In the last couple of posts I've concentrated on actors who were some of the biggest box office stars of the decade. That trend continues with our focus on three films from Tom Cruise, who had already proved to be a hit at the box office during the late 1980s. Cruise started off in action films such as Top Gun but later expanded his repertoire to feature in more serious roles. We first saw Cruise in the final Best Picture winner of the 1980s; Rain Man and he went on to wow the academy by starring in three Oscar-nominated movies throughout the decade.
A year after Rain Man won the Best Picture, Cruise found himself nominated for his first of three acting nominations for his role in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. Cruise's matinee idol good looks were well-utilised as Ron Kovic an All-American boy who lives in a small New York town. Stone presents Ron as a good-looking, popular student who excels at sports and who is a member of a highly religious family. Ron is soon won over by a rousing speech given by the Marines and soon signs up himself eventually being deployed to Vietnam. Unlike Stone's previous work, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July doesn't spend long in Vietnam itself and instead looks at the after-effects on Ron's time during the war. During his second tour, Ron is deeply affected by his accidental killing of a fellow platoon member and later finds himself paralysed from the chest down after being critically wounded. Most of the rest of the film deals with Ron's struggle to deal with his condition and struggles to deal with the fact that his efforts in Vietnam aren't being appreciated. Where once being a military veteran was a mark of respect, the war is now being seen in a new light with a lot of protests springing up all over the place. The film takes some interesting detours, including a trip to Mexico, before Ron finally realises that being a Marine has done him no good. His work as a war protester ultimately saw him become a notable figure especially after writing a compelling book. It is that book that Stone adapted for the film itself but, as I've noticed with other Stone films, the message he gives throughout is pretty heavy-handed.
Just like with JFK and Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July really demonstrates Stone's liberal viewpoints and his message that war is bad is hammered home throughout the film's two and a half hour runtime. The picture postcard world of Ron's adolescence is soon replaced by plenty of heartbreak as we see his problems adjusting back into a community who no longer accepts him. The scenes I enjoyed the most were those in the veterans hospital in which Ron tried his best to prove he could walk again. Stone presents the hospital as a dirty and dilapidated place in which the patients have been forgotten by those in the outside world. The Mexican scenes are also interestingly portrayed as a place in which the paraplegic former soldiers can escape to a world in which they're treated well. Born on the Fourth of July evokes memories of many war films I've watched throughout the course of this journey including All Quiet on the Western Front, Coming Home and Stone's own Platoon. But the film it has the most in common with is Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives which also deals with the struggles of former soldiers in a small town community. Whilst it occasionally feels as if Stone is spoon-feeding the audience, there's no denying that he constructs a brilliant final chapter to the film which presents Ron as the hero he wants to be. Part of the reason that Ron is seen as such a compelling character is down to Cruise who brilliantly portrays the character's transformation throughout the course of the film. There's a depth to Cruise's performance in the latter scenes which proves that the actor isn't just a one trick pony and can thrive in drama as well as action. One of the other problems I had with the film is that there weren't any supporting characters to identify with primarily as none of the B-players seemed to stick around for very long. This is a shame as both Kyra Sedgwick and Willem Dafoe gave memorable turns but really weren't around long enough to make a lasting impression. Technically Born on the Fourth of July was a triumph as Robert Richardson's cinematography keeps the audience thoroughly gripped during all of the film's various scenes. Stone won his second Best Director award for the film and I can see why although I would argue that Born on the Fourth of July isn't as much of a masterpiece as Platoon. In fact the best element of the film was Cruise's lead performance as I found him utterly captivating and more than deserving of his Best Actor nomination.
Three years later Cruise would once again find himself being the top star at the Box Office and featuring in another Best Picture nominee. This time the film was A Few Good Men, directed by Rob Reiner and adapted by Aaron Sorkin from his own stage play. As a big fan of Sorkin's work I could tell almost immediately that he had written the screenplay as it was both fast-paced and witty. The film is based around the court case of two marines; Privates Dawson and Downey, who are accused of poisoning and murdering their colleague Private William Santiago. Cruise plays Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer who is notorious for making plea bargains before cases go to court. Cruise excels as the smooth-talking lawyer and easily deals with Sorkin's unique brand of dialogue. Although Kaffee feels like it will be an open-and-shut case he didn't figure on the involvement of Commander Joanne Galloway, who thinks that the two privates deserve a proper trial. After getting herself involved in the case, Galloway convinces Kaffee to take the case to court after seeing that he believes that the men are innocent. Reiner and Sorkin let the audience in on the fact that the real men to blame are Dawson and Downey's commanding officers Col. Jessop and Lt. Kendrick who both gave them orders to scare Santiago after he criticised their leadership. Both men though are eager to cover up their orders and Dawson and Downey are seen as the sacrificial lambs who will go down due to Kaffee's inexperience in the courtroom. Although I've never seen A Few Good Men before I was aware of the film's big line delivered by Jessop in which he tells Kaffee 'You Can't Handle the Truth'. This line is brilliantly delivered by Jack Nicholson who was the only cast member to be nominated for his role in the film despite only appearing in a small amount of scenes.
