If you put a gun to my head and asked me what my favourite film of all time was then the answer would probably be 12 Angry Men. It's one of those films that I could just watch over and over again while it's also incredibly well-made. Shockingly, I've watched very few of director Sidney Lumet's other films and that's one mistake I've been able to correct with the help of this project. This post will look over the two Oscar-nominated films that he directed in the 1970s.
One of the things that makes 12 Angry Men so effective is that it's almost entirely set in the jury room and I felt the same way about Dog Day Afternoon. Though it's not restricted to one setting, Dog Day Afternoon is almost wholly set in and around a bank that is being robbed. The film begins with Sal and Sonny robbing a bank and attempting to commit the crime without being caught. Things soon go awry when they discover that there's hardly any money left in the bank and instead decides to steal a bunch of traveller's cheques. However, as Sonny tries to burn off the bank's register on the cheques, smoke starts to billow from the bank which in turn alerts locals that something's not right at the bank. Soon the pair are discovered and the police descend on the bank and, as they attempt to diffuse the situation, we learn more about our central pair. As Sonny is the man that the police are in constant contact with, he comes out of the bank on several occasions to talk to Detective Moretti, the policeman in charge of handling the hostage situation. Sonny soon becomes a local hero as he is attempting to stand up for the common man. Sonny later becomes a gay icon as we discover he married a man in a secret ceremony and has robbed the bank in order to pay for his wife Leon's sexual reassignment surgery. However, Leon is less than thrilled with this revelation and it seems as if he's been trying to escape Sonny for years. Meanwhile, the more menacing Sal is getting increasingly agitated as he doesn't really care for Sonny's flamboyance and his need to be a friend to all of their hostages. Soon, the stage is set for the final act in which Sonny and Sal attempt to escape, while the police endeavour to stop them.
I found Dog Day Afternoon to be a slow burning story that took its time to develop. It was only after Moretti and his team arrived that I really started to get involved in the film. Lumet and writer Frank Piersen create an intriguing anti-hero in Sonny, a character who we begin to learn more of once the hostage situation is in full swing. Throughout the film our perception of Sonny changes as we learn that, in an odd sort of way, he's trying to do the best for everyone. The character of Sal is more interesting, as we have to make our own minds up about him, and he really isn't as in your face as Sonny is. The pairing of Al Pacino and John Cazale is a great one and their loud and calm double act contrasts their roles in The Godfather films. I found Pacino to be more captivating here than he was in The Godfather films and I found that the character of Sonny really tested him. Meanwhile Chris Sarandon was brilliant in his handful of scenes as Leon, the pre-op transsexual who wanted nothing to do with his new husband. The claustrophobic nature of the over-heated bank added to the tense feel of the film as Sonny started to lose his head. As I'd never seen the film before, I have to admit that the final sequence had me on the edge of my seat. I felt that Dog Day Afternoon perfectly enforced my views that Lumet is an assured director who gets the best out of his actors and utilises his setting to full effect.
If I hadn't thought that already then I would've definitely to come that conclusion after watching Network. Of all of Lumet's films Network definitely did the best at the Oscars and Paddy Chayefsky's script is still widely regarded as one of the best of all time. Though I'd never seen Network before I was aware that it centred around Peter Finch's Howard Beale and the fact that he claimed he was going to commit suicide live on air. What I didn't realise was that the main story was a lot bigger than that and involved the UBS Network's head of programming Diana Christensen and her wish to put Beale back on the air after he becomes one of the biggest talking points in the country. Christensen is portrayed as a woman who puts her career before anything else and can't seem to sustain a relationship with anyone. Even her affair with the married former head of news Max Schumacher doesn't satisfy her and he eventually tries to act as the voice of reason in the film. Meanwhile Beale's power over the masses has no ends and he soon attempts to block a merger between UPS' owner CCA and Saudi Arabians. Obviously the CCA aren't happy about this and attempt to put end to Beale once and for all. But, as Network shows us throughout, people are guided by television and trust it more than they do the people in their own lives.
Coming into Network, I was expecting it to all revolve around Peter Finch as Howard Beale, but I was wrong. Even though Finch rightfully won the Best Actor Oscar, I would've said he was more of a supporting performer while William Holden was the real star of the show. Holden's Schumacher is the wise old sage of the film and he is the only person who doesn't always think about what's best for ratings. Chayefsky's satirical look at the world of television is incredibly witty and the dialogue is written with a sort of beat at the heart of it. Finch is utterly spellbinding as the crazy Beale while Faye Dunaway puts in an Oscar-winning performance as Diana. I found Dunaway to be great here also, playing the strong woman in a man's world she was almost the tragic heroine of the piece as she discovered that she couldn't be anything other than her job. Robert Duvall as the company' money man and Ned Beatty as CCA's chairman both put in great supporting turns with the latter really playing the film's version of the devil incarnate. In fact, the only cast member not to make much of an impression was Beatrice Straight, odd seeing as she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the film. Straight does hold the record for appearing on screen for the shortest time. Network continues Lumet's love of filming inside a certain location, with the UPS network buildings housing the majority of the film. Once again these buildings feel quite claustrophobic as they contain rooms full of people talking about meaningless statistics and programme concepts. Overall, I found Network to be a more wholly enjoyable film than Dog Day Afternoon even if it wasn't as intriguing or gripping. Network, and in particular its script, has influenced a whole generation of directors and screenwriters, many of whom have mocked the industry in which they made their name. Though Network is an incredibly influential film, it still holds up today in its own right and I do think people should seek it out if they haven't already seen it.
Next time we take things a bit easier with a lightweight comedy about the afterlife.
Friday 20 September 2013
Friday 13 September 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 231: Boxing Clever
So far in the 1970s we've seen a lot of worthy winners of the Best Picture accolade - The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Godfather films. However, not all Best Picture winners can meet the lofty heights of these cinematic masterpieces. A case in point is the next film on the list - Rocky, which is often regarded as one of the films that shouldn't have won the award. I've personally viewed Rocky as a sports movie but boxing does play a very small part in the first part of the franchise.
Like with Star Wars, I feel that Rocky is sometimes judged a series of films rather than just one alone. While the sequels had a sort of camp value to them, the first Rocky film has a simple story and a good heart. Though I'm guessing most of you would've seen the film, the Rocky of the title is Sylvester Stallone's debt collector and amateur boxer Rocky Balboa. The majority of the movie is based on the current state of Rocky's life as he is kicked out of the gym he's trained at for years and chastised by his boss for being too kind. Indeed, Rocky's one pleasure life is going to his local pet store mainly because he's in love with shop assistant Adrian, the timid sister of Rocky's best friend Paulie. Rocky' life changes after world champion Apollo Creed selects Rocky to be his opponent in a special match, following the injury of Apollo's top title contender. While Apollo views the bout as nothing more than a show, Rocky treats it as a fight and trains the hardest he's ever trained. At the same time, Rocky and Adrian grow closer and I feel that the film is just as much a love story as it is a film about boxing.
It's fair to say that the most memorable scenes from Rocky are the ones involving the boxing match and Rocky's training for it. We remember his punching of the meat and his running up down the steps as well as the iconic 'Gonna Fly Now', which was nominated for Best Original song. What we don't recall is that the majority of the film is simply about Rocky going about his daily life and trying to make something of himself. His courtship with Adrian are some of the film's most compelling scenes as Rocky explains how he came to be a boxer in the first place. Though he probably lost sight of the character in later films, Sylvester Stallone really made Rocky a sympathetic character who you wanted to follow. Stallone's script was simplistic but at the same time believable and I never felt bored. All in all the film received four acting nominations for Stallone alongside Burgess Meredith as long-in-the-tooth coach Mickey and Burt Young as Paulie. For me though the best performance came from Talia Shire who transformed from meek wallflower into Rocky's gorgeous girlfriend. While I liked the film, I can't really say it was a masterpiece and it didn't really feel like a film that deserved winning Best Picture. Ultimately Rocky is a great character study with some memorable set pieces and fine performances which makes it more than just a sports movie. But you'll just have to wait and see to find out who I thought should have won Best Picture at the 1977 ceremony.
Next time a double bill of films from the director of one of my favourite films of all time.
Like with Star Wars, I feel that Rocky is sometimes judged a series of films rather than just one alone. While the sequels had a sort of camp value to them, the first Rocky film has a simple story and a good heart. Though I'm guessing most of you would've seen the film, the Rocky of the title is Sylvester Stallone's debt collector and amateur boxer Rocky Balboa. The majority of the movie is based on the current state of Rocky's life as he is kicked out of the gym he's trained at for years and chastised by his boss for being too kind. Indeed, Rocky's one pleasure life is going to his local pet store mainly because he's in love with shop assistant Adrian, the timid sister of Rocky's best friend Paulie. Rocky' life changes after world champion Apollo Creed selects Rocky to be his opponent in a special match, following the injury of Apollo's top title contender. While Apollo views the bout as nothing more than a show, Rocky treats it as a fight and trains the hardest he's ever trained. At the same time, Rocky and Adrian grow closer and I feel that the film is just as much a love story as it is a film about boxing.
It's fair to say that the most memorable scenes from Rocky are the ones involving the boxing match and Rocky's training for it. We remember his punching of the meat and his running up down the steps as well as the iconic 'Gonna Fly Now', which was nominated for Best Original song. What we don't recall is that the majority of the film is simply about Rocky going about his daily life and trying to make something of himself. His courtship with Adrian are some of the film's most compelling scenes as Rocky explains how he came to be a boxer in the first place. Though he probably lost sight of the character in later films, Sylvester Stallone really made Rocky a sympathetic character who you wanted to follow. Stallone's script was simplistic but at the same time believable and I never felt bored. All in all the film received four acting nominations for Stallone alongside Burgess Meredith as long-in-the-tooth coach Mickey and Burt Young as Paulie. For me though the best performance came from Talia Shire who transformed from meek wallflower into Rocky's gorgeous girlfriend. While I liked the film, I can't really say it was a masterpiece and it didn't really feel like a film that deserved winning Best Picture. Ultimately Rocky is a great character study with some memorable set pieces and fine performances which makes it more than just a sports movie. But you'll just have to wait and see to find out who I thought should have won Best Picture at the 1977 ceremony.
Next time a double bill of films from the director of one of my favourite films of all time.
Thursday 12 September 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 229-230: The Rise of the Summer Blockbuster
Throughout my reviews of 1970s films I've noted how many of the stars and directors would go on to change the cinematic landscape. One such film-maker was Steven Spielberg who, in 1975, essentially created the summer blockbuster. At the time Spielberg had only directed one cinematic feature, The Sugarland Express, and so nobody expected his film about a shark to be particularly historical. But, by putting the film out over the summer, traditionally the time in which studios dumped their less-appealing films, Spielberg capitalised on a new market. His film went on to become the most successful film of all time, for at least two years, and essentially created what we know today as the summer blockbuster.
That film was of course Jaws, adapted from the book by Peter Benchley, and focusing on a shark which threatens the residents of the close-nit Amity Island. Amity's Chief of Police Martin Brody is the first to identify a shark attack after a young girl is killed. But the island's mayor is keen not to close the beach as summer season is on its way. The mayor also clashes with Brody, who was once a cop in the big city, as he doesn't think he understands island life. Following another death by shark, Brody calls in marine biologist Matt Hooper who is able to identify the type of shark the islanders should be looking for. With summer trade at its busiest, the shark strikes again and it's only then that the mayor instructs Brody to hunt down the animal. Brody hires old sea dog Quint and he and Hooper join him on the hunt for the shark. Obviously the search is hard and the mismatched trio don't always live harmoniously together. Indeed Quint's old-fashioned mentality and Hooper's gadgetry aren't best suited to one another while Brody's hatred of the water doesn't exactly make him the ideal candidate to look for a shark.
One of the joys of watching Jaws is the simplicity of the story and the way in which the shark is introduced through the trickery of the screen. Indeed, it is John Williams' score that created the iconic shark and every time those notes are played you know the threat is imminent. Spielberg's high-concept plot meant that audiences didn't have to think too much about what was going on and instead enjoyed the first real summer blockbuster. However, Jaws isn't a blockbuster in the way we know today and isn't chocked full of special effects and wafer-thin characters. The story was the most important thing for Spielberg, who hired many people to edit Benchley's original script, and he wanted the first two thirds of the story to build up to the three men in a boat adventure. I found this build-up to be incredibly masterfully produced with the islanders willing to ignore the threat of the shark until it was right there in front of them. As Brody, Roy Scheider provided the world-weariness of a man who just wanted to do the right thing and was thwarted at every corner. The then unknown Richard Dreyfuss was a ball-of-energy as the enigmatic Hooper and was the perfect antidote to Robert Shaw's cantankerous Quint. Jaws is primarily a film about three men at different stages in their life who just happen to be chasing a man-eating shark. Jaws definitely still looks as good today as it did when it was released and it proves that most blockbusters just need a good story and an effective way to signify the main villain.
John Williams was back two years later signifying the main villain in another summer blockbuster, which overtook Jaws as the most successful film of all time. That film was Star Wars, a movie that has become incredibly famous to the extent where I feel I don't really need to review it. This is because that everybody has their own memory of when they first watched Star Wars and for me it was watching the trilogy back-to-back just before The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. Though I've caught it on the TV in the following years, this was my chance to watch it through a film graduate's eyes and change some of my memories of the film. It's actually quite hard to write about Star Wars without hurting someone's feelings but the first thing I should say is that it's not that spectacular. I feel when people reminisce about Star Wars they're thinking about the whole trilogy but judging the first film by itself is a lot different. Obviously the film is made great by the special effects, which at the time were ground-breaking, and there's no denying that watching someone pull out a lightsaber for the first time is a truly magical experience. Similarly characters like Chewbacca or Darth Vader just didn't exist in normal mainstream cinema back then and I feel that audiences would've been intrigued by their presence. Obviously John Williams reserves some credit for the aforementioned score which instantly brings back memories of both the film's opening and Darth Vader's legendary strut down the death star.
Director George Lucas was really able to create an incredible universe of characters, planets and spaceships with the mythology of the Star Wars universe seeming vast and mysterious. At the same time the characters of Luke, Leia and Han feel fairly simplistic while the central plot is incredibly basic. However, Lucas was lucky with his choice of actors all of whom share great chemistry. Harrison Ford was an inspired choice to play the swaggering Han Solo and he was totally believable as a gambling drunk. Wide-eyed Mark Hammil perfectly encapsulated the innocent Luke while Carrie Fisher combined sexiness with strength to play Leia who could easily hold her own amongst the boys. Bringing gravitas to proceedings was Alec Guinness as Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi though his casting was mainly to appease the studio heads who didn't like the fact he was casting unknowns. Acting and visuals aside; my 2013 viewing experience of Star Wars was pleasant enough but it didn't blow me away. I can understand how audiences at the time would've been dazzled by everything they saw on screen but today I feel that Star Wars, if judged as a film on its own, is nothing more than an entertaining two hour romp. A while back I had an argument with a friend who was trying to explain to me why Star Wars should have won Best Picture over the film that eventually triumphed. His argument was based on the film's legacy but, at the time, there was no legacy to speak off and the Academy purely had to go on the quality of the overall film. It seemed the Oscars did acknowledge the film's main strengths and gave it six awards mainly in the sound, visual effects and art direction categories. However, I would argue that the film itself isn't exactly a masterpiece even if it influenced hundreds of sci-fi films that would come after it.
