Matt's Big Oscar Challenge: Reviewing the Ceremonies 42-51 (1970-1979)

I can't believe I've reached the end of yet another decade and that I've now reviewed the outcome of over fifty ceremonies. As I'm now firmly in the modern era, I think the 1970s has been the easiest decade to complete so far and I'm hoping that this trend continues throughout the rest of the challenge. Looking over the winners, and the majority of the nominees, it's clear that the 1970s is when some of the most influential films were released. Indeed, looking at the list below, there are at least a dozen movies that appear in the greatest films of all times list. Due to this reason it's incredibly hard for me to decide if the right film won each year but, as is my duty, I will endeavour nonetheless to satisfy my audience.

Ceremony 42 (1970) 

Winner: Midnight Cowboy

Nominees: Anne of the Thousand Days, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Hello Dolly, Z

Did the Right Film Win?: No
This line-up of nominees perfectly demonstrates the state of the Oscar selection process at the start of the decade. Whilst there are traditional choices like Anne of The Thousand Days and Hello Dolly there are also more interesting picks such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and Midnight Cowboy. My initial pick for the win was Midnight Cowboy however after recently catching up with Z I feel that Costa-Garvas' film was ahead of its time and ultimately deserved the recognition more than John Scheslinger's Best Picture winner. 

Ceremony 43 (1971) 

Winner: Patton

Nominees:  Airport, Five Easy Pieces, Love Story, M*A*S*H

Did the Right Film Win?: Yes

A very interesting collection of nominees were chosen this year, but I don't think any of them make a suitable Best Picture choice. So, despite my reservations about the film, I do still think that Patton was the most impressive film of the bunch. 

Ceremony 44 (1972) 

Winner: The French Connection

Nominees: A Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, The Last Picture Show, Nicholas and Alexandra

Did the Right Film Win?: Yes

As much as I enjoyed both A Clockwork Orange and The Last Picture Show, The French Connection is an incredible piece of work and deserved to be honoured. 

Ceremony 45 (1973) 

Winner: The Godfather

Nominees: Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, Sounder 

Did the Right Film Win?: Yes
Some incredibly diverse choices once again but there's no doubt in my mind that The Godfather should have won and in fact may be the best Best Picture film of all time. 

Ceremony 46 (1974) 

Winner: The Sting 

Nominees:  American Graffiti, Cries and Whispers, The Exorcist, A Touch of Class 

Did the Right Film Win?: No
Although it's fantastic to look at, I didn't think The Sting had much going on beneath the surface. A much worthier winner was Bergman's surreal Cries and Whispers but, in a way, I can understand why that didn't triumph. However my personal pick for Best Picture would be The Exorcist, a stunningly made film that poses a lot of questions and really highlights how effective the horror genre can be. 

Ceremony 47 (1975) 

Winner: The Godfather Part II

Nominees: Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno

Did the Right Film Win?: Maybe

I know it's a controversial choice, but personally I feel that The Conversation is a better, more interesting film than the second Godfather. At the same time, The Godfather Part II is a great film and this one is purely a matter of opinion. 

Ceremony 48 (1976) 

Winner: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 

Nominees:  Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville 

Did the Right Film Win?: Yes

Not much to say here as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is just an outstanding piece of work. 

Ceremony 49 (1977) 

Winner: Rocky 

Nominees: All the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver 

Did the Right Film Win?: No

Even though I like Rocky, there are three other films on this list more deserving of a Best Picture film win. Though Taxi Driver is an influential and innovative piece of work, to me this should have been a two horse race between Network and All the President's Men. I feel that Sidney Lumet's television satire was slightly better than the political thriller but I would have been happier if either had won. 

Ceremony 50 (1978) 

Winner: Annie Hall 

Nominees: The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point 

Did the Right Film Win?: Maybe

There is a case to be made that Star Wars should have won the Oscar, but this is based purely on hindsight. Star Wars definitely went on to be one of the most influential films of all time and provided several groundbreaking techniques. But watching the films purely as the academy would have done in the 1970s, I feel that Annie Hall was the strongest of the five. 

Ceremony 51 (1979) 

Winner: The Deer Hunter 

Nominees: Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman 

Did the Right Film Win?: Yes

Another year where there isn't a suitable alternative for the film that won the award. I did feel that The Deer Hunter was incredibly baggy, but at the same time it was an epic film that looks like an Oscar winner. Of the five, I probably enjoyed An Unmarried Woman the most, but that was mainly due to the well-written scripts and central performance from Jill Clayburgh. The Deer Hunter is the most spectacular-looking film so ultimately I begrudgingly accept that it should have won the Oscar.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 256 and 257: Redford and Newman end the decade with a bang

Film partnerships are something that cinema has thrived on throughout the years from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello. During the early years of the 1970s, two films cropped up in the Oscar nominations that had Robert Redford and Paul Newman topping the bill. An established star, Newman was one of the top Box Office stars of the 1960s thanks to his roles in The Hustler and Cool Hand Luke. Meanwhile Redford was an up-and-coming name who would later usurp Newman as the top draw at the Box Office. As well as sharing this incredibly talented duo; both films are directed by George Roy Hill and often feel like pastiches of the genres they inhabit.

