Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 286-287: Don't Stand So Close to Me

During my assessment of her work in the 1950s, I constantly wondered why Deborah Kerr never won an Oscar despite being nominated a mind-boggling six times. There's another lady who has now tied Kerr for being the actress with the most unsuccessful Oscar nominated performances. The actress in question is Glenn Close who in the 1980s lost out in the acting categories a total of five times whilst her most recent loss came a couple of years ago. We've already witnessed one of Close's Oscar-nominated roles, in The Big Chill where she played a well-meaning and friendly Doctor. However, in the tail-end of the decade, Close would demonstrate that she was much better at playing manipulative and at times downright scary female protagonists.

The great thing about Close's performance in Fatal Attraction is that her character initially seems fairly normal. Whilst it's clear that her character Alex Forrest is attracted to Michael Douglas' lawyer Dan Gallagher when they meet at a party there doesn't seem to be anything amiss about her. The audience remain similarly unsurprised when the couple begin an affair while Dan's wife and daughter are out in the country visiting family. The affair between Dan and Alex lasts for one whole weekend during which the latter starts to demonstrate signs that she may not be as normal as we first expected. However, as Alex realises Dan's intentions towards her were only fleeting, she stuns him by slitting her wrists when he attempts to leave. His compassion towards her is misread as something more and soon she's bombarding both his work and home phone with plenty of messages. Dan attempts to evade Alex by changing his phone number but once again she outsmarts him by turning up at his apartment as a potential buyer. Alex eventually admits to Dan that she's pregnant and he's the father but he claims that he wants nothing to do with her. From there Alex's behaviour becomes dangerous as she commits numerous crimes, including one incredibly iconic sequence involving an innocent pet and a pan of scorching water. Eventually Dan admits his affair to his wife and they agree to work together to bring down the psychopathic Alex.

After watching Fatal Attraction my first thought was the shock that a psychological thriller like this was ever nominated for Best Picture. While Fatal Attraction isn't a bad film by any stretch of the imagination it's not a movie that I would associate with the Oscars. Indeed, if Fatal Attraction was released in 2014 it would be instantly seen as a slightly creepy erotic film and may garner a cult audience but nothing more. What I personally enjoyed about Adrian Lyne's film is how the shocking moments are interspersed with plenty of mundane scenes involving Dan and his family. I believe that a thriller only works if the thrills are well built up and Fatal Attraction was a film that certainly was aware of how to do this. I do feel that I possibly would've enjoyed the film more had I not known the basic outline of the plot before sitting down to watch it. That being said I was still incredibly shocked by the final scenes which saw Alex's revenge thwarted by the Gallaghers. One of the reason the film works so well is the performance from Close who is believable as the unhinged Alex who would go to any lengths to ensnare the man she feels she should be with. Close excels both in the early scenes as the flirty, confident businesswoman and later as the psychopathic ex-lover with revenge firmly in her sights. Michael Douglas was the go-to sleazeball of the 1980s and here he takes to his role as the philandering family man with ease. My main issue with the film was the fact that the career woman Alex would be completely willing to sacrifice everything just because of her obsession with one man. This did spoil my enjoyment of the film slightly but then I don't think Fatal Attraction is a film that is based firmly in reality. Overall I found Fatal Attraction to be a gripping thriller with a satisfying ending that proved that Close was the perfect choice to play a manipulative character in the 1980s.

I'm sure that's partly why that, a year later, Close was called upon to play the Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons. The film, an adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, portrays Merteuil as a strong woman who attempts to play games with men to avenge the way her sex is treated. Her latest scheme involves getting one over on a former lover by attempting to break in his new fiancée, the virginal Cécile de Volanges, and therefore making a mockery of him in society. To do so she enlists the help of the similarly despicable Vicomte de Valmont who refuses to take part in her plot to deflower Cécile. His primary reason for this refusal is that he's already attempting to seduce another virtuous soul in Madame de Tourvel, a married woman who is currently staying with aunt. Merteuil believes that Valmont doesn't have a chance with Tourvel and makes a wager to this affect making herself the prize. From there the games really start to begin as Valmont manipulates his way around society, professing his love for Tourvel and staging charitable deeds in the hope that she'll see him as a decent man. Eventually, after making a discovery, Valmont agrees to seduce Cécile, an act that proves a lot easier than he first suspected. With a lot of double crossing and sexual encounters along the way, the ending of Dangerous Liaisons is fairly touching. I have to say that I wasn't expecting the sort of conclusion that the film offered and for that reason alone it really surprised me.

