Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 379-381: Greetings from Middle Earth

As we've seen throughout the course of this blog, very few of the Best Picture nominees come from the sci-fi and fantasy genre. For the most part every film takes part on Planet Earth and usually visits an incident from recent history. However, in the early part of the 21st century, things changed as one of the most popular literary trilogies in history was adapted by New Zealand film-maker Peter Jackson. All three parts of The Lord of the Rings trilogy went on to be nominated for Best Picture, with the concluding chapter winning the top prize. This post will see me revisit all three films and present a fresh perspective on movies I first viewed on their opening days of release.

Although I bought the extended edition DVDs I've never actually gotten round to watching them and instead primarily purchased them because they'd look good in my collection. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this challenge, having extra scenes scattered throughout the films made the pace lag somewhat. As The Lord of The Rings is one of the most successful film franchises of all time; I don't think a recap of the plot is particularly necessary. Instead I will make my comments about each film starting with the opening chapter; The Fellowship of The Ring. For the opening part of a franchise, I felt The Fellowship did a good job of establishing the characters and getting all the major players into one place. However, perhaps due to me watching the extended cut, I found that Peter Jackson spent a little bit too much time at Bilbo Baggins' birthday bash and could've got the Hobbits on the road a tad quicker. Even a Middle Earth novice such as myself I understood the motivations for each character and the horrors that stood in their way as Frodo and Sam were tasked with dispatching 'the one ring' into Mount Doom. One of the biggest characters throughout the franchise, which was established about halfway through The Fellowship, was that of New Zealand itself. Director Peter Jackson's native country was chosen as the backdrop for the film and it served its purpose well, convincing this viewer that I was watching events take place in a mystical land. Andrew Lesnie's Oscar-winning cinematography perfectly captures this backdrop and draws the viewer in throughout the three hour running time.

Cinematography was one of the four categories that The Fellowship of The Ring triumphed in, matching the total of that year's Best Picture winner A Beautiful Mind. The film won further awards for Best Visual Effects, Best Make-Up and Best Score for Howard Shore's iconic film music. Interestingly, of all of the three films, The Fellowship of The Ring garnered the most nominations of the trio and was also the only one to have an acting nod. That went to Ian Mckellen who lost the Supporting Actor award to fellow Brit Jim Broadbent; however his nomination was more than deserved. As Gandalf, McKellen is definitely the heart of the piece and his 'you shall not pass!' speech is as stirring today as it was over thirteen years ago. The problem with The Fellowship, and the trilogy as a whole, is that it's an ensemble piece so it's particularly hard to pick out one or two performances. If I were to highlight other turns in this first film then they would be Viggo Mortensen's swashbuckling performance as Aragon and Christopher Lee's scenery chewing efforts as Saruman. One thing I would say about the film is that it has the perfect balance of light and shade, building up the tension so when the big moments strike they feel important. The fellowship's final battle with the orcs was especially moving and perfectly bridged the gap between the trilogy's first two films.

Of the three films, I definitely found The Two Towers the hardest to watch as it takes its sweet time getting to the majestic Battle for Helm's Deep. There are several problems, most of them to do with the introduction of new characters; most of whom aren't that interesting and seemingly are there to slow down the flow of the narrative. For example David Wenham's Faramir briefly slows down Sam and Frodo's journey to Mount Doom before letting them continue their journey. Merry and Pippin's whole plot in the second film is possibly the dullest as they're stuck travelling with the tiresome Treebeard. Meanwhile Aragon has trouble diverting the case of the pretty and assertive Eowyn; who is infinitely more interesting than his true love Arwen. However, thankfully there is one character that makes a difference and is to some the  most memorable part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm talking of course about Gollum; the slimy creature played with such relish by the fantastic Andy Serkis. Serkis' debut as Gollum singled him out as the master of the motion capture suit; a legacy he has since cemented as Caesar in the Planet of The Apes films. The fact that Serkis has yet to be nominated for an Oscar for playing either character is a travesty and one that I hope will be rectified soon. Gollum's inclusion in the Sam and Frodo plot also put some tension between the lifelong friends and gave this second film a bit of edge that the first one sorely lacked.

Aside from Serkis the only other new cast member who I'd single out is Bernard Hill as King Theoden who is initially possessed by Saruman. Hill was convincing as a worn out leader who'd let magic take over him and was equally at home when he was tasked with commanding armies in the film's latter scenes. As I insinuated, The Two Towers was the toughest watch and was therefore the one film in the trilogy that I was surprised to see in the Best Picture category. Maybe the academy just wanted some sort of symmetry or they were just taken aback by the motion capture technology employed by Serkis. However, it's clear that generally The Two Towers wasn't as well-regarded as The Fellowship as it only received six nominations. Of those nods, most of which were in the technical categories, it only received two awards for sound effects editing and visual effects. While I understand that not every second instalment can be The Empire Strikes Back, I found The Two Towers dragged at times and I did honestly feel as if I'd never get through the Lord of The Rings. Thank God then for Serkis whose performance as Gollum saved the film for me and made genuinely excited to see the third and final film.