This assertion is certainly true of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, a film that is in many ways a send-up of the Western genre. Unlike other Westerns, Butch and Sundance doesn't take itself too seriously and instead often pokes fun at how silly some of the plot devices in these sorts of movies often are. Incredibly loosely adapted from the story of its titular outlaws, the film focuses on Butch and Sundance as they escape from America and try to start a new life in Bolivia. Butch and Sundance is a film of two halves, the first a fairly standard Western in which our central figures carry out a number of train robberies. After being tracked down by a group of determined lawmen, Butch and Sundance decide to abscond into Bolivia in order to lead new lives. They are joined by Etta Place, Sundance's teacher girlfriend, who realises that the boys aren't going to be able to rob banks in Bolivia until they learn Spanish. The sequences in which the pair attempt to learn Spanish are some of the film's funniest and they lead to some more memorable moments as Butch and Sundance become Bolivia's Most Wanted. I found the romantic subplot of Butch and Sundance incredibly endearing as it's clear that Butch has eyes for Etta. The sequence in which they ride around on a bicycle, to the strains of 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head', is a sweet moment in another wise action-packed adventure. Obviously, Butch and Sundance is famous for its closing sequence, a freeze frame shot in which we are to assume what happens to the duo. Though it's clear what the outcome will be, what's less clear is why I grew to love these men who essentially rob to make their living.

Part of the reason for empathising with these bank robbers is due to William Goldman's fantastic script which presents the bank robbers in a vulnerable way. Usually in a western we root for the lawman, but here Butch and Sundance are a couple of endearing figures who are just trying to make a living the only way they know how. Both characters aren't as macho as they'd have you believe, with Butch never having fired a shot in his life and Sundance not knowing how to swim. In addition, it's great to see a strong female character in Etta and it's easy to spot why both men are completely in love with her. I personally felt that the first half of the film dragged, but once the trio reached Bolivia things really started to get going and ultimately I believe Goldman deserved his Best Screenplay Award. Conrad L Hall was similarly deserving of his Best Cinematography Oscar primarily due to the different techniques he employs throughout the film. As well as the aforementioned freeze frame shot, Hall makes the film stand-out by having its first five minutes shot in a sepia tone before returning to a traditional colour print. The scenes in which the trio journey to Bolivia by boat are also well-presented via a series of still-frame shots which almost feel like a set of holiday photos. Another memorable aspect of Butch and Sundance is the song 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head' which became a hit as a result of the film and was another Oscar winner alongside the movie's score. I did feel that Katharine Ross was incredibly compelling as this sweet schoolteacher who decided she wanted to live a little and used her gifts to becoming an accessory to a series of bank robberies. But ultimately, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid belonged to Newman and Redford who played their roles to pure perfection. There was undeniable chemistry between the pair that made it easy to believe why these two trusted each other so much. Similarly it was easy to see why Hill turned to the duo again for a subsequent film that concerned another criminal duo, this time a pair of 1930s conmen.

But, whereas Butch and Sundance saw Redford and Newman share the screen, The Sting presented Redford's Johnny Hooker as the leading man. The opening twenty or so minutes of The Sting introduced us to Hooker, a fairly adept conman who pulls of an operation, not realising that he's stealing from notorious crime boss Doyle Lonegan. After blowing the money he stole and realising his lifes at risk, Hooker flees to Chicago and meets up with world-weary conman Henry Gondorff, played by Newman. Though the two are initially reluctant partners they eventually invent a scheme to steal millions of pounds from Doyle, partly as revenge for the murder of their mutual acquaintance Luther Coleman. Both introduce themselves to Doyle aboard a train, using aliases, and manage to convince him that they are bookie and disgruntled employee respectively. After Gondorff, posing as the bookie, manages to out-con Doyle, Hooker convinces him that they can take the bookie to the cleaners by rigging a horse race. From there all of the characters try to outdo one another, with the plot taking another turn with the introduction of Lieutenant Snyder, a corrupt officer who has a vendetta with Hooker. There are a couple of twists along the way that not even I saw coming whilst Hooker finds a brief romance with a down-to-Earth waitress. Just like with Butch and Sundance, the final scene ends with a shoot-out but unlike the duo's earlier film this one is played as just another con.

