How the West Was Won (1963)

How the West Was Won, a 1963 nominee for Best Picture, is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It's pretty surprising that it was nominated for an Academy Award, frankly, because it isn't that good of a movie in terms of its plot (although it won an Academy Award for its screenplay) or the overall quality of the film. Perhaps it was the novelty of a Western shot in Cinerama that helped it make the cut for the top five of the year. Despite its somewhat creaky plot and hokey situations and wildly different directing styles from the three (!) directors and at-times wooden acting, I still love this movie. It doesn't really pretend to be more than it really is: an old-fashioned story that spans several generations of a family and how its members came to experience the westward expansion of the United States. It's a pretty thrilling adventure spanning river pirates, the Gold Rush, wagon trains, the Civil War, the building of the railroads, the conflicts with Native Americans; almost every piece of our western heritage is squeezed in somewhere.

Almost everyone imaginable is in this film. It's like playing a game of "who's who" as you watch. Just a short list: John Wayne (in a cameo as General Sherman), Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart (the first person we see on screen), Karl Malden, Gregory Peck (a rather oily gambler), George Peppard, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark (up to his usual tough-guy antics), Walter Brennan (as a river pirate, of all things), Robert Preston, Harry Morgan (briefly scene as General Grant), Andy Devine--if they'd ever been in a Western, they appeared in How the West Was Won. It's a movie lover's kind of movie. But that list looks very male, doesn't it? There are women in the film, Carroll Baker chief among them in the early scenes (oddly enough, playing the daughter of her Baby Doll co-star, Karl Malden) and Carolyn Jones in the last part of the film. Still, most Western films are about the ways that men tamed the land, and this film is no exception, I guess. The film even has Spencer Tracy as the narrator to help bring that point home.

Oddly enough, though, the central character, the one whose story lasts throughout the film, is Lilith (Lily) Prescott, played by Debbie Reynolds. The film is quite a showcase for Reynolds' talent. She gets to act and sing and dance, and if you know anything about her career, you know that Reynolds could do all three of those well. When the film starts, she's a young woman heading west with her family. She gets to endure a raft ride down the Erie Canal that's quite remarkable in its execution on film. She also rides west as part of a wagon train, where she is pursued by two men, Peck and Preston (who makes perhaps the worst, most unromantic marriage proposal in the history of movies). She works in dance halls and on steamboats as an entertainer. She eventually marries Peck's gambler, only to have to sell off her accumulated wealth to return to farm life with her nephew, played by Peppard, after her husband's death. It's a role with a lot of range, and Reynolds is never less than exciting on screen. I particularly enjoyed seeing a Western that has a female character as its central focus (most of the time).

I also like the smaller parts played by two of my favorites. Agnes Moorehead, a year before she became Endora, plays the Prescott matriarch, and she brings her arch sense of humor to the few lines that she gets; she has quite a foil in Malden as her Quaker husband. (One of the funniest moments for me is seeing what is quite obviously a burly stuntman taking Moorehead's place during the scene on the rapids; another hulking brute stands in for Baker, and it's pretty obvious that the camera isn't far enough away for us to be fooled.) The other highlight is seeing the always reliable Thelma Ritter as a single woman "of a certain age" who is still looking for a man. She becomes Reynolds' sidekick for much of the middle part of the film, and who could ask for a better one? I love how Ritter's character, Agatha Clegg, still believes she's a young woman. She says to Reynolds not long after they meet: "I've got a feeling you're gonna draw men like fish to bait. Maybe I can catch one of them while they swim by." Ritter, just like Moorehead, was always good in whatever movie she was in; even if the material wasn't good, you could count on her to rise above it.

I have seen this film twice on the big screen. And when I say the big screen, I mean in true Cinerama. Twice since its remodeling a few years ago, the Cinerama Dome (over at the Arclight Cinemas) has shown How the West Was Won. If they show it again, I'll go back and see it again. It's one of the few Cinerama films still in existence, apparently. (The Arclight has also shown This Is Cinerama a couple of times; that's also a must-see.) Nothing quite prepares you for the experience of witnessing this film the way it was originally intended to be shown. You can see the seams where the three images captured by the different cameras overlap (sometimes smoothly, others not as much), but the size and scope of the film are really best appreciated on a screen that large. It is almost as if you are in the movie itself. Watching it on my television at home, even with the letterboxed version, just wasn't quite the same. You need the curved Cinerama screen to make the images look the proper way, but I still have the same affection for this movie even if I'm sitting on the couch in my living room.

