Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 437-438: Jumping Through Hooper's

Tom Hooper is a director who went on an interesting journey on his way to the Oscar podium. Initially directing episodes of the likes of Byker Grove and Eastenders, Hooper found his niche in helming one-off TV movies about real people. These films included Longford and Elizabeth I as well as the cinematic release; The Damned United in which our old friend Michael Sheen played notorious football manager Brian Clough. It was a film based on a real story that earned Hooper national acclaim and saw him scoop the Best Director award at the 2011 ceremony.

That film in question was The King's Speech which had an interesting journey from initial conception to arriving on the screen. Screenwriter David Seidler learnt of the relationship between King George VI and Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue and wanted to tell the story partly because he himself had a stammer. After securing the diaries of Logue, his plans were halted when the Queen Mother asked Seidler not to write anything while she was still alive. After she passed away, Seidler continued writing and the finished article was his play The King's Speech. The film went on to become one of the most-watched films of that year and it attracted a generation to the cinema who hadn't been in years. Part of the reason for this is that The King's Speech is quite a universal tale about finding one's voice and standing up for yourself. At times The King's Speech resembles a sports film as it features many montages of Logue and King George training up for the latter's next important public function. But more than that it's about how a friendship can inspire somebody to be more than they ever thought they could be. I think the fact that the character in question is a British monarch is entirely by-the-by and instead the odd couple relationship works in the favour of The King's Speech. The film builds up to a sterling finale where Logue helps George prepare for the speech he is forced to deliver to announce Britain's entry into the Second World War. This scene is made all the more poignant by the inclusion of Beethoven's 7th symphony playing over the top of it which some people thought was actually part of Alexandre Desplat's original score.

Of course, like most of the films on this list, if you poke at The King's Speech too much holes will eventually start to appear. At times it did feel as if we were being rushed through the history of Britain between the wars, with the section on Edward and Mrs. Simpson being particularly poorly paced. However Seidler's main concern wasn't particularly with the history of the piece but rather with the characters themselves. This to me lifted The King's Speech over other similar period pieces that have been nominated for, and in this film's case, won the Best Picture award. The film is further enhanced by a trio of fine performers led by the spectacular Colin Firth in the role of King George. What's wonderful about Firth's performance is that he never overdoes George's speech impediment and he makes you really feel for the character every time he is stuck with nothing to say. I think that Firth makes the role more than just the disability as he ably portrays George's loving relationship with his wife and two daughters. As his wife, Helena Bonham Carter is just magnificent as she plays Elizabeth with the right mix of dignity and rebelliousness. Carter and Firth's chemistry is just perfect and they make for a believable royal couple throughout the film. Also worthy of a mention is Geoffrey Rush who is a joy to watch as the jobbing Australian actor who finds himself in a rather odd situation. Rush's larger-than-life turn is the perfect contrast to Firth's introverted performance and therefore the two make a rather great pair. The King's Speech went on to be the big winner at that year's Oscars with Hooper, Seidler and Firth all picking up awards along the way. Whilst by no means perfect, The King's Speech is a great character-driven piece that is more than just a costume drama. While it's never utterly remarkable, The King's Speech is an easy watch and one that has just enough positive features to justify its Best Picture win.

Two years later, Hooper returned with an adaptation of a much-loved musical that had been incredibly successful during its stage run. It's also one of only a few films to have its story adapted for two Best Picture winners as we previously saw a straight version of Les Miserables back in the 1930s. This time there is barely any dialogue as almost every word of Victor Hugo's original novel has been transformed into song by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. According to my research, the total number of songs in Les Miserables is a staggering fifty-one even if some our reprises and others don't last very long. One thing Hooper did differently from any of the other musical films we've seen so far is to get his actors to sing live. This worked well for most of the performers, many of whom had previous musical experience either on stage or on screen. However, this isn't true of Russell Crowe whose musical performance as the film's main antagonist Javert had been criticised by most. While I agree with them, I think Javert is the one role where the singing doesn't have to be that strong and I thought that Crowe was an impressive enough presence for his musical weakness not to be that much of hindrance. I thought that Crowe also worked well against Hugh Jackman who portrayed the film's hero Jean Valjean brilliantly. Despite Jackman being known for portraying action heroes on screen, he has a background in musical theatre will is well-utilised during the first half of the film. This half of the film covers a lot of ground and sees Valjean go from convict to mayor and factory owner in a number of years. Valjean's redemption comes after he takes in Cosette, the daughter of one of his late factory workers Satine. Anne Hathaway won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her role as Satine mainly as she nailed one of the musical's most memorable numbers 'I Dreamed a Dream'.