The fact that Nicholson's performance in the film is so memorable is a testament to Sorkin as much as it is to the actor's brilliant screen presence. One of Sorkin's biggest strengths is to flesh out his supporting characters so the audience is able to understand their motivations and care about them. This is true here as the violent Kendrick, charming government prosecutor Cpt. Ross and Kaffee's assistant Sam are all given their chances to shine. Cruise is great at portraying Kaffee's growing care of the case as we saw him become more passionate as the film progresses. Kafee's understanding of what it truly means to be a military man is a plot point that is never over-emphasised but also provides one of the film's memorable final scenes. Cruise also has great chemistry with Demi Moore and they bounce off each other perfectly as they deliver Sorkin's screwball comedy-esque dialogue. Since we last saw her in Ghost, Moore has definitely improved as an actress and she's great playing a straight-laced Lt Commander who remains buttoned up throughout. One of the things I liked so much about A Few Good Men was the fact that Galloway and Kaffee never were romantically involved and instead remained colleagues. I'm sure other writers would've had these characters embark on a romance during the film and it's a testament to Sorkin that this didn't happen. Reiner's direction is equally impressive and he is able to make the courtroom scenes as tense as possible. The way the camera pounces back between Kaffee and Jessop during the film's most infamous scene makes it almost feel like a tennis match albeit one based on power. Although not a truly great film, A Few Good Men is a great piece of entertainment and I found it easy to digest in one sitting. Reiner, Sorkin and a fine ensemble cast are able to provide two hours of compelling well-written drama which doesn't hammer home its central message. Meanwhile, Cruise proved that he could handle snappy dialogue and shine in a lighter role to the ones he played in both Born on the Fourth of July and Rain Man.
Four years later, Cruise appeared in his final Best Picture nominee where he once again starred in a dialogue-heavy feature. This time he played the titular sports agent in Jerry Maguire a film that was both written and directed by Cameron Crowe. Initially portrayed as a cynical sports agent, Maguire develops a conscience and writes a mission statement condemning a lot of the immoral means that agents go through to secure clients. His words eventually get him fired from his agency and he later breaks up with his fiancée leaving him with few people to count on. The film focuses on Jerry's two major relationships after his firing the first being with his only client, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell. I personally think that Jerry's friendship with Rod is the more compelling of the two relationships as it is their mutual respect that ultimately changes the protagonist's view of his job. Jerry's fear over Rod's potential injury at a game was the film's most emotional moment and it was followed by a moving embrace between the two men. I was therefore less interested in Jerry's relationship with single mother Dorothy Boyd, the only person from his old firm who agrees to join his new agency. I found Crowe's presentation of Jerry and Dorothy's romance to be quite clichéd and I felt that the former's marriage proposal came out of the blue. Additionally I wasn't a fan of Dorothy's cutesy son Ray, who felt out of place in what was otherwise an adult romantic comedy. What I did like was the fact that Jerry and Dorothy briefly separated due to the fact that he couldn't retain a romantic relationship with her. But, in one of the film's most famous moments, Jerry wins his wife over with the now classic line 'you complete me' which was followed up with Dorothy's own ' you had me at hello.' But in my opinion a couple of lines doesn't make up for quite a sickly sweet romance which I didn't feel particularly invested with at any time during the film.
I'm personally a big fan of Crowe's and even though he's been involved with a few misfires over the years, namely Elizabethtown, he has a likeable style and is a great writer and director. Although Jerry Maguire earned him his only Best Director nomination to date, I don't feel that it stacks up with his best films. Instead I feel that it's a pleasant enough romantic comedy which contains a few memorable moments that have gone down in film history. The film is at its best when concentrating on Jerry's job as a sports agent as it lets Crowe's ear for brilliant dialogue shine through. It also allows Cruise to demonstrate how great he not only is as a fast-talking businessman but also as somebody who learns the true meaning of friendship. Cruise has great chemistry with Cuba Gooding Jr who, as Rod, won that year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I initially wasn't won over by Cuba's performance and it was only in the second half of the film that he really shone. Although the film marked her big break, I thought that Renée Zellweger gave a rather weak performance as the single mother looking to embark on a new romance. Zellweger later proved that she was a great romantic comedy lead but here I found that there was no spark between her and Cruise. The casting of Jonathan Lipnicki as Ray was another misstep for the film as I found him annoying rather than endearing. Crowe has proved that he is able to write memorable supporting characters, but the quirky turns in Jerry Maguire leave a lot to be desired. The film was definitely a relaxing watch but I don't think it's a film that would ever be described as a classic in the romantic genre nor is it particularly memorable. In fact, although I've watched the film before, I remembered very little of it aside from its much-quoted lines of dialogue. Jerry Maguire also demonstrated how former music journalist Crowe could use a pop soundtrack to enhance the mood of a film. It was his love of music that would later produce his best work, and one of my favourite films; Almost Famous which saw him pick up an Oscar for his screenplay.
Meanwhile Cruise would go on to win his final acting nomination for his supporting turn in Magnolia which I still consider to be one of his best roles. But in the 2000s he concentrated more on action films most notably the Mission Impossible franchise whose four instalments all dominated the Box Office. Unfortunately Cruise became another actor who became better known for his personal life than his acting and that's a shame as this post has proved that he can really excel in the right role.
Next time we focus on an actor/director combination which triumphed at two 1990s Oscar ceremonies.
Showing posts with label Oliver Stone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oliver Stone. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 July 2014
Sunday, 6 July 2014
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 338-340: The Costner Collection
In my previous post I commented on how Patrick Swayze was one of the top box office draws in 1990 which made Ghost one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. But the man who remained a large draw over four consecutive years in the 1990s was Kevin Costner. Costner had gained most people's attention after appearing as Elliot Ness in The Untouchables before following it up with a starring role in Bull Durham. But it was another baseball film, and Best Picture nominee, that would cement his place as one of cinema's most recognisable stars.