The great John Ford directed the scenes set during the Civil War period, and George Marshall was in charge of those under the heading of "The Railroad." That leaves the rest--entitled "The Rivers, The Plains, The Outlaws"--in the hands of Henry Hathaway. In fact, Hathaway must have directed most of the film, considering that the Civil War and railroad sequences take up less than an hour of screen time. And even with a running time of about 162 minutes, it's still a thrilling, action-packed film. We get whitewater rapids, an Indian attack on a wagon train, the Battle of Shiloh, a buffalo stampede, and even a robbery of a moving train. Add to that the panoramic views of the various western locales such as Ohio, Illinois, and Arizona, and you have a large-scale spectacular that only a major studio like MGM could have attempted.

The film ends the way it begins, with Tracy's voiceover narration describing the taming of the West. However, I still prefer the narrative's true ending. Reynolds' Lily is moving to Arizona to start a ranch with her nephew, Peppard's Zeb Rawlings, and his family. She's already endured at least forty years of adventures traveling across the country, yet she still seems eager for a new challenge. In its attempt to encompass so large a subject as the history of westward expansion, How the West Was Won really comes to a close with the scene of the family riding through the Arizona desert surrounded only by those large monuments of stone. They may be dwarfed by the landscape, but they are ready to tackle whatever comes their way.

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Oy. The winner for Best Picture of 1990, Dances with Wolves is a shining example of just how wrong the Academy can be at times. Nothing about this film is particularly notable, and nothing about it seems award-worthy. In fact, it is an intensely long, dull slog through a series of cliches. Almost three hours in length, this film has only one point in its favor: it is beautifully shot, particularly the scenes of Lakota Sioux life. Otherwise, I can't imagine how members of the Academy managed to sit through this film and still believe it was the best work of that year.

Kevin Costner plays John J. Dunbar, a Civil War-era soldier who is assigned to the most remote fort on the frontier. He actually wants the post because he believes that the frontier is going to vanish and he wishes to experience it before he's gone. (He's sort of the prairie version of Nostradamus.) Isolated in his new job, Dunbar has little to do besides befriend a wolf who likes to visit now and then and befriend members of the neighboring tribe of Lakota Sioux. This tribe, oddly enough, has in its midst a white woman (Stands with a Fist) whom they have harbored since she was a little girl. She and Dunbar fall in love, naturally, keeping the lines of the different ethnicities distinct. Dunbar slowly becomes more inclined to live according to Lakota ways, the military shows up at his fort and brands him a traitor, he's rescued and returns to the people he chooses to call family, and on and on. It's not as if you can't imagine what is going to happen next at each point in the story. Almost every plot point is telegraphed to you.

I suppose a lot of people in 1990 were in awe of this film because of its sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans (well, unless, of course, you are a member of the Pawnee tribe, that is, those bloodthirsty killers). Of course, portraying the tribes sympathetically wasn't new in 1990. It had been done many times before (and not only in films). I suspect it had more to do with the fact that a "movie star" had attached his name to the project. Suddenly, that brought it more prestige and respect. And that's a shame. Many good films about Native Americans made before and since Dances with Wolves have been overlooked for movies like this that make white people feel better about themselves, and many of them are far more credible.

I guess my biggest complaint has to do with Costner himself. This isn't truly a film about the Native Americans. It's a film about John Dunbar and his reaction to them. And the hokiest part of the film is the opening sequence where Costner blatantly turns his character into a Christ figure; it's teeth-grindingly annoying, frankly. Dunbar also seems to be the only good white man on the frontier. Everyone else is crazy or filled with blood lust or greedy--you name a sin, and there's a white character who represents it. If the film had suggested that Dunbar became a better person through his contact with the Lakota, I could perhaps accept it more readily, but he's shown to be so intelligent and understanding and...well, good throughout the movie that I am hard pressed to notice any difference in his character at the end of the movie. And it doesn't help matters that Costner is a pretty lousy actor. I've enjoyed his performances in a few films (Silverado, Bull Durham, The Upside of Anger), but he seems to be competent only when he plays flawed characters. Durham is too much of a saint for someone of Costner's meager talents. And that includes his directing abilities. You want to know why everyone said the Academy owed Martin Scorsese an Oscar a couple of years ago? Here's one reason: In 1990, the members bypassed Scorsese, who was nominated for Goodfellas, in order to award Costner and this bloated epic.

I guess I am being a bit unfair, though. There are really two things to recommend about this film. I have already mentioned the cinematography, which is beautiful. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the great performances given by the Native American members of the cast. Graham Greene as Kicking Bird is spectacular. He brings a sense of gravity and humor to the role; he's fascinating to watch. I also liked Rodney Grant as Wind in His Hair, the hot-tempered warrior who slowly comes to accept Dunbar as a friend. Grant gets the flashier part, and he runs with it. He gets to show anger and joy and pride and hurt and pleasure--it's quite a range. These two and the other Native American actors have so few opportunities to show their talents in mainstream film; it's a pleasure to see them work here. Perhaps if the film had only concentrated upon their lives and left Dunbar out of the story altogether...well, I suppose we can't have everything. Except, of course, an undeserved Oscar for Best Picture.

