The Reader (2008)

Nominated for Best Picture of 2008, The Reader is a Holocaust movie without the Holocaust. As a 15-year-old boy in the post-war Germany of 1958, Michael Berg begins an affair with an older woman who takes a moment to comfort him when he gets sick with scarlet fever. After this initial chance meeting, he begins visiting her apartment, and they begin having sex on a regular basis there. He even skips classes and leaves his friends to be with her, and he plans a biking holiday for them in the German countryside that the film showcases in beautiful cinematography. The catch to all of this is that the older woman, Hanna Schmitz, asks him to read to her each time they are together. Whether this is an act of foreplay or whether she is doing it for other reasons, the viewer does not know until later in the film. The summer they spend together, though, profoundly affects Michael for the rest of his life.

Hanna disappears one day, and Michael (who has fallen in love with her) has to wait until he is in law school in 1966 before he sees her again. She and five other women who were guards in a concentration camp during World War II are now on trial for their war crimes, particularly the act of letting hundreds of Jewish women die in a burning church rather than opening the doors to the building and allowing them to survive and perhaps escape. Hanna, in particular, answers all of the questions asked of her in court honestly, sometimes brutally so. She does not appear to be a woman who has thought much about the consequences of her actions, at least on the surface.

A third thread of the narrative deals with Michael's reconciliation in 1988 with Hanna after she has been imprisoned for many years. (No, I promise I'm not spoiling the ending here.) In this portion of the film, Michael is played by Ralph Fiennes, who had quite a year in 2008. He's good here, particularly because the role suits the kinds of tamped-down performance that Fiennes often gives. By the way, these different narratives are not told in strictly chronological order; most of them are intertwining remembrances that Michael has as he contemplates reuniting with Hanna, so you see Fiennes throughout the film. There's also a portion of the film that deals with events in 1995, as Fiennes' Michael prepares to meet his grown daughter for dinner.

Hanna is played beautifully by Kate Winslet. Winslet has become an even more expressive, powerful actress as she has matured. I loved and admired her performance a few years ago in Little Children, and this role manages to top that one. What makes her acting so remarkable here is the ability she has to contain her emotions. Hanna has reasons for not expressing herself, and Winslet allows us to see only slivers of feelings now and then, keeping us guessing until the revelation of Hanna's reasons are made clear. Another actress would not have been as subtle or effective. Winslet's acting here is among the best I've seen in several years from anyone, male or female, and no, I've not seen her work in Revolutionary Road yet, so save those comments until I am able to make the comparisons myself. Hanna could easily be one of the most evil of characters in less capable hands--she certainly seems emotionally rigid, even in the love scenes with young Michael--but thanks to Winslet's talent, just as we are about to dismiss Hanna for her actions or her behaviors or her attitude, we are given a small bit of insight into her character. It's never enough to make you "love" Hanna, certainly, but you do begin to comprehend her in ways that you wouldn't have thought possible. She manages to elicit a tiny bit of sympathy for a woman who might not fully deserve it.

I also want to talk about the young performer who plays Michael as a 15-year-old and then as a law school student. His name is David Kross, and he's an 18-year-old German boy. He's astonishing in his early scenes with Winslet. He has a depth and maturity to his acting far beyond what his age might suggest. I particularly admired how his face would light up each time he was with Winslet during the romantic scenes; there's a glow to him that suggests what being a young person in love for the first time is really like. Watch those scenes where they're on vacation together to see what I mean. He also is good at conveying just how painful it is when they are apart from each other. Admittedly, he's not as strong when he has to play a young man of about 23. I think that's the age he would be when he's a student if I've done my math correctly. He's perhaps just a bit too baby-faced to play that age convincingly. However, the scenes where he has to watch Hanna's testimony are still gut-wrenching. Both he and Winslet are at the top of their game in those courtroom scenes.

So why is this a Holocaust film without the Holocaust? There are no flashbacks to the camps, only stories about some of the events that took place there. We never to get to see directly what Hanna is accused of doing. The film never even shows us Hanna's life before she meets Michael on the train that day he is sick. It just jumps from the 1950s to the 1960s when Hanna is on trial, and it doesn't provide us with a great deal of exposition about any of those years in between either. Lena Olin, who's stunningly good here in two brief scenes as a mother and then her daughter, appears near the end of the film to give us a context for understanding all of those plays and books and other works (films?) about the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor, and I think she's there primarily to remind us that this film should be examined for its take on the guilt that we carry or perhaps should carry for what we have done in the past. She tells Fiennes' grown-up Berg to go to the theater if he wants catharsis, a rather grown-up reaction to the subject matter.