However, I personally feel as if the second half of the film is stronger than the first thanks to the themes of the French Revolution. I feel Hooper is at his strongest when portraying the conflict between the poor residents of Paris and the nobility. His direction of the film's key number 'Can You Hear the People Sing' is brilliantly done and reflects how well the musical has translated onto the screen. I would say that ascetically, Les Miserables is beautifully realised with every set, costume and character designed within an inch of their lives. Meanwhile the unrequited love between the lovely Eponine and revolutionary leader Marius is wonderful to watch thanks in part to the performance from Samantha Barks. In my opinion Barks, who at the time was a relative unknown, deserved as much recognition for her role as Hathaway did for hers but unfortunately this wasn't the case. I personally thought that the one weak point of this second half was the budding romance between Marius and the adult Cosette which I felt was a sickly sweet affair. In my opinion Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne didn't have great chemistry and therefore I didn't care if their characters got together or not. Les Miserables also saw Hooper work with Helena Bonham Carter once again as she portrayed landlady Madame Thernardier and made a great double act with Sacha Baron Cohen as her husband. In fact the scenes with the unscrupulous Thernadiers were some of my favourites and provided such much needed comedy in between all the dramatic revolutionary uprising. While enjoyable in parts, Les Miserables was too long for my liking and not all of the songs worked their magic on me as they did other people. While the performances, most notably those from Jackman and Barks, were good there was nothing about Les Miserables that was particularly remarkable. Although I do appreciate that Hooper wanted to do something different after The King's Speech I didn't think that he left much a mark on Les Miserables with his only input seeming to be the decision to have the actors sing live. But realistically there was very little difference between the film and stage versions of Les Miserables and I think the film would've received the same feedback regardless of who was directing it.

Next time we turn our attention to an actress who changed people's perceptions of her during the first half of the 2010s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 365-366: Crowe's Best Part Two (Contains Spoilers)

We continue on now with our conclusion of the quartet of Russell Crowe Oscar films starting with the second consecutive Best Picture Winner that he appeared in.

A year after Gladiator; Crowe played a completely different type of character to Maximus in the form of troubled mathematician John Nash. Even as a somewhat mild-mannered chemistry teacher in The Insider Crowe was an intimidating presence but in A Beautiful Mind he was quite the opposite. The film follows Nash from his time as a student at Princeton to receiving the Nobel Prize for his revolutionary work on game theory. The majority of the film though concentrates of Nash's schizophrenia and the hallucinations that are side effects of the mental illness. Perhaps A Beautiful Mind's most memorable moment is when it's revealed that Nash's Princeton roommate Charles Herman and shady secret agent William Parcher are both imaginary figures. Even though I'd never seen the film before I felt it was quite easy to guess that Charles was an imaginary figure, due to the fact that he always disappeared whenever any other characters came on screen. Meanwhile the revelation about Parcher was more revelatory although it did negate a lot of the more interesting thriller elements of the film that were cast aside in favour of a story about Nash's rehabilitation following a stint in a mental hospital. The final part of the film concentrates on Nash's relationship with his loving wife Alicia as well as his return to Princeton where he became one of the institution's most respected professors. However, I found that this journey through time was almost a little anticlimactic judging by what had gone before.

Although I did go into A Beautiful Mind fresh there were a couple of things that I knew about it ahead of time, such as the fact that Russell Crowe was supposedly robbed of a second Best Actor Oscar for his role here. The rumour goes that, after winning a BAFTA for the role, Crowe's argument with an editor over a poem cost him points with the Academy. However, I would assert that Crowe's performance in A Beautiful Mind simply wasn't strong enough and I felt that his turn wasn't particularly memorable. The film itself had its moments most notably when Akiva Goldsman's adapted screenplay added a little bit of humour to otherwise stifled character of Nash. But Goldsman's weakness was his pacing and there were times were the narrative ground to a halt most notably just after Nash is released from the mental facility. Of the other performers, only Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly truly shone as Alicia Nash giving a well-rounded turn as a woman who discovered she'd taken on a lot more than she'd originally thought. I personally felt that Connelly provided the emotional core of the film and she provided the majority of A Beautiful Mind's most compelling moments. The film occasionally presented some interesting visual sequences in which Nash's theories would be constructed via light and fill the screen. Unfortunately these moments were few and far between and the only other highlight that I noted was James Horner's haunting score. Ultimately there's nothing particularly wrong with A Beautiful Mind; it's a solid biopic with solid direction by Ron Howard, but there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about it either and I feel that it won the Best Picture prize simply because it's one of those 'issue movies' that the Academy loves so dearly.