The Fugitive (1993)

I was a bit surprised at how old-fashioned a movie The Fugitive, a 1993 nominee for Best Picture, is. I don't mean that in the sense that it sounds, perhaps, but this movie is a tribute to the ways that suspense and drama and even special effects used to be handled before CGI took over the world. This film isn't really that old, but no one in Hollywood makes movies like this now, ones where character development gets more screen time than explosions.

The movie's plot borrows only loosely from the television show that inspired it. Dr. Richard Kimble's wife is murdered, he goes to jail for the crime, yet he manages to escape and tries to clear his name by finding the one-armed man with whom he struggled on the night of his wife's death. The rest of the movie really follows a couple of plot lines: one involving Kimble's attempts to locate information about his wife's killer and the other involving the federal marshals led by Tommy Lee Jones in their attempt to locate Kimble.

Both Harrison Ford as Kimble and Jones as Marshall Samuel Gerard are excellent here; these are two smart actors who allow audiences to see the ways they are trying to trick each other throughout the plot. Ford, in particular, gets to do some amazing work here, displaying a range of emotions from the devastation of finding his wife dead to anger when he confronts publicly the man responsible for her death. He also gets to show how quickly a person can think under pressure; none of his actions seem completely out of the realm of possibility. Jones has a more internal performance. His are the not the big action scenes; instead, he must show Gerard's way of thinking. It's a tough job to pull off for most actors, but not Jones, who is a master of both hiding and revealing emotions on the screen. His interactions with the deputy marshals is a highlight of the film for me. They trade barbs and speculations, but Jones is almost always proven to be right.

The train crash that allows Kimble to escape imprisonment is pretty spectacular. (It does put the one in The Greatest Show on Earth to shame, but that was 40 years earlier, after all.) However, most of the action of the film is not dependent upon spectacle. This is not a movie where special effects dominate the story. Instead, they arise from the plot in a very organic fashion. It's quite remarkable to think how much movies have already changed in just the last 15 years. If this film were to be remade today--and please, don't get the idea to do that--it would undoubtedly be a special effects bonanza. However, we care more about Kimble and what happens to him because there is a human at the heart of this story, not explosions.

Juno (2007)

Juno was nominated for Best Picture of 2007, the only comedy to be nominated. It's a funny movie, very clever, but perhaps a bit too in love with its own cleverness. The kids in the movie don't really sound like any high schoolers that I know (or even any college students that I know). I don't think that really matters, however, given that it is a fantasy as much as it is a comedy.

Ellen Page's Juno realizes at the beginning of the film that's she pregnant and decides to have the baby but give it up for adoption. So far, so good. However, the scene where she tells her father and stepmother (with the help of her friend) is pretty ridiculous. The parents are more moved when they find out the name of the father than when Juno tells them of her condition. They certainly don't behave as parents in real life would. If you as a viewer aren't in the realm of make-believe at this point, the film only continues in this realm of the unrealistic.

Of course, her father is incredibly supportive. Of course, her stepmother, although initially distant, comes around to be on Juno's side. Of course, there's a fight between Juno and her erstwhile boyfriend, Paulie. And, of course, it's all going to be resolved by the end of the film. No open-ended conclusions for this film.

It might sound like I didn't enjoy this film, but I really did. The dialogue is funny, and the actors are all very winning in their roles. I particularly liked Michael Cera as Paulie; this young actor is cornering the market on playing the sort of teenager who's never quite sure exactly what's going on, but he's trying to do whatever he thinks is right or appropriate at the time. And Jennifer Garner as Vanessa, the wife who desperately wants to have a baby, is a revelation here. Her interplay with Jason Bateman as her husband Mark is filled with emotional landmines. You can see just how many times they have been disappointed in the past. The scene where Juno lets Vanessa feel the baby kick, in particular, is powerful for the ways that Garner lets you see both the joy and fear that this adoptive-mother-to-be feels.

I guess my only complaint, really, would be with the trend in movies lately to have everyone be so clever all the time. Everyone speaks as if they are on camera, as if they are performing. I don't truly mind that the dialogue is unbelievable, but I do hope that people don't let this archness become too much of a continuing trend. I do enjoy some sense of realism in movies that are grounded in the common, ordinary lives of people, even if those people are pregnant teenagers.