That film was Field of Dreams in which Costner played Ray Kinsella, a farmer with a quirky family who begins to hear voices emanating from his cornfield. The film wasn't one I'd seen before but had heard various things about it namely that it was a feelgood film that appealed to male sports fans in particular. As somebody who's never particularly been a sports fan I was sceptical to the feelings this film provoked and it seems I was right to do this. The other famous attribute of the film is the line 'if you build it he will come' which convinces Ray to erect a baseball pitch next to his cornfield. Thanks to the fact that neither he nor his wife are particularly rational people they build the pitch to see what will happen. The film called for plenty of disbelief suspension as the ghost of disgraced baseball player 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson and various others started to play on the field. However director Phil Alden Robertson insinuated that the ghosts were only visible to open-minded folks due to the fact that Ray's brother-in-law couldn't see them when they were in plain sight. Despite risking financial ruin, Ray listneed to the voice once again as this time he was told to 'Heal his Pain'. The pain he had to heal was that of author Terrence Mann, a voice of the 1960s who had since disappeared from popular culture. Mann was possibly the most interesting character in Field of Dreams as he had become an antisocial recluse refusing to see anybody who'd been inspired by his works. Mann and Ray's road trip soon went into an entirely different direction as we learnt the story of player turned doctor 'Moonlight' Graham. I found the whole Graham subplot to be a bizarre diversion in the film's narrative which then picked up when Ray returned home. Despite not enjoying a lot of what had gone before, I have to admit that I rather enjoyed the final scenes of the film in which Ray was reunited with his father for a game of catch. However I didn't find this to be a particularly heartwarming scene and it didn't bring a tear to my eye in the way that scenes similar to this have done.
Throughout Field of Dreams I tried to work out why Costner would become such a big Box Office draw over the next four years. The answer I came up with was that he had the clean cut looks of a classic movie star and chose projects that would suit his style. The role of Ray Kinsella sees Costner play to his strengths as a likeable man who is following his heart rather than his head. Costner admirably anchored the film but at the same time I didn't think his performance was ever that enigmatic. Personally I thought the film's best performance came courtesy of James Earl Jones who breathed life into the character of Terrence Mann. Jones portrayed Mann as a belligerent character who was once full of ideals but has since fallen into obscurity while also ably conveying the author's change over the course of the film. The inclusion of Burt Lancaster as Doc Graham was an odd one as I don't think a star of his calibre should have appeared in such a small role. As much as I love Lancaster I think he was misused here and I think he should've stuck with his instincts which initially led him to turn down the role. Although I wasn't completely taken in by Field of Dreams' narrative I did think it had a particularly distinctive style. The use of a real farm in Iowa added some realism to the piece and John Lindley's stunning cinematography perfectly captured the exterior scenes. Furthermore Lindley tried his best to shoot the ghostly baseball players in a convincing way and was aided by James Horner's enchanting score. In fact it was Horner's score that stuck with me the most once I'd watched the film and that really says something about both the script and the performances. Whilst Field of Dreams wasn't a bad little film I just wasn't blown away by anything that happened in it and so don't understand the impact that it has had on a lot of people.
Following Field of Dreams, Costner's next project was his first film as a director and one that he'd been personally involved in for over five years. Costner first read Michael Blake's script for Dances with Wolves in the early 1980s and convinced him to turn into a novel. When the novel was finally released, Costner won the film rights and went over budget as well as over schedule to complete the western. There were plenty of sceptics who felt that Dances with Wolves would be a failure based on the fact that Costner broken the unwritten rule of first time directors; never film outdoors. Costner broke this rule in the biggest way possible, setting the majority of the film in the South Dakota countryside. Part of the reason for the delay was due to the area's unpredictable weather which held up filming for days at a time. But Costner wanted to use the area to add realism to the story about a Union Officer who integrates with a Sioux Indian tribe during the American Civil War. Costner's John Dunbar is the officer in question who ventures into the tribal camp when he finds one of their number, Stands with a Fist, wounded and on her own. Dunbar starts to impress the Sioux with his abilities but his failure to speak their language means that he has trouble communicating with them. Thankfully Stands with a Fist, who was adopted by the community after being born into an English-speaking family, remembers how to converse in her native tongue and eventually falls in love with Dunbar. Due to his relationship with a certain mammal, Dunbar later changes his name to 'Dances with Wolves' and helps his new family defeat the vicious Pawnee Tribe. However, Dunbar is later captured by his own people who believe he is a traitor to their cause and place him under arrest. The film's final scenes bring up the themes of family and finding somewhere to belong but deliver this message in an incredibly brutal way.
With the delays on the film, Dances with Wolves was expecting to be a flop especially considering it was a three hour western from a debut director. However critics and audiences flocked to see the film and it was later named Best Picture with Costner winning a further award for Best Director. Watching the film more than twenty years later I can't really see what both the critics and the academy members saw to make them hold the film in such high acclaim. A lot of the positives can be attributed to Dean Semler's cinematography which perfectly captured the imagery of the American west. Semler led me into Costner's world of the Sioux tribe and on a visual level I felt like I was part of the action. The story was another matter altogether as Blake's script was overlong and seemed to tread over the same points many times. In my opinion it took far too long for Dunbar to encounter the Sioux tribe as his integration into their society was the main story of the film. I was equally disinterested in Dunbar's relationship with Stands with a Fist partly because of Mary McDonnell's subdued performance. Whilst the character of Stands with a Fist was an interesting one I don't think McDonnell was really captivating and I don't feel that she shared a lot of chemistry with Costner. Of the three films in this post, I feel Dances with Wolves features Costner's weakest performance as he plays an unconvincing military hero. In my opinion Costner is at his best when he's on screen with other actors but as Dunbar faces plenty of solitary days during the film he's forced to lead the film single-handedly. I do feel that Costner should have stayed behind the scenes and given somebody else the role of Dunbar as it seems to me as if he was a little over-stretched. Although visually stunning, Dances with Wolves was a struggle for me to get through and I found the two central performances to be incredibly mediocre. But, as we've learnt by now, the academy loves a historical epic and Costner definitely delivered that with Dances with Wolves.