Having watched a lot of costume dramas throughout the decades, I can't say without a doubt that Dangerous Liaisons heralded in a new era for the genre. While the Oscar-winning production design and costumes remained fairly traditional the tone of the film was anything just. The tone can be attributed to Christopher Hampton, whose adapted screenplay was incredibly well-placed and was a worthy winner of an Oscar itself. Hampton's mischievous script was full of sexually charged conversations and manipulative characters who generally would have been secondary characters in other costume dramas. Neither Merteuil nor Valmont are particularly likeable characters but it's their hedonistic lifestyle and manipulation of others that makes them so intriguing. Hampton makes sure that neither are considered caricatures and includes scenes in which both explain their motivations for behaving as they do. The supporting characters add different elements to the plot whether it be the piety displayed by Tourvel or the wide-eyed innocence of the ditzy Cécile. Of her two roles in this post, Close is definitely more comfortable playing Merteuil primarily as her vengeance is portrayed as a way of getting back at all the men that have wronged her. Close is great both in her character's scenes with Valmont and those in which she is forced to act as an upstanding pillar of society. Close also shares a brilliant chemistry with John Malkovich who delivers a scenery-chewing performance as the dastardly Valmont. Malkovich controls every scene he's in and I believe its an absolute travesty that he wasn't nominated for his role in the film. Instead, the other nomination went to Michelle Pfieffer who was great at playing the pure Tourvel and in particular portraying her eventual love for Valmont. While I personally enjoyed Uma Thurman's turn as Cécile I felt that Keanu Reeves was miscast as her lover and music teacher Danceny. In fact, as Danency plays a vital part in the closing stages of the film, I would've thought that somebody with a bit mroe experience would've been cast. But that's a minor quibble of a lavishly exotic film that played with the boundaries of the costume drama genre and had fun doing it. Once again it demonstrated that Close was great at playing strong, slightly unhinged female characters.

Ironically, Close's most recent nomination saw her play a woman who was much more at home in her regular guise as a man. I really do hope that Close one day gets her day in the sun and wins an Oscar because, judging from what I've seen in the 1980s alone, she more than deserves it.

Next time a focus on another actress who, unlike Close, successfully won the Best Actress Oscar during the 1980s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 276-277: Field of Gold

In my last post I looked at On Golden Pond which featured the final Best Actress winning performance from Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn is famous for being the only woman in history to win the Best Actress prize a total of four times a record that has never been matched. Despite all her nominations, Meryl Streep has only won the prize twice as have Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and Luise Rainer.

One name whose missing from that list is Sally Field, whose two wins both came during ceremonies in the 1980s. In fact Field's first win came for a film up for Best Picture at the 1980 ceremony in which she played the title character of Norma Rae. Based on the story of Crystal Lee Sutton, Norma Rae Webster is a cotton mill worker in a small Southern town. When we meet her she has two children by two different men and lives with her parents both of whom work alongside her. We learn early on that Norma Rae makes ill-advised decisions as we see her conducting an affair with a married man. However she soon finds love with Sonny, a man with a young daughter who Norma Rae soon raises as her own. At the same time as meeting Sonny, Norma Rae also has several encounters with Reuben Warshowsky, a union organiser who has come to the town hoping to unionise the mill employees. However a lot of the residents are set in their ways and view the union as bad news especially considering how the mill bosses generally treat those who wish to join. But Norma Rae is unmoved in her determination and soon agrees to help Reuben in anyway she can, a move that upsets certain people around her. As she begins to devote more of her time to helping Reuben, Sonny begins to feel neglected and their relationship suffers as a result. But finally, after the death of her father, Norma Rae takes the biggest stand imaginable and this results in some really tear-jerking scenes.

There are a lot of films like Norma Rae being made to this day and their sole intent is to be nominated for as many awards as possible. In fact films such as Erin Brockovich and North Country owe a enormous debt to the film as they share both a similar structure and a story about a single mother attempting to rise above the system and do the right. I feel that if I'd watched Norma Rae when it was first released I might have a bit less of a cynical attitude than I do it in 2014. However I have to admit that the film did move me in its final moments as the factory employees agree to be unionised. The film does do exactly what is says on the tin as this is a story about Norma Rae first and foremost. Screenwriters Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch make Norma Rae feel like a real person as she's a woman who has her faults but has a genuine heart of gold. In addition they paint the picture of the close-knit community perfectly a theme heightened thanks to Martin Ritt's assured direction. But, at the heart of Norma Rae, is the outstanding central performance from Sally Field who at the time was a relative newcomer. Field combines a strength and vulnerability to create a heroine that we just want to succeed at whatever she decides to do. Her performance is what makes the film so captivating and without her I feel Norma Rae could have lapsed into melodrama fairly easily. Ultimately, while not a classic, Norma Rae is a solid feelgood film that has a cracking central performance from an actress who would receive more accolades later in the decade.