The director of The Reader is Stephen Daldry. He's made three feature films: Billy Elliot, The Hours, and now The Reader, and he's been nominated for Best Director for each one. I don't know of anyone else who can claim such a track record. What stands out for me about his films, though, is how he seems to be very selective about the material he directs. Each of the three is, in its own ways, serious and literate and "adult." The Reader is a movie designed to make us ponder our own measure of culpability, our own decisions in life. It doesn't supply simple answers to what are truly complex and complicated questions, and that's why I think it's an admirable choice among the nominees for Best Picture of 2008.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Part of the joy of watching Slumdog Millionaire, winner for Best Picture of 2008, is the cleverness of its premise. A young man from the slums of Mumbai has made it to the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He is so successful at answering questions, amassing winnings of 10 million rupees, that he is taken into custody after the first day of his appearance on the show and questioned--well, tortured, really--about how he managed to know all of the answers. What follows is a series of flashbacks based upon his correct answers, allowing viewers to see the remarkable set of circumstances that has provided him with the knowledge to succeed on the game show.

Structurally, the film's narrative is told through that series of chronological flashbacks, which means that each of the three major characters is portrayed by actors at different ages. Jamal Malik, the contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, is the sensitive younger brother who witnesses a series of rather horrific events in his young life, including the murder of his mother, his brother's shooting of the man who once made them into beggars, even the abuse of the girl whom he has always loved. As the grown Jamal, Dev Patel is very solid, particularly in the scenes with Freida Pinto, who plays the grown Latika, the girl who was orphaned at the same time as Jamal and his brother and who has experienced her own series of misadventures.

I find it interesting that the last half hour or so of the film--no, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you--offers a rather dramatic shift in tone from the rest of the film. Some of the twists are movie cliches, to be sure, such as the part where the beautiful girl winds up in the clutches of the mobster, but the filmmakers have taken these kinds of moments with which we are familiar and given them new life by providing a different locale and a different set of characters for us to follow. I do believe that most of the praise for Slumdog Millionaire comes from the fact that, despite all of the serious events that occur throughout this film, there are also moments that allow us to feel a sense of hope. Don't be mistaken, though. There are some very gruesome moments depicted here, and more than a few of the patrons in the theater when I've seen this film have made their discomfort loudly known.

Director Danny Boyle, still probably best known for Trainspotting, has managed to coax some remarkable performances from his very young cast. Patel, who anchors the film, is only 18 years old, but he already seems destined for a long career. Pinto is quite effective as well, but as the victim throughout the film of many older men, she must convey more with her expressions than with her dialogue. As Jamal's older brother Salim, Madhur Mittal builds nicely upon the performances of the two boys who play Salim at younger ages. Boyle's casting director, Loveleen Tandan, has managed to find mostly nonprofessionals to fill these roles, and she deserves a great deal of credit for the success of the film, thanks to the energy that each of the nine young performers bring to Slumdog Millionaire.

I've seen this film twice now, once before Christmas and now again in the new year, and each time I have been swept up in the drama that unfolds on the screen. This is a particularly engrossing film. Anyone who tends to dislike films in foreign locations or non-American or unknown actors or a few subtitles here and there should be taken to see Slumdog Millionaire because I suspect it will change attitudes about all of those traits that tend to be seen as deficits. The editing is fast-paced, and the look of the film itself is rather spectacular. I must also mention the music by A.R. Rahman. The cast appears in a musical number entitled "Jai Ho" (a song you should download if you already haven't) that is straight out of any number of Bollywood films, and it's a highlight of the movie. The second time I saw the film, I paid more attention to the soundtrack and realized just how much it assists in maintaining the pace of the film.

Wall-E is still my favorite film of 2008, and Milk is still the film that I most admired, but Slumdog Millionaire ranks high on either of those lists ("favorite" or "most admired"). It manages to give us a view of a different world, one with which we are not familiar but one which quickly becomes intriguing to us, and it presents that most hackneyed of plot devices, the boy who will do anything to win the love of a girl, yet does so in a way that makes us care about the fate of the couple. It manages to provide us with a vision of the depths to which people sink when they are faced with poverty, but it also gives a sense that we are able to overcome that poverty, to make ourselves into better people than our financial situations would suggest. How intriguing that a film set in India and directed by an Englishman should represent those rather quintessentially American values.