Costner won his two Oscars in 1991 before going on to play Robin Hood and as a result was subsequently named the biggest Box Office draw of the year. 1991 also saw Costner star in his third and final Best Picture nominated film as he starred as district attorney Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone's JFK. Costner resurrects the everyman persona he had in Field of Dreams to play the New Orleans DA who is desperate to point out the inaccuracies carried out in the Warren Report into President Kennedy's assassination. The film itself almost acts as a drama documentary with a long prologue, narrated by Martin Sheen, talking about the good Kennedy did for the country and what happened following the assassination. Garrison's main claim is that other people were involved in the assassination and that the original suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, may not have been part of the plan. Stone's script, co-written with Zachary Sklar, sees Garrison conduct a number of interviews with witnesses and his staff. These dialogue-heavy scenes are interspersed with flashbacks of the events themselves which are all presented in black and white. I found this to be an interesting narrative device that stopped the film dragging and gives the audience a visual aid to enhance the characters' dialogue. Garrison finally finds enough evidence to charge New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiracy to murder but discovers that several forces are acting against him bringing the case to trial. Stone uses his film to criticise the media's ability to tarnish the reputation of an individual to the extent that people start to distrust every word Garrison says. Although it was a little clichéd, the affect that Garrison's investigation had on his family was a well-executed subplot and one that felt realistic. The final court case in which Garrison struggled against the full force of the government was perfectly executed and was up there with some of cinema's finest courtroom scenes. However I personally felt that Garrison's final speech was a little bit overblown and it almost felt like Stone was writing at testimony against everything that was wrong with the US government.
Unsurprisingly the film was met with mass controversy on its release as many critics accused Stone of rewriting history. As somebody who has very little knowledge of this time in American history I felt that JFK was an interesting exploration of a potential cover-up. But even I felt Stone's approach was a little heavy-handed and some of his suggestions seemed completely over-the-top. Though not as over-stretched as Dances with Wolves, JFK was still a bit overlong for my liking with a few scenes being surplus to requirements. But those are just minor niggles in a film that is stylish, well-written and that includes a fantastic ensemble cast all of whom play their parts brilliantly. As Shaw, Tommy Lee Jones is convincing as both a Louisiana slimeball and a closeted homosexual who is ashamed of certain parts of his life. Jones' performance earned JFK its only acting nomination but this doesn't do justice to some of the fine turns put in by Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon and Laurie Metcalf. But to me the best performance came from Gary Oldman as Harvey Oswald as he's able to bring some sympathy to one of history's most famous killers. Oswald's story is told almost entirely in flashbacks but Oldman's charisma is enough to make all aspect of his character appear realistic. Robert Richardson's cinematography brilliantly captures the hectic nature of the day of Kennedy's assassination and the various elements that help back-up Garrison's case. Stone was committed to recreating the assassination almost frame-for-frame and used the real Dealey Plaza to do so. The film's editing was one of its biggest strengths as Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia seamlessly cut between the characters' speaking and the black and white flashbacks. As you would expect, John Williams' musical sequences enhance the film even more and feel incredibly presidential. Overall I enjoyed the majority of JFK with only Stone's heavy-handedness letting the film down slightly.
Meanwhile Costner continued to be a star following his roles in JFK and the romantic drama The Bodyguard. But Costner fell from favour following such flops as The Postman and Waterworld and as a result he lost his headliner status. Having watched these three films it was clear that audiences were drawn to Costner's likeable presence and he often played reliable heroes who did little wrong. But at the same time I can see why he hasn't had the long-lasting appeal of some other headliners and instead is now playing supporting roles in films such as the recent Jack Ryan instalment.
Next time we see the rise of a director who burst onto the scene in the 1990s with a whole new approach to film-making.
That film was Field of Dreams in which Costner played Ray Kinsella, a farmer with a quirky family who begins to hear voices emanating from his cornfield. The film wasn't one I'd seen before but had heard various things about it namely that it was a feelgood film that appealed to male sports fans in particular. As somebody who's never particularly been a sports fan I was sceptical to the feelings this film provoked and it seems I was right to do this. The other famous attribute of the film is the line 'if you build it he will come' which convinces Ray to erect a baseball pitch next to his cornfield. Thanks to the fact that neither he nor his wife are particularly rational people they build the pitch to see what will happen. The film called for plenty of disbelief suspension as the ghost of disgraced baseball player 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson and various others started to play on the field. However director Phil Alden Robertson insinuated that the ghosts were only visible to open-minded folks due to the fact that Ray's brother-in-law couldn't see them when they were in plain sight. Despite risking financial ruin, Ray listneed to the voice once again as this time he was told to 'Heal his Pain'. The pain he had to heal was that of author Terrence Mann, a voice of the 1960s who had since disappeared from popular culture. Mann was possibly the most interesting character in Field of Dreams as he had become an antisocial recluse refusing to see anybody who'd been inspired by his works. Mann and Ray's road trip soon went into an entirely different direction as we learnt the story of player turned doctor 'Moonlight' Graham. I found the whole Graham subplot to be a bizarre diversion in the film's narrative which then picked up when Ray returned home. Despite not enjoying a lot of what had gone before, I have to admit that I rather enjoyed the final scenes of the film in which Ray was reunited with his father for a game of catch. However I didn't find this to be a particularly heartwarming scene and it didn't bring a tear to my eye in the way that scenes similar to this have done.
