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 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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 187: Parental Guidance

It's often easy to spot a film based on a successful play by the way it's constructed. If there's plenty of scenes set in one location and parts of the film where one character dominates the dialogue then it's pretty likely that it started life on the stage. That is definitely true of the 1966 nominee A Thousand Clowns which was based on the play by Herb Gardner. The story sees eccentric unemployed TV writer Murray Burns try to care for his nephew Nick while at the same time trying to dodge doing any work. Murray's situation changes when the child welfare board come to meet Nick and inspect Murray's apartment to see if it is suitable for a twelve year old to live in. During their visit, Murray is able to charm child psychologist Sandra and the two strike up a relationship based on her love of Murray's infectious personality. Despite him charming Sandra, the child welfare board deem that Nick must move out of Murray's apartment though he does have the chance to appeal. Sandra tells Murray that he must get a job in order to show that he is attempting to change his ways however Murray really despises being a worker. Murray eventually asks his agent brother Arnold for help getting work but Murray quickly tires of the TV executives that Arnold gets him to meet. At the same time Murray's relationship with Sandra sours when she realises he doesn't live in the same world as everybody else. In the end Murray realises that he must reunite with his old boss Leo, who plays the role of kids' favourite Chuckles the Chipmunk, in order to keep Nick living with him.

Despite A Thousand Clowns being mainly based in Murray's apartment I still really enjoyed this film mainly due to the script and the performances. I found all of the characters incredibly likeable and by the end of the film I was willing there to be some sort of fulfilling conclusion. Writer/director Fred Coe makes sure that A Thousand Clowns is well-paced and in most scenes all of the supporting players get to showcase their abilities. But this was mainly Jason Robards show and he gave a tour de force performance as the conflicted Marty who loved his nephew but at the same time really didn't want to work. I was surprised then that Robards didn't even receive a nomination for his performance. Instead the acting recognition went to Martin Balsam who didn't really make much of an impact on me as Arnold. Of the supporting cast I thought Barbara Harris was a joy as the scatty, unsure Sandra and William Daniels also gave a good accounting of himself as child welfare officer Albert. Overall I found A Thousand Clowns to be a delightful little comedy with plenty of great performances along the way. If you don't find yourself humming 'Yes Sir That's My Baby' after watching this film then you haven't enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.