Another love of the Academy's older members is an epic swashbuckling adventure that harkens back to the films of the 1930s. They were give this two years later in Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; an adaptation of three books by Patrick O'Brian chronicling the Napoleonic War ventures of Captain 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey. In the lead role of Aubrey, Crowe wasn't the recipient of a Best Actor nod but the film did receive ten Oscar nominations, a tally only bettered by that year's Best Picture winner. Set in 1805, the film focuses on Aubrey's ship the HMS Surprise and its pursuit of the French privateer Acheron. The film's main themes are about the notions of hierarchy and tradition on the ship and how sometimes these can cause problems for the crew. The main relationship the film explores is that between Aubrey and the ship's doctor Stephen Maturin who are presented as old friends. The pair argue about Jack's occasional pig-headedness and Stephen's love of nature as opposed to his friend's preoccupation with warfare. In fact, there isn't a lot of action in Master and Commander, which I feel is rather a good thing as it allows the audience to get a feel for what it's really like being on the ship. Peter Weir explores every aspect of the Surprise from the crew's quarters to the Captain's table and punctuates the action-packed scenes with some quieter moments. Obviously, the final twenty minutes or so is devoted to the Surprise's final attack on the Acheron in which they disguise themselves as a whaler to avoid detection. Weir and co-screenwriter John Collee build up the tension in this final scene perfectly and so the pay-off is even more satisfactory. However, I'm still not quite sure what the film's final scene achieved and it made me believe that some people were clamouring for a Master and Commander sequel.

Of the ten nominations Master and Commander was awarded by the Academy it only won two; for Cinematography and Sound Editing. I'd certainly say that these were the two elements of Master and Commander that were the best especially Russell Boyd's cinematography which I believe was integral to the narrative of the film. Boyd takes the audience into every part of the ship and captures every skirmish perfectly and as a result gets us involved in the action. Meanwhile sound designer Richard King went out of his way to record realistic sounds particularly for the storm and battle scene. In fact I found all of Master and Commander's period detail to be spot on from the costumes worn by each crew member to the construction of the HMS Surprise itself. I suppose one could say that at times Master and Commander is a film that favours style over substance as the plot was quite easy to follow. But that's not to say that Master and Commander was poorly written as I felt that I knew all of the major characters and their key motivations. Furthermore I found that Russell Crowe was the ideal choice to play Aubrey due to his commanding presence. Whilst I didn't think the role required a much range from him as something like The Insider I found him to be utterly believable a the conflicted captain. Oddly Paul Bettany, who played Charles in A Beautiful Mind, played opposite Crowe once again here as Stephen. Due to this I spent a good twenty minutes trying to decide whether or not the doctor was in fact a real character or just a confidant that the Captain had imagined. It was only when Stephen started to interact with other crew members that I believed he was real and by the end Bettany had turned him into a compelling member of the crew. Although old-fashioned in its storytelling; Master and Commander's visual prowess made it stand out from the crowd and overall I felt it was deserving of its place among the pantheon of Oscar-nominated movies.

That's your lot for now, next time we will be going back in time again as I look at three more films from the 1930s and 1940s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 363-364: Crowe's Best Part One

So we've made it through the 20th century and as we celebrate the new millennium; I continue my look back of Oscar-nominated films this time of the noughties. We start with a celebration of the films of one actor who received three acting nods during the decade as well as starring in four Oscar nominated movies.