I did find it odd that Hill recruited Redford and Newman only to have them share a minimum amount of scenes together. Though they're working on the same con together, Redford spends most of his time with Robert Shaw's Doyle and Newman is often seen in another room. When they do share scenes together, their chemistry is still brilliant but to me these segments are few and far between. However, they do highlight how art imitates life with Newman's Gondorff being the world weary master to Redford's Hooker who still has a lot to learn After The Sting, Redford's star would surpass Newman's and sadly the pair didn't work together on the big screen again. As far as the film as a whole goes I thought it was visually brilliant, especially thanks to William H Reynold's Oscar-winning editing as he used plenty of unique methods to cut between scenes. In fact everything from the period detail, to the costumes and the Al Jolson score set it apart from other films being made at the time. Similarly, David S Ward's brilliantly crafted story keeps the audience guessing as we find we've been conned as much as the majority of the characters in The Sting. But, despite an entertaining story and a unique visual style, I didn't personally think The Sting had much going on below the surface. Though Butch and Sundance was presented in a similarly flippant style, the romantic plot involving Etta gave it a bit of depth and made the characters feel sympathetic. Despite enjoying their exploits, I didn't think Gondorff and Hooker were particularly well-rounded individuals and I didn't really connect with them as characters. Therefore I do wonder why The Sting went on to win the Best Picture prize at the 1974 ceremony, something I will address in my next post.

As for Redford and Newman, their careers would take different twists and turns during the rest of the decade. Additionally they would both go on to achieve success at the Oscars during the 1980s, something I'll explore in my first post looking at the Oscar ceremonies from that decade. But for now its goodbye to the 1970s, a decade that arguably had the most amount of quality nominees of all time.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 255: The Great Outdoors

Thinking back over the majority of the last couple of films I've reviewed, most of them have complex plot structures. Obviously sprawling costume dramas such as Barry Lyndon and Nicholas and Alexandra have stories that stretch over numerous decades but even something like An Unmarried Woman has a lot going on story-wise. But for the next film on the list, Deliverance, a simple story is all that suffices and I feel the film is all the better for it. Deliverance follows four businessmen on a camping trip as one of their number, Lewis, is desperate to explore a valley before it and the surrounding town becomes one massive lake. Though Lewis and his friend Ed are experienced campers; their companions Drew and Bobby are not. Deliverance gives as an eerie feeling right away as the quartet arrive in the small town and encounter the locals, most of whom are portrayed as inbred yokels. Soon the four men are off on their canoes but on their first night camping, Lewis believes he hears a noise in the bushes. On the second day, Ed and Bobby get lost and end up coming ashore where they encounter two men. Anybody who's seen the film knows what graphic fate the two men inflict on the pair, especially Bobby, and this whole set piece ends with Louis killing one of the men with an arrow. From there the film presents a moral dilemma, namely should the men report the incident to the police or bury the body and forget what happened altogether. As the leader of the gang, Lewis eventually convinces the majority of the group to go along with his plan. But it's not smooth sailing back to dry land and our heroes face several more obstacles before they can return home.

Director John Boorman presents Deliverance in a fairly simplistic manner and it's all the better for it. A lot of the dialogue is fairly inconsequential and is used to demonstrate that these four men are quite ordinary. Indeed, even before we see their faces, we hear their voices as they plan the camping trip and let the audience know how they got to the small town. Boorman is also able to create the eerie tone of the film without going overboard and there are only one or two really big set pieces throughout the course of Deliverance. However, it's these set pieces that set in motion the moral quandary that's at the heart of Deliverance and I feel the film makes the audience question what they'd do in this situation. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond excels at thrusting us head first into the action and I feel he really captured the volatile nature of the outdoors. Indeed most of Deliverance happens outside and it's this exposure to the elements that changes the four men forever. I was really compelled by the majority of Deliverance, but I feel the pace really lagged once the men made it onto dry land. The final scenes, in which they attempted to cover up what had happened during their trip, dragged on too long for my liking. Of the four central actors, I found Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty the most engaging as novice explorers Drew and Bobby. Beatty in particular was outstanding during the violent scene whilst Cox made Drew the group's moral leader. After watching his performances in both Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home, it was interesting to see Jon Voight play a down-to-Earth everyman. I feel Voight really took to the role of Ed and I found he was at home here equally as much as he was playing a more outlandish character. Due to the fact that he was a major box office star at the time, I feel Burt Reynolds was the biggest name in Deliverance. But to me he made Lewis quite a caricature and he was the character I was least interested in overall. Another memorable element of Deliverance is the duelling banjos scene which is uplifting early on but later takes on a sinister undertone every time the tune is subsequently played in the film. Ultimately I found Deliverance a film with a simple story that was well-filmed and well-acted and one that poses a moral dilemma that we can all relate to.

Next Time I watch the final two films of the decade, a double bill starring a famous screen double act.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 253-254: Inside the Mind of Stanley Kubrick

We're back to focusing on two works by the same director and this time it's someone we've met before, Stanley Kubrick. As witnessed by his first work to be nominated for an Oscar, Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick isn't exactly a film-maker who plays by the rules. His two works from the 1970s that were Oscar-nominated reinforced this statement and really cemented his legacy as one of the most unique directors of all time.

