Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 290: A Very Meta Musical

Those of you who've followed this challenge from the very beginning know that the musical genre has been well-represented in the Best Picture category. From 42nd Street and Top Hat to Fiddler on the Roof and Hello Dolly! each decade has had two or three all-singing all-dancing nominees. The Oscars love of musicals reached its peak in the 1960s where four of the ten winners came from the genre. However, as the 1980s approached audiences lost interest in the musical and so it seems did Oscar. One man who was still very much involved in musicals both on stage and screen was Bob Fosse, who won a Best Director award for helming Cabaret in 1973. Fosse was also in charge of All that Jazz, the last musical film to be nominated for Best Picture for a shocking twenty-two years. The musical itself was also heavily based on the director's own life as it featured many scenes based on real-life events involving Fosse. In fact the film as a whole is based on Fosse's attempts to direct a production of Chicago while at the same time editing the Dustin Hoffman film Lenny. Fosse is represented in the film by legendary musical director Joe Gideon whose personal life is dominated by three women - his ex-wife, his current girlfriend and his young daughter. Gideon's current work life is interspersed with scenes from his childhood which are presented in haunting scenes involving a mysterious woman played by Jessica Lange. It is later revealed that these scenes are hallucinations that Joe has while being treated in hospital for angina, whilst Lange's character is a representation of the angel of death. As Joe's health deteriorates, these surreal musical numbers increase and they eventually build up to a massive finale which shows Joe ascending to heaven in a suitably over-the-top fashion.

Hectic is the best way to describe All that Jazz which skips between Joe's real life and his death sequences with reckless abandonment. While watching the film, I was constantly thinking how Fosse felt directing his own life story in this way. All the relationships in All that Jazz are incredibly similar to Fosse's down to the fact that he and his ex-wife continued to work together following their separation. I was glad to learn that All that Jazz won the award for Best Editing at the Oscars as to me that's one of the film's most notable elements. The film's unique style didn't always work for me and at times I rather wished it would calm down just a little bit. But luckily the energy of the cast, coupled with some great musical numbers, meant that All that Jazz just about made sense. At the heart of the cast is the brilliant Roy Scheider, who holds everything together superbly and brilliantly conveys why people still love Joe despite the fact that he's really quite horrible. Scheider is utterly convincing throughout as the womanising, pill-popping director whose inability to stop working was finally the death of him. I also found Jessica Lange to be spell-binding as Angelique, the woman who was almost weighing up Joe's life before his death. The scenes between Scheider and Lange were some of my favourites, primarily as because they felt incredibly different from what was going on elsewhere. To an extent they reminded me of the scenes between Liza Minelli and Joel Grey in Cabaret and I do feel as if Fosse was trying to recreate this style. Tragically Fosse himself died of a heart attack eight years later but at least he leaves behind him a legacy of brilliant films and some rather tremendous Broadway shows. Although almost too knowing for its own good, All that Jazz is a fitting send-off for the musical genre which wouldn't see again for another decade and a half.

Next time we look at an all-action hero who used appeared in two very different Best Picture Nominees in the 1980s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 229-230: The Rise of the Summer Blockbuster

Throughout my reviews of 1970s films I've noted how many of the stars and directors would go on to change the cinematic landscape. One such film-maker was Steven Spielberg who, in 1975, essentially created the summer blockbuster. At the time Spielberg had only directed one cinematic feature, The Sugarland Express, and so nobody expected his film about a shark to be particularly historical. But, by putting the film out over the summer, traditionally the time in which studios dumped their less-appealing films, Spielberg capitalised on a new market. His film went on to become the most successful film of all time, for at least two years, and essentially created what we know today as the summer blockbuster.

That film was of course Jaws, adapted from the book by Peter Benchley, and focusing on a shark which threatens the residents of the close-nit Amity Island. Amity's Chief of Police Martin Brody is the first to identify a shark attack after a young girl is killed. But the island's mayor is keen not to close the beach as summer season is on its way. The mayor also clashes with Brody, who was once a cop in the big city, as he doesn't think he understands island life. Following another death by shark, Brody calls in marine biologist Matt Hooper who is able to identify the type of shark the islanders should be looking for. With summer trade at its busiest, the shark strikes again and it's only then that the mayor instructs Brody to hunt down the animal. Brody hires old sea dog Quint and he and Hooper join him on the hunt for the shark. Obviously the search is hard and the mismatched trio don't always live harmoniously together. Indeed Quint's old-fashioned mentality and Hooper's gadgetry aren't best suited to one another while Brody's hatred of the water doesn't exactly make him the ideal candidate to look for a shark.