The actor in question is Russell Crowe who we first met in L.A. Confidential in which he played the rough and ready Bud White. Although Crowe's physical presence was well-utilised during Curtis Hanson's film he also shone during the quieter scenes. Crowe's role in Michael Mann's The Insider couldn't be more different as he donned glasses and had his hair greyed in order to play the perfectly ordinary scientist Jeffrey Wigand. What made Wigand different was the fact he decided to blow the whistle on his former employees; tobacco company Brown and Williamson and reveal that they perjured themselves when they denied that nicotine was addictive. The Insider follows Lowell Bergman, a producer for '60 Minutes', who tried to convince Wigand to appear on the show before turning his attention to his bosses at CBS who refused to air his interview in full. Although it scrutinises the media somewhat, Eric Roth's screenplay almost turns The Insider into a thriller as Wigand's life is threatened in attempt to get him not to talk. Despite their obvious flaws, I was rooting for the film's two major characters throughout as Wigand wrestled with his personal life and struggled to continue after his wife left him. Meanwhile, Bergman's fight for media integrity was an honourable one and it was clear that he was incredibly protective of his source.

Crowe's performance is incredible throughout the film and he makes the rather meek Wigand into a likeable lead character. Crowe brings out the character's small intricacies as he balances Wigand's rather nervous energy with his occasional angry outbursts. After having watched several of his films from the past decades, I felt that Al Pacino gives one of his best turns as the passionate Bergman. The character was different from the gangsters and robbers that Pacino played in the past and I found him captivating throughout. In the supporting role of '60 Minutes' host Mike Wallace, Christopher Plummer shone and I think he deserved a Supporting Actor nod. Away from the acting, I felt that The Insider was a perfect example of how films can use the visual image to tell a story. From Dante Spinotti's grainy cinematography to its tense score everything about The Insider is superb. Although I'd watched the film before, not much of it had stayed in the memory but upon this second viewing I found it to be an extraordinary piece of work. This time The Insider will definitely stay in my memory and I feel that it would've made a great Best Picture winner at the 2000 ceremony. That being said The Insider failed to win any of the seven Oscars it was nominated for and I think this is a great shame. I believe that Crowe was particularly overlooked as his performance was maybe too subtle for the academy to honour him at the time.

Thankfully, one year later, Crowe would win the Best Actor award for playing a character who was anything other than subtle. That film was Gladiator and would see Crowe hacking off the heads of men, women and tigers alike in order to avenge his murdered wife and child. I have several vivid memories of watching, or not watching Gladiator, as I was originally intending to see it on release only for my bus to the cinema to be held up and the usher not let me into watch the movie. I then initially saw it on a school coach trip back from Belgium, before finally buying it on DVD and viewing it in the comfort of my own living room. I'm honestly not surprised that Gladiator won the Best Picture Oscar as Ridley Scott's film harks back to an old-fashioned sort of film-making albeit one made with a 21st century budget. Scott's relaunch of the sword and sandals epic would mean that we would have Gladiator wannabes for years to come but this was certainly a visual treat. The film's final third, depicting the Roman Coliseum was a particularly stunning piece of cinema with the Maltese locations acting as an authentic backdrop. Meanwhile the period costumes were incredibly designed and the score, although a little embellished at times, helped create a certain atmosphere. John Mathieson's cinematography helped capture every facial expression, every battle and every movement with pinpoint precision. For the majority of the film I couldn't take my eye off the screen and that's a testament to Mathieson's work as well as Scott's overall vision.

If Gladiator has one weakness then it's in its screenplay as I found a lot of the scenes were overly expositional. Indeed, there are scenes in which characters simply list their traits to one another which is witnessed just before Commodus murders his father. In fact I'm surprised the screenplay even received an Oscar nomination as the film really thrived in the moments where there was no dialogue at all. That's mainly due to the fact that Crowe has such an expressive face that can tell a lot more stories than what's written on the page. Plenty of the scenes in Gladiator see Maximus reacting to the situation he finds himself in with actions not words and this allows Crowe to play to his strengths. The scenes that focus on his expression as he meets with enemies both on the battlefield and the arena are some of Gladiator's strongest. Crowe's Maximus is every inch the hero and luckily Joaquin Phoenix portrays Commodus as the oily, cowardly villain that he's meant to be. Phoenix was Oscar-nominated for his turn in this film which would be his first massive role and I found him to play the role to perfection. Connie Nielsen also deserves some praise for her role as Commodus' sister/love interest Lucilla; a strong female who doesn't quite know where her heart lies. As a fan of classic British cinema; Scott has loaded the supporting cast with some famous faces including Derek Jacobi, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. Gladiator would actually be Reed's last film role, he died during filming, and I felt it would be a wonderful tribute to the man if he were at least nominated for his role as gladiator trainer Proximo. On reflection Gladiator deserves the five Oscars it won however it missed out on both the art direction and cinematography awards which I felt was a mistake. Ultimately Ridley Scott has made an old-fashioned epic with a modern twist and has cast a wonderfully expressive actor in the lead role.