Throughout Field of Dreams I tried to work out why Costner would become such a big Box Office draw over the next four years. The answer I came up with was that he had the clean cut looks of a classic movie star and chose projects that would suit his style. The role of Ray Kinsella sees Costner play to his strengths as a likeable man who is following his heart rather than his head. Costner admirably anchored the film but at the same time I didn't think his performance was ever that enigmatic. Personally I thought the film's best performance came courtesy of James Earl Jones who breathed life into the character of Terrence Mann. Jones portrayed Mann as a belligerent character who was once full of ideals but has since fallen into obscurity while also ably conveying the author's change over the course of the film. The inclusion of Burt Lancaster as Doc Graham was an odd one as I don't think a star of his calibre should have appeared in such a small role. As much as I love Lancaster I think he was misused here and I think he should've stuck with his instincts which initially led him to turn down the role. Although I wasn't completely taken in by Field of Dreams' narrative I did think it had a particularly distinctive style. The use of a real farm in Iowa added some realism to the piece and John Lindley's stunning cinematography perfectly captured the exterior scenes. Furthermore Lindley tried his best to shoot the ghostly baseball players in a convincing way and was aided by James Horner's enchanting score. In fact it was Horner's score that stuck with me the most once I'd watched the film and that really says something about both the script and the performances. Whilst Field of Dreams wasn't a bad little film I just wasn't blown away by anything that happened in it and so don't understand the impact that it has had on a lot of people.
Following Field of Dreams, Costner's next project was his first film as a director and one that he'd been personally involved in for over five years. Costner first read Michael Blake's script for Dances with Wolves in the early 1980s and convinced him to turn into a novel. When the novel was finally released, Costner won the film rights and went over budget as well as over schedule to complete the western. There were plenty of sceptics who felt that Dances with Wolves would be a failure based on the fact that Costner broken the unwritten rule of first time directors; never film outdoors. Costner broke this rule in the biggest way possible, setting the majority of the film in the South Dakota countryside. Part of the reason for the delay was due to the area's unpredictable weather which held up filming for days at a time. But Costner wanted to use the area to add realism to the story about a Union Officer who integrates with a Sioux Indian tribe during the American Civil War. Costner's John Dunbar is the officer in question who ventures into the tribal camp when he finds one of their number, Stands with a Fist, wounded and on her own. Dunbar starts to impress the Sioux with his abilities but his failure to speak their language means that he has trouble communicating with them. Thankfully Stands with a Fist, who was adopted by the community after being born into an English-speaking family, remembers how to converse in her native tongue and eventually falls in love with Dunbar. Due to his relationship with a certain mammal, Dunbar later changes his name to 'Dances with Wolves' and helps his new family defeat the vicious Pawnee Tribe. However, Dunbar is later captured by his own people who believe he is a traitor to their cause and place him under arrest. The film's final scenes bring up the themes of family and finding somewhere to belong but deliver this message in an incredibly brutal way.
With the delays on the film, Dances with Wolves was expecting to be a flop especially considering it was a three hour western from a debut director. However critics and audiences flocked to see the film and it was later named Best Picture with Costner winning a further award for Best Director. Watching the film more than twenty years later I can't really see what both the critics and the academy members saw to make them hold the film in such high acclaim. A lot of the positives can be attributed to Dean Semler's cinematography which perfectly captured the imagery of the American west. Semler led me into Costner's world of the Sioux tribe and on a visual level I felt like I was part of the action. The story was another matter altogether as Blake's script was overlong and seemed to tread over the same points many times. In my opinion it took far too long for Dunbar to encounter the Sioux tribe as his integration into their society was the main story of the film. I was equally disinterested in Dunbar's relationship with Stands with a Fist partly because of Mary McDonnell's subdued performance. Whilst the character of Stands with a Fist was an interesting one I don't think McDonnell was really captivating and I don't feel that she shared a lot of chemistry with Costner. Of the three films in this post, I feel Dances with Wolves features Costner's weakest performance as he plays an unconvincing military hero. In my opinion Costner is at his best when he's on screen with other actors but as Dunbar faces plenty of solitary days during the film he's forced to lead the film single-handedly. I do feel that Costner should have stayed behind the scenes and given somebody else the role of Dunbar as it seems to me as if he was a little over-stretched. Although visually stunning, Dances with Wolves was a struggle for me to get through and I found the two central performances to be incredibly mediocre. But, as we've learnt by now, the academy loves a historical epic and Costner definitely delivered that with Dances with Wolves.
Costner won his two Oscars in 1991 before going on to play Robin Hood and as a result was subsequently named the biggest Box Office draw of the year. 1991 also saw Costner star in his third and final Best Picture nominated film as he starred as district attorney Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone's JFK. Costner resurrects the everyman persona he had in Field of Dreams to play the New Orleans DA who is desperate to point out the inaccuracies carried out in the Warren Report into President Kennedy's assassination. The film itself almost acts as a drama documentary with a long prologue, narrated by Martin Sheen, talking about the good Kennedy did for the country and what happened following the assassination. Garrison's main claim is that other people were involved in the assassination and that the original suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, may not have been part of the plan. Stone's script, co-written with Zachary Sklar, sees Garrison conduct a number of interviews with witnesses and his staff. These dialogue-heavy scenes are interspersed with flashbacks of the events themselves which are all presented in black and white. I found this to be an interesting narrative device that stopped the film dragging and gives the audience a visual aid to enhance the characters' dialogue. Garrison finally finds enough evidence to charge New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiracy to murder but discovers that several forces are acting against him bringing the case to trial. Stone uses his film to criticise the media's ability to tarnish the reputation of an individual to the extent that people start to distrust every word Garrison says. Although it was a little clichéd, the affect that Garrison's investigation had on his family was a well-executed subplot and one that felt realistic. The final court case in which Garrison struggled against the full force of the government was perfectly executed and was up there with some of cinema's finest courtroom scenes. However I personally felt that Garrison's final speech was a little bit overblown and it almost felt like Stone was writing at testimony against everything that was wrong with the US government.