Field's second Best Actress win was for her performance as a struggling widow in Places in the Heart. The film, set during the American depression, sees Field's Edna Spalding become a widow when her sheriff husband is accidentally shot and killed. Realising that her husband was still repaying money he borrowed to buy the family farm, Edna is faced with the prospect of moving of splitting up her family. Instead of leaving the house, Edna decides to grow cotton on the land with help from black drifter Moze. Edna gets another lodger when the banker who she owes money to suggests that his blind brother-in-law Mr Will moves in. Mr Will is initially hostile to Edna, and even scolds her children, but later he bonds with the Spalding brood. Edna's new ramshackle family eventually realise that they need to harvest the cotton as soon as possible and get the price for it so Edna can keep the farm. But soon Moze faces difficulty from the racist townsfolk and Will is forced to use all of his facilities to help his new found friend. If this were the only story in Places in the Heart then I may have enjoyed the film a lot more but unfortunately there was a subplot involving Edna's siter and her philandering husband. Edna's brother-in-law Wayne is seen to be having an affair with the local schoolteacher Viola and their story plays out alongside Edna's. However, I found this plot to be utterly pointless and it should have been written out of the film altogether.

In fact one of Places in the Heart's main issues is its script, so it makes it all the more surprising that the other Oscar it won was for Best Adapted Screenplay. Whilst I understand that the screenwriters wanted to remain faithful to the original story, I found the Wayne subplot really didn't fit in with what the rest of the film was trying to do. Like Norma Rae, Places in the Heart is another story of a single woman trying to cope in a male-dominated society. The theme of the outcast is quite prevalent throughout as we have a woman, a black man and a blind man all living together and trying to make the best of a bad situation. Although the story is disjointed, Places in the Heart more than makes up for it with some wonderful cinematography. The period detail is wonderfully realised and cinematographer Néstor Almendros shoots the Texas landscape beautifully. I personally feel that Field's performance isn't a patch on her turn in Norma Rae and she really didn't make me care about the character of Edna very much at all. The performance of the film actually came from John Malkovich as Mr Will as I found his transformation to be utterly believable. Danny Glover similarly excelled as the likeable Moze and his turn here was a million miles away from his performance in The Color Purple. Oddly, Places in the Heart's lasting legacy isn't anything in the film but rather Field's Oscar Speech in which she let out the iconic line,  "I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" Unfortunately, I didn't like the film as much as the academy like Field's performance as I found it overly sentimental with a disjointed story  albeit one that has some fine supporting turns and some brilliant cinematography.

Next up we take it back a century with an adaptation of a classic piece of English Literature.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 271: Our Men in Cambodia

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More often than not these Best Picture nominees are based on historical events and that's true of my next film, The Killing Fields. Exploring the struggle of the Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge massacre it sees the atrocity through the eyes of American journalist Sydney Schanberg and his interpreter Dith Pran. Over the course of two years Sydney and Pran become good friends but both realise that events in Cambodia are just getting worse. While Sydney arranges safe passage out of Cambodia for the Pran family, Dith decides not to go with them and instead continues to help his friend out with his stories. Eventually the embassies extradite all of the foreigners out of Cambodia and, after failing to get out of the country with a false passport, Pran is forced to go it alone. The second half of the film primarily deals with Pran's struggles and his decision to play dumb in fear of alerting the soldiers to his true identity. Meanwhile, back in America, Sydney does all he can to locate Pran and tries to bring hope to his family that he's still alive somewhere. But, after winning a Pulitzer, he is chastised by fellow journalist Al Rockoff who himself was in Cambodia with Pran. As American forces start to invade Cambodia, Pran still finds his life in danger and attempts to avoid peril until he finally gets to safety. Though I enjoyed a lot of The Killing Fields, primarily because it side-stepped any sort of Hollywood sentimentality, the final scene in which the two men embrace while 'Imagine' plays over the top is a little cheesy.

It's fair to say that The Killing Fields was tough going at times but I suppose that was point. Director Roland Joffé employs almost a documentary-like style to The Killing Fields as he instructs cinematographer Chris Menges to capture every inch of the atrocity. Menges lets us see the horrific nature of events through the eyes of Sydney and Pran as dead bodies are left on the side of the road and eventually occupy large valleys. In particular I found this to be Pran's story and, in his first ever film role, Dr. Haing S Ngor brought the perfect amount of realism to the role. It was Ngor's naturalistic performance that really lifted the film and added to the believable nature of the story. In fact the second half of the film basically relies on his facial expressions to tell the story of The Killing Fields as the latter Cambodian scenes have few lines of dialogue. Ngor would go on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor but to me his performance was as much a lead role as Sam Waterston's with the pair having about equal time on screen. Not that there was anything wrong with Waterston's portrayal of Sydney as I found him to be sincere and earnest throughout. Although it took me a while to get into it, The Killing Fields really grabbed me with its Oscar-winning cinematography and editing. Even though the film didn't take the top prize at that year's Oscars, it did win Best Film at that year's BAFTAS and it definitely strikes me as a deserving nominee. Ultimately this was a film to appreciate rather than enjoy but it's a thoroughly interesting watch and Ngor's performance is just sublime.

Next time we have three films from a director who would become synonymous with the big-budget blockbuster.