Next time we conclude our Russell Crowe quadruple-bill with two more Oscar-nominated offerings from the Kiwi powerhouse.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 354: Keeping it Hush-Hush

As I've commented in previous posts, by the 1990s many films that were nominated for Best Picture were set in the past. This is certainly true of the next film on our list, Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential, which concentrated on 1950s Los Angeles. The film was adapted by Hanson and Brian Helgeland from the novel by James Elroy, with the pair boiling down a lot of the story to focus on three prominent characters. Those characters were Police Officers Jack Vincennes, Bud White and Ed Exley all of whom initially come into contact with one another during a Christmas brawl at the police station. Each man has a fatal flaw to his personality that makes it impossible for the audience to truly warm to them. Exley is incredibly ambitious, White flies off the handle too easily and the smooth Vincennes is more interested in the fame that his job allows. In fact Vincennes often aides magazine editor Sid Hudgens to track down exclusives for his tabloid rag 'Hush-Hush' and also offers advice on cop show 'Badge of Honor'. All three men are later involved in investigating the Nite Owl Killings which resulted in the death of six people at a local restaurant. Initially thought to be the work of a group of low-level criminals, further digging exposes prominent members of the Los Angeles community. The investigation also leads to a relationship between White and prostitute Lynn Bracken, who is one of many sex-workers who have been made over to look like famous movie stars. Through her relationship with White, Bracken hopes to be seen more as herself and less like somebody who looks like Veronica Lake. Hanson and Helgeland certainly craft an interesting story which has plenty of twists and turns along the way. But more than that they make you care about a trio of men who initially come across as unlikeable but are vindicated later when they decide to expose the truth. I did feel that the ending of the film was a little drawn out but nevertheless L.A. Confidential was a satisfying watch and harked back to plenty of films from the time. 

I certainly do feel that Hanson's inspiration for the film was the noir films of the 1940s as well as later offerings to the genre, most notably the L.A.-based Chinatown. Just like with Roman Polanski's film, L.A. Confidential makes the titular film the star of the show as Dante Spinotti's cinematography beautifully captures the Californian scenery of the time. The film's production design is excellent as it convincingly takes you back to a world of both sumptuous glamour and sleazy undertones. Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic score perfectly complements the film's storytelling with its jazzy notes evoking memories of the era. The film is bolstered with a trio of fine central performances, two of which came from men who were relative unknowns in North America at the time. Australian Guy Pearce had made his name on TV soap Neighbours before graduating to films courtesy of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert. But his role as Ed Exley was certainly his big break as he captured the spirit of a man who was looking to climb the ladder of the police force by any means necessary. Pearce's clean-cut features, which were perfectly offset by a pair of glasses, made him the perfect poster boy for the police force but his facial expression also made the audience constantly mistrust his motives. New Zealander Russell Crowe had achieved similar success to Pearce in Australia with his role in Romper Stomper convincing Hanson that he'd be perfect as the brutish Bud White. Crowe demonstrated a certain intensity throughout the film but was similarly convincing at displaying Bud's more intelligent side. I'm not surprised that his enigmatic turn in this film propelled Crowe into the mainstream and as a result made him one of the biggest movie stars of the new millennium. The more famous Kevin Spacey was perfectly utilised as the charming Vincennes as he gave a charismatic turn as the celebrity policeman. The only Oscar nominee, and eventual winner, among the cast was Kim Basinger who gave a sensitive turn as faded beauty Lynn. Brilliant support was provided by Danny DeVito as the sleazy magazine editor and James Cromwell as the mighty Captain Dudley Smith. 

I'm not surprised that L.A. Confidential was nominated for an Oscar as it provided the perfect nostalgia trip for the Academy members. But at the same time Hanson's film didn't wallow in 1950s nostalgia and instead presented L.A. as a scandalous city in which anybody could be manipulated. The film was rightfully rewarded with a Best Screenplay Oscar and was the early favourite to win Best Picture before a certain ship steam-rolled its way to victory. But L.A. Confidential is definitely a well-rounded film which is great to look at, boasts an incredible cast and has an involving story from beginning to end. 

Next time we watch two films featuring an actor who finally won the Oscar he should rightfully have received in the 1970s.