Of the two of Kubrick's films nominated for Best Picture in the 1970s, A Clockwork Orange is definitely the most bizarre of the pair. Based on the novella by Anthony Burgess, the film delves into a dystopian future in which violence, rape and robbery are everyday occurrences. Our hero of sorts is Alexander DeLarge, a leader of a gang who take pleasure in committing these aforementioned deeds. Alex's style is unique in that he dons a white suit with a black hat and his group always wear animal masks whenever they commit a burglary. The second act of the film sees Alex arrested and later become a guinea pig for a new scheme in which the minister of interior hopes to turn violent individuals into law abiding citizens. This scheme involves brainwashing Alex using a series of harorwing images which ultimately make him violently ill. The worst part of this is that he is no longer able to hear Beethoven, his favourite composer, as his music is played over one of the films. The third act is the most interesting, as we see Alex return to his normal life as a broken man and one that can now not do anything to defend himself against the people who have wronged him in the past. I feel that this part of the film makes it an incredibly thought-provoking endeavour and so it was interesting to learn that Kubrick initially never intended to make the film. Instead, the story was dropped into his lap by a friend and he only decided to get involved in the project after the film he was going to make about the life of Napoleon fell through.

Stanley Kubrick has the reputation of being somewhat of a perfectionist so its interesting to learn that A Clockwork Orange was the film that took him the least time to complete. This was mainly due to the fact that the majority of the filming took place quite near to his home, in central London, and that there were no tricky technical sequences. Of course, the scene that sticks in most people's minds is that of the cinema in which Alex is forced to watch a number of disgusting films, with his eyes propped open constantly. To me though, it's the after-affects of these methods and in particular when Alex has a breakdown after being played Beethoven on-loop. I have to admit that it took me a while to get into A Clockwork Orange, with the opening ten or fifteen minutes being a particular struggle. I feel that being plunged into this world of sex and violence head-on was a little alienating to this particular viewer as was the slang that was employed by Alex and his friends. Luckily, as things progressed, I really started to get where the film was going and throughout the second and third acts I was completely engrossed. Part of the reason for this is down to Malcolm McDowell's incredible central performance as the anti-hero Alex. On paper, Alex is somebody who is completely unlikeable but over the course of the film I found McDowell made him feel quite sympathetic. Alex is definitely a product of his environment and Kubrick takes his time to show exactly what this sort of environment is. The production design and quirky cinematography add to the unsettling nature of the film and the score is particularly memorable. Though the film was nominated for four Oscars, it ultimately came away empty-handed, but that being said A Clockwork Orange is definitely a memorable film and one that makes you think long after the credits roll.

The same cannot be said for Kubrick's other Oscar-nominated film of the seventies, Barry Lyndon, which was neither memorable nor particularly original. Unlike his other films that I've watched for this project, Barry Lyndon was definitely his most traditional film and reminded me of several costume dramas that I'd previously encountered. Indeed, Barry Lyndon's traditional nature was reinforced by the fact that it even had an interval separating the two acts. Based on the work of William Makepeace Thackeray, Kubrick's other reason for making Barry Lyndon was that he could use some of the period research he had done for the now-aborted Napoleon project. Clocking in at three hours, Barry Lyndon tells the story of Redmond Barry a man who uses his quick-wit and cunning to climb up the rungs of society before losing it all again. The first act of the film sees Barry go from a penniless Irish rogue to somebody who frequents the classiest establishments in Europe. He does this through the use of his cunning and his manipulation of others, which allows him both to abandon the army and win plenty of money helping a wealthy Chevalier to cheat at cards. The film's second half begins with the marriage of Barry to Lady Lyndon, the late wife of an older aristocrat who dies towards the end of the first act. Now using the moniker of Barry Lyndon, our hero is not a good husband and doesn't even keep his affairs a particular secret. Due to this, Barry makes an enemy of his stepson who believes him to be no more than a common chancer. Indeed, in order to secure his position in society, Barry spends all of his wife's earnings on trying to get a title of his own. But, as the subtitle of the second act would suggest, Barry ultimately suffers a major downfall and loses everything in the process.

Visually, Barry Lyndon is a great work and was recognised for this at the Oscars where it one four awards in the technical categories. Cinematographer John Alcott captured some truly spectacular images throughout the film which really made you feel that you were part of the action. Similarly to A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon relies heavily on classical music and in particular the works of Handel and Vivaldi. It was for reworking the compositions of these two men that Leonard Roseman won his Oscar for the score. The award-winning costume design and art direction were equally sumptuous with the Irish exteriors being incredibly atmospheric. To an extent, I also enjoyed the way Barry Lyndon was narrated, by Michael Horden, as his views of events aren't always that trustworthy. While great to look at, I found Barry Lyndon a chore to get through and at almost three hours it was far too long. The first hour in particular was incredibly pain-staking as the film almost took on an episodic nature as we learnt of Barry's love for his cousin, the reason he joined the army and his eventual espionage. I finally became interested in the film when Barry started working for the Chevalier and that interest continued throughout the film's second act. That being said, I did find most scenes were stretched out far too long and that Kubrick could have edited down the film by at least thirty minutes. My other issue with the film was the central performance from Ryan O'Neal, who was seemingly picked for the role due to the fact that he wasn't the usual type of actor that Kubrick casts in his film. O'Neal struggled to maintain his Irish accent and really wasn't as charismatic as he should have been especially as we're meant to believe how much of Barry's luck relies on his charm. That's not to say that Barry Lyndon is a particularly bad film but, given that it's come from the mind of Stanley Kubrick, I was expecting a lot more.