Unsurprisingly the film was met with mass controversy on its release as many critics accused Stone of rewriting history. As somebody who has very little knowledge of this time in American history I felt that JFK was an interesting exploration of a potential cover-up. But even I felt Stone's approach was a little heavy-handed and some of his suggestions seemed completely over-the-top. Though not as over-stretched as Dances with Wolves, JFK was still a bit overlong for my liking with a few scenes being surplus to requirements. But those are just minor niggles in a film that is stylish, well-written and that includes a fantastic ensemble cast all of whom play their parts brilliantly. As Shaw, Tommy Lee Jones is convincing as both a Louisiana slimeball and a closeted homosexual who is ashamed of certain parts of his life. Jones' performance earned JFK its only acting nomination but this doesn't do justice to some of the fine turns put in by Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon and Laurie Metcalf. But to me the best performance came from Gary Oldman as Harvey Oswald as he's able to bring some sympathy to one of history's most famous killers. Oswald's story is told almost entirely in flashbacks but Oldman's charisma is enough to make all aspect of his character appear realistic. Robert Richardson's cinematography brilliantly captures the hectic nature of the day of Kennedy's assassination and the various elements that help back-up Garrison's case. Stone was committed to recreating the assassination almost frame-for-frame and used the real Dealey Plaza to do so. The film's editing was one of its biggest strengths as Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia seamlessly cut between the characters' speaking and the black and white flashbacks. As you would expect, John Williams' musical sequences enhance the film even more and feel incredibly presidential. Overall I enjoyed the majority of JFK with only Stone's heavy-handedness letting the film down slightly.
Meanwhile Costner continued to be a star following his roles in JFK and the romantic drama The Bodyguard. But Costner fell from favour following such flops as The Postman and Waterworld and as a result he lost his headliner status. Having watched these three films it was clear that audiences were drawn to Costner's likeable presence and he often played reliable heroes who did little wrong. But at the same time I can see why he hasn't had the long-lasting appeal of some other headliners and instead is now playing supporting roles in films such as the recent Jack Ryan instalment.
Next time we see the rise of a director who burst onto the scene in the 1990s with a whole new approach to film-making.
Friday, 25 April 2014
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 301-302: Sheens at War
Most of the war films I've encountered throughout the course of this blog have been flag-waving salutes to the boys and girls fighting the good fight. Although occasionally bleak in tone, these films have nonetheless praised those in command of the missions and have led us to believe that everything is being done for the greater good. However, starting in the late 1970s, some films started to tell a different tale altogether with movies such as The Deer Hunter and Coming Home showing what was really going on in Vietnam. Two more films were nominated during the 1980s ceremony and were linked by the fact that the earlier one starred a famous actor and the latter featured his now notorious son.
Nominated at the first Oscar ceremony of the decade, Apocalypse Now was the perfect example of a war movie which really saw how badly some missions were handled. Francis Ford Coppola's movie starred Martin Sheen as Captain Ben Willard, a special operations veteran who is tasked with a secret mission whilst serving in Vietnam. The already jaded Willard is instructed to track down Colonel Kurtz, a formerly respected officer who went rogue and later retreated to neutral Cambodia. Willard later joins a navy command with a ragtag group of men including a former surfer, a wannabe chef and the captain of the vessel who is constantly feeling undermined by Willard's presence. Along the way the crew encounters several colourful characters including the memorable Colonel Killgore, who loves the smell of Napalm in the morning. After plenty of time has surpassed, and with some of the crew members winding up dead along the way, Willard and the remaining men arrive at Kurtz's base. Here they find that Kurtz has already brainwashed the majority of the natives, as well as a free-loving war photographer and a former commanding officer who is now seen to be in an almost comatose state. Coppola does well building up to Kurtz's first reveal and his presence in the film is certainly a representation of how war can change a man. It's certainly very clear of how the film is going to end but Coppola and his actors make sure the final scenes really stay with you. It's unfortunate then that he didn't employ the same amount of discipline throughout the film as I did feel a large proportion of it was surplus to requirements.
These feelings were magnified due to the fact that the only version of Apocalypse Now available to me was the Redux cut. This version of the film included almost an hours' worth of extra footage which Coppola somehow deemed important enough to insert into this new cut of the film. I have to hold my hands up and say that this was my first experience of watching Apocalypse Now and therefore I wasn't aware of which scenes were exclusive to the Redux version. However, after watching, I read up on the subject and discovered that all the scenes I thought were unnecessary were the ones that Coppola was desperate to resurrect. Without the scenes, Apocalypse Now was definitely a stronger film with an involving narrative that is punctuated with some colourful characters. There are certain moments that everybody associates with the film from Willard's opening hallucination to 'The Ride of the Valkyries ' scene and finally the first appearance of Kurtz. These scenes are made memorable due to a fantastic technical team including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and the editing team who did an excellent job of cutting together the aforementioned hallucination as well as the descent of Kilgore's helicopters. Storaro's camera really captured the horrors of the Vietnam war as well as letting us see how different men reacted to it. In terms of its ascetic value and its musical choices, Apocalypse Now can't be faulted one iota.