That film, The Return of the King, went on to become one of the most successful films in Oscar history tying both Titanic and Ben-Hur at eleven wins a piece. It also won every award it was nominated for including triumphs in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. Some would argue that The Return of the King's clean sweep was the Academy's way of honouring the trilogy as a whole and in some cases that's plain to see. For example wins the costumes and art direction are unchanged throughout the three films yet for some reason they were only Oscar-worthy during The Return of the King. However, I would argue that it's the best film of the three and it was definitely the one I found easiest to watch. From the undead army to Shelob the giant spider; The Return of the King continues the visual splendour that the first two films deal with so well. At the same time I found the story utterly gripping, especially the scenes in which Gollum manipulates Frodo into believing Sam is trying to steal the ring. Whilst Serkis is at the top of his game once again, I found Sean Astin's turn as Sam to be utterly mesmerising as he perfectly conveyed his character's innocence. Elijah Wood deserves similar praise for his affecting turn as Frodo who in this film in particular has to deal with a lot of perilous situations. Everything was brought together brilliantly and I was totally on the edge of my seat as Frodo was perched in Mount Doom deciding whether or not to keep the ring. Even though I already knew the outcome I found myself compelled to keep watching and I'm glad I did.

One thing that The Return of The King is constantly criticised for is the fact that it just won't end. Following Frodo and Sam's successful time at Mount Doom, we are shown Aragon's coronation and Sam's wedding before the final scenes air. At the time I was of the opinion that The Return of the King did indeed have one too many endings but I feel that that was to do with already having sat through a three hour film at the cinema. In the comfort of my own living room, these feelings changed and I had no problem with seeing the characters I'd followed for the best part of nine hours settle down before seeing each other for the last time. When evaluating The Return of The King worthiness as a Best Picture winner I have to think about whether it works if you didn't watch the first two films. Obviously if you did that then it would be a little silly, however I do feel that you'd lose some of the context about the characters and wouldn't be rooting for the Hobbits as much if you hadn't followed them from the first moment they left The Shire. That being said, The Return of The King is definitely the strongest part of the trilogy and brings together the best elements of the other two films. It's stunning to watch, capitalises on new technology and brings out the best in its ensemble cast. Ultimately I would say that The Return of The King is deserving of its place in the Best Picture pantheon even if I do think the Academy were giving the Oscar to the entire trilogy.

Next time we have a bit of a breather from the epics with some quirky characters and award-winning scripts.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 261: A Southern Gene

Continuing the theme of looking back at what the stars of the 1970s nominees were doing in the next decade, we come to the work of Gene Hackman. The star of two of my favourite 1970s nominees, The French Connection and The Conversation, Hackman only featured in one nominee in the 1980s. That film was Mississippi Burning, in which Hackman starred as FBI Agent Rupert Anderson who returned to his home state of Mississippi in order to solve the case of two missing civil rights workers. The film, set in 1964, centres around the rural community of Jessop County who don't take too kindly to two outsiders interfering in their business. At the time, segregation was rife and even staff in the sheriff's department are members of the Klu Klux Klan. The black members of the community are often at risk of having their churches set on fire or to find flaming crosses on their lawns. Anderson's superior Agent on the case is the much younger Alan Ward, a college-educated liberal who isn't as worldly wise as his new partner. Indeed, Anderson knows the area well and is able to get more information by popping into the local beauty parlour than Ward does when he formally questions a number of suspects. Feeling he's getting nowhere, Ward calls for more agents to descend on the area, followed soon by the press and members of the army. Eventually, a war of words breaks out between the locals and the agents, with the black members of the town caught in the middle. Ward and Anderson are later convinced that Deputy Pell had something to do with the death of the men and question his wife about her flimsy alibi. When Anderson appeals to Mrs Pell's better nature, he sets in course a chain of events which change the area forever.

In his other nominated film Midnight Express, director Alan Parker manipulated certain events of a true story in order to create a more compelling film. He did this again with Mississippi Burning, in which he fictionalised the investigation into the civil rights worker's disappearance to create a gripping narrative. I was quite enthralled throughout most of Mississippi Burning, which took the form of a standard police procedural albeit it one that dealt with deeper themes. Peter Biziou's Oscar-winning cinematography really encapsulates the mood of the time as he able to get the audience to experience the hatred felt between both sides of the community. His shots of the attacks on the churches were particularly exceptional and provided some harrowing imagery throughout the film. Just like in Midnight Express, the haunting score makes you feel uneasy at times, though this film was nowhere near as gritty as the Turkish prison epic. The disparate nature of the two agents is what's at the heart of the film and their both given life by two fantastic actors. As Ward, Willem Dafoe gives quite a methodical performance as the educated man forced to deal with customs that he sees as backwards. However, this is really Hackman's film and he delivers another outstanding turn as the agent raised in a similar community who is forced to return to the hatred that he thought he'd left behind. Hackman portrays Anderson as somebody who understands the people, but also disagrees with them and his mixture of humour and violence is an unsettling combination. Hackman was Oscar-nominated for his role here as was Frances McDormand as the timid Mrs Pell who later gets her chance at a new life. The one real problem I had with Mississippi Burning was that I found it to be a little bit too one-sided at times as in all of the white members of the community were shocking racists and all of the black civilians were victims. Whilst I feel that this is probably close to the truth, it does make both sides come off as caricatures at times. Luckily, Anderson and Ward feel like real people and this contributes to an incredibly satisfying, if harrowing film about the many forms that prejudice comes in.

Next time another previous winner offers us another film in which he writes, directs and stars.

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.