Although Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange were two of Kubrick's most prominent films, I don't feel they're necessarily the movies that define his career.  Despite my issues with Barry Lyndon, both of these films showcase how much of a genius Kubrick was and how he often employed new technical methods to get the most out of his story. Kubrick truly was a visionary and it's a shame that I won't be able to watch any more of the films he made before his death.

Next time we have a film that looks at the perils of a countryside holiday.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 252: Girls on Top

In my last post, I looked at two incredibly audacious period dramas that coupled fantastic art decoration with some equally impressive cinematography. In a complete shift in tone, this post will explore a comedy drama that really highlights how women were coming into their own in the late part of the decade. An Unmarried Woman, stars Jill Clayburgh as Erica Benton, a wealthy woman living in New York with a successful husband and a loving teenage daughter. Erica spends a lot of her time at the art gallery where she works or having in-depth discussions with her three rowdy friends. However, life changes dramatically for Erica when her husband Martin announces that he's been having an affair for the last year with a younger woman. He now realises he's love with his bit on the side and wants to move in with her and divorce Erica, news that sends her into meltdown. Erica initially struggles to cope with this news and sinks into a minor depression, even snapping at her daughter Patti. As Martin was her only relationship, Erica doesn't know how to cope on the dating scene and has several unsuccessful encounters. She finally begins a proper relationship with eccentric British artist Saul with the pair sharing several meaningful exchanges. As she begins to feel liberated, she wonders if she actually needs a man in her life at all and if her relationship with Saul is what she really wants. 

Paul Mazursky, who wrote and directed An Unmarried Woman, had already carved out quite a successful career making adult relationship comedies. His debut film, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, won several plaudits and introduced him as an exciting new voice. But it wasn't until An Unmarried Woman that he finally became a massive name in the industry partly due to his Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. The script itself felt incredibly different from any film I've watched before on this list, with the possible exception of A Touch of Class. Mazursky's characters felt real and the discussions they were having were particularly explicit but rung true nonetheless. This particularly applies to Erica's frank discussions about sex with her three girlfriends and I felt these scenes were a big influence on the creators of Sex and The City. Erica herself is an interesting character as she's a woman who's been defined by a man all of her life and suddenly finds she's without one. I believe that we sympathise with Erica so much because of the brilliant Oscar-nominated performance from Jill Clayburgh. Clayburgh is fantastic throughout the film and provides in an incredibly raw depiction of a woman experiencing a massive upheaval in her life. Of the supporting cast, I felt that Kelly Bishop was great as Erica's friend Elaine who experienced bouts of depression throughout the film. Alan Bates was similarly well-utilised as the passionate artist Saul who captures Erica's heart while Michael Murphy was suitably sleazy as her husband Martin. I have to say I do enjoy watching an offbeat film like An Unmarried Woman once in a while and I found it incredibly easy to get through. It's a shame that more films like this aren't nominated for Oscars today but it once again showcases how diverse the range of Oscar-nominated movies were during the 1970s. 

Next time we have two films from a rather unique film director. 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 250-251: Franklin in Reverse

Sometimes I plan these double bill posts in advance, but occasionally they happen by accident such as when I realised my next two films were directed by the same man. The man in question is Franklin J Schaffner, who helmed two historical epics both of which went on to be bombarded with Oscar nominations. However, due to the fact that I only found out about this connection after watching the first film, I've presented this brief retrospective of his career in reverse.

We start with 1972 nominee Nicholas and Alexandra, an audaciously filmed account of the Romanov family and in particular the marriage of Tsar Nicholas to Princess Alexandra. Problems start to arise from the very beginning of the film when the couple's newborn son is diagnosed with hemophilia. Distraught at this news, Alexandra looks for answers which she finds from Russian peasant Grigori Rasputin, who claims to be a holy man. Rasputin's words of faith calm Alexandra who believes that he alone can heal her ill son, but his presence in court has a negative impact on the monarchy due to his lewd behaviour. When Nicholas is forced to cast Rasputin aside, Alexandra is upset and their son's condition worsens. It's only upon his return that Alexi begins to get well again and Nicholas is forced to find some other way to get rid of him. In the meantime Russia is really going through social upheaval, and Nicholas turns a blind eye when he hears of the Bloody Sunday Massacre. The second half of the film deals with World War I and how the Russians struggled to cope with leaders that were odds with one another. As the conflict continues, the Romanovs lose power and are shipped around Russia while their fate is decided elsewhere. Ultimately, this film has a rather grizzly ending but one that is somewhat left to the imagination.