Next up we get into the ring with a contender that became a Best Picture Winner.
That film was of course Jaws, adapted from the book by Peter Benchley, and focusing on a shark which threatens the residents of the close-nit Amity Island. Amity's Chief of Police Martin Brody is the first to identify a shark attack after a young girl is killed. But the island's mayor is keen not to close the beach as summer season is on its way. The mayor also clashes with Brody, who was once a cop in the big city, as he doesn't think he understands island life. Following another death by shark, Brody calls in marine biologist Matt Hooper who is able to identify the type of shark the islanders should be looking for. With summer trade at its busiest, the shark strikes again and it's only then that the mayor instructs Brody to hunt down the animal. Brody hires old sea dog Quint and he and Hooper join him on the hunt for the shark. Obviously the search is hard and the mismatched trio don't always live harmoniously together. Indeed Quint's old-fashioned mentality and Hooper's gadgetry aren't best suited to one another while Brody's hatred of the water doesn't exactly make him the ideal candidate to look for a shark.
One of the joys of watching Jaws is the simplicity of the story and the way in which the shark is introduced through the trickery of the screen. Indeed, it is John Williams' score that created the iconic shark and every time those notes are played you know the threat is imminent. Spielberg's high-concept plot meant that audiences didn't have to think too much about what was going on and instead enjoyed the first real summer blockbuster. However, Jaws isn't a blockbuster in the way we know today and isn't chocked full of special effects and wafer-thin characters. The story was the most important thing for Spielberg, who hired many people to edit Benchley's original script, and he wanted the first two thirds of the story to build up to the three men in a boat adventure. I found this build-up to be incredibly masterfully produced with the islanders willing to ignore the threat of the shark until it was right there in front of them. As Brody, Roy Scheider provided the world-weariness of a man who just wanted to do the right thing and was thwarted at every corner. The then unknown Richard Dreyfuss was a ball-of-energy as the enigmatic Hooper and was the perfect antidote to Robert Shaw's cantankerous Quint. Jaws is primarily a film about three men at different stages in their life who just happen to be chasing a man-eating shark. Jaws definitely still looks as good today as it did when it was released and it proves that most blockbusters just need a good story and an effective way to signify the main villain.
John Williams was back two years later signifying the main villain in another summer blockbuster, which overtook Jaws as the most successful film of all time. That film was Star Wars, a movie that has become incredibly famous to the extent where I feel I don't really need to review it. This is because that everybody has their own memory of when they first watched Star Wars and for me it was watching the trilogy back-to-back just before The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. Though I've caught it on the TV in the following years, this was my chance to watch it through a film graduate's eyes and change some of my memories of the film. It's actually quite hard to write about Star Wars without hurting someone's feelings but the first thing I should say is that it's not that spectacular. I feel when people reminisce about Star Wars they're thinking about the whole trilogy but judging the first film by itself is a lot different. Obviously the film is made great by the special effects, which at the time were ground-breaking, and there's no denying that watching someone pull out a lightsaber for the first time is a truly magical experience. Similarly characters like Chewbacca or Darth Vader just didn't exist in normal mainstream cinema back then and I feel that audiences would've been intrigued by their presence. Obviously John Williams reserves some credit for the aforementioned score which instantly brings back memories of both the film's opening and Darth Vader's legendary strut down the death star.
Director George Lucas was really able to create an incredible universe of characters, planets and spaceships with the mythology of the Star Wars universe seeming vast and mysterious. At the same time the characters of Luke, Leia and Han feel fairly simplistic while the central plot is incredibly basic. However, Lucas was lucky with his choice of actors all of whom share great chemistry. Harrison Ford was an inspired choice to play the swaggering Han Solo and he was totally believable as a gambling drunk. Wide-eyed Mark Hammil perfectly encapsulated the innocent Luke while Carrie Fisher combined sexiness with strength to play Leia who could easily hold her own amongst the boys. Bringing gravitas to proceedings was Alec Guinness as Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi though his casting was mainly to appease the studio heads who didn't like the fact he was casting unknowns. Acting and visuals aside; my 2013 viewing experience of Star Wars was pleasant enough but it didn't blow me away. I can understand how audiences at the time would've been dazzled by everything they saw on screen but today I feel that Star Wars, if judged as a film on its own, is nothing more than an entertaining two hour romp. A while back I had an argument with a friend who was trying to explain to me why Star Wars should have won Best Picture over the film that eventually triumphed. His argument was based on the film's legacy but, at the time, there was no legacy to speak off and the Academy purely had to go on the quality of the overall film. It seemed the Oscars did acknowledge the film's main strengths and gave it six awards mainly in the sound, visual effects and art direction categories. However, I would argue that the film itself isn't exactly a masterpiece even if it influenced hundreds of sci-fi films that would come after it.
Next up we get into the ring with a contender that became a Best Picture Winner.
Monday 19 August 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 228: The Ladies in Red
It's a real rarity to see films not in the English language being nominated for Best Picture, as they're usually confined to their own specific category. Indeed, the last subtitled film I watched for this project was La Grand Illusion back in the 1930s. During the 1970s ceremonies three European films were nominated for Best Picture however, due to access issues, I've only been able to watch one of the trio.
That film is Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, a film with an incredibly unique style and a very unusual narrative. I felt watching Cries and Whispers fairly refreshing, especially after my last two films were 'issue-based' mainstream American movies. This film sees sisters Karin and Maria return home to be with their sibling Agnes, who is dying of cancer. However, due to their own emotional issues, neither sister wants to be too close to Agnes as they're worried about their own mortality. It is only maid Anna who will allow herself to get close to Agnes and there is an insinuation made that the two have had some sort of lesbian relationship in the past. Meanwhile, Anna herself is coping with the grief of losing her own daughter some years previously. While at the house, both sisters have to deal with their own issues as the image-obsessed Maria worries about growing old and the emotionless Karin has to mutilate her own body in order to avoid being touched by her husband. The film amps up the oddness in its final chapter by having Agnes return from the dead to confront her sisters who both finally leave the cold and desolate mansion behind them.
The mansion almost becomes a character itself as its cold, emotionless rooms hang heavy over the lives of the three sisters and Anna. My abiding memory of the movie has to be the colour red which covers every wall of the house while the colour is also used to fade in and out of the main characters' flashbacks. The four central performances were all brilliant with my favourite being that of Kari Sylwan as religious maid Anna who was dealing with some unresolved feelings towards Agnes. Bergman's direction was a joy to watch as he took the viewer on a sometimes uncomfortable journey to explore the true emotions of Karin and Maria. Karin's story in particular was a hard watch, especially that mutilation scene, but Ingrid Thulin was believable in the role of this woman who hated to be touched. Liv Ullman gave a good turn as the more glamorous sister, but at the same time she gave us a look at how her actions have had an impact on those around her. The film was nominated for five Oscars including nods for the film itself and Bergman's direction; while Sven Nykvist successfully won an award for his cinematography. Overall, while never a film you can particularly enjoy, Cries and Whispers is still a film that you need to watch if only to see the way that the cinematic art can be used to provoke a lot of different emotions.
Up next we return to America for two films that changed the landscape of cinema due to their broad appeal to the masses.
That film is Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, a film with an incredibly unique style and a very unusual narrative. I felt watching Cries and Whispers fairly refreshing, especially after my last two films were 'issue-based' mainstream American movies. This film sees sisters Karin and Maria return home to be with their sibling Agnes, who is dying of cancer. However, due to their own emotional issues, neither sister wants to be too close to Agnes as they're worried about their own mortality. It is only maid Anna who will allow herself to get close to Agnes and there is an insinuation made that the two have had some sort of lesbian relationship in the past. Meanwhile, Anna herself is coping with the grief of losing her own daughter some years previously. While at the house, both sisters have to deal with their own issues as the image-obsessed Maria worries about growing old and the emotionless Karin has to mutilate her own body in order to avoid being touched by her husband. The film amps up the oddness in its final chapter by having Agnes return from the dead to confront her sisters who both finally leave the cold and desolate mansion behind them.
The mansion almost becomes a character itself as its cold, emotionless rooms hang heavy over the lives of the three sisters and Anna. My abiding memory of the movie has to be the colour red which covers every wall of the house while the colour is also used to fade in and out of the main characters' flashbacks. The four central performances were all brilliant with my favourite being that of Kari Sylwan as religious maid Anna who was dealing with some unresolved feelings towards Agnes. Bergman's direction was a joy to watch as he took the viewer on a sometimes uncomfortable journey to explore the true emotions of Karin and Maria. Karin's story in particular was a hard watch, especially that mutilation scene, but Ingrid Thulin was believable in the role of this woman who hated to be touched. Liv Ullman gave a good turn as the more glamorous sister, but at the same time she gave us a look at how her actions have had an impact on those around her. The film was nominated for five Oscars including nods for the film itself and Bergman's direction; while Sven Nykvist successfully won an award for his cinematography. Overall, while never a film you can particularly enjoy, Cries and Whispers is still a film that you need to watch if only to see the way that the cinematic art can be used to provoke a lot of different emotions.
Up next we return to America for two films that changed the landscape of cinema due to their broad appeal to the masses.
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 226-227: Growing Quite Fonda Jane
Continuing our retrospective on stars who have more than one film nominated for Oscar in the 1970s, we come to one Jane Fonda. Jane, daughter of Henry Fonda, had come to prominence in the 1960s and at the 1972 Oscar Ceremony won her first Best Actress Oscar for playing a high-class call girl in the movie Klute. By the late 1970s, a period in which both these nominated films were released, Fonda was only making films relating to serious issues and here we saw her try to evade the Nazis and care for soldiers who'd be wounded in Vietnam. It was interesting for me to go back and watch these films as I'm only aware of Fonda through her exercise videos and her comeback in ropey movies such as Monster-in-Law and Georgia Rule. What I found was an actress who gave extremely big performances that weren't necessarily suitable for the roles she was playing.
First up we have Fonda portraying playwright Lillian Hellman, in a film based on a chapter in the author's book Pentimento, in which we see her tortured relationship with childhood friend and titular character Julia. The film sees Lillian and Julia take different paths in life with the latter journeying to Vienna to complete a medical degree while the former attempting to write a play at the same time as living with famed author Dashiell Hammett. After serving some time in Europe, Julia become involved in the battle against the Nazis and is injured in a blast at an apartment building. Lillian, having arrived in Paris, attempts to make contact with her friend but finds the task difficult. Eventually, Lillian hears from Julia, who wants to meet her in Berlin and asks for her help carrying an item across the border. The two eventually meet in a cafe, however their meeting is tense due to Lillian's nervousness surrounding the mission she's been given. Lillian later discovers Julia has had a daughter and sets out to find the child in order to give it a better home.
Interestingly the story of Julia is one that has been criticised as pure fiction and many have claimed that Hellman never had a childhood friend nor did she have to endure the tricky ride from Paris to Berlin that she did here. I found the majority of the film to be fairly melodramatic and lacking in any really compelling form of storytelling. I thought that Fonda's performance as Lillian was completely over-the-top and I didn't really find her that believable, or indeed likeable. I found that the scene on the train took far too long and I was really bored by the time that Lillian had to execute the mission she has been given. When she was on screen, I felt that Vanessa Redgrave's Julia was the complete antithesis of Fonda's character in that she was calm and reasonable. In fact I would've liked to have seen a lot more from Julia, though in fact Redgrave only appears in a handful of scenes which is a shame. I'm surprised then to learn that Redgrave won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Julia, as she didn't make much of an impression on me at all. Similarly Jason Robards, as Hammett, won the Best Supporting Actor award with his role being confined to a couple of scenes in which he attempted to calm down the hysterical Lillian. What I did enjoy was the style of the whole piece, it was well-shot and Georges Delerue's score was fairly memorable. The problem was that the lead character was neither that compelling nor particularly likeable and part of me would attribute that to the fact that director Fred Zinneman felt utter hatred towards Hellman by the end of their working relationship together. One fun Oscar-related fact is that Julia saw the film debut of a woman by the name of Meryl Streep, who we'll be talking a lot more about from here on in.
One year later, Fonda starred in Coming Home a film in which she played Sally Hyde, loyal wife to Marine Captain Bob. As Bob journeys to Vietnam, Sally changes aspects about her life - she buys a new car, stops straightening her hair and gets a new apartment near the beach. Sally also starts working as a volunteer at the VA Hospital where she meets an old school acquaintance in Luke Martin, who lost the use of his legs in Vietnam. Luke has since become a depressive who lashes out at everyone around him, but Sally's presence in his life sees him being lifted from his depression. As their relationship grows, Sally and Luke find themselves attracted to one another but Sally is forced to meet up with Bob in Hong Kong. However, on her return, she finds out that Luke has been released from hospital and now has his own apartment. But the death of one of the hospital's patients has a profound effect on Luke who decides to start protesting the war. Sally tries to stand by him, but Bob's return from the war sees her torn between the men in her life.
I have to say I really enjoyed Coming Home however, once again, I felt that Jane Fonda overplayed her role as Sally, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar at that year's ceremony. In fact, her performance was really the only negative in a film that had a lot to say about the Vietnam War and why people were protesting it. While Hal Ashby's political views were somewhat overtly portrayed, I never found the film to be particularly preachy and the fact that the film's hero was incredibly flawed was a good move. Best Actor winner Jon Voight was absolutely excellent in his role as the depressive Luke with the actor successfully portraying Luke's transition from angry cripple to inspiring public speaker. The supporting performances were equally as good with Bruce Dern giving a great turn as Bob, the archetypal military man and the complete opposite of Luke. I also enjoyed Penelope Milford as Sally's friend Vi, who was portrayed as a freeing influence on Sally but at the same time had moments of drama due to her brother's death. One of the reviews I read of Coming Home said that the soundtrack was overly explicit, but I personally felt every track added to the mood of the film. From 'Hey Jude' and 'Ruby Tuesday' to 'Born to Be Wild' and the excellent 'Just Like a Woman' this was a bumper collection of 1960s rock classics and I enjoyed every one of them. On the whole Hal Ashby's film had a lot of great moments, performances and songs but again was let down by an OTT performance from Fonda.