One of the joys of watching Jaws is the simplicity of the story and the way in which the shark is introduced through the trickery of the screen. Indeed, it is John Williams' score that created the iconic shark and every time those notes are played you know the threat is imminent. Spielberg's high-concept plot meant that audiences didn't have to think too much about what was going on and instead enjoyed the first real summer blockbuster. However, Jaws isn't a blockbuster in the way we know today and isn't chocked full of special effects and wafer-thin characters. The story was the most important thing for Spielberg, who hired many people to edit Benchley's original script, and he wanted the first two thirds of the story to build up to the three men in a boat adventure. I found this build-up to be incredibly masterfully produced with the islanders willing to ignore the threat of the shark until it was right there in front of them. As Brody, Roy Scheider provided the world-weariness of a man who just wanted to do the right thing and was thwarted at every corner. The then unknown Richard Dreyfuss was a ball-of-energy as the enigmatic Hooper and was the perfect antidote to Robert Shaw's cantankerous Quint. Jaws is primarily a film about three men at different stages in their life who just happen to be chasing a man-eating shark. Jaws definitely still looks as good today as it did when it was released and it proves that most blockbusters just need a good story and an effective way to signify the main villain.

John Williams was back two years later signifying the main villain in another summer blockbuster, which overtook Jaws as the most successful film of all time. That film was Star Wars, a movie that has become incredibly famous to the extent where I feel I don't really need to review it. This is because that everybody has their own memory of when they first watched Star Wars and for me it was watching the trilogy back-to-back just before The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. Though I've caught it on the TV in the following years, this was my chance to watch it through a film graduate's eyes and change some of my memories of the film. It's actually quite hard to write about Star Wars without hurting someone's feelings but the first thing I should say is that it's not that spectacular. I feel when people reminisce about Star Wars they're thinking about the whole trilogy but judging the first film by itself is a lot different. Obviously the film is made great by the special effects, which at the time were ground-breaking, and there's no denying that watching someone pull out a lightsaber for the first time is a truly magical experience. Similarly characters like Chewbacca or Darth Vader just didn't exist in normal mainstream cinema back then and I feel that audiences would've been intrigued by their presence. Obviously John Williams reserves some credit for the aforementioned score which instantly brings back memories of both the film's opening and Darth Vader's legendary strut down the death star.

Director George Lucas was really able to create an incredible universe of characters, planets and spaceships with the mythology of the Star Wars universe seeming vast and mysterious. At the same time the characters of Luke, Leia and Han feel fairly simplistic while the central plot is incredibly basic. However, Lucas was lucky with his choice of actors all of whom share great chemistry. Harrison Ford was an inspired choice to play the swaggering Han Solo and he was totally believable as a gambling drunk. Wide-eyed Mark Hammil perfectly encapsulated the innocent Luke while Carrie Fisher combined sexiness with strength to play Leia who could easily hold her own amongst the boys. Bringing gravitas to proceedings was Alec Guinness as Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi though his casting was mainly to appease the studio heads who didn't like the fact he was casting unknowns. Acting and visuals aside; my 2013 viewing experience of Star Wars was pleasant enough but it didn't blow me away. I can understand how audiences at the time would've been dazzled by everything they saw on screen but today I feel that Star Wars, if judged as a film on its own, is nothing more than an entertaining two hour romp. A while back I had an argument with a friend who was trying to explain to me why Star Wars should have won Best Picture over the film that eventually triumphed. His argument was based on the film's legacy but, at the time, there was no legacy to speak off and the Academy purely had to go on the quality of the overall film. It seemed the Oscars did acknowledge the film's main strengths and gave it six awards mainly in the sound, visual effects and art direction categories. However, I would argue that the film itself isn't exactly a masterpiece even if it influenced hundreds of sci-fi films that would come after it.

Next up we get into the ring with a contender that became a Best Picture Winner.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 210-211: A Pair of Gene's

So here we are in the 1970s, a decade that really pushed the bar in terms of film-making and used the art form to tell some incredibly interesting stories. We begin with a double bill featuring an actor who really came into his own at the beginning of the decade - Gene Hackman.