While watching it, I felt like Nicholas and Alexandra would work as a great companion piece to Doctor Zhivao, due to both focusing on major events in Russian history. So I wasn't surprised to learn that producer Sam Spiegel decided to work on the film after being shut out by David Lean on Doctor Zhivago. The choice of Schaffner as director came after a number of men had already walked out on the project due to the length of time it took to construct a script. To Shaffner's credit he managed to construct the film well with Freddie Young's cinematography bringing to life some of the big historical events on show here. Due to budget restraints, Spiegel was forced to cast relative unknowns in the lead roles and have the big stars in smaller roles, such as Laurence Olivier as royal advisor Count Witte. But I feel the casting of lesser known actors was ultimately a positive for the film and there was much to like about the two leading performances. As Nicholas, Michael Jayston plays the flawed leader to perfection and even makes us sympathise with him in the later scenes. But he is acted off the screen by the brilliant Janet Suzman, who is absolutely compelling as Alexandra as she showcases the entire spectrum of emotions throughout the course of the film. Suzman was rewarded with the film's only acting nomination with the piece ultimately going on to win two awards for its sumptuous production design and brilliant costumes. One performance that I did feel was deserving of a nod was that of Tom Baker as the hedonistic Rasputin, who stole the first half of the film for me. It's odd watching Baker and not thinking of Doctor Who, but his Rasputin was one of the things about the film that get me going when the rest of it was dragging. Having watched film-making grow in the 1970s, Nicholas and Alexandra definitely felt a little old-fashioned, especially due to the fact that it had an interval. But there's no denying the visual spectacle of the piece coupled with a number of memorable performances.

Schaffner actually took on the direction of the film after scriptwriter James Goldman saw Patton, the film that had won the Oscar the year before. Just like with Nicholas and Alexandra, Patton is an incredibly well-shot story about a flawed leader who didn't really ever have his priorities in check. That leader was General George S Patton and the film follows his exploits over World War II from his work in North Africa to his final arrival into Germany. Patton opens with arguably its most memorable moment, the General's address to his troops in front of a massive American flag. From there we see him ruffle the feathers of a number of American officers in Africa who he believes aren't taking the campaign seriously. Though he's portrayed as a brilliant man, his inability to follow orders often makes him appear pig-headed and that's certainly true of the scenes involving the invasion of Sicily. Patton's views also get him in trouble when he accuses a shell-shocked soldier of cowardice and tells him to get back to the front line. Though Patton eventually weasels his way back into being part of the Battle of the Bulge, his words continue to get him in trouble. He insults the Russians on several occasions and finally loses command of his troops completely after comparing the major US political parties to the Nazis. In the end Patton isn't the stereotypical flag-waving war film that the opening suggested it would be, which made me enjoy it even more.

One thing I would say about both of the films in this post was that they were extra-long and could've probably done with trimming down at least twenty minutes from the overall running time. I did get the impression here that Schaffner and the screenwriters felt that every part of Patton's history was important and took almost three hours to tell a story that could've probably be done in two. That being said Patton the character is a lot more compelling that Patton the film thanks to the brilliant performance given by George C Scott. In fact it's Scott's performance that carries Patton from beginning to end and definitely why it won the Oscar for Best Picture. Patton is a flawed character and somebody who always speaks his mind even he should probably keep his mouth shut. Though we've seen Scott in supporting roles in the past, his role as Patton was his defining moment and resulted in a well-earned Best Actor Oscar that he ultimately declined. The problem with having such a memorable screen performance like Scott's is that every other cast member suffers as a result and not even the brilliant Karl Malden made an impression in one of the many supporting roles. Just like with Nicholas and Alexandra, Schaffner excels at presenting the historical set pieces and makes all the major battles feel important. Jerry Goldsmith's brilliant score adds almost an unsettling tone to the film with the brass instruments making me uneasy whenever I head them. Though I did find Patton compelling at times, I struggled to maintain my interest in the film over the three hour running time. Thankfully Scott kept me going throughout and I do feel that without his performance Patton wouldn't be as well-regarded as it is today.

Next time we have something completely different from the audacious historical dramas that I've just written about.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 247-249: Don't Hassle the Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman was an actor we first came across during the 1960s section of this blog. Back then he had just made his first breakthrough, as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, and this role catapulted him into the big time. Throughout the 1970s, Hoffman starred in three Oscar-nominated films and was nominated for Best Actor in two of them.