That being said I did find the narrative aspect of the film to be a real struggle, primarily Willard's lead voice-over. Coppola overuses this storytelling device to the extent that it just feels like an actor reciting lines rather than a jaded officer reciting what happened during his latest mission. This feeling made the narrative feel incredibly lazy at times and I did feel somebody as adept as Coppola could've found a different way to tell the story. Marlon Brando was incredibly well-utilised as Kurtz, appearing in only a couple of the film's final scenes his enigmatic presence was perfect for that of the disillusioned officer. Robert Duvall brought a real sense of entertainment to the role of Killgore while Dennis Hopper perfectly embodied the hippie movement as the war photographer. But it was Martin Sheen who was tasked with leading the film and I felt he did an admirable job of playing the somewhat reliable Captain whose experiences during his latest mission scar him for life. Sheen benefits from looking like the All-American hero and his opening scenes in Saigon allow us to sympathise with before he heads off in search of Kurtz. Sheen is especially fantastic in the later scenes as we see him being tempted by Kurt'z words and whether what he did was actually the right thing. Ultimately Acopalypse Now has elements of being the perfect film however I did feel it's narrative structure let it down. That being said visually it looked fantastic and it's cast were generally spectacular especially Sheen who was a more than reliable anchor for the film's story.
Seven years later, Martin's son Charlie Sheen followed his father to Vietnam for Oliver Stone's film Platoon, which would go on to win the Best Picture prize at that year's ceremony. Charlie's character in the film is Chris Taylor, a young man who has decided to join the army and fight in Vietnam rather than continue his studies at college. From the very beginning of the film, Stone establishes the fact that Taylor's war will be a tough one as he struggles to carry his kit into camp and is taunted by the men who've been there a while. Chris does find somewhat of a mentor in Sgt. Elias who initially is the only man who is willing to help him when he first arrives in Vietnam. Meanwhile, similar to the way Willard does in Apocalypse Now, Chris has a similarly expositional voiceover but at least this time the narrative is told through letters to his grandmother. As his time in Vietnam continues Chris becomes one of the gang however he never wins round the somewhat ruthless Staff Sergeant Barnes. Barnes and Elias are constantly clashing with the former hating the fact that the latter has more power than him. Meanwhile Elias chastises Barnes for shooting an innocent Vietnamese woman which leads to an incredibly aggressive fight between the pair. Chris soon realises that every man has his own personal war and his experiences are haunted by those who have shaped his time in Vietnam. By the end of the film both Elias and Barnes have been killed, but neither by the men who they initially considered to be the enemy. The final scene, in which Chris surveys the dead bodies strewn across the Vietnamese landscape, perfectly demonstrates the message that the film is trying to give.
Platoon feels like an extremely personal account of Vietnam and is indeed based on Stone's own experience of serving in the war. Stone wrote the screenplay for the film and tried to get it made in Hollywood while writing the scripts for other films, including the Oscar-winning Midnight Express. Eventually he took the decision to direct Platoon himself which I feel was the right move as he would now be able to realise his vision exactly the way he wanted to. The film's cinematography, which was nominated but didn't win an Oscar, is incredibly documentary-like in tone and at times it's if some of it has been lifted out of the history books I used to read at school. Luckily, unlike some of the films I've watched recently, the narrative is as involving as the visual aspects of the picture. This is down to the character of Chris Taylor, a sympathetic everyman who the audience can easily identify with. Taylor's war hasn't been the one he expected and he soon has to adapt new coping mechanisms whilst at the same time maintaining his moral code. Whilst not as compelling as his father's performance in Apocalypse Now, Charlie Sheen at least makes us care about Chris. Sheen brings a type of innocence to the role and becomes almost the straight man to the gang of crazy characters that are part of Chris' platoon. Willem Dafoe definitely makes Elias the heart of the film and he's the character that I personally cared the most about, which made his death even the more shocking. Meanwhile Tom Berenger is perfect as the grizzled veteran who does whatever it takes to make people talk and doesn't really think the rules apply to him. Dafoe and Berenger's duelling performances are the standout aspect of Platoon for me and both men were honoured with Supporting Actor Nominations. Elsewhere familiar faces such as Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker appear in supporting roles and all add a little bit to the make-up of the platoon.
The film ultimately went on to win four Oscars, with Stone being honoured for his direction but not for his strong and harrowing script. I personally think that Platoon is the best Best Picture winner of the 1980s I've watched thus far and with just one more winner to go that's a compliment indeed. Overall I feel that Platoon is a film that combines the visual splendour of some films with the narrative depth of others. It cares about its characters which in turn makes me want to care about them and I do feel that it's a better film than Apocalypse Now. That being said both of these Vietnam war films featuring the Sheens are excellent movies and somehow worked as the perfect double bill.
Next time we head to one of America's most famous gambling destinations for a romantic crime drama.
Nominated at the first Oscar ceremony of the decade, Apocalypse Now was the perfect example of a war movie which really saw how badly some missions were handled. Francis Ford Coppola's movie starred Martin Sheen as Captain Ben Willard, a special operations veteran who is tasked with a secret mission whilst serving in Vietnam. The already jaded Willard is instructed to track down Colonel Kurtz, a formerly respected officer who went rogue and later retreated to neutral Cambodia. Willard later joins a navy command with a ragtag group of men including a former surfer, a wannabe chef and the captain of the vessel who is constantly feeling undermined by Willard's presence. Along the way the crew encounters several colourful characters including the memorable Colonel Killgore, who loves the smell of Napalm in the morning. After plenty of time has surpassed, and with some of the crew members winding up dead along the way, Willard and the remaining men arrive at Kurtz's base. Here they find that Kurtz has already brainwashed the majority of the natives, as well as a free-loving war photographer and a former commanding officer who is now seen to be in an almost comatose state. Coppola does well building up to Kurtz's first reveal and his presence in the film is certainly a representation of how war can change a man. It's certainly very clear of how the film is going to end but Coppola and his actors make sure the final scenes really stay with you. It's unfortunate then that he didn't employ the same amount of discipline throughout the film as I did feel a large proportion of it was surplus to requirements.