After watching these two films, I have to say I'm not overly taken by Fonda's style, but at the same time I feel it's quite harsh to judge an actress by two films alone. Fonda will pop up again in the 1980s and I'm willing to give her acting another chance but these two films led be to believe that her acting style was often melodramatic and didn't really lend itself to the tone of the film in which she appeared.
Up next we journey abroad to watch an alternative style of film to the mainstream American movies we've been watching up to this point.
First up we have Fonda portraying playwright Lillian Hellman, in a film based on a chapter in the author's book Pentimento, in which we see her tortured relationship with childhood friend and titular character Julia. The film sees Lillian and Julia take different paths in life with the latter journeying to Vienna to complete a medical degree while the former attempting to write a play at the same time as living with famed author Dashiell Hammett. After serving some time in Europe, Julia become involved in the battle against the Nazis and is injured in a blast at an apartment building. Lillian, having arrived in Paris, attempts to make contact with her friend but finds the task difficult. Eventually, Lillian hears from Julia, who wants to meet her in Berlin and asks for her help carrying an item across the border. The two eventually meet in a cafe, however their meeting is tense due to Lillian's nervousness surrounding the mission she's been given. Lillian later discovers Julia has had a daughter and sets out to find the child in order to give it a better home.
Interestingly the story of Julia is one that has been criticised as pure fiction and many have claimed that Hellman never had a childhood friend nor did she have to endure the tricky ride from Paris to Berlin that she did here. I found the majority of the film to be fairly melodramatic and lacking in any really compelling form of storytelling. I thought that Fonda's performance as Lillian was completely over-the-top and I didn't really find her that believable, or indeed likeable. I found that the scene on the train took far too long and I was really bored by the time that Lillian had to execute the mission she has been given. When she was on screen, I felt that Vanessa Redgrave's Julia was the complete antithesis of Fonda's character in that she was calm and reasonable. In fact I would've liked to have seen a lot more from Julia, though in fact Redgrave only appears in a handful of scenes which is a shame. I'm surprised then to learn that Redgrave won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Julia, as she didn't make much of an impression on me at all. Similarly Jason Robards, as Hammett, won the Best Supporting Actor award with his role being confined to a couple of scenes in which he attempted to calm down the hysterical Lillian. What I did enjoy was the style of the whole piece, it was well-shot and Georges Delerue's score was fairly memorable. The problem was that the lead character was neither that compelling nor particularly likeable and part of me would attribute that to the fact that director Fred Zinneman felt utter hatred towards Hellman by the end of their working relationship together. One fun Oscar-related fact is that Julia saw the film debut of a woman by the name of Meryl Streep, who we'll be talking a lot more about from here on in.
One year later, Fonda starred in Coming Home a film in which she played Sally Hyde, loyal wife to Marine Captain Bob. As Bob journeys to Vietnam, Sally changes aspects about her life - she buys a new car, stops straightening her hair and gets a new apartment near the beach. Sally also starts working as a volunteer at the VA Hospital where she meets an old school acquaintance in Luke Martin, who lost the use of his legs in Vietnam. Luke has since become a depressive who lashes out at everyone around him, but Sally's presence in his life sees him being lifted from his depression. As their relationship grows, Sally and Luke find themselves attracted to one another but Sally is forced to meet up with Bob in Hong Kong. However, on her return, she finds out that Luke has been released from hospital and now has his own apartment. But the death of one of the hospital's patients has a profound effect on Luke who decides to start protesting the war. Sally tries to stand by him, but Bob's return from the war sees her torn between the men in her life.
I have to say I really enjoyed Coming Home however, once again, I felt that Jane Fonda overplayed her role as Sally, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar at that year's ceremony. In fact, her performance was really the only negative in a film that had a lot to say about the Vietnam War and why people were protesting it. While Hal Ashby's political views were somewhat overtly portrayed, I never found the film to be particularly preachy and the fact that the film's hero was incredibly flawed was a good move. Best Actor winner Jon Voight was absolutely excellent in his role as the depressive Luke with the actor successfully portraying Luke's transition from angry cripple to inspiring public speaker. The supporting performances were equally as good with Bruce Dern giving a great turn as Bob, the archetypal military man and the complete opposite of Luke. I also enjoyed Penelope Milford as Sally's friend Vi, who was portrayed as a freeing influence on Sally but at the same time had moments of drama due to her brother's death. One of the reviews I read of Coming Home said that the soundtrack was overly explicit, but I personally felt every track added to the mood of the film. From 'Hey Jude' and 'Ruby Tuesday' to 'Born to Be Wild' and the excellent 'Just Like a Woman' this was a bumper collection of 1960s rock classics and I enjoyed every one of them. On the whole Hal Ashby's film had a lot of great moments, performances and songs but again was let down by an OTT performance from Fonda.
After watching these two films, I have to say I'm not overly taken by Fonda's style, but at the same time I feel it's quite harsh to judge an actress by two films alone. Fonda will pop up again in the 1980s and I'm willing to give her acting another chance but these two films led be to believe that her acting style was often melodramatic and didn't really lend itself to the tone of the film in which she appeared.
Up next we journey abroad to watch an alternative style of film to the mainstream American movies we've been watching up to this point.
Wednesday 14 August 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 223-225: The Jack Pack
It's a rare feat for an actor to win three Oscars in his lifetime and indeed only three men have accomplished this. One of these is Jack Nicholson who has two Best Actor wins under his belt and a third for Best Supporting Actor. Nicholson's rise to prominence really started with Easy Rider, for which he was nominated for a Supporting Actor Award, while the next year he starred in Five Easy Pieces - arguably his first memorable leading role. This post will look at the three Best Picture nominees that Nicholson starred in during the 1970s and each also saw him give an Oscar-nominated performance.
We'll start with Five Easy Pieces in which Nicholson plays oil worker Bobby Dupea who spends most of his free time with ditzy waitress girlfriend Rayette or drinking with best buddy Elton. Though Bobby is initially portrayed as a slacker, we later learn that he is a talented pianist and comes from a family of eccentric musicians. After learning that his father is incredibly ill, Bobby returns home and is forced to take Rayette with him after she threatens suicide. Feeling that Rayette is too common for his family, he leaves her in a nearby motel and journey's to his childhood home. Here he meets and falls in love with his brother Carl's fiancée Catherine, a young pianist who is wowed by Bobby's playing abilities. As time goes on, we begin to realise why Bobby left home in the first place and why he's never been back. The house is full of intellectuals and people who he feels talk a lot of nonsense. Meanwhile Bobby's father is incredibly ill and he's unsure whether or not he can actually be heard when he lays a few home truths to his dear old dad. Eventually, Rayette appears at the house and her arrival isn't welcomed by Bobby who is still intent on chasing Catherine. Like all three of the films in the post, Five Easy Pieces doesn't have a particularly happy ending as we get an ambiguous conclusion for Bobby.
Five Easy Pieces is the only one of the three Nicholson films in this post that I haven't previously seen. It definitely has the feel of an early 1970s experimental piece as the first thirty minutes passes without much incident. Instead all of the first third of the film is intent on presenting Bobby as sort of a working class man who loves bowling, drinking and having sex. It's only after the revelation of his musical ability that the film opens itself a bit more as we meet the quirky members of the Dupea family. The role of Bobby is perfect for Nicholson and sort of saw his transition from supporting player to leading man. He excels playing the quiet and brooding Bobby, who every so often snaps at those around him. Ultimately he is presented as a man who is unable to feel passionate about the music he plays or the people around him. Nicholson earned his first ever Best Actor nomination for his role in the film and I feel that it's more than deserved. For her portrayal of Rayette, Karen Black also received a Supporting Actress nod and again I really enjoyed her turn here. Rayette's unrefined persona was the complete antithesis of the characters that frequented Bobby's family home and this mismatch provided some of the film's best moments. Black made Rayette a memorable character and one who was much more than just a dumb bimbo. Unfortunately, the day I watched the film was the same day that Black tragically passed away which puts a downer on my whole memory of the film. Despite only being 96 minutes long, I did find that Five Easy Pieces dragged occasionally, most notably during Bobby and Rayette's journey to his family home where they pick up a couple of hitch-hikers. Overall though this was 1970s film-making at its most raw and was an interesting exploration of Nicholson's early acting career.
Four years later, Nicholson appeared in another Oscar-nominated film which arguably saw his transition from character actor to leading man. The film was Chinatown, a film noir set in the early 1930s and very reminiscent of movies such as Scarlet Street and Double Indemnity. Here Nicholson starred as Jake Gittes, a former cop turned private detective who is initially tasked with exploring the infidelity of Hollis Mulwray, chief engineer for the LA Department of Water and Power. Little does Gittes know that the woman who has paid him to investigate the case is not Mulwray's wife and he is soon being sued by his real wife Evelyn for deformation of character. Soon Hollis turns up dead and Evelyn asks him to investigate the murder while Evelyn's father Noah Cross, who was also Mulwray's business partner, doubles Evelyn's fee to get him to find Hollis' unnamed young lover. Gittes starts to see how the story of Mulwray and Cross plays into the drought that LA is currently experiencing and he starts to play a dangerous game with some very influential people. Though Gittes does solve the murder, not everybody comes out of the case and unscathed, meaning that we don't quite get our happy ending once again.
Similarly to Rebecca, I found the title of Chinatown fairly misleading as only really the final scenes of the movie take place in the district. What Chinatown did have was one of the best screenplays of all time, written by Robert Towne. Towne was originally asked to adapt The Great Gatsby, but declined the offer instead creating this original piece of great storytelling. Towne plays the audience perfectly as the pieces begin to fit together gradually building to that famous final scene in Chinatown. Oddly, it was director Roman Polanski who decided on the melancholy final scene with Towne wanting something a little bit more upbeat. Towne was rewarded for his work with a Best Screenplay Oscar, which was the only Oscar the film won. Nicholson's performance here was a lot more captivating as he played the smart, everyman who wanted to make it clear that he was just trying to earn an honest living. Nicholson initially plays Gittes as someone who doesn't let their emotions get in the way of the job, however gradually his feelings for Evelyn cloud his judgement. Faye Dunaway is perfectly cast as the classic noir heroine - a mixture of femme fatale and damsel in distress, who goes from being a fairly emotionless character to someone who acts in the heat of the moment in order to keep a loved one safe. John Huston adds fantastic support as the seedy Noah Cross while Jerry Goldsmith's score enhances the period vibe of the whole piece. I find it's a shame that Chinatown was nominated in such a strong year, as it does feel like a film that in any other year would be a Best Picture winner. Despite this the film has lived on due to the outstanding script and infamous scenes which mean that, unlike Gittes, we will never forget Chinatown.
Thankfully, Nicholson didn't have to wait long to win his first Best Actor Oscar, as the next year he starred in a film which became one of only three films to win the 'Big Five' Oscars. That film was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which went onto win Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Here, Nicholson stars as Randle McMurphy, a low-rent convict who has been serving time on a prison farm for statuary rape. McMurphy has been admitted to a mental asylum for evaluation, while he hopes that his time there will be an easy ride where he will avoid going back to prison. However, McMurphy didn't factor in the cold and calm Nurse Ratched, who runs the ward and who manages her patients through a strict diet of medication and humiliation. It's clear that Ratched doesn't like the affect that McMurphy has on the patients as he tries to lift their spirits by taking them on fishing trips and organising card games between them. After learning that he could be staying at the asylum longer than he first thought, McMurphy decides to escape however his attachment to one of his fellow patients means that he ends up making the ultimate sacrifice. This is the third film in a row not to have a happy ending for Nicholson's character, but at least the conclusion does provide a moment of hope for one of the asylum's long-term residents.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a film that has stayed with me for a long time and is one that I have written essays about in the past. I personally feel that this film is a masterpiece and perfectly combines well-rounded characters, a confined setting and a brilliant set of performances. Milos Forman's direction gives you a sense of place almost instantly as the white walls of the asylum gives you a real claustrophobic feel for this particular institution. The creepy music that plays during medication time and the awkward group sessions also stick in the mind and add to the feeling that this is a place of routine. Of the three films, Nicholson gives his biggest performance here as the slightly unhinged and worldly-wise McMurphy. Nicholson plays Randle as somebody whose personality is infectious and he's easily implanted as the leader of the group. Nicholson's Oscar was well-deserved especially in the latter scenes in which McMurphy chooses to stick up for young, nervous Billy rather than escaping from the asylum. Nurse Ratched, who I believe to be one of cinema's greatest villains, is beautifully written and expertly played by Louise Fletcher. What makes Ratched so chilling is that she never raises her voice and we know nothing of her apart from her job in the asylum. The film is fleshed out by a whole group of memorable supporting characters as all of the patients on the ward are given very different identities. Among the most famous are William Redfield's cultured Harding, Christopher Lloyd's deranged Taber and Danny DeVito's delusional Martini. Best of all is Brad Dourif as the tragic Billy, who was nominated but never won the Best Supporting Actor Award. If you've never seen One Flew, I can't recommend it enough and it really is film-making at its very best.
That isn't the end for Nicholson who'll pop up throughout the remaining decades, winning two more Oscars along the way. But next up is a focus on an actress who herself one two Oscars, both of them in the 1970s.
We'll start with Five Easy Pieces in which Nicholson plays oil worker Bobby Dupea who spends most of his free time with ditzy waitress girlfriend Rayette or drinking with best buddy Elton. Though Bobby is initially portrayed as a slacker, we later learn that he is a talented pianist and comes from a family of eccentric musicians. After learning that his father is incredibly ill, Bobby returns home and is forced to take Rayette with him after she threatens suicide. Feeling that Rayette is too common for his family, he leaves her in a nearby motel and journey's to his childhood home. Here he meets and falls in love with his brother Carl's fiancée Catherine, a young pianist who is wowed by Bobby's playing abilities. As time goes on, we begin to realise why Bobby left home in the first place and why he's never been back. The house is full of intellectuals and people who he feels talk a lot of nonsense. Meanwhile Bobby's father is incredibly ill and he's unsure whether or not he can actually be heard when he lays a few home truths to his dear old dad. Eventually, Rayette appears at the house and her arrival isn't welcomed by Bobby who is still intent on chasing Catherine. Like all three of the films in the post, Five Easy Pieces doesn't have a particularly happy ending as we get an ambiguous conclusion for Bobby.