The first of these films was in fact the first Best Picture winner of the decade, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy. Though Hoffman was nominated for Best Actor, he lost to his co-star Jon Voight who gave a career-defining performance as hustler Joe Buck. The naive and emotionally-scarred Joe, starts the film as a Texan dishwasher who feels his only success is in pleasuring women. He decides to journey to New York in order to become a male prostitute but finds it tough to seek out clients and even finds himself paying out money to one of the women he has liaison with. He is later duped by Hoffman's conman 'Ratso' Rizzo who introduces him to what he believes to be a pimp, but is in fact an extreme Bible basher. Joe later seeks out Rizzo but the latter offers an olive branch when he invites Joe to live in the squat he calls home. The rest of the film sees the pair build up a friendship of sorts as they navigate their way through New York and attempt to survive on what they can find. Towards the end of the film, Rizzo's health begins to deteriorate just as Joe is beginning to build up somewhat of a client base. Instead of keeping an appointment with a wealthy woman, Joe decides to help his friend by buying them both bus tickets to Florida. The final scenes are rather emotional as the simple Joe, who has up to now worn nothing but a cowboy outfit, changes his look just as his friend loses his life.

Earning the honour of being the only X-Rated film ever to win the Best Picture award, Midnight Cowboy is a work of pure genius. The film is hard to watch at times but it is always brilliantly executed and contains some wonderful pieces of visual flair. John Schlesinger seems keen not to make Midnight Cowboy just a standard film and so the editing is great throughout as he inserts flashbacks and fantasy sequences into the narrative. The flashback scenes are particularly harrowing as we witness Joe and his girlfriend being raped and her later being carted off to an institution. I do feel that Midnight Cowboy was the film that ushered in a change to the Best Picture category, especially considering the previous year's winner was Oliver! Another of Midnight Cowboy's distinguishing features is its use of music with both John Barry's score and Harry Nilsson's 'Everybody's Talking' both sticking in the mind long after the film has finished. But to me the film belonged to two men - Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, whose partnership makes Midnight Cowboy the masterpiece that it is. Voight brings an innocence to Joe Buck that is incredibly endearing but also makes it clear that this is a man who has gone through an enormous amount of suffering in his life. Voight's wide-eyed innocence is perfectly counter-balanced by Hoffman's quick-talking as the charismatic 'Ratso' Rizzo. Hoffman is absolutely outstanding at making us sympathise with a man who could easily have come off as incredibly unlikeable in the hands of a lesser actor. Voight and Hoffman really make you care about Joe and Rizzo and I was really emotional when the final credits rolled.

Whilst Hoffman may have been overshadowed by Voight in Midnight Cowboy, the next Oscar-nominated film he appeared in was almost a showcase for his supreme talent. The film was Lenny, in which Hoffman starred as controversial stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce. The narrative structure of the movie sees the film begin with one of Bruce's later stand-up routines, as we see he has become a burned-out performer, before flashing back to where it all began. The film spends a lot of time concentrating on the relationship between Lenny and his stripper wife Honey, who hadn't been together long before tying the knot. However, it's a destructive relationship which falls apart due to his philandering and her problems with addiction. But their relationship does provide a child, who Lenny is forced to care for and so considers becoming a more family-friendly comic. Ultimately he finds that this is something he's unable to do as he delights in his controversial routine which is laden with profanities throughout. It is Lenny's mouth that later gets him in trouble when he is arrested for use of foul language and decides to defend himself. The final act of the film basically depicts Lenny's fall from grace and his ultimate untimely death from an overdose.

Lenny is an incredibly different film from a lot of what I have watched so far, in that it feels incredibly intimate and at the same time tells an incredibly broad story. As it's shot in black-and-white Lenny looks different from any other film released that year while in addition it employs several unique narrative devices. In addition to the non-linear nature of the plot, a lot of the film is made up of interviews with the characters who are giving their accounts of Lenny's life following his death. This way of telling the story allows screenwriter Julian Barry to let all of the characters get their perspectives across. Obviously the only character who isn't featured in these interviews is Lenny himself however the character looms large over every single scene. The dark nature of the film is intensified through the brilliant direction of Bob Fosse, whose attempts at editing the film are covered in a later entry to this blog. I feel that a lot of the stand-up scenes in Lenny are incredibly similar to the scenes in the club in Cabaret. The only difference is Lenny is performing a comedy routine rather than as a big musical number. Just like with Ratso, Lenny is another character that is hard to like but somehow Dustin Hoffman gives you reason to care about him. Hoffman is incredible during the stand-up scenes and proves what a magnetic screen presence he is when it is just him and a microphone on stage. Similarly great is Valerie Perrine, as Bruce's wife Honey, who gives a sympathetic performance as the stripper with an addictive personality. While Lenny is quite a self-indulgent film at times, there's no denying its a gripping biopic with a tour-de-force central performance. To me it signified that Hoffman was an actor who could turn his hand to anything and was one who wasn't afraid to shy away from more offbeat projects.

However, the final film in this triple bill is definitely the most traditional of the three. All the President's Men is an incredibly wordy biopic of how two Washington Post reporters ended up exposing serious corruption in Richard Nixon's government. Based on the book written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the film stars Robert Redford and Hoffman as the two reluctant partners on a case that appears initially low-key. The beginning point of the film sees new recruit Woodward being tasked with reporting on a courtroom story about five men who broke into the Watergate Offices. But soon this small story grows legs when Woodward discovers connections with the CIA and he feels that there is more to the tale than meets the eye. Though Woodward is portrayed as quite an intelligent young man, he still has a lot to learn about story layout and so is paired with the more experience Bernstein. Whereas Woodward is fairly level-headed, Bernstein is a lot more off-the-wall and this clash in personalities occasionally causes arguments. But eventually the men gain mutual respect for one another as they uncover some shocking secrets while at the same time struggling with the fact that most of their reports are based on unknown sources. Although some of the senior workers at the paper are not fans of the pair's procedures, they have the blessing of executive editor Ben Bradlee, who vows to stick with them even when the paper finds itself criticised. Though their story led to the resignation of Nixon, the film really doesn't hammer this point home and instead shows us a collection of headlines as its closing scene.

I feel one of the best things a biographical film can do is make you wonder what's going to happen next, when you already know the answer. That's what I felt throughout All the President's Men and I feel a lot of that can be attributed to William Goldman's Oscar-winning script. The film itself was a pet project of Redford who bought the rights to Woodward and Bernstein's book and had Goldman write a draft of the script. Though the script when through several drafts, the final product was incredibly outstanding and I feel that its dialogue-heavy nature influenced a lot of young screenwriters at the time. Indeed both this film and Network, which was released in the same year, had lots of scenes with men sitting around in rooms talking but somehow made them incredibly thrilling to watch. Though certainly the most dynamic member of the cast, Hoffman delivered his most toned down performance of this triple-bill. Hoffman's Bernstein is portrayed as being intrepid, if a little over-eager, and somebody who was always on the lookout for the next story. He is perfectly counter-balanced by the much cooler Redford and I feel the two make a great double act. At the time of the film's release, Redford was the biggest draw at the Box Office but here shared top billing with co-star Hoffman. However, neither was even nominated for Best Actor and the only acting award the film received was for Jason Robards for his compelling supporting turn as Ben Bradlee. Though All the President's Men isn't as dark as either Lenny or Midnight Cowboy, it was gripping throughout and was bolstered by two incredibly frantic performances. In addition I think its script has influenced a lot of the film and television that I love today and for that it deserves a large amount of praise.

Next time we take a trip back in time and head to Russia.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 246: A Dog's Tale

As I have now watched almost a whopping 280 films on this journey it's interesting to look at how some of the earlier films I viewed have still stuck in my mind . One movie that I don't feel I'll remember all that well is Sounder, which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1973 Oscars. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with Sounder it's just fair inconsequential. Based on the book by William H. Armstrong, Sounder focuses on David Lee Morgan the son of two black sharecroppers. The early part of the film depicts how hard life is for David and his family and how they struggle to put food on the table. The family is soon forced to cope without its patriarch when father Nathan is arrested for stealing food. The Sounder of the title is he family's dog who is shot by the authorities as they are taking Nathan away. The rest of the film sees David's attempts at being the man of the household and having to cope with Sounder's disappearance. Though boy and dog are eventually reunited, David still finds things tough and tries to tack Nathan down at a prison camp. David's journey sees him bond with a kindly teacher who offers to educate him and give him a place to stay during the winter. The film is given a suitably happy ending when Nathan returns home to his family and is able to watch David take his first steps of becoming an educated man.

Interestingly, I discovered that several changes were made in bringing Sounder to the big screen. Firstly none of the characters in the book were given names that is apart from Sounder the dog, which is why the story is named after him. Secondly, the book has a seemingly more tragic end than this film which actually has an incredibly happy conclusion given the dour nature of the rest of the plot. Though I have no knowledge of the story at all, I did get a feeling that the ending was overly sweet in tone and guessed that it might not have been exactly the same as the book. Indeed, I do feel that if I did have some knowledge of the original story then I would've enjoyed Sounder more but as it is most of it just passed me by. One thing I do have to praise is the ensemble cast, all of whom gave fantastic performances. Both Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson were given Oscar nominations for their roles in the film while I feel that Kevin Hooks deserved recognition for anchoring the movie in his role of David. Martin Ritt gives assured direction throughout the course of Sounder and some of the exterior scenes are very well-handled. Indeed, as I mentioned at the start, I can find little wrong with Sounder in terms of its production values I just wasn't blown away by anything I saw on screen. The fact that this fairly ordinary picture was nominated opposite The Godfather and Cabaret did astound me and I feel if Sounder was released today then the Academy would ignore it completely. Ultimately, Sounder is a well-acted and well-directed film which unfortunately is unmemorable primarily due to its incredibly slight story.

Next time we have a triple bill of films from an actor who really became a headlining star during the 1970s.