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Frost/Nixon, nominated for Best Picture of 2008, takes us behind the scenes of the historic interviews with Richard Nixon conducted by David Frost three years after the former president resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. A substantial portion of the film recreates moments from those interviews, particularly the moments when Nixon managed to outsmart Frost and answer the questions to suit his own purposes, and those recreations actually make for some of the most intriguing parts of the movie. Certainly, we have the originals available to use to watch, so we can make direct comparisons, but the selection of particular moments to include in this film has been well made to achieve the most impact.

Frank Langella gives a strong performance as Nixon. Although he does not physically resemble Nixon all that much, he captures the disgraced president's vocal patterns and his mannerisms well. It's especially astonishing to see just how fully Langella is able to hone in on the feelings of inadequacy that plagued Nixon throughout much of his lifetime, that sense that others always felt they were better than he. You don't ever quite forget that you're watching someone else play Nixon, but Langella is quite effective at capturing some of the man's personality. Michael Sheen, who was so good as Tony Blair in The Queen (written by the same screenwriter as Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan), is Langella's equal here. Langella has received all of the attention for his performance, but Sheen brought back to my memory many of Frost's tics and style of speaking. He, too, fails to look much like the person he's playing, but he nevertheless inhabits the part well.

The movie is told as a series of flashbacks by various men who were involved in the development of the interviews. Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt portray two newsmen who help Frost conduct the background research for the project and supply questions to ask of Nixon. Both want to force Nixon to apologize, to admit his guilt for Watergate and the continuing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and both find themselves disappointed when Nixon proves to be a more commanding presence under the camera lights. (As an aside, Platt does a pretty accurate verbal impression of Nixon early in the film. Too bad he isn't close to the physical presence as well; it would have been interesting to see him in the part.) Both men are well cast, as is Matthew Mcfadyen as Frost's producer. Mcfadyen is perhaps best known for playing Mr. Darcy in the most recent adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but even in this small part, he makes quite an impression.

The other person who serves to introduce the flashbacks is Nixon's loyal former chief of staff, Jack Brennan, played here by Kevin Bacon. Is this always going to be Bacon's lot in life, to shine so brilliantly in these small parts yet never receive much recognition? He brings to the character such a sense of loyalty, that kind of blind loyalty that allows you to overlook someone's flaws, the kind of flaws everyone else can see. He has to play a rather tightly wound man in this film, but Bacon is definitely up to the challenge. It's a pleasure to watch him each time he appears on screen.

There are a few moments of humor scattered throughout this film, but it's mostly played for earnest drama. And perhaps that's why it's not that interesting of a movie overall for me. Certainly, there are moments of great intrigue: whether or not Frost will raise enough money to produce the interviews without studio support, whether or not Nixon will truly be forthcoming in his answers, those kinds of issues. However, despite its attempts to raise important issues, such as those involving journalistic integrity, Frost/Nixon suffers at least in part because we already know how everything turns out. There have been films in recent years that have managed to create a sense of tension despite having an ending with which everyone is familiar--I'm thinking of United 93, just as an example--but Frost/Nixon never seems to catch fire that way. In fact, portions of it are rather dull. To be honest, I've seen the film twice, and I've had trouble staying awake during the first half hour as the various deals and agreements are being made to set up the interviews.

There is, of course, (or, more properly, was) an opportunity with Frost/Nixon to make comparisons to the most recent presidential administration. A few times during the movie, there's a mention how the president damaged the credibility of the United States and brought shame to the office. There's also the scene where Frost challenges the legality of some of Nixon's actions (and those of his administration), only to have Nixon reply that the mere fact that the president is carrying out those actions means that they aren't illegal. How many parallels could have been made to the Bush years if the filmmakers had tried to draw the similarities out more? How many people will want to have some sort of retribution for the past eight years, much as the country wanted Nixon to "pay" for what he had done, a fact that is addressed early in the movie but inconsistently after that? Frost/Nixon, unlike Milk (another of the nominees for 2008's Best Picture), seems less timely than it should. I suspect the stage version might have been more effective in conveying that sense of connectedness, of "timelessness," but all we have in this film version is the historical context of the late 1970s.

I suppose there might be people (rather young people?) who don't know about this portion of American history. They might "learn" something from this film (although it's adherence to historical accuracy at times is quite suspect), but the rest of us will just have to nod and reminisce about what we can recall from this time in our nation's collective experience. Frost/Nixon doesn't really challenge our beliefs about Nixon (or about Frost either, for that matter), despite making him perhaps more sympathetic at times than many would want to accept. I'm sure there are still stories to tell about the aftermath of the Nixon presidency and what his life in solitude was like, but Frost/Nixon, unfortunately, plays it too safe to be considered a truly great film.