Five Easy Pieces is the only one of the three Nicholson films in this post that I haven't previously seen. It definitely has the feel of an early 1970s experimental piece as the first thirty minutes passes without much incident. Instead all of the first third of the film is intent on presenting Bobby as sort of a working class man who loves bowling, drinking and having sex. It's only after the revelation of his musical ability that the film opens itself a bit more as we meet the quirky members of the Dupea family. The role of Bobby is perfect for Nicholson and sort of saw his transition from supporting player to leading man. He excels playing the quiet and brooding Bobby, who every so often snaps at those around him. Ultimately he is presented as a man who is unable to feel passionate about the music he plays or the people around him. Nicholson earned his first ever Best Actor nomination for his role in the film and I feel that it's more than deserved. For her portrayal of Rayette, Karen Black also received a Supporting Actress nod and again I really enjoyed her turn here. Rayette's unrefined persona was the complete antithesis of the characters that frequented Bobby's family home and this mismatch provided some of the film's best moments. Black made Rayette a memorable character and one who was much more than just a dumb bimbo. Unfortunately, the day I watched the film was the same day that Black tragically passed away which puts a downer on my whole memory of the film. Despite only being 96 minutes long, I did find that Five Easy Pieces dragged occasionally, most notably during Bobby and Rayette's journey to his family home where they pick up a couple of hitch-hikers. Overall though this was 1970s film-making at its most raw and was an interesting exploration of Nicholson's early acting career.
Four years later, Nicholson appeared in another Oscar-nominated film which arguably saw his transition from character actor to leading man. The film was Chinatown, a film noir set in the early 1930s and very reminiscent of movies such as Scarlet Street and Double Indemnity. Here Nicholson starred as Jake Gittes, a former cop turned private detective who is initially tasked with exploring the infidelity of Hollis Mulwray, chief engineer for the LA Department of Water and Power. Little does Gittes know that the woman who has paid him to investigate the case is not Mulwray's wife and he is soon being sued by his real wife Evelyn for deformation of character. Soon Hollis turns up dead and Evelyn asks him to investigate the murder while Evelyn's father Noah Cross, who was also Mulwray's business partner, doubles Evelyn's fee to get him to find Hollis' unnamed young lover. Gittes starts to see how the story of Mulwray and Cross plays into the drought that LA is currently experiencing and he starts to play a dangerous game with some very influential people. Though Gittes does solve the murder, not everybody comes out of the case and unscathed, meaning that we don't quite get our happy ending once again.
Similarly to Rebecca, I found the title of Chinatown fairly misleading as only really the final scenes of the movie take place in the district. What Chinatown did have was one of the best screenplays of all time, written by Robert Towne. Towne was originally asked to adapt The Great Gatsby, but declined the offer instead creating this original piece of great storytelling. Towne plays the audience perfectly as the pieces begin to fit together gradually building to that famous final scene in Chinatown. Oddly, it was director Roman Polanski who decided on the melancholy final scene with Towne wanting something a little bit more upbeat. Towne was rewarded for his work with a Best Screenplay Oscar, which was the only Oscar the film won. Nicholson's performance here was a lot more captivating as he played the smart, everyman who wanted to make it clear that he was just trying to earn an honest living. Nicholson initially plays Gittes as someone who doesn't let their emotions get in the way of the job, however gradually his feelings for Evelyn cloud his judgement. Faye Dunaway is perfectly cast as the classic noir heroine - a mixture of femme fatale and damsel in distress, who goes from being a fairly emotionless character to someone who acts in the heat of the moment in order to keep a loved one safe. John Huston adds fantastic support as the seedy Noah Cross while Jerry Goldsmith's score enhances the period vibe of the whole piece. I find it's a shame that Chinatown was nominated in such a strong year, as it does feel like a film that in any other year would be a Best Picture winner. Despite this the film has lived on due to the outstanding script and infamous scenes which mean that, unlike Gittes, we will never forget Chinatown.
Thankfully, Nicholson didn't have to wait long to win his first Best Actor Oscar, as the next year he starred in a film which became one of only three films to win the 'Big Five' Oscars. That film was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which went onto win Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Here, Nicholson stars as Randle McMurphy, a low-rent convict who has been serving time on a prison farm for statuary rape. McMurphy has been admitted to a mental asylum for evaluation, while he hopes that his time there will be an easy ride where he will avoid going back to prison. However, McMurphy didn't factor in the cold and calm Nurse Ratched, who runs the ward and who manages her patients through a strict diet of medication and humiliation. It's clear that Ratched doesn't like the affect that McMurphy has on the patients as he tries to lift their spirits by taking them on fishing trips and organising card games between them. After learning that he could be staying at the asylum longer than he first thought, McMurphy decides to escape however his attachment to one of his fellow patients means that he ends up making the ultimate sacrifice. This is the third film in a row not to have a happy ending for Nicholson's character, but at least the conclusion does provide a moment of hope for one of the asylum's long-term residents.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a film that has stayed with me for a long time and is one that I have written essays about in the past. I personally feel that this film is a masterpiece and perfectly combines well-rounded characters, a confined setting and a brilliant set of performances. Milos Forman's direction gives you a sense of place almost instantly as the white walls of the asylum gives you a real claustrophobic feel for this particular institution. The creepy music that plays during medication time and the awkward group sessions also stick in the mind and add to the feeling that this is a place of routine. Of the three films, Nicholson gives his biggest performance here as the slightly unhinged and worldly-wise McMurphy. Nicholson plays Randle as somebody whose personality is infectious and he's easily implanted as the leader of the group. Nicholson's Oscar was well-deserved especially in the latter scenes in which McMurphy chooses to stick up for young, nervous Billy rather than escaping from the asylum. Nurse Ratched, who I believe to be one of cinema's greatest villains, is beautifully written and expertly played by Louise Fletcher. What makes Ratched so chilling is that she never raises her voice and we know nothing of her apart from her job in the asylum. The film is fleshed out by a whole group of memorable supporting characters as all of the patients on the ward are given very different identities. Among the most famous are William Redfield's cultured Harding, Christopher Lloyd's deranged Taber and Danny DeVito's delusional Martini. Best of all is Brad Dourif as the tragic Billy, who was nominated but never won the Best Supporting Actor Award. If you've never seen One Flew, I can't recommend it enough and it really is film-making at its very best.
That isn't the end for Nicholson who'll pop up throughout the remaining decades, winning two more Oscars along the way. But next up is a focus on an actress who herself one two Oscars, both of them in the 1970s.
Wednesday 7 August 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 221-222: A Couple of Herbert's
In the days of five films being nominated for Best Picture, it was quite a rarity for two works by the same director to pop up in the category. One year where this did happen was 1978 where Herbert Ross' films The Goodbye Girl and The Turning Point were both nominated for Best Picture. Ross started off on the stage as both an actor and choreographer and these influences play into both of these films. As these films were nominated in the same year, I decided to tackle them alphabetically but chronologically they are in the reverse order so read the following post whichever you want.
I start with The Goodbye Girl, which was scripted by Neil Simon, a writer who Ross had previously worked with several times. The story concerns dancer and single mother Paula McFadden who is about to leave her New York apartment in order to join her married lover Tony in L.A. However, her plans are dashed when Tony changes his plans and Paula, along with her daughter Lucy, are stuck in an apartment which has already been subletted to Elliot - an actor friend of Tony's. Despite paying for the whole apartment, Elliot lets Paula and Lucy stay though they struggle to cope with his quirky behaviour. While Paula attempts to revive her dancing career, Elliot is cast in a production of Richard III however his director's vision for the character is vastly different from Elliot's. Predictably, Elliot and Paula become close as he becomes attached to Lucy, though she's less than happy to see her mother start another potentially disastrous relationship.
The Goodbye Girl is an interesting film and I personally feel that it influenced a lot of the romantic comedies that are released today. However, unlike most of those films, The Goodbye Girl is both romantic and funny though it does drag in some places. The film's main strength is definitely Richard Dreyfuss' performance who, as Elliot, really capitalises on his ability to use physical comedy. Dreyfuss' turn in the film rightfully won him a Best Actor prize and he became the youngest man to win the accolade until 2002. Neil Simon keeps the action ticking along nicely with both Elliot and Paula experiencing the highs and lows of being a performer in New York. Marsha Mason, who was nominated for Best Actress, plays her part well though did make it hard for me to like Paula at times. Though I feel her and Dreyfuss really played their scenes together well and made me believe in the burgeoning relationship. Watching in 2013, I found some of the set pieces incredibly cheesy; most notably Elliot attempting to have a chat with Lucy by hiring a horse-drawn carriage but I think at the time these would've been seen as a lot more adorable. Talking of adorable, I didn't really warm to Quinn Cummings as Lucy but I do find it hard to like a lot of child performers especially when the character in question acts like an adult. Ultimately The Goodbye Girl is an easy-to-watch film which didn't set my world alight but was charming and witty enough to fill up two hours of my time.
While there were some allusions made to how tough the world of ballet was in The Goodbye Girl, The Turning Point makes that point its key theme. The Turning Point stars Shirley MacLaine, as DeeDee a former professional dancer who left the ballet behind to raise a family with fellow dancer Wayne. The pair now co-own a studio together in Oklahoma and are delighted when their old friends from the American Ballet Company come to town. DeeDee is also reunited with her old friend Emma, who has stayed with the company and become one of the most renowned dancers in the country. Their reunion stirs up memories for both as DeeDee feels that Emma convinced her to have a family because she was a better dancer while Emma disagrees. Meanwhile, Emma encourages DeeDee's elder daughter Emilia to become a dancer herself and she joins the company and is paired with Russian dancer Yuri. Yuri and Emilia begin an affair however she later starts to get upset when she realises that he sleeps with other girls as well as her. DeeDee also embarks on an affair with an old friend, which angers Emilia who feels that her mother and father should remain faithful to one another. At the end of the film stars are made and others end their career but the ballet is always the most important thing to the majority of the characters.
Indeed, the ballet sequences are possibly the most memorable element of The Turning Point as Ross uses them to narrate his story. As someone whose personally not a big fan of the ballet, I felt these segments went a bit long but were necessary for the story to progress. I felt the film was at its strongest when either Emma or DeeDee were on screen as it's always a joy to see Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine in a film. Both were nominated for Best Actress and both nominations were more than deserved. MacLaine excelled at playing a woman who was unsure of her place in the world and regretted a lot of the decisions she'd made. Meanwhile Bancroft was great as the fading star, unsure of where her life would take her next and unable to cope with the changing face of her industry. Professional dancer Leslie Browne proved to be a fairly captivating presence as Emilia, an innocent who was thrust into the harsh world of dance and struggled to cope. Though Browne deserved her Best Supporting Actress nod, I don't think Mikhail Baryshnikov really deserved his nomination for Supporing Actor. Indeed, I feel Baryshnikov was nominated more for his outstanding dance skills than he was for his acting, which left a lot to be desired. The Turning Point was a stronger visual spectacle than The Goodbye Girl and therefore it was given a lot more nominations. In fact it holds the records for the film with the most nominations, including a director nod for Ross, without winning a single award. However, I feel that The Goodbye Girl had more heart and kept my attention while the extended ballet scenes in The Turning Point ruined the pace a little.
Overall I feel Ross is an under-rated director who really gets the best out of his actors and I'm really not sure why he's not a name that's as remembered as some other directors who were big in the 1970s. Next time I'll continue to look at another body of work this time by an actor who has amassed an impressive twelve acting nominations at the awards.
I start with The Goodbye Girl, which was scripted by Neil Simon, a writer who Ross had previously worked with several times. The story concerns dancer and single mother Paula McFadden who is about to leave her New York apartment in order to join her married lover Tony in L.A. However, her plans are dashed when Tony changes his plans and Paula, along with her daughter Lucy, are stuck in an apartment which has already been subletted to Elliot - an actor friend of Tony's. Despite paying for the whole apartment, Elliot lets Paula and Lucy stay though they struggle to cope with his quirky behaviour. While Paula attempts to revive her dancing career, Elliot is cast in a production of Richard III however his director's vision for the character is vastly different from Elliot's. Predictably, Elliot and Paula become close as he becomes attached to Lucy, though she's less than happy to see her mother start another potentially disastrous relationship.
The Goodbye Girl is an interesting film and I personally feel that it influenced a lot of the romantic comedies that are released today. However, unlike most of those films, The Goodbye Girl is both romantic and funny though it does drag in some places. The film's main strength is definitely Richard Dreyfuss' performance who, as Elliot, really capitalises on his ability to use physical comedy. Dreyfuss' turn in the film rightfully won him a Best Actor prize and he became the youngest man to win the accolade until 2002. Neil Simon keeps the action ticking along nicely with both Elliot and Paula experiencing the highs and lows of being a performer in New York. Marsha Mason, who was nominated for Best Actress, plays her part well though did make it hard for me to like Paula at times. Though I feel her and Dreyfuss really played their scenes together well and made me believe in the burgeoning relationship. Watching in 2013, I found some of the set pieces incredibly cheesy; most notably Elliot attempting to have a chat with Lucy by hiring a horse-drawn carriage but I think at the time these would've been seen as a lot more adorable. Talking of adorable, I didn't really warm to Quinn Cummings as Lucy but I do find it hard to like a lot of child performers especially when the character in question acts like an adult. Ultimately The Goodbye Girl is an easy-to-watch film which didn't set my world alight but was charming and witty enough to fill up two hours of my time.
While there were some allusions made to how tough the world of ballet was in The Goodbye Girl, The Turning Point makes that point its key theme. The Turning Point stars Shirley MacLaine, as DeeDee a former professional dancer who left the ballet behind to raise a family with fellow dancer Wayne. The pair now co-own a studio together in Oklahoma and are delighted when their old friends from the American Ballet Company come to town. DeeDee is also reunited with her old friend Emma, who has stayed with the company and become one of the most renowned dancers in the country. Their reunion stirs up memories for both as DeeDee feels that Emma convinced her to have a family because she was a better dancer while Emma disagrees. Meanwhile, Emma encourages DeeDee's elder daughter Emilia to become a dancer herself and she joins the company and is paired with Russian dancer Yuri. Yuri and Emilia begin an affair however she later starts to get upset when she realises that he sleeps with other girls as well as her. DeeDee also embarks on an affair with an old friend, which angers Emilia who feels that her mother and father should remain faithful to one another. At the end of the film stars are made and others end their career but the ballet is always the most important thing to the majority of the characters.
Indeed, the ballet sequences are possibly the most memorable element of The Turning Point as Ross uses them to narrate his story. As someone whose personally not a big fan of the ballet, I felt these segments went a bit long but were necessary for the story to progress. I felt the film was at its strongest when either Emma or DeeDee were on screen as it's always a joy to see Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine in a film. Both were nominated for Best Actress and both nominations were more than deserved. MacLaine excelled at playing a woman who was unsure of her place in the world and regretted a lot of the decisions she'd made. Meanwhile Bancroft was great as the fading star, unsure of where her life would take her next and unable to cope with the changing face of her industry. Professional dancer Leslie Browne proved to be a fairly captivating presence as Emilia, an innocent who was thrust into the harsh world of dance and struggled to cope. Though Browne deserved her Best Supporting Actress nod, I don't think Mikhail Baryshnikov really deserved his nomination for Supporing Actor. Indeed, I feel Baryshnikov was nominated more for his outstanding dance skills than he was for his acting, which left a lot to be desired. The Turning Point was a stronger visual spectacle than The Goodbye Girl and therefore it was given a lot more nominations. In fact it holds the records for the film with the most nominations, including a director nod for Ross, without winning a single award. However, I feel that The Goodbye Girl had more heart and kept my attention while the extended ballet scenes in The Turning Point ruined the pace a little.
