Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 242-243: Robert De Niro's Waiting

As you've seen so far in this blog, a lot of stars came into their own in the 1970s. One of them was definitely Robert De Niro, who we've already seen in Oscar-winning form when he appeared in The Godfather Part Two. However, it was only later in the decade that De Niro became a leading man and this was partly thanks to his association with director Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese and De Niro's first Oscar-nominated collaboration came in the form of Taxi Driver. The film saw De Niro playing Travis Bickle, a former marine turned cabbie whose insomnia meant that he often trawled the streets of New York late at night. The episodic structure of Taxi Driver saw Travis struggle to comprehend the stresses of modern day life as we quickly learnt that he was a fairly unhinged young man. The first half of the film sees Travis attempt to woo young campaigner Betsy but their relationship is cut short after he takes her to see a fairly explicit Swedish film. Betsy's rejection sends Travis further down a dark street as he get himself into tip top condition and buys a gun which he later uses to stop an armed robbery at a convenience store. The final half of the film watches Travis' plan to assassinate presidential candidate Charles Palantine which is ultimately quashed when he is spotted by secret service guards. Instead, Travis sees it as his mission to prevent young prostitute Iris from being corrupted by her pimp Sport. The relationship between Travis and Iris is an interesting one as he attempts to be a positive influence on this young soul. As the film reaches its violent and bloody conclusion, the once incredibly isolated Travis finds himself becoming something of a hero.

From the first strains of Bernard Hermann's haunting score, I was completely entranced by Taxi Driver. Though I have seen the film before, I think that I appreciate it a lot more than I did when I first saw it ten years ago. I personally feel that this was the film that put Scorsese on the map and showed what an interesting film-maker he could be. Oddly, he wasn't nominated for Best Director and there was no love either for Paul Schrader's brilliantly dark screenplay. I have to say Schrader's script perfectly constructs one of film's most memorable anti-heroes and he and Scorsese do a brilliant job of making us identify with someone who is as mentally unstable as Bickle. But I believe that the primary reason that we want to follow Travis is because of De Niro's Oscar-nominated performance. I feel that he makes you understand Bickle's mind and the reasons he has behind all of his ideas from taking Betsy to the adult cinema to attempting to rescue Iris from Sport. De Niro is ably supported by Jodie Foster, the only other cast member to be nominated for an Oscar, who is absolutely brilliant as the aforementioned Iris. Foster plays Iris as someone who has plenty of experience beyond her years but you can see behind her eyes that she's just a frightened little girl. Cybil Shepherd is equally great as the stuck-up Betsy while Harvey Keitel is fairly frightening as Iris' pimp. As with a lot of Scorsese's films, Taxi Driver is an ode to New York, a city which is captured here by Michael Chapman's superb cinematography which lets us see the area through the eyes of Travis. Not always an easy watch, Taxi Driver isn't as violent as I remembered and instead Scorsese really makes you anticipate the violence by building up the tension. I'm personally not sure if the ending makes sense after what has come before, but ultimately I feel that Taxi Driver is one of the best films of the 1970s and the fact that it didn't win one Oscar is a literal travesty.

Another De Niro starring feature that did a lot better at the Oscars was The Deer Hunter, which won the Best Picture prize at the 1979 ceremony. Set over three acts; The Deer Hunter tells the story of a group of smalltown steel workers who go to war in Vietnam and are later unable to shake the horrors of the conflict following the fighting. De Niro plays the de facto leader of the group, Michael Vronsky, a strong silent man who loves to hunt deer but isn't great with talking about his emotions. The first act sees Michael and his friends celebrate the impending wedding of their friend Steve before the pair journey to Vietnam alongside Steve's best man Nick. The scenes before and during the wedding appear to be there to set up the relationships between the characters namely the fact that Michael has a crush on Nick's girlfriend Linda. This almost hour-long act concludes with the characters going on the first of two infamous deer hunts. The second act is definitely the film's most powerful; as we see the trio put in a Prisoner of War camp and forced into playing Russian Roulette. Though Michael engineers their escape, the resulting rescue sees Steve lose his legs and Nick being mentally scarred by their actions. Michael later returns home alone and can't seem to fit into the life that he once had. He attempts to start a relationship with Linda but feels he must return to Saigon, if only to find out what happened to Nick.

The Deer Hunter is often held up as one of the best films of all time, and according to the Academy it was the best film released in 1978, but I have to say I was a little unimpressed. Firstly the positives, Vilmos Zsigmond's brilliant cinematography which brought the entire film to life and put the viewer firmly in the middle of the action. Zsigmond was able to shoot everything to perfection whether it be an incredibly bloody scene in Vietnam or a simple bowling came back in America. The performances were incredibly involving throughout with De Niro underplaying his role as Michael. Unlike the characters he's previously played; Michael really is a man of action and so De Niro really had to tone down his usually animated expressions. I feel that he pulled this off, even if it did mean he was outshone by several members of the supporting cast. Christopher Walken in particular was the stand-out here, and the only member of the cast to win an Oscar, as Steve who goes on a dark journey after his time in Vietnam. Walken was absolutely spellbinding in the final Russian Roulette scenes and he more than deserved his Best Supporting Actor award. Another performer who became a big name thanks to The Deer Hunter was Meryl Streep, who garnered her first of many Oscar nominations. As Linda, Streep really added an emotional core to the film as she sort of let us know how the war had affected those in America. The Deer Hunter sadly marked the end of the career of John Cazale, who died of cancer before the film was completed. In fact Cazale's role of Stanley was almost re-cast before his real-life girlfriend Streep threatened to walk out if this was done. As he has done throughout all of the films we've seen him appear in, Cazale adds a nervous energy to the role of Stanley. Just like with Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter has a similarly memorable score and I do feel that composer Stanley Myers deserved at least a nomination for the film's music.

To me the biggest negative about The Deer Hunter is that it feels a little over-indulgent, primarily due to its almost three-hour running time. I do feel that Michael Cimino really needed to edit down some of the scenes, especially those in the first act, as a lot of them don't seem particularly necessary. While I understand the importance of letting us get to know the characters, some of the scenes at Stanley's wedding added nothing to the overall story of the film. The film's screenplay was similarly baggy and some of the dialogue felt a little clunky and uneven. The final scene in particular was a little too patriotic for my liking as we see the surviving characters spontaneously break out into a chorus of 'God Bless America'. That's not to say The Deer Hunter was a poor film, it just needed to have been cut down a little bit more as the pace was poor at best. The ironic thing is that a film that needed serious editing down actually won the Oscar for Best Editing.

Next time we have a right royal film which features a well-told story.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 238-239: Coming of Age

As someone who grew up on a diet of 1980s Brat Pack classics, I always felt that John Hughes blazed the trail as far as classic high school films went. However the coming of age film can be traced back a decade earlier as the 1970s Oscar nominees provide two teen classics. Both feature young men on their way out of high school as they look forward to the next chapter in their life. The two are similar as they look back at prior decades, focus on small town life and have endings that can't exactly be described as happy.