Midnight Express (1978)

A nominee for Best Picture of 1978, Midnight Express depicts the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of an American for attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey in 1970. Based upon a true story--but apparently taking considerable liberties with it, according to those directly involved--this film's screenplay won Oliver Stone his first Oscar (before he started directing films as well as writing them). What is admirable about the film is that it fully admits to the guilt of its lead character, Billy Hayes. He's shown in the opening sequence taping the drugs (hashish, if you are curious) to his body, so his guilt is never in doubt. What Midnight Express grapples with instead is the extent to which someone should be punished for such an offense. Its focus is on what should be an appropriate sentence for the crime that Hayes has committed.

Brad Davis plays Hayes, the American who spends several years in prison in Istanbul for his crime. While behind bars, he befriends a group of people who also share his outsider status in Turkey: Jimmy, another American, played a young and slim Randy Quaid; Max, an Englishman, played brilliantly by the incomparable John Hurt; and Erich, a Swede, played by Norbert Weisser. Hayes makes enemies in prison as well, including Rifki (Paolo Bonicello), who takes advantage of the prisoners and rats them out when he gets information on them. Chief among his enemies, though, is the head guard, Hamidou (played by Paul L. Smith), whose mindless brutality is depicted again and again throughout the film.

If Turkish prisons had not already enjoyed a reputation for their deplorable conditions and the mistreatment of prisoners, this film would certainly have given them one. As it is, you get to witness numerous scenes of torture and sadism on the part of the guards and even some of the fellow prisoners. It's quite uncomfortable to watch at times, and I won't describe any of the more intense scenes here. And the country of Turkey does not come off any better in the courtroom scenes either, given the seeming ease with which sentences can be changed (lengthened, in particular) based upon the constant nagging of a prosecutor. The film is pretty heavily stacked against a fair depiction of the country in which it is set, but I suppose to make the point about the conditions in the prison system more forcefully, the filmmakers felt the need to concentrate primarily upon those moments of the most intense pain and injustice.

This film does have much to admire about it. I thought the choice to use Turkish dialogue throughout the movie was especially effective. The filmmakers provide no subtitles, so we as an audience do not know what the men who arrest Billy are saying (well, unless you speak Turkish, I guess), and while he is in prison, at least initially, the Turkish spoken by the guards is even more disorienting. This allows the viewer to get some sense of the feelings that Hayes himself has, that he has been trapped in a world where no one understands him and where he understands no one. It does help to make him a more sympathetic character to an American audience when he is one of the few we can completely understand. Of course, that also makes us even more suspicious of the Turks in charge of the justice system, and the film seems to relish its ability to demonize the guards in particular. Every Turk must be dangerous in the world created by this film. No one ever accused Oliver Stone or even Alan Parker, the director, of subtlety. You may remember that Parker also directed another film I've already reviewed here, Mississippi Burning; reread that post if you're interested in how I feel about how Parker tends to handle controversial or sensitive subject matter.

I also have to mention the musical score. Throughout this film, that synthesizer-heavy theme by Giorgio Moroder becomes more and more ominous. It's quite an effective use of music to reinforce a mood, and it's no wonder that the music became almost as popular as the film. I can even recall a disco version of the theme song to Midnight Express. Hey, it was the late 1970s, and disco was all the rage. Try finding many songs from that era that didn't have a disco version. (Actually, I need to see if I can find that version of the song; I'd like to hear it again.)

This film is also filled with some of the most vivid homoerotic imagery I can recall in a mainstream movie, particularly one that is not about the subject of sexuality. Davis spends a large portion of the film shirtless or in his underwear, and his body is shot in a way that makes him an obvious object of desire on the part of the viewer. He and a fellow prisoner exercise (if that's what the kids are calling it these days) so that their bodies become either parallel or mirror images of each other, making the connections between their bodies a focus, especially given the evocative lighting of this particular scene. And even when the film depicts its homoerotic imagery directly, as when Erich attempts to seduce Billy in the shower, the men are allowed to kiss--more than once, too--and caress each other's bodies before Billy politely refuses Erich's advances. That he has allowed Erich to bathe him in an earlier scene only adds to the homoerotic tension between them. Unfortunately, that is also one of the flaws of this film. If you wish to keep your focus on the unjust treatment of prisoners, you probably shouldn't turn your movie into a gay male fantasy, even if it is only briefly. It's a juxtaposition that is just too jarring at times. That may make it, in some ways, more realistic, but as far as a moviegoing experience, it's a bit of a shock.

