where use of limited portions of copyrighted works is allowed for the purposes of criticism and comment, as well as other purposes. In no way do the creators or copyright holders of these works endorse or associate themselves with my stupid comments 😜