These feelings were magnified due to the fact that the only version of Apocalypse Now available to me was the Redux cut. This version of the film included almost an hours' worth of extra footage which Coppola somehow deemed important enough to insert into this new cut of the film. I have to hold my hands up and say that this was my first experience of watching Apocalypse Now and therefore I wasn't aware of which scenes were exclusive to the Redux version. However, after watching, I read up on the subject and discovered that all the scenes I thought were unnecessary were the ones that Coppola was desperate to resurrect. Without the scenes, Apocalypse Now was definitely a stronger film with an involving narrative that is punctuated with some colourful characters. There are certain moments that everybody associates with the film from Willard's opening hallucination to 'The Ride of the Valkyries ' scene and finally the first appearance of Kurtz. These scenes are made memorable due to a fantastic technical team including cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and the editing team who did an excellent job of cutting together the aforementioned hallucination as well as the descent of Kilgore's helicopters. Storaro's camera really captured the horrors of the Vietnam war as well as letting us see how different men reacted to it. In terms of its ascetic value and its musical choices, Apocalypse Now can't be faulted one iota.
That being said I did find the narrative aspect of the film to be a real struggle, primarily Willard's lead voice-over. Coppola overuses this storytelling device to the extent that it just feels like an actor reciting lines rather than a jaded officer reciting what happened during his latest mission. This feeling made the narrative feel incredibly lazy at times and I did feel somebody as adept as Coppola could've found a different way to tell the story. Marlon Brando was incredibly well-utilised as Kurtz, appearing in only a couple of the film's final scenes his enigmatic presence was perfect for that of the disillusioned officer. Robert Duvall brought a real sense of entertainment to the role of Killgore while Dennis Hopper perfectly embodied the hippie movement as the war photographer. But it was Martin Sheen who was tasked with leading the film and I felt he did an admirable job of playing the somewhat reliable Captain whose experiences during his latest mission scar him for life. Sheen benefits from looking like the All-American hero and his opening scenes in Saigon allow us to sympathise with before he heads off in search of Kurtz. Sheen is especially fantastic in the later scenes as we see him being tempted by Kurt'z words and whether what he did was actually the right thing. Ultimately Acopalypse Now has elements of being the perfect film however I did feel it's narrative structure let it down. That being said visually it looked fantastic and it's cast were generally spectacular especially Sheen who was a more than reliable anchor for the film's story.
Seven years later, Martin's son Charlie Sheen followed his father to Vietnam for Oliver Stone's film Platoon, which would go on to win the Best Picture prize at that year's ceremony. Charlie's character in the film is Chris Taylor, a young man who has decided to join the army and fight in Vietnam rather than continue his studies at college. From the very beginning of the film, Stone establishes the fact that Taylor's war will be a tough one as he struggles to carry his kit into camp and is taunted by the men who've been there a while. Chris does find somewhat of a mentor in Sgt. Elias who initially is the only man who is willing to help him when he first arrives in Vietnam. Meanwhile, similar to the way Willard does in Apocalypse Now, Chris has a similarly expositional voiceover but at least this time the narrative is told through letters to his grandmother. As his time in Vietnam continues Chris becomes one of the gang however he never wins round the somewhat ruthless Staff Sergeant Barnes. Barnes and Elias are constantly clashing with the former hating the fact that the latter has more power than him. Meanwhile Elias chastises Barnes for shooting an innocent Vietnamese woman which leads to an incredibly aggressive fight between the pair. Chris soon realises that every man has his own personal war and his experiences are haunted by those who have shaped his time in Vietnam. By the end of the film both Elias and Barnes have been killed, but neither by the men who they initially considered to be the enemy. The final scene, in which Chris surveys the dead bodies strewn across the Vietnamese landscape, perfectly demonstrates the message that the film is trying to give.
Platoon feels like an extremely personal account of Vietnam and is indeed based on Stone's own experience of serving in the war. Stone wrote the screenplay for the film and tried to get it made in Hollywood while writing the scripts for other films, including the Oscar-winning Midnight Express. Eventually he took the decision to direct Platoon himself which I feel was the right move as he would now be able to realise his vision exactly the way he wanted to. The film's cinematography, which was nominated but didn't win an Oscar, is incredibly documentary-like in tone and at times it's if some of it has been lifted out of the history books I used to read at school. Luckily, unlike some of the films I've watched recently, the narrative is as involving as the visual aspects of the picture. This is down to the character of Chris Taylor, a sympathetic everyman who the audience can easily identify with. Taylor's war hasn't been the one he expected and he soon has to adapt new coping mechanisms whilst at the same time maintaining his moral code. Whilst not as compelling as his father's performance in Apocalypse Now, Charlie Sheen at least makes us care about Chris. Sheen brings a type of innocence to the role and becomes almost the straight man to the gang of crazy characters that are part of Chris' platoon. Willem Dafoe definitely makes Elias the heart of the film and he's the character that I personally cared the most about, which made his death even the more shocking. Meanwhile Tom Berenger is perfect as the grizzled veteran who does whatever it takes to make people talk and doesn't really think the rules apply to him. Dafoe and Berenger's duelling performances are the standout aspect of Platoon for me and both men were honoured with Supporting Actor Nominations. Elsewhere familiar faces such as Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker appear in supporting roles and all add a little bit to the make-up of the platoon.
The film ultimately went on to win four Oscars, with Stone being honoured for his direction but not for his strong and harrowing script. I personally think that Platoon is the best Best Picture winner of the 1980s I've watched thus far and with just one more winner to go that's a compliment indeed. Overall I feel that Platoon is a film that combines the visual splendour of some films with the narrative depth of others. It cares about its characters which in turn makes me want to care about them and I do feel that it's a better film than Apocalypse Now. That being said both of these Vietnam war films featuring the Sheens are excellent movies and somehow worked as the perfect double bill.
Next time we head to one of America's most famous gambling destinations for a romantic crime drama.
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