I do still think this is a strong film whose theme is an important one. Even though it obviously chooses a side and manages to emphasize only the negative qualities of an entire country of people, Midnight Express makes for a compelling film. The attempts to escape that Billy and his fellow prisoners make are harrowing and tense, and the scenes in the psychiatric ward of the prison are frightening for their depictions of the ways that the mentally ill (and those who are merely accused of being mentally ill) are treated. You'll just have to adjust to the idea of having a man who is admittedly guilty of smuggling drugs as your hero. Hayes is not truly a heroic figure, but he is at times depicted as such here, and that may be the most difficult aspect of the film to watch.

Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest Gump won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1994. In fact, it won six Oscars that year, making it an Academy Award favorite, but I have disliked this movie since the first time I saw it in theaters. What has always struck me about this movie is its insistence that a person doesn't have to be influenced by or altered in any way by the forces surrounding him or her. Forrest manages to live through many of the great events of the second half of the 20th Century, and still he remains essentially the same person he was at the start of his film. It's an inherently conservative, almost reactionary, argument, and it's one that I just cannot accept. We are the products of our time period, and we do need to change and adjust periodically in the face of tumultuous world events.

The framing device of Forrest Gump has the title character (played by Tom Hanks) sitting on a bench talking to the various strangers who sit down with him to wait for a bus. He must be the most annoying person ever to grace such a bench. Who would truly want to sit and listen to two hours of non-stop ramblings about someone else's life? Pity all of the various folks who have to endure his life story, but then we need also to pity the filmgoing audience who has to endure it as well. It's as if we too are trapped on that bench, having to listen to this story and wishing the bus would just hurry up and get here so we can escape.

A lot happens in this film. Forrest manages to teach Elvis Presley how to dance. He plays football for the legendary Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, and he even gets involved in the integration of the university. He joins the Army and serves in Vietnam (receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor) and then speaks at an anti-war rally in Washington. Tellingly, though, when he starts to speak, the sound system is sabotaged; we never get to hear what he says, so we never know how he truly feels about the war. He becomes a member of the team that represented "ping-pong diplomacy." He instigates the investigation into the Watergate break-in. He starts a jogging crazy and, along the way, introduces the phrase, "Shit happens," and the smiley face and its accompanying slogan, "Have a nice day." That he can be so blase in the telling of so many of these events is indicative of his single-mindedness. I felt most frustrated that he meets Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as John Lennon and George Wallace, but when three of those men are assassinated, he describes their deaths as just another fact, certainly not one that would demand an emotional response.

As an aside, the special effects used to drop Forrest into these historical events are eye-catching. Some of the best parts of the film are seeing how seamlessly Hanks as Forrest is inserted into archival footage. I particularly liked his appearance on the Dick Cavett Show with fellow guest Lennon, who starts reciting lines from his song, "Imagine." Not that Forrest even realizes it; he's probably never even heard the song.

Through it all, Forrest only seems interested in marrying Jenny, his childhood sweetheart, nothing else. I suppose there's a lot to be said for the persistence of one man's love in this film, but he and Jenny are really not a good match. Jenny (Robin Wright), unlike Forrest, has gotten involved in all of the so-called counterculture movements. She's been a hippie, worked with the antiwar movement, hung out with the Black Panthers, even partied with the cocaine crowd. Naturally, in the world created by this movie, she has to be punished, and she is--by being infected with a mysterious virus for which there is no cure. The film never mentions AIDS, but it's pretty obvious from the context. After all, she has engaged in the kind of behavior that would have been considered high risk. As sad as Forrest is to learn of her diagnosis, the filmmakers seem to think that we should all accept that Jenny is responsible for her fate. She is Forrest's opposite in many ways, and only he can have his actions be validated.

Hanks is a good actor, but he's really given very little here to flesh out a character. What changes does Forrest really undergo? Even when he's rescuing his friends during battle in Vietnam, he's no different from the man he was back as a child in Greenbow, Alabama. He just happens to be in another country at the time, that's all. When he jogs for three years back and forth across America, there's no great revelatory moment even though he says he spent the time thinking about Jenny. At the end of his journey, he just says, "I'm tired. Think I'll go home now." That's it. Where can an actor like Hanks go with such a cypher as his character? The supporting cast is filled with good actors as well: Wright, Sally Field as Forrest's mother, a very young Haley Joel Osment as his son, Forrest Jr., and especially Gary Sinise as Lt. Dan. Sinise's character is actually more intriguing to me than Forrest. He, at least, gets to have some ups and downs. The only really emotional moment in the movie for me is when he appears at Forrest and Jenny's wedding. It's good to see him having come through the various trials of his life to arrive at a place of happiness.