Overall I feel Ross is an under-rated director who really gets the best out of his actors and I'm really not sure why he's not a name that's as remembered as some other directors who were big in the 1970s. Next time I'll continue to look at another body of work this time by an actor who has amassed an impressive twelve acting nominations at the awards.
Tuesday 6 August 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 220: Hard-Working Folk
The biopic has long been a favourite of Oscar and barely a year goes by without at least one true life story being nominated for Best Picture. Though this tradition started early, with Disraeli at the 3rd Oscar ceremony, I'd say that the 1970s really ushered in the generation of biopics which we'd recognise today. This is true of Bound for Glory which follows the journey of American folk singer Woody Guthrie from his humble beginnings in Oklahoma to his fight for equality in the workforce. I don't believe that Guthrie is as big a name in the UK as he is in the States and therefore I don't feel that the film evokes the same sort of feelings as it would for an American audience. The story itself sees Woody leave his family and go on the road to California to find a better life for himself, however he doesn't get off to a particularly good start when he stows away on a train only to be kicked off. Eventually he ends up in California and works as a fruit-picker and sign painter until his talent for singing and song writing is picked up by renowned local singer Ozark Bule. Bule secures Guthrie a gig at a local radio station in which his stirring anthems inspire low-paid workers to join unions, but at the same time Woody winds up the bosses who pay their workers very little. Woody's wife eventually joins him in California but is unhappy when he won't tow the line and regularly leaves her to spread the word elsewhere. Woody also irritates his boss when he continues to sing his protest songs which aren't loved by the new sponsors of the station. Eventually, Woody is recruited by a national station but he decides in the end to go out on his own and spread the word himself.
I really struggled to get into Bound for Glory and it took me a good 45 minutes before I was fully immersed in the story. The first half of the film, concerning Woody's life in Oklahoma and his journey to California, was meandering at best and was saved by some excellent cinematography. Indeed, cinematographer Haskell Wexler won the Oscar for Cinematography, partly due to the fact that was the first film ever to use Steadicam. This new invention was probably best utilised during the scenes on the train as Woody is forced to become a stowaway due to the fact he has no money. The second half of the film features the majority of the plot, including Woody's recruitment by the radio station and his attempts to rally the workforce to campaign for better money. The film's score, which also won an Oscar, and songs were its other big strength and some are still stuck in my head several days after watching the movie. I personally found David Carradine to be captivating in the lead role and he really carried the film during some of its slower moments. The rest of the cast did their jobs well with Ronny Cox being the perfect mentor to Carradine's wide-eyed novice. Overall this really is a film of two halves - one a meandering road trip and the other a biopic of a singer that really is a lot more famous in America than he is in the UK. But I can't say I didn't learn a lot from watching the film and I think that the biopic element of Bound for Glory definitely did its job.
Next time we have two films from a director who has been heavily influenced by his work in the theatre.
Monday 5 August 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 219: A Comic Affair
After several very male orientated films I felt it was time to readdress the balance with my next selection - A Touch of Class. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the 1974 ceremony while lead actress Glenda Jackson was nominated for playing divorced seamstress Vicky Allesio. Early on in the film Vicky runs into married American businessman Steve who lives in London along with his wife. Though there is chemistry between Vicky and Steve the pair refuse to act on their sexual attraction due to Steve's wife being local. They instead decide to journey to Spain together, a journey that is complicated from the get-go when Steve runs into a colleague. During their time in Spain, Vicky and Chris continue to row about his driving and her commentary on his love-making. Eventually they decide to end their affair early but, when Steve fails to make a reservation for the next plane home, the two resort to a passionate night in a local hotel. From there they really begin to make a go of things and, when they return to London, Vicky hires a little flat in a seedy part of the country. Here Steve is forced to split his time between his family and Vicky who is beginning to grow incredibly attached to her married lover and is upset whenever he fails to turn up to a planned rendezvous. However, their busy home and work life contributes to them having several arguments and ultimately leads to the end of a brief yet entertaining affair.
As a lot of you have followed my journey through the decades you'll know that I have a particular fondness for the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. I feel that A Touch of Class ushers in the natural progression of that genre as it continues the banter between the male and female protagonists while making the themes a little more risqué. Indeed, in one scene Steve attempts to angrily have sex with Vicky but can't unzip his flies leading her to utter the line 'the one chance I have to get raped and you can't undo your trousers.' Melvin Frank's script is at its peak during the scenes in Spain as both Steve and Vicky snap at each other with some really well-written barbs. But I personally felt that the film descended into melodrama once the pair returned to London to continue their affair in the dingy flat. However, these scenes did allow Glenda Jackson to display her brilliant range as she went from comedy to drama within a couple of minutes. Indeed Jackson's portrayal of Vicky's unhappiness as the other woman was a joy to watch as were her putdowns of the clumsy Steve. George Segal was definitely the weaker performer in the couple and his performance made me struggle to believe why Vicky would be attracted to Steve in the first place. Segal's strength did lie in his delivery and that's what made the knockabout humour so easy to enjoy. While A Touch of Class has its moments, namely Jackson's Oscar-winning performance, I found it to be a film of two halves. By the end I was willing Vicky and Steve to split up and wasn't really moved by their eventual break-up as I really thought she could do a lot better.
Next time we'll look at a biopic of one of America's greatest folk singers.
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 217-218: A Double Bill I Couldn't Refuse
Oscar has an uneasy relationship with the film sequel. Though there have been nominations for other entries into a franchise only two films that follow on from a feature have won the Best Picture award. The first of these is Return of the King, the third film in the Lord of the Rings saga, which arguably isn't a sequel because of the fact it comes later in the franchise. In fact the only proper sequel to win the prize is The Godfather Part II, a sequel that some feel is better than the original. In this post I will test that theory by looking at both films which launched many careers while at the same time becoming some people's favourite films of all time.
The first Godfather film introduces us to the Corleone family by way of a family wedding where sister Connie is getting married to Carlo Rizzi. The celebration is also traditionally where Connie's father Vito, known as the godfather, can answer any requests that are asked of him. Vito's youngest son Michael returns from the war to see his family first time and introduces Kay to the clan. Here we meet hot-headed older brother Sonny, dim-witted middle brother Fredo and adopted son and family advisor Tom Hagen. The Godfather is arguably about Michael's evolution from mild-mannered ex-soldier to eventual head of the crime family. Indeed, after Vito is shot and almost attacked in hospital, Michael feels he needs to avenge his father in some way so hits back at the family that attempted to assassinate him. When the hit goes down, Michael is shipped to Sicily while Fredo is despatched to Las Vegas. While in Sicily, Michael falls in love and marries a local girl, eventually finding a shred of happiness before the family catches up with him and his wife is killed by way of a car bomb. Returning to America, a harder Michael becomes Vito's right hand man and is eventually made the family's Don following Sonny's murder. Michael marries Kay and the two have a son together but the marriage is doomed right from the get-go due to Michael's change in attitude. Indeed the first film sees several hits arranged by Michael while he himself attends the Christening of Connie's youngest child.
The second Godfather film also opens with a religious ceremony as Michael's son Anthony has his first communion while the celebrations see a much-changed Connie who has now abandoned her children in favour of a party-girl lifestyle. At the same time Michael is unsure who to trust as he plays both Jewish businessman Hyman Roth and family friend Frank Pentangeli. Both make assassination attempts on Michael's life and he later discovers that Fredo had an involvement in one of them. Michael is later arrested as part of ongoing look into the world of organised crime. Though at first Michael gives a statement damming the trial, he later worries after Pentangeli reappears to give evidence. Luckily, Michael and Tom find a way to bring Pentangeli's brother over to America meaning that Frank changes his statement. As the film reaches its final third Michael gradually finds himself alone as Kay leaves him and Fredo is killed on his orders. The film's end sees Michael sitting alone, having won the battle against Roth and Pentangeli, but lost those that he used to care about. Running parallel to Michael's story in The Godfather Part II is that of Vito's eventual rise to power from poor Sicilian immigrant to respected mob boss. Initially talked into partaking in petty crimes, Vito finds power after he kills off a respected crime lord. During his ascension, Vito is given the power to avenge his father's death and ultimately finds himself as the most feared and respected member of his community.
The parallel stories in The Godfather Part II are both equally engaging and really make the sequel a more impressive film from a storytelling point of view. Indeed, I found it rather brave that the majority of the scenes involving Vito's story are entirely spoken in Italian and I wonder if today's audience would cope with an American film that contained as many subtitled film. Personally I found the first Godfather film to have a better pace to it and a more simple story namely Michael's journey from someone who wasn't his father to someone who took his father's place. This gradual change in the character underlined how good a storyteller director Francis Ford Coppola is and I totally understood the motives of all of the characters. I personally can't say I was as engaged in Michael's story in the second film as it descended into more of a generic crime film. However, I found the set pieces more impressive and the film's final third was laced with plenty of tragedy namely Fredo's death which was beautifully played as was the scene in which Kay revealed that she'd had an abortion.
Both of the films benefit from having an incredibly strong ensemble cast and, as I previously mentioned, a lot of the cast became household names after starring in the films. The films won acting awards for Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro playing the older and younger incarnations of Vito Corleone. I was surprised that Al Pacino didn't also receive a Best Actor nomination for the first film and his place as supporting actor made him rightfully upset. Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall formed a great trio in the first film as the calm Michael, hot-heated Sonny and intelligent Tom. The second film benefited from the scenes featuring De Niro but also boasted scene stealing performances from Diane Keaton and John Cazale who both shone as Kay and Fredo. Apart from the performances, The Godfather is best known for Nina Rota's score which was disqualified from the Oscar category as it featured music previously recorded. Oddly the same score went onto win the Oscar for the sequel despite being eerily similar. The first two Godfather films are also heralded as brilliant today due to the intricate art direction and costume design the latter of which gave each character its separate identity.
Overall it's hard to say if The Godfather Part 2 bests The Godfather in terms of quality. The sequel definitely has the great prequel element however the modern day story is a bit more lacklustre. The first film is better paced but doesn't have as intriguing a plot as the evolution of Vito Corleone. Overall I would say both films were more than deserving of the Best Picture award but, if pushed, I would say that the original just outweighs the sequel but feel free to correct me.
A little bit of a change of pace in the next post as we turn our attention to a quirky romantic comedy.
The first Godfather film introduces us to the Corleone family by way of a family wedding where sister Connie is getting married to Carlo Rizzi. The celebration is also traditionally where Connie's father Vito, known as the godfather, can answer any requests that are asked of him. Vito's youngest son Michael returns from the war to see his family first time and introduces Kay to the clan. Here we meet hot-headed older brother Sonny, dim-witted middle brother Fredo and adopted son and family advisor Tom Hagen. The Godfather is arguably about Michael's evolution from mild-mannered ex-soldier to eventual head of the crime family. Indeed, after Vito is shot and almost attacked in hospital, Michael feels he needs to avenge his father in some way so hits back at the family that attempted to assassinate him. When the hit goes down, Michael is shipped to Sicily while Fredo is despatched to Las Vegas. While in Sicily, Michael falls in love and marries a local girl, eventually finding a shred of happiness before the family catches up with him and his wife is killed by way of a car bomb. Returning to America, a harder Michael becomes Vito's right hand man and is eventually made the family's Don following Sonny's murder. Michael marries Kay and the two have a son together but the marriage is doomed right from the get-go due to Michael's change in attitude. Indeed the first film sees several hits arranged by Michael while he himself attends the Christening of Connie's youngest child.
The second Godfather film also opens with a religious ceremony as Michael's son Anthony has his first communion while the celebrations see a much-changed Connie who has now abandoned her children in favour of a party-girl lifestyle. At the same time Michael is unsure who to trust as he plays both Jewish businessman Hyman Roth and family friend Frank Pentangeli. Both make assassination attempts on Michael's life and he later discovers that Fredo had an involvement in one of them. Michael is later arrested as part of ongoing look into the world of organised crime. Though at first Michael gives a statement damming the trial, he later worries after Pentangeli reappears to give evidence. Luckily, Michael and Tom find a way to bring Pentangeli's brother over to America meaning that Frank changes his statement. As the film reaches its final third Michael gradually finds himself alone as Kay leaves him and Fredo is killed on his orders. The film's end sees Michael sitting alone, having won the battle against Roth and Pentangeli, but lost those that he used to care about. Running parallel to Michael's story in The Godfather Part II is that of Vito's eventual rise to power from poor Sicilian immigrant to respected mob boss. Initially talked into partaking in petty crimes, Vito finds power after he kills off a respected crime lord. During his ascension, Vito is given the power to avenge his father's death and ultimately finds himself as the most feared and respected member of his community.
The parallel stories in The Godfather Part II are both equally engaging and really make the sequel a more impressive film from a storytelling point of view. Indeed, I found it rather brave that the majority of the scenes involving Vito's story are entirely spoken in Italian and I wonder if today's audience would cope with an American film that contained as many subtitled film. Personally I found the first Godfather film to have a better pace to it and a more simple story namely Michael's journey from someone who wasn't his father to someone who took his father's place. This gradual change in the character underlined how good a storyteller director Francis Ford Coppola is and I totally understood the motives of all of the characters. I personally can't say I was as engaged in Michael's story in the second film as it descended into more of a generic crime film. However, I found the set pieces more impressive and the film's final third was laced with plenty of tragedy namely Fredo's death which was beautifully played as was the scene in which Kay revealed that she'd had an abortion.
Both of the films benefit from having an incredibly strong ensemble cast and, as I previously mentioned, a lot of the cast became household names after starring in the films. The films won acting awards for Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro playing the older and younger incarnations of Vito Corleone. I was surprised that Al Pacino didn't also receive a Best Actor nomination for the first film and his place as supporting actor made him rightfully upset. Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall formed a great trio in the first film as the calm Michael, hot-heated Sonny and intelligent Tom. The second film benefited from the scenes featuring De Niro but also boasted scene stealing performances from Diane Keaton and John Cazale who both shone as Kay and Fredo. Apart from the performances, The Godfather is best known for Nina Rota's score which was disqualified from the Oscar category as it featured music previously recorded. Oddly the same score went onto win the Oscar for the sequel despite being eerily similar. The first two Godfather films are also heralded as brilliant today due to the intricate art direction and costume design the latter of which gave each character its separate identity.
Overall it's hard to say if The Godfather Part 2 bests The Godfather in terms of quality. The sequel definitely has the great prequel element however the modern day story is a bit more lacklustre. The first film is better paced but doesn't have as intriguing a plot as the evolution of Vito Corleone. Overall I would say both films were more than deserving of the Best Picture award but, if pushed, I would say that the original just outweighs the sequel but feel free to correct me.
A little bit of a change of pace in the next post as we turn our attention to a quirky romantic comedy.
Tuesday 30 July 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 215-216: A Couple of Major Disasters
Back when I was reviewing films from the 1930s it appeared as if the major studios were competing against each other in making disaster movies. Films such as San Francisco and In Old Chicago explored events like earthquakes and floods, putting major stars at the front of these disasters. However, the definite golden age of the disaster movie was the 1970s in which all-star casts were forced to deal with disasters ranging from fires to floods as well as plenty of mishaps up in the air. These disaster films did particularly well at the Oscars with two of them being nominated for Best Picture.
The first of these was Airport, which arguably started the whole disaster movie craze. Though not focusing on a particular disaster, Airport was definitely influential due to its all-star cast being put in peril as well as its focus on special effects. The plot of the film is all based around a Chicago airport which is managed by Burt Lancaster's Mel Bakersfield, a man who spends more time at work than he does at home. Mel is besieged by issues such as snow grounding several of his planes, complaints from local residents that planes are flying too low over their houses and the fact that his staff have recently apprehended a stowaway. Mel doesn't take the stowaway case too easily when he discovers that the culprit in his a little old lady in the form of Helen Hayes' Ada Quonsett. Though Mel's loyal assistant/love interest Tanya doesn't share his views and wants Ada watched at all times, though this doesn't happen and the stowaway soon escapes and boards a plane to Rome. The plane to Rome is also where D.O. Guerrero plans to end his life after a string of financial failures and onset depression. Guerrero feels the best way to help his wife his to blow up a plane, with his death meaning that his wife will be able to cash in on his life insurance. Mel and Tanya soon learn of Guerrero's plan and inform Dean Martin's Captain who devices a plan to try and stop Guerrero. From there its a race against time to try to prevent an explosion and get all of the passengers to safety.
The first of these was Airport, which arguably started the whole disaster movie craze. Though not focusing on a particular disaster, Airport was definitely influential due to its all-star cast being put in peril as well as its focus on special effects. The plot of the film is all based around a Chicago airport which is managed by Burt Lancaster's Mel Bakersfield, a man who spends more time at work than he does at home. Mel is besieged by issues such as snow grounding several of his planes, complaints from local residents that planes are flying too low over their houses and the fact that his staff have recently apprehended a stowaway. Mel doesn't take the stowaway case too easily when he discovers that the culprit in his a little old lady in the form of Helen Hayes' Ada Quonsett. Though Mel's loyal assistant/love interest Tanya doesn't share his views and wants Ada watched at all times, though this doesn't happen and the stowaway soon escapes and boards a plane to Rome. The plane to Rome is also where D.O. Guerrero plans to end his life after a string of financial failures and onset depression. Guerrero feels the best way to help his wife his to blow up a plane, with his death meaning that his wife will be able to cash in on his life insurance. Mel and Tanya soon learn of Guerrero's plan and inform Dean Martin's Captain who devices a plan to try and stop Guerrero. From there its a race against time to try to prevent an explosion and get all of the passengers to safety.
Having some obvious knowledge of the disaster genre I would definitely say that Airport wouldn't classify in the same league as some of them. Despite this, I feel that writer/director George Seaton set up enough peril in the form of Guerrero's bomb to have me on the edge of my seat. I also felt like Seaton had introduced just enough characters for me to know who everybody was and who was in secretly in a relationship with who. Burt Lancaster was the perfect person to play Mel as he was an assured lead who attempted to keep everything at the airport running smoothly while dealing with one problem after another. He was perfectly supported by the much more suave Dean Martin as the captain who was having an affair with one of his stewardesses played by the equally glamorous Jacqueline Bisset. However, the two Oscar-nominated performances came from the supporting actresses who played very different roles. The brilliant Helen Hayes was perfect as comic criminal Mrs Quonsett who was quite matter-of-fact about her stowaway exploits. The fact that Ada later gets to play heroine adds another layer to a character who could've easily been a one-note supporting player without Hayes' performance. Meanwhile Maureen Stapleton adds an air of humanity to the film as Guerrero's wife who attempts to stop his plan before it's too late. Despite its over-the-top nature I still really enjoyed Airport as a film in its own right though I wouldn't particularly class it as a disaster film in the traditional sense of the genre.
The disaster genre itself really began with The Poseidon Adventure, which was nominated for several Oscars but not Best Picture. Two years later we had possibly the ultimate disaster film The Towering Inferno, which had so many stars that they couldn't decide who should receive top billing. Indeed, one of the most infamous stories about the film was that Paul Newman and Steve McQueen both considered themselves to be the leading man so both the poster and the opening credits had their names diagonally placed so as to insinuate that both were taking the lead. In addition, both actors were appeased by having the exact same number of lines of dialogue so the audience would feel satisfied that both were on an equal footing. Personally I would consider Newman the star just because his character, architect Doug Roberts has more of a pivotal role as he discovers that his newly designed building has plenty of electrical faults. It soon transpires that the tower's builder, James Duncan, cut many corners in order to cut costs. These cost-cutting measures included concreting over fire exits and having his son-in-law, electrical engineer Roger Simmons cut as many corners as possible. As a fire breaks out on one of the floors, Roberts attempts to warn Duncan about the incident but he refuses to end his luxury party just because of a small blaze. Predictably the fire is soon out of control and the party-goers are trapped with more and more of their possible exits being trapped. Thankfully McQueen's fire chief O'Hallorhan has several ideas how to rescue the party, with differing results, and at the end of the day some of the more expendable characters have perished.
The disaster genre itself really began with The Poseidon Adventure, which was nominated for several Oscars but not Best Picture. Two years later we had possibly the ultimate disaster film The Towering Inferno, which had so many stars that they couldn't decide who should receive top billing. Indeed, one of the most infamous stories about the film was that Paul Newman and Steve McQueen both considered themselves to be the leading man so both the poster and the opening credits had their names diagonally placed so as to insinuate that both were taking the lead. In addition, both actors were appeased by having the exact same number of lines of dialogue so the audience would feel satisfied that both were on an equal footing. Personally I would consider Newman the star just because his character, architect Doug Roberts has more of a pivotal role as he discovers that his newly designed building has plenty of electrical faults. It soon transpires that the tower's builder, James Duncan, cut many corners in order to cut costs. These cost-cutting measures included concreting over fire exits and having his son-in-law, electrical engineer Roger Simmons cut as many corners as possible. As a fire breaks out on one of the floors, Roberts attempts to warn Duncan about the incident but he refuses to end his luxury party just because of a small blaze. Predictably the fire is soon out of control and the party-goers are trapped with more and more of their possible exits being trapped. Thankfully McQueen's fire chief O'Hallorhan has several ideas how to rescue the party, with differing results, and at the end of the day some of the more expendable characters have perished.
While Aiport's body count was extremely minimal, there were plenty of deaths in The Towering Inferno to satisfy those who feel a disaster film should have a life-threatening incident at the centre of it. Unlike Airport though, I didn't feel that I got to know all of the characters before the fire began to take shape. Indeed, aside from Roberts, O'Hallorhan and Duncan the rest of the characters felt a little clichéd. For example, Fred Astaire's conman, who obviously shares a lot of similarities with Helen Hayes' Airport character, isn't given a lot of backstory. While the characters played by Robert Wagner, Jennifer Jones and Robert Vaughn are similarly one-note creations. As Roberts' long-suffering love interest, Faye Dunaway does have a little bit to do but the latter scenes involve her simply worrying about things. Worst of all is Richard Chamberlain's Simmons, who is the smirking British villain of the piece, as I found him to be a very poorly-written antagonist. Despite the wealth of two-dimensional characters, The Towering Inferno was still an enjoyable thanks to the impressively choreographed fire sequences. The peril was steadily built up as the exterior shots of the building saw more and more flames break out, while the more dangerous methods of escape had me on the edge of my seat. The film won well-deserved awards for cinematography and editing while its central theme 'We May Never Love Like This Again' was also rewarded with Best Original Song. While The Towering Inferno may seem cheesy by today's action movie standards, I still felt it provided enough peril to pass the time and, looking at it now, it can be held up as an incredibly influential piece of film-making.
Next time I'll present a double bill that you won't be able to refuse.
Sunday 28 July 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 212-214: Sounds of the Seventies
Throughout each decade of Oscar-winning films, there have always been a handful of musicals that have done particularly well. The majority of these have been glossy big-budget spectaculars that have had fairly light storylines. But, as we approach the 1970s, the themes of the musicals are getting a lot darker and one in particular contains a handful of songs that are incredibly sinister rather than being particularly uplifting.
We start though with a film musical that feels incredibly old-fashioned and has a comic element which lends itself to the screwball films of the 1930s and 1940s. That film is Hello Dolly!, which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1970 ceremony, and stars Barbara Streisand as widowed matchmaker Dolly Levi. Dolly arrives in Yonkers supposedly to meet up with wealthy store-owner Horace Vandergelder who is to travel to New York in order to meet up with and marry hat-store clerk Irene Malloy. However, instead of matching the pair, Dolly seemingly wants Horace for herself so arranges for his two clerks to hook up with Irene and her assistant Minnie. On arrival in the city the clerks, Cornelius and Barnaby, pretend to be wealthy gentlemen in order to ensnare Irene and Minnie. Meanwhile, Horace's niece Ermengrade has also travelled to New York in order to prove to her uncle that artist Ambrose is a good enough match for her. In New York, Dolly arranges a number of deceptions in order to keep all the parts of her plan a secret until she is able to put the offer of a proposal on the table at one of her favourite restaurants. Obviously the obstinate Horace wants everything to stay the way it was but eventually comes around to everything that Dolly has set up.
I don't think it's insulting to say that Hello Dolly! is definitely an old school musical by late 1960s/early 1970s standards. The whole thing feels very staged with a lot of the action fairly static and confined to a certain set. In fact, a lot of it put me in mind of The Music Man, which was made seven years earlier, as both have that old school feel to them. At the same time, there's no denying that Hello Dolly! is an incredibly enjoyable musical and I have to say that I got fairly swept up in it. Gene Kelly sits behind the director's chair and you can see his stamp all over the well-choreographed set pieces. Indeed, the two scenes that stay in the memory are the extravagantly filmed parade, which is accompanied by the iconic 'When the Parade Passes By' and the culmination of all the plots in the restaurant scene. The restaurant scene is also the place in which we hear the film's title track and the famous duet between Streisand and Louis Armstrong. Talking of Streisand she's perfectly cast as the interfering widow who is full of life but at the same time is struggling to move on from her first husband. Walter Matthau is the ideal foil for her schemes as he perfects his grumpy old man character while Frank Spencer himself - Michael Crawford plays the idiotic Cornelius with great aplomb. In addition to the signing and performances, Hello Dolly! is beautifully designed with some brilliant costumes to boot. While it's never going to win any awards for subtlety, when it comes to an all-singing all-musical visual spectacular they don't come much better than this film.
Two years later, the next musical film arrived with Fiddler on the Roof - which documents the lives of one Jewish family living in Tsarist Russia in the early 20th century. Our narrator throughout the film is Tevye, played by Chaim Topol, a simple man who often bemoans the fact that God has given him five daughters. One of the film's unique narrative devices is the fact that Tevye regularly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly. Tevye tells us about the small Jewish community that lives constantly in fear of the larger Christian community that neighbours the village. The Jews and the Christians live in peace but we get the impression that our characters are constantly under threat from attack. The bulk of the film's story sees Tevye's three eldest daughters all find love and marry someone they love, rather than someone who has been chosen for them by the town's matchmaker. Eldest daughter Tzeitel wishes to marry her poor childhood sweetheart Motel while second daughter Anatevka later accepts a proposal from idealistic Ukrainian scholar Perhick. Though Teyve's wife Golde disapproves, he manages to talk her around while at the same time the younger generation prepare to change the way things are done. However, the second half of the film gets bleaker as Teyve's community is moved from their homes by the Christians, while he also disowns third daughter Chava after she secretly marries one of the Christian boys. Though ultimately the entire community is moved from their homes there is a sense that things will only get better.
Of the three musical films I'm writing about, I would say that Fiddler on the Roof is definitely the least memorable. Indeed, probably the strongest element of the entire film is Topol's lead performances as he really makes a connection with the audience right from the beginning of the picture. His warmth and passion for the character really makes you believe in Tevye's motivations and you feel for his plight throughout his story. There are only a few songs that are truly memorable with 'If I were a Rich Man' and 'Matchmaker' being the two prime examples. In addition, there are a number of interesting set pieces most notably the scene at Tzeitel and Motel's wedding where Perhick encourages the men and women to dance together. However, at almost three hours in length, the film really started to drag and I felt the bleak aspect of the final third of the movie really added to this fatigue. While Fiddler on the Roof isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't one that I truly connected with in the way that I did with the final musical on the list.
That musical, released a year after Fiddler on the Roof, is Cabaret a film that is loosely based on the Broadway production of the same name. I say loosely as director Bob Fosse discarded many of the songs from that film and got lyricists Kander and Ebb to write new songs. In addition to the song changes, Fosse scrapped many characters and brought in some new ones to freshen up the tale. He also changed the lead character of Sally Bowles to an aspiring English movie star who couldn't really sing to an aspiring American movie star with an amazing voice. In the film, Sally meets young Englishman Brian Roberts who has come to Berlin to teach English. Sally, who is a lead attraction at the seedy Kit Kat Club, builds an attraction to Brian as both rent rooms in the same rundown apartment block. Though the pair begin a relationship, Sally's head is soon turned by rich baron Maximilian who can offer her the finer things in life. Eventually all three spend a weekend at the baron's family home where both end up having sexual encounters with the rich German. The film's backdrop is the rise of the Nazi movement in Berlin in the early 1930s as the Jews are attacked and a subplot involving a friend of Brian's explores religion and love. Meanwhile, Sally discovers she's pregnant and wonders whether or not to keep the baby.
As opposed to the other two musical films on the list, all of the songs in Cabaret are performed rather than used as an alternative to dialogue. The vast majority of these songs are performed in The Kit Kat Club by either Sally or the shadowy Emcee, the film's narrator and host at the club. The character of Emcee is an interesting one as he doesn't interact with any of the characters apart from Sally and that's only through the method of song. Though Emcee's songs do reflect the plot of the film, we see that they are all being performed to a club full of punters. Instead of being particularly uplifting, these songs are often sinister in nature talking about money-grabbing, sharing sexual partners and being unlucky in love. The tone of the film is perfectly exemplified in one scene in which Emcee and his backing group perform a dance routine that mocks the Nazi regime. To me, the film is one of the best examples of the screen musical as every song adds to the plot rather than detracting from it. From the opening bars of Willkommen to Sally Bowes' glorious love song 'Maybe This Time' to the final bursts of its title track, Cabaret's musical score is extraordinary. The film was incredibly successful at the 1973 Oscar ceremony, winning eight awards and earning the distinction of being the most-rewarded movie at the Oscars not to win Best Picture. Among the award-winners were Liza Minnelli who was absolutely captivating as the lovelorn and eccentric Sally Bowes. Meanwhile Joel Grey also picked up a supporting actor statuette for his role as the sinister yet entertaining Emcee. Bob Fosse's outstanding direction was also honoured as were the film's stunning cinematography, score, sound, art direction and editing. As you can tell I really enjoyed Cabaret and, in any normal year, it would've won Best Picture but it did come up against one hell of a contender.
Next time we'll look at the rise of the epic disaster movie with two Oscar nominated examples of the genre.
We start though with a film musical that feels incredibly old-fashioned and has a comic element which lends itself to the screwball films of the 1930s and 1940s. That film is Hello Dolly!, which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1970 ceremony, and stars Barbara Streisand as widowed matchmaker Dolly Levi. Dolly arrives in Yonkers supposedly to meet up with wealthy store-owner Horace Vandergelder who is to travel to New York in order to meet up with and marry hat-store clerk Irene Malloy. However, instead of matching the pair, Dolly seemingly wants Horace for herself so arranges for his two clerks to hook up with Irene and her assistant Minnie. On arrival in the city the clerks, Cornelius and Barnaby, pretend to be wealthy gentlemen in order to ensnare Irene and Minnie. Meanwhile, Horace's niece Ermengrade has also travelled to New York in order to prove to her uncle that artist Ambrose is a good enough match for her. In New York, Dolly arranges a number of deceptions in order to keep all the parts of her plan a secret until she is able to put the offer of a proposal on the table at one of her favourite restaurants. Obviously the obstinate Horace wants everything to stay the way it was but eventually comes around to everything that Dolly has set up.
I don't think it's insulting to say that Hello Dolly! is definitely an old school musical by late 1960s/early 1970s standards. The whole thing feels very staged with a lot of the action fairly static and confined to a certain set. In fact, a lot of it put me in mind of The Music Man, which was made seven years earlier, as both have that old school feel to them. At the same time, there's no denying that Hello Dolly! is an incredibly enjoyable musical and I have to say that I got fairly swept up in it. Gene Kelly sits behind the director's chair and you can see his stamp all over the well-choreographed set pieces. Indeed, the two scenes that stay in the memory are the extravagantly filmed parade, which is accompanied by the iconic 'When the Parade Passes By' and the culmination of all the plots in the restaurant scene. The restaurant scene is also the place in which we hear the film's title track and the famous duet between Streisand and Louis Armstrong. Talking of Streisand she's perfectly cast as the interfering widow who is full of life but at the same time is struggling to move on from her first husband. Walter Matthau is the ideal foil for her schemes as he perfects his grumpy old man character while Frank Spencer himself - Michael Crawford plays the idiotic Cornelius with great aplomb. In addition to the signing and performances, Hello Dolly! is beautifully designed with some brilliant costumes to boot. While it's never going to win any awards for subtlety, when it comes to an all-singing all-musical visual spectacular they don't come much better than this film.
Two years later, the next musical film arrived with Fiddler on the Roof - which documents the lives of one Jewish family living in Tsarist Russia in the early 20th century. Our narrator throughout the film is Tevye, played by Chaim Topol, a simple man who often bemoans the fact that God has given him five daughters. One of the film's unique narrative devices is the fact that Tevye regularly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly. Tevye tells us about the small Jewish community that lives constantly in fear of the larger Christian community that neighbours the village. The Jews and the Christians live in peace but we get the impression that our characters are constantly under threat from attack. The bulk of the film's story sees Tevye's three eldest daughters all find love and marry someone they love, rather than someone who has been chosen for them by the town's matchmaker. Eldest daughter Tzeitel wishes to marry her poor childhood sweetheart Motel while second daughter Anatevka later accepts a proposal from idealistic Ukrainian scholar Perhick. Though Teyve's wife Golde disapproves, he manages to talk her around while at the same time the younger generation prepare to change the way things are done. However, the second half of the film gets bleaker as Teyve's community is moved from their homes by the Christians, while he also disowns third daughter Chava after she secretly marries one of the Christian boys. Though ultimately the entire community is moved from their homes there is a sense that things will only get better.
Of the three musical films I'm writing about, I would say that Fiddler on the Roof is definitely the least memorable. Indeed, probably the strongest element of the entire film is Topol's lead performances as he really makes a connection with the audience right from the beginning of the picture. His warmth and passion for the character really makes you believe in Tevye's motivations and you feel for his plight throughout his story. There are only a few songs that are truly memorable with 'If I were a Rich Man' and 'Matchmaker' being the two prime examples. In addition, there are a number of interesting set pieces most notably the scene at Tzeitel and Motel's wedding where Perhick encourages the men and women to dance together. However, at almost three hours in length, the film really started to drag and I felt the bleak aspect of the final third of the movie really added to this fatigue. While Fiddler on the Roof isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't one that I truly connected with in the way that I did with the final musical on the list.
That musical, released a year after Fiddler on the Roof, is Cabaret a film that is loosely based on the Broadway production of the same name. I say loosely as director Bob Fosse discarded many of the songs from that film and got lyricists Kander and Ebb to write new songs. In addition to the song changes, Fosse scrapped many characters and brought in some new ones to freshen up the tale. He also changed the lead character of Sally Bowles to an aspiring English movie star who couldn't really sing to an aspiring American movie star with an amazing voice. In the film, Sally meets young Englishman Brian Roberts who has come to Berlin to teach English. Sally, who is a lead attraction at the seedy Kit Kat Club, builds an attraction to Brian as both rent rooms in the same rundown apartment block. Though the pair begin a relationship, Sally's head is soon turned by rich baron Maximilian who can offer her the finer things in life. Eventually all three spend a weekend at the baron's family home where both end up having sexual encounters with the rich German. The film's backdrop is the rise of the Nazi movement in Berlin in the early 1930s as the Jews are attacked and a subplot involving a friend of Brian's explores religion and love. Meanwhile, Sally discovers she's pregnant and wonders whether or not to keep the baby.
As opposed to the other two musical films on the list, all of the songs in Cabaret are performed rather than used as an alternative to dialogue. The vast majority of these songs are performed in The Kit Kat Club by either Sally or the shadowy Emcee, the film's narrator and host at the club. The character of Emcee is an interesting one as he doesn't interact with any of the characters apart from Sally and that's only through the method of song. Though Emcee's songs do reflect the plot of the film, we see that they are all being performed to a club full of punters. Instead of being particularly uplifting, these songs are often sinister in nature talking about money-grabbing, sharing sexual partners and being unlucky in love. The tone of the film is perfectly exemplified in one scene in which Emcee and his backing group perform a dance routine that mocks the Nazi regime. To me, the film is one of the best examples of the screen musical as every song adds to the plot rather than detracting from it. From the opening bars of Willkommen to Sally Bowes' glorious love song 'Maybe This Time' to the final bursts of its title track, Cabaret's musical score is extraordinary. The film was incredibly successful at the 1973 Oscar ceremony, winning eight awards and earning the distinction of being the most-rewarded movie at the Oscars not to win Best Picture. Among the award-winners were Liza Minnelli who was absolutely captivating as the lovelorn and eccentric Sally Bowes. Meanwhile Joel Grey also picked up a supporting actor statuette for his role as the sinister yet entertaining Emcee. Bob Fosse's outstanding direction was also honoured as were the film's stunning cinematography, score, sound, art direction and editing. As you can tell I really enjoyed Cabaret and, in any normal year, it would've won Best Picture but it did come up against one hell of a contender.
Next time we'll look at the rise of the epic disaster movie with two Oscar nominated examples of the genre.
Thursday 25 July 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 210-211: A Pair of Gene's
So here we are in the 1970s, a decade that really pushed the bar in terms of film-making and used the art form to tell some incredibly interesting stories. We begin with a double bill featuring an actor who really came into his own at the beginning of the decade - Gene Hackman.
Though Hackman had been around for a while he only really came to prominence in his late thirties after his appearance in Bonnie and Clyde, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Four years later he was propelled to stardom thanks to his central role as Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle in The French Connection. The French Connection picked up Best Picture at the 1972 ceremony and also gave its lead actor his first Academy Award. The film, which was the first R-Rated movie to win the Best Picture Award, takes place in the streets of New York and follows Doyle and his partner Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo as they attempt a drug bust. I found the story of the film fairly unique in that we followed the French drug smugglers at the same time as the New York cops. The film's main antagonist is Alain Charnier, who plans to smuggle millions of dollars' worth of heroin into the country by using the car of a TV personality. As we learn throughout the film, Doyle and Russo aren't exactly the most trustworthy of individuals but they are incredibly good at their jobs so most of their colleagues are forced to trust them. As Doyle and Russo identify Charnier and his men, the chase is on to track down the drugs and arrest those involved in the plot. But not everything goes to plan and when Doyle's plot backfires, he and Russo are taken off the case. However, that doesn't dissuade Doyle and he's soon in hot pursuit of the man whose been sent to assassinate him, hoping that this will result in him finding the drugs.
After watching The French Connection, I feel like I've entered the 1970s with a bang. The film is fast-paced without losing sight of its plot and incredibly stylised throughout. Director William Friedkin looked to French cinema to create a lot of the style in the French Connection and that is definitely evident. At the same time, The French Connection has a profound sense of location and I was completely transported into New York right from the earliest scenes. For me the style extends to the character's costumes most notably the hat and coat worn by Doyle. The most iconic scene in the whole film is the legendary car chase in which Doyle, in a car, is racing a commuter train which is above him. Owen Roizman's cinematography takes you right into Doyle's car while Friedkin makes sure that we don't miss a thing. I was completely sucked in by this chase and think it's one that's been imitate many times but has never been bettered. Hackman is absolutely tremendous in the lead role as Doyle combining the stereotypical 'bad cop' with someone who has a genuine passion for the job. Hackman understands every intricate detail of his character down to the little wave that Doyle gives to Charnier in one of the final scenes. Meanwhile, Hackman is well-supported by the reliable Roy Scheider as the more level-headed Russo. While earlier crime always saw the criminals brought to justice, we learn at the end of The French Connection that a lot of the crooks in the film either served small sentences or never went to jail again. Overall, The French Connection is definitely one of the best Best Picture winners I've seen so far.
Three year later, Hackman starred in another Best Picture nominee, even though he missed out on a Best Actor nomination this time around. Arguably, The Conversation was a better overall film than The French Connection while I definitely preferred Hackman as Harry Caul. Caul is one of America's most renowned surveillance experts and has often been praised for being able to pick up any speech necessary. Caul lives a fairly solitary existence, living alone with only his jazz saxophone for company, though he does have a regular relationship with a woman who knows nothing about him. But Caul's work has sometimes caused him emotional strain and, as we learn later in the film, one of his most recent jobs resulted in a triple murder. Caul is very wary when he is tasked with recording a couple as they walk through Union Square in San Francisco especially when he hears the phrase 'he'd kill us if he got the chance.' Caul is soon tasked with giving his tapes to a man known simply as The Director, but when one of The Director's underlings takes the tapes a nervous Harry takes them back. As he becomes obsessed by the tapes, Harry realises he has to act on what he's heard and uses the information he has to act as a vigilante hero. But, the film's message ultimately seems to be that, even if you can hear everything, it doesn't necessarily mean that you listen to everything that's being said.
The Conversation is the first time that I've come across a Francis Ford Coppola film while writing this project and you can see why, at his peak, the director was hailed as one of the greats. The Conversation is a tense thriller which builds up the audience's expectations before completely changing the game in the last ten minutes. For me, I think that The Conversation features some of the greatest uses of sound in cinema history. The way we see the conversation being broken down by Harry throughout the film is simply superb and you never tire of hearing the same speech over and over again. Hackman's performance as Harry is also one of the film's greatest strengths as he portrays the surveillance expert as someone whose always been on the borders of society. Though Harry is seemingly attractive to the opposite sex, his intricate nature and paranoia make it impossible for him to form meaningful relationships. For the most part, Hackman plays Harry as someone who only speaks when he really needs to and I feel he communicates more by his actions than by his words. Hackman is supported by John Cazale as Harry's colleague Stan who is a bit wilder than his friend and often uses his job to ogle women. The film also features a great little performance from Harrison Ford as The Director's aide Martin Stett, which provided evidence of how great the actor would go on to be. My only frustration is that The Conversation didn't do better at that year's Oscars, but I don't think Coppola was too bothered seeing as it was another of his films that scooped the majority of the major prizes.
Next time I'll look at the three big screen musicals that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1970s.
Though Hackman had been around for a while he only really came to prominence in his late thirties after his appearance in Bonnie and Clyde, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Four years later he was propelled to stardom thanks to his central role as Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle in The French Connection. The French Connection picked up Best Picture at the 1972 ceremony and also gave its lead actor his first Academy Award. The film, which was the first R-Rated movie to win the Best Picture Award, takes place in the streets of New York and follows Doyle and his partner Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo as they attempt a drug bust. I found the story of the film fairly unique in that we followed the French drug smugglers at the same time as the New York cops. The film's main antagonist is Alain Charnier, who plans to smuggle millions of dollars' worth of heroin into the country by using the car of a TV personality. As we learn throughout the film, Doyle and Russo aren't exactly the most trustworthy of individuals but they are incredibly good at their jobs so most of their colleagues are forced to trust them. As Doyle and Russo identify Charnier and his men, the chase is on to track down the drugs and arrest those involved in the plot. But not everything goes to plan and when Doyle's plot backfires, he and Russo are taken off the case. However, that doesn't dissuade Doyle and he's soon in hot pursuit of the man whose been sent to assassinate him, hoping that this will result in him finding the drugs.
After watching The French Connection, I feel like I've entered the 1970s with a bang. The film is fast-paced without losing sight of its plot and incredibly stylised throughout. Director William Friedkin looked to French cinema to create a lot of the style in the French Connection and that is definitely evident. At the same time, The French Connection has a profound sense of location and I was completely transported into New York right from the earliest scenes. For me the style extends to the character's costumes most notably the hat and coat worn by Doyle. The most iconic scene in the whole film is the legendary car chase in which Doyle, in a car, is racing a commuter train which is above him. Owen Roizman's cinematography takes you right into Doyle's car while Friedkin makes sure that we don't miss a thing. I was completely sucked in by this chase and think it's one that's been imitate many times but has never been bettered. Hackman is absolutely tremendous in the lead role as Doyle combining the stereotypical 'bad cop' with someone who has a genuine passion for the job. Hackman understands every intricate detail of his character down to the little wave that Doyle gives to Charnier in one of the final scenes. Meanwhile, Hackman is well-supported by the reliable Roy Scheider as the more level-headed Russo. While earlier crime always saw the criminals brought to justice, we learn at the end of The French Connection that a lot of the crooks in the film either served small sentences or never went to jail again. Overall, The French Connection is definitely one of the best Best Picture winners I've seen so far.
Three year later, Hackman starred in another Best Picture nominee, even though he missed out on a Best Actor nomination this time around. Arguably, The Conversation was a better overall film than The French Connection while I definitely preferred Hackman as Harry Caul. Caul is one of America's most renowned surveillance experts and has often been praised for being able to pick up any speech necessary. Caul lives a fairly solitary existence, living alone with only his jazz saxophone for company, though he does have a regular relationship with a woman who knows nothing about him. But Caul's work has sometimes caused him emotional strain and, as we learn later in the film, one of his most recent jobs resulted in a triple murder. Caul is very wary when he is tasked with recording a couple as they walk through Union Square in San Francisco especially when he hears the phrase 'he'd kill us if he got the chance.' Caul is soon tasked with giving his tapes to a man known simply as The Director, but when one of The Director's underlings takes the tapes a nervous Harry takes them back. As he becomes obsessed by the tapes, Harry realises he has to act on what he's heard and uses the information he has to act as a vigilante hero. But, the film's message ultimately seems to be that, even if you can hear everything, it doesn't necessarily mean that you listen to everything that's being said.
The Conversation is the first time that I've come across a Francis Ford Coppola film while writing this project and you can see why, at his peak, the director was hailed as one of the greats. The Conversation is a tense thriller which builds up the audience's expectations before completely changing the game in the last ten minutes. For me, I think that The Conversation features some of the greatest uses of sound in cinema history. The way we see the conversation being broken down by Harry throughout the film is simply superb and you never tire of hearing the same speech over and over again. Hackman's performance as Harry is also one of the film's greatest strengths as he portrays the surveillance expert as someone whose always been on the borders of society. Though Harry is seemingly attractive to the opposite sex, his intricate nature and paranoia make it impossible for him to form meaningful relationships. For the most part, Hackman plays Harry as someone who only speaks when he really needs to and I feel he communicates more by his actions than by his words. Hackman is supported by John Cazale as Harry's colleague Stan who is a bit wilder than his friend and often uses his job to ogle women. The film also features a great little performance from Harrison Ford as The Director's aide Martin Stett, which provided evidence of how great the actor would go on to be. My only frustration is that The Conversation didn't do better at that year's Oscars, but I don't think Coppola was too bothered seeing as it was another of his films that scooped the majority of the major prizes.
Next time I'll look at the three big screen musicals that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1970s.
Thursday 18 July 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge: Reviewing the Ceremonies 32-41 (1960-1969)
Ceremony 32 (1960)
Winner: Ben-Hur
Nominees: Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun's Story, Room at the Top
Did the Right Film Win?: Yes
Even though I really enjoyed Anatomy of a Murder, I have to concede that Ben-Hur was the right film to win Best Picture. It's probably the film whose iconic scenes still hold up today, most notably the chariot race which is still a thrilling watch in 2013.
Ceremony 33 (1961)
Winner: The Apartment
Nominees: The Alamo, Elmer Gantry, The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers
Did the Right Film Win?: Yes
I don't think there's much to say here as The Apartment stands head and shoulders above its rivals in this category. The film is still a charming and witty romantic comedy while the only major competition is Elmer Gantry but that's mainly due to Burt Lancaster's tremendous central performance
Ceremony 34 (1962)
Winner: West Side Story
Nominees: Fanny, Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg
Did the Right Film Win?: Yes
I feel that this was a tossup between West Side Story and The Hustler, but I've given it to the former just because it's the strongest of the four musical winners of the decade. The Hustler also has a dodgy middle section while West Side Story is a joy to watch throughout
Ceremony 35 (1963)
Winner: Lawrence of Arabia
Nominees: The Longest Day, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, To Kill a Mockingbird
Did the Right Film Win?: Yes
Possibly the strongest of David Lean's films, Lawrence of Arabia does suffer from being over long but is still visually spectacular and contains a great central performance from Peter O'Toole. The list of fellow nominees only includes one possible contender, in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I feel that Lawrence is definitely the stronger of the two films.
Ceremony 36 (1964)
Winner: Tom Jones
Nominees: America America, Cleopatra, How the West Was Won, Lilies of the Field
Did the Right Film Win? No
I feel that Tom Jones is definitely one of the weakest Best Picture winners thus far and found it to be quite a silly comedy that didn't really have much of a structure. Looking at the nominees, there are definitely two stronger picks the first being Lilies of the Field which is bolstered by a great performance by Sidney Poitier. But my personal pick is America America, a film that I had no idea about prior to watching it, and one that completely blew me away. This authentic tale of a young Greek man trying to find his way to America was just captivating and definitely benefited from its use of unknown actors to create a sense of realism.
Ceremony 37 (1965)
Winner: My Fair Lady
Nominees: Becket, Dr. Strangelove, Mary Poppins and Zorba the Greek
Did the Right Film Win?: No
This again was a tough one to sort out but I personally wasn't a massive fan of the characters in My Fair Lady despite the film itself being visually stunning. Personally I think Dr. Strangelove is the most interesting pick of the five, but its subversive nature possibly wouldn't let itself to the Best Picture accolade. Instead, as a film musical did win this award, I'm going to pick Mary Poppins which I feel is still as watchable as it was in the mid-1960s. Maybe it's because I have a certain affection for the film, but I still feel it's an incredibly charming movie with some great songs.
Ceremony 38 (1966)
Winner: The Sound of Music
Nominees: Darling, Doctor Zhivago, Ship of Fools, A Thousand Clowns
Did the Right Film Win?: Maybe
This is one of those years in which the winner is probably of the same standing as some of the other nominees. I could definitely make the case for why The Sound of Music should've won but at the same time I would say that Darling was a better social portrait of the time and Doctor Zhivago was probably more stunning to look at. I also personally enjoyed A Thousand Clowns and found it to be the most charming film of the five.
Ceremony 39 (1967)
Winner: A Man for All Seasons
Nominees: Alfie, The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming, The Sand Pebbles, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Did the Right Film Win?: Maybe
Again this is a year where I'm torn between a very worthy winner and a film that I personally enjoyed in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Though A Man for All Seasons is probably more visually impressive, Virginia Woolf had the emotional edge and was bolstered by the pairing of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I'm still not sure who should've won the award but I'm not disputing the fact that A Man for All Seasons was the ultimate victor.
Ceremony 40 (1968)
Winner: In the Heat of the Night
Nominees: Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Did the Right Film Win?: No
This is a year where you could make a case for any film apart from Doctor Dolittle winning. In my eyes there are two films stronger than In the Heat of the Night. The first of these is Bonnie and Clyde, which employed some really interesting visual techniques and was definitely a risque film for the time. But my personal favourite is The Graduate which is just a joy to watch and, unlike a lot of the films from the decade, never outstayed its welcome.
Ceremony 41 (1969)
Winner: Oliver!
Nominees: Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter, Rachel Rachel, Romeo and Juliet
Did the Right Film Win?: No
As much as Oliver! was one of my favourite films as a kid, I can concede that there was another film that deserved to win Best Picture. That film is The Lion in Winter which is a well-acted and well-shot film that has a great story and was just simply a joy to watch.
So there you have it a strong decade with some difficult choices to be made. I'm now going to endeavour to go onto the 1970s a decade which includes some of the films that are considered the greatest of all time.
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 209: More English History Lessons
As I've been trawling through the 1960s nominees I've been amazed at how many British films I've come across. Those of you who read my Peter O'Toole piece know that the actor starred in two films in which he played Henry II, those being Becket and The Lion in Winter. I'd like to think that those two films make up some sort of trilogy with my final 1960s film - A Man for All Seasons. The film, which won Best Picture at the 1967 ceremony, also concerns English monarchy and is full of idyllic outdoor locations. Like Becket, the film is about the relationship between a King and one of his nobleman, in this case Henry VIII and his Chancellor Sir Thomas More. The film is all based around the story of Henry attempting to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon so he can marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. The incredibly pious More doesn't think that Henry should get the divorce and moreover refuses to implant him as head of the Church of England. It's clear that Henry really loves Thomas, however he can't understand his friend's decision not to let him do whatever he wants. In the end, Thomas realises that resistance is futile so he resigns as Chancellor and the marriage later goes through. However, Henry is keen to punish More for both refusing the marriage and not attending the wedding. Henry requests that the new Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, try to find evidence that proves More is a traitor. However, More remains steadfast in his silence and is arrested for his supposed betrayal of the King. Anybody who knows their English history knows how the story ends, however I'm not going to spoil it for those who didn't listen during class.
From the opening few scenes of A Man for All Seasons, it's pretty easy to see that the film was based on a play. A lot of the scenes involve characters simply talking to each other in rooms while I times I felt I was simply watching a filmed version of the play. Having said that, the film attempts to make the most of its exterior locations most notably the journey More makes between his house and court using the river. The Oscar-winning costumes are all also stunning and really add to the realism of the film as you really believe you're in Tudor England. However, the film's best quality is definitely its ensemble cast, all of whom completely embody their respective characters. Paul Scofield won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as More and I found him completely engrossing throughout. Scofield is able to convey More's moral standing with ease but also makes him somewhat of a flawed hero. As his wife, the Oscar-nominated Wendy Hiller puts in another great turn as she pleads with her husband to forgo his morals and save himself. In addition, the film boasts several scene-stealing performances most notably Robert Shaw as the boisterous King Henry and Orson Welles as the shady Cardinal Wolsely. In one of his first on-screen roles, John Hurt makes a big impression as the slimy Rich who plays both sides of the court to get his own way. My main issue with A Man for All Seasons was that it remained fairly static throughout and I never really found myself immersed in the story in the way I probably ought to be. This is probably because I studied this period of history quite extensively and therefore found it quite hard to enjoy A Man for All Seasons as pure entertainment film.
Overall, A Man for All Seasons is an incredibly well-acted film that boasts gorgeous costumes and art direction. At the same time a lot of the scenes are quite static and I never felt I could truly relax while watching the film. But did the film deserve to win Best Picture? Join me next time as I look back at the 1960s ceremonies and reveal my decisions on whether the ten winners all deserved their awards.
Wednesday 17 July 2013
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 208: The Doctor Will See You Now
As we've seen throughout this journey, David Lean is a director who has grand vision and scope. With Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia both giving a different perspective on the war film, Lean definitely excels in telling stories set around times of conflict. This is true of Doctor Zhivago, Lean's lavish adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel, which starts in 1913 and takes in both World War I and the Russian Revolution. These events are seen through the eyes of Omar Sharif's Yuri Zhivago, a frustrated poet who becomes a doctor and therefore is witness to a lot of the bloodshed of the time. Initially Yuri is drawn to Tonya, the daughter of the couple who raised him, and they indeed have a child together. But later, Yuri meets Lara, a complicated girl who gets married to idealistic reformer Pasha Antipov. Though, Yuri and Lara serve together during the war, what happens later means he has to care for his family first. Ultimately Doctor Zhivago is set up as a love triangle with a bit of violence and revolution thrown in for good measure. Yuri's ending is a tragic one, some would say overly so, but there was a kind of a happy ending involving the supposed daughter of Yuri and Lara.
As with all of Lean's films, Doctor Zhivago is wonderfully shot and brilliantly scored. The film won five Oscars which included the prizes for Art Direction, Costume Design and Cinematography. I personally found a lot of the shots and set pieces to be first class, these include the shot of the train coming out of the tunnel following the intermission and Yuri's attempts to attract Lara's attentions for the last time. The vast expanse of sets used was amazing while the fact that Lean's team were able to transform Spain into Russia was astounding. Maurice Jarre's score also deserves a mention and in particular 'Lara's Theme' which is still an incredibly enchanting piece of film music. One of the elements that let Doctor Zhivago down was its running time, a regular bugbear of mine, as I felt the film meandered during its 200 minutes. I also wasn't a particular fan of the character of Yuri as he always seemed to be someone on the outskirts of society and somebody who could never commit to anything. This isn't anything against Sharif's performance though I do feel he lacked chemistry with both his female leads. Julie Christie was absolutely amazing as Lara and played a completely different role to her Oscar-winning turn in Darling. Similarly Rod Steiger's brutish portrayal of Komarvosky was a scene-stealing performance. However, the only acting nomination came for Tom Courtenay as the idealistic and later bloodthirsty Pasha. I found Courtenay utterly mesmerising as he played a man who truly had passion for his cause but later had lost all of this and had now realised that he was never to have a personal life.
Overall, while not one of my favourite of Lean's films, there's no denying that Doctor Zhivago is a visually spectacular piece with some interesting performances. Though I found heavy-going occasionally, Lean seemed to have a genuine love for his characters that shone through. I just wish that Doctor Zhivago's runtime had been shaved slightly as I felt this would have made a definite improvement.
Next time we come to the last 1960s film of our search.
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 207: An All-Star War
Following on from How the West Was Won; we look at another ensemble action film in the form of The Longest Day. Unlike the western though, The Longest Day isn't an all-colour rambling epic but rather it's a focused study on the events that led up to the D-Day Landing. The entire film was the vision of producer Darryl F. Zanuck who employed four directors to tell every side of the story. Employing a documentary style and shot completely in black-and-white, The Longest Day sees the D-Day landings plotted by both the Germans and the Allies. Unusually for the time, the film used German and French actors to speak in their own language, rather than using English actors to put on dodgy accents a la 'Allo 'Allo. It appeared to me as if Zanuck wanted to get events as realistic as possible so had a lot of the events play out in real time. These events included the British glider missions to secure the Pegasus Bridge and the counter attack that was planned by the American paratroopers. The film itself ends with the iconic Normandy Landings as troops on both sides are quickly shot down. For me, this was where the film really got going and I felt that Zanuck had paced the movie well up to this point.
The main problem I had with The Longest Day was there wasn't any major plots, instead this was more of a docu-drama focusing on one specific event. As there were so many characters, it was impossible to keep up with who was who and a lot of famous faces popped up briefly, most-notably Sean Connery, who was just about to become a household name courtesy of a certain spy. While there are indeed some recurring plots, including one involving a card game, it is obviously the battle that takes priority and therefore this comes across as more of a documentary than a fictional piece. What I felt that Zanuck did well was the set-pieces, especially the aforementioned landings themselves, and I'm not surprised that the film won the Best Special Effects Oscar that year. I also felt the majority of the cast played their parts well, however minor they were, and really made me care about the plight of the allies. This however doesn't apply to John Wayne who, as Benjamin Vandervoot, never really convinced and just seemed to playing himself. Overall I found The Longest Day to be a gripping account of a much talked about moment in military history although one that goes on a bit. It also suffers from lack of story and far too many characters, but ultimately it's the film's visual style that's its saving grace.
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