Though Hackman had been around for a while he only really came to prominence in his late thirties after his appearance in Bonnie and Clyde, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Four years later he was propelled to stardom thanks to his central role as Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle in The French Connection. The French Connection picked up Best Picture at the 1972 ceremony and also gave its lead actor his first Academy Award. The film, which was the first R-Rated movie to win the Best Picture Award, takes place in the streets of New York and follows Doyle and his partner Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo as they attempt a drug bust. I found the story of the film fairly unique in that we followed the French drug smugglers at the same time as the New York cops. The film's main antagonist is Alain Charnier, who plans to smuggle millions of dollars' worth of heroin into the country by using the car of a TV personality. As we learn throughout the film, Doyle and Russo aren't exactly the most trustworthy of individuals but they are incredibly good at their jobs so most of their colleagues are forced to trust them. As Doyle and Russo identify Charnier and his men, the chase is on to track down the drugs and arrest those involved in the plot. But not everything goes to plan and when Doyle's plot backfires, he and Russo are taken off the case. However, that doesn't dissuade Doyle and he's soon in hot pursuit of the man whose been sent to assassinate him, hoping that this will result in him finding the drugs.

After watching The French Connection, I feel like I've entered the 1970s with a bang. The film is fast-paced without losing sight of its plot and incredibly stylised throughout. Director William Friedkin looked to French cinema to create a lot of the style in the French Connection and that is definitely evident. At the same time, The French Connection has a profound sense of location and I was completely transported into New York right from the earliest scenes. For me the style extends to the character's costumes most notably the hat and coat worn by Doyle. The most iconic scene in the whole film is the legendary car chase in which Doyle, in a car, is racing a commuter train which is above him. Owen Roizman's cinematography takes you right into Doyle's car while Friedkin makes sure that we don't miss a thing. I was completely sucked in by this chase and think it's one that's been imitate many times but has never been bettered. Hackman is absolutely tremendous in the lead role as Doyle combining the stereotypical 'bad cop' with someone who has a genuine passion for the job. Hackman understands every intricate detail of his character down to the little wave that Doyle gives to Charnier in one of the final scenes. Meanwhile, Hackman is well-supported by the reliable Roy Scheider as the more level-headed Russo. While earlier crime always saw the criminals brought to justice, we learn at the end of The French Connection that a lot of the crooks in the film either served small sentences or never went to jail again. Overall, The French Connection is definitely one of the best Best Picture winners I've seen so far.

Three year later, Hackman starred in another Best Picture nominee, even though he missed out on a Best Actor nomination this time around. Arguably, The Conversation was a better overall film than The French Connection while I definitely preferred Hackman as Harry Caul. Caul is one of America's most renowned surveillance experts and has often been praised for being able to pick up any speech necessary. Caul lives a fairly solitary existence, living alone with only his jazz saxophone for company, though he does have a regular relationship with a woman who knows nothing about him. But Caul's work has sometimes caused him emotional strain and, as we learn later in the film, one of his most recent jobs resulted in a triple murder. Caul is very wary when he is tasked with recording a couple as they walk through Union Square in San Francisco especially when he hears the phrase 'he'd kill us if he got the chance.' Caul is soon tasked with giving his tapes to  a man known simply as The Director, but when one of The Director's underlings takes the tapes a nervous Harry takes them back. As he becomes obsessed by the tapes, Harry realises he has to act on what he's heard and uses the information he has to act as a vigilante hero. But, the film's message ultimately seems to be that, even if you can hear everything, it doesn't necessarily mean that you listen to everything that's being said.

The Conversation is the first time that I've come across a Francis Ford Coppola film while writing this project and you can see why, at his peak, the director was hailed as one of the greats. The Conversation is a tense thriller which builds up the audience's expectations before completely changing the game in the last ten minutes. For me, I think that The Conversation features some of the greatest uses of sound in cinema history. The way we see the conversation being broken down by Harry throughout the film is simply superb and you never tire of hearing the same speech over and over again. Hackman's performance as Harry is also one of the film's greatest strengths as he portrays the surveillance expert as someone whose always been on the borders of society. Though Harry is seemingly attractive to the opposite sex, his intricate nature and paranoia make it impossible for him to form meaningful relationships. For the most part, Hackman plays Harry as someone who only speaks when he really needs to and I feel he communicates more by his actions than by his words. Hackman is supported by John Cazale as Harry's colleague Stan who is a bit wilder than his friend and often uses his job to ogle women. The film also features a great little performance from Harrison Ford as The Director's aide Martin Stett, which provided evidence of how great the actor would go on to be. My only frustration is that The Conversation didn't do better at that year's Oscars, but I don't think Coppola was too bothered seeing as it was another of his films that scooped the majority of the major prizes.

Next time I'll look at the three big screen musicals that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1970s.