I know you're thinking that one of my objections to this film would be its portrayal of Southerners. You'd be right, at least in part. It's just that Forrest is, in too many ways, meant to represent a certain type of Southerner, someone who has managed to remain steadfast in his belief system, unchanging, despite all of the rest of the world moving on and adapting. That he's also below the standard for intelligence to allow him into elementary school is another sign that the filmmakers (much like the novelist who wrote the book on which the movie is based) are anti-intellectual, and wouldn't that be the Hollywood stereotype of a Southerner? Too much thinking would obviously interfere with Forrest's ability to be surrounded by history yet unfazed by it. He's even named for one of his ancestors, Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan, a group whose sole function was to prevent change from occurring in the post-Civil War South. Why does Forrest Gump have to be a representative of the South? Where are the movies about intelligent Southerners, people who aren't stuck in the mindset of their ancestors? Where are the progressives and liberals of the South? It's very tiring for me to watch Hollywood movies about the South and its people.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the feather that appears at the beginning and ending of the film. It's one remarkable feather, with the ability to float for a seemingly endless period of time. In many ways, it's the older brother or cousin (whichever you prefer) to that stupid hummingbird in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, also written by Eric Roth. What is it with Roth and these floating objects? I suppose there's supposed to be something metaphorical about the feather, but I just find it distracting and annoying. It eats up time which would be better spent getting on with the story. The sooner Forrest Gump is over, the better.

Oscar Wins: Picture, Director, Actor (Hanks), Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects, and Film Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Supporting Actor (Sinise), Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Effects Editing, Makeup, Original Score, and Sound

Rebecca (1940)

Rebecca, the winner for Best Picture of 1940, is a ghost story without a ghost. The title character never appears because she died the year before the start of the film's narrative. She was the first Mrs. de Winter, and now the second (played by Joan Fontaine as if she's likely to fall apart or faint at any moment) has come to Manderlay, the home where Rebecca's presence seems to be as strong as ever. The movie never needs an actual ghost; eventually, just her name is sufficient to send a chill over Fontaine's character.

The film begins with the courtship of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) and Fontaine's character, who is never identified by name. They meet in Monte Carlo where she has traveled as the companion to a rather stuffy older woman. When the older woman falls ill to a cold, the two lovers use their free time to develop a deepening romantic relationship. Rather than travel with the woman to America for a wedding, Fontaine's character decides to accept Maxim's marriage proposal. Little does she know what is in store for her.

When the newly married couple arrives at Manderlay, which is a rather impressive ancestral home, the new Mrs. de Winter quickly learns how devoted everyone was to the first Mrs. de Winter. Hardly a moment goes by without some comparison to Rebecca, who was apparently lovely and charming and whatever other marvelous adjectives could be used. Chief among the culprits is Mrs. Danvers, brilliantly played by (later Dame) Judith Anderson. Mrs. Danvers has assumed control of the household since Rebecca's death and has managed to maintain it in much the same manner as Rebecca did while still alive. If you're wondering why the new Mrs. de Winter doesn't just say that she wants things to be different from the start, you've never had to confront Anderson's implacable face.

Maxim is no help either. He continues to seem distraught over Rebecca's death from a boating accident, even to the point of forbidding the second Mrs. de Winter from entering the boathouse. When the new wife shows up at a costume ball dressed in the same way as Rebecca once did--thanks to the interference of Mrs. Danvers--well, Maxim almost explodes. He has a rather short temper anyway, but any reminder of his late wife, even an accidental one, seems to set him off quickly.

There's an interesting twist to the plot about three-fourths of the way through the film, but I won't spoil that for you. It really does make you question who is telling the truth in this film, and much of the movie forces you to question what constitutes someone's true identity. Who is the "real" Mrs. de Winter, in particular, becomes a key matter of concern. There's also a shocking finale to the story, and I definitely won't spoil that either. It's worth the surprise if you've never seen Rebecca before.

All of the acting is first-rate. Fontaine shows you just how close to the edge she becomes, a trait she would also use to good effect the following year in Suspicion, which would garner her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Olivier probably has the greatest range of emotions here; he gets to be fiery and passionate and defeated. It's quite solid, if not as showy as his earlier work in Wuthering Heights. The supporting cast includes such noteworthies as George Sanders and Nigel Bruce (he of Sherlock Holmes fame) and Gladys Cooper, who is fast becoming one of my favorite actresses thanks to this project.

The one who steals the movie, though, is Anderson. She gives such a controlled performance as Mrs. Danvers, one of the most truly frightening characters in film history. Much has been made of the homoerotic subtext of this film as it relates to her character, and it isn't difficult to see how she has made and maintained a shrine to the woman she loved. The way she caresses Rebecca's fur coat and then uses the sleeve of that coat to caress Fontaine's face pales in comparison only to the gentleness with which she displays Rebecca's underwear drawer and then fondles Rebecca's sheer nightgown, which has been tucked conveniently in a case embroidered by Mrs. Danvers herself. It's all a bit creepy, to be frank, particularly as you begin to realize that she would rather Maxim mourn the loss of his first wife than enjoy the company of his second wife.

This was the first Hollywood film to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who had already made a name for himself in Great Britain. It's also the only one of his films to be named Best Picture (and one of the very few even to be nominated). Rebecca doesn't quite hold the same level of suspense as some of his later work, particularly those masterpieces of the 1950s like Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much. And it certainly isn't quite as tense as his greatest works, films like Vertigo and Psycho and The Birds. Still, there is a strong hand at work already, and you can easily see how Rebecca fits into the growing directorial sensibility that would come to define his movies.

The English Patient (1996)

When I first saw The English Patient, Oscar's Best Picture of 1996, I wasn't really impressed. It seemed like an uneven attempt at blending Out of Africa and Lawrence of Arabia, two movies I love. I remember walking out of the theater talking to my Partner at the Time about the love story that is the primary focus of the narrative and wondering why it was less than involving for me as a viewer. Watching it again recently, I understood better how repressed both Count Laszlo de Almasy and Katharine Clifton are. Seeing their love develop gradually was a more haunting experience for me this time, and I think I can see why this film has been so loved by so many people, including Academy voters who gave it nine awards that year.

The film begins with the crash in the African desert of a plane piloted by Almsay (Ralph Fiennes). He is severely burned in the crash and is kept alive by nomadic people who carry him through the desert on camels to the care of the Canadian nurse. The nurse, Hana (Juliette Binoche), has been consistently unlucky in love during the war, having experienced the deaths of at least two of her lovers. Turning her back on further romances, she decides to devote all of her energy to keeping Almsay alive. She takes up residence with him in an abandoned monastery so that he no longer has to suffer the constant moving that the all of the battles of World War II demand. In essence, she decides to stay with him until he dies.

While lying in his bed, Almsay (a Hungarian who was mistakenly dubbed the "English patient" because his identity cannot be determined but he was flying an English plane) begins to drift in and out of consciousness, remembering in flashbacks the love affair that he had with Katharine (a radiant Kristin Scott Thomas) while serving as a mapmaker in Africa with the Royal Geographic Society prior to and during the early years of the war. Katharine is, of course, already married to one of Almsay's fellow society members, Colin Firth's Geoffrey Clifton, so she and Almsay must deny their feelings for each other for a long period of time. It's a sandstorm which traps them in a truck for a night that allows them to begin to express themselves to each other.

Simultaneously, in the "present day" story, a pickpocket named David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) shows up at the monastery, looking for the man who betrayed him and led the Germans to cut off his thumbs. Also appearing is a group of soldiers who specialize in clearing roads and fields of mines and bombs. For an abandoned monastery, it gets a lot of foot traffic. One of those men is Kip, a Sikh played by Naveen Andrews, now more familiar to viewers of TV's Lost. Kip and Hana begin a love affair of their own, one that causes Hana to be nervous about his fate, particularly given her recent history with men.

However, despite all of those events, it's the moments between Fiennes and Thomas that resonate the most in this film. There are some lovely scenes between the two of them. They have sex while troops outside in a courtyard are singing "Silent Night"; it's one of the sexiest moments in film from the past quarter century, made all the more sexy because of the danger of being caught so easily. He falls in love with the area at the base of her throat, that little indention called the "suprasternal notch," as Almsay finds out from one of his friends. He buys her a thimble in the market at Cairo, and then he sees her wearing it later in the film. That's when she delivers perhaps the most romantic lines in the film: "Of course, you idiot. I always wear it. I've always worn it. I've always loved you." It's all pretty heady stuff. Both stars are at their most beautiful (if I can say that about Fiennes, and I think I can), and you can see quite a contrast between Almsay as the lonely cartographer and as the English patient, not the least of which is make-up that looks like a test run for his face as Voldemort in those Harry Potter movies. Yet even under all of that make-up, Fiennes manages to convey the sense of loss that Almsay feels.

I won't lie and say that I love this movie after having watching it again. There are still some things I'm not fond of, touches by the writer or the director that just seem a little too geared to drawing praise. I'm thinking, for example, of the way that the parachute is draped around Katharine as Almsay takes her into the cave; I must say that is one artfully arranged parachute to allow for such movement in the wind. The movie just calls attention to its own beauty too many times for my complete satisfaction. That said, I am grateful for the chance to re-evaluate it. The English Patient won over Fargo and Secrets & Lies in 1996, and now I at least understand and can appreciate why.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

All of the elements are in place to make The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 2008, an outstanding movie. It has an intriguing story as its basis: a child is born as an old man and ages backwards. It has good actors as its leads, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and a fine supporting cast. It has an impressive scope, pretty much the entire 20th century and some of the loveliest places in the U.S. and Europe. It has so many teams of special effects wizards to make what seems impossible--the grafting of Pitt's face onto various of Benjamin Button's bodies at different ages--into something believable. And, yet, watching this film left me feeling unsatisfied.

I think part of the problem is the framing device of the movie. Blanchett's Daisy is dying in a New Orleans hospital while Hurricane Katrina is gathering force outside. Her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormand) is reading to her from Benjamin's journal. What follows is a series of flashbacks to various moments in Benjamin's past. Just as a vignette begins to gather some emotional resonance, though, we are drawn back to the hospital room to hear Daisy and Caroline talking about the events that have just been depicted. I'm not really quibbling with the choices that the filmmakers have made in presenting the story, but the effect is one that doesn't allow for the building of tension on the part of the viewer. The reconciliation between Daisy and Caroline just isn't as intriguing as the one between Daisy and Benjamin that occurs in the flashbacks.

Benjamin was born on the day that World War I ended. His father, grieving over the death of his wife from childbirth, abandons his son at a stranger's house; he cannot face his child, who looks wrinkled and perhaps deformed. The house where he leaves the baby happens to be filled with elderly people who are looked after by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and Tizzy (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali). Queenie, being a goodhearted person, takes in Benjamin and raises him as her own child. Benjamin is not give much hope for living, but he defies the odds and starts to grow up...well, grow young...well, you know what I mean.

While he is still only about seven years old or so, Benjamin meets Daisy, the granddaughter of one of the other residents. The two begin a friendship that they sustain over a period of years as Daisy grows older and Benjamin grows physically younger. His life takes him sailing around the world, including an extended stay in Russia, where he meets and has an affair with Tilda Swinton's Elizabeth Abbott--a pretty emotionally satisfying vignette, by the way. Daisy's life as a dancer takes her primarily to New York and to the tutelage of George Balanchine. Daisy and Benjamin manage to meet several times over the years, but until both are in their 40s, they do not develop a relationship. When they do, though, the best part of the movie begins.

It's almost two-thirds of the way through the film before "Movie Star Brad Pitt" shows up looking like himself. When he does, the movie finally kicks into high gear. The love story between Pitt's Benjamin and Blanchett's Daisy is charming and emotional and sexy. It's the heart of the film, really, and it's all too brief. I do understand that given the nature of the story, it can't help but be brief, but for a film that clocks in at almost three hours long, I'd like to see a bit more of the Brad Pitt with which I'm familiar. Blanchett gets to look pretty much like herself for a substantial chunk of time, but not Pitt. And, really, it's the two of them we should be waiting for, not the next special effects gimmick to see how well they've managed to "age" or "youthen" Pitt.

The script is filled with homilies, most of which are rather pat and inconsequential. What does it mean to keep saying to people that you can't really know what to expect? How "deep" is it to suggest that nothing really beautiful can last? Who are the people who don't know these lessons already? I suppose we could "learn" from this film that we should just accept things as they happen and try to accept people as they are, but those seem like such insignificant statements to make in a film that has pretensions of being Great Art.

It's really not the fault of the director, David Fincher. I've liked much of his other work like Zodiac and Fight Club and even parts of Se7en, and he does solid work here too. It isn't the actors who are to blame, either. I don't think they are given a great deal to do. Much has been made of Pitt's underplaying of his role, but I don't know that he has a choice but to remain on the surface; his character isn't given a great deal of depth. Benjamin doesn't really change all that much, except in a physical sense. Blanchett is always reliable in her performances, and she manages to do her usual good work here with what little she really has to work with (but I had to keep looking at her face in the scenes set during Katrina just to reassure myself that it was Blanchett). I'm not as impressed with Henson's turn as Queenie as others seem to be. I thought she was spectacular a few years ago in Hustle & Flow, but here she is given so little to do except be the perfect surrogate mother that it wastes her considerable talents as an actress.

I think the fault has to lie with the screenplay in this case. It's written by Eric Roth, who based it on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I've not yet read the story, but I'm familiar enough with Fitzgerald's work to know that there would be more substance than this film offers. Roth also wrote the screenplