Quiz Show (1994)

Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford, was nominated for Best Picture of 1994. It tells the story of the scandals involving the quiz show 21 in the 1950s. Allegations of answers being provided to certain contestants in order to improve the show's ratings led to significant changes in the television industry at the time (and greater regulation of it by the federal government). The story is a fascinating inquiry into our nation's obsession with wealth and celebrity, as well as our long-term privileging of whiteness and Christianity. The movie raises a lot of questions that, hopefully, members of the audience discuss after watching it. I remember after seeing it the first time back in 1994 having quite a few debates with friends over which characters had done the right things.

This is another film with almost everyone in Hollywood making an appearance. Rob Morrow, who had been starring on Northern Exposure on television at the time, plays the "lead" role of the attorney investigating the quiz shows on behalf of a Congressional committee; he's probably the weakest part of the film, given that he is expected to speak with a Boston accent and his success with it is spotty at best. Ralph Fiennes plays the young, dashing contestant who comes from a famous literary family. As soon as he appears in the offices of the quiz show, the producers make him a star, and you can see just how tempted he becomes by fame, how enraptured he is by the attention that he (and not his famous father or famous uncle) is finally receiving.

John Turturro is fascinating as a less than likable hero; he's the one whose loss sets into motion the events that lead to the show's downfall. And the fact of his character's Jewishness is raised as a/the potential reason for his being "replaced" by the WASPish Fiennes. Paul Scofield plays Fiennes' father with tremendous gravity and class. He's incredible to watch; you have a sense of a lifetime of acting at work whenever he's on the screen. There's also Hank Azaria and David Paymer as less-than-scrupulous television executives, and Christopher McDonald is hilarious as Jack Barry, the host of the show always worrying about the way that he looks. If you watch carefully, you'll see cameo appearances by a very young Callista Flockhart and a brief appearance by Ethan Hawke, as well as Ileana Douglas as a guest at a book party and Barry Levinson doing an interesting take on Today Show host Dave Garroway (with that stupid chimp they had on the show at the time).

There's much to recommend about this movie. It's one of those films about "important" issues, but it does manage to make the story interesting to anyone, even those who have never heard of the quiz show scandal. You get to feel the torment that these people feel as they struggle to decide their courses of action, and you get a sense of frustration with the dishonesty that seems to characterize so many people portrayed in this film. When a Southern Congressman at one of the hearings asks why Fiennes' character should be praised for finally telling the truth (albeit in a very eloquent way), the applause that rings through the chamber is both shocking and honest. What Redford's film manages to accomplish is a clear dissection into one incident that has numerous consequences, and that's quite a feat. We still are too willing to accept television that is packed for us in the guise of "reality," and what Quiz Show manages to do is make us think, at least for a moment, about the honesty, the integrity of that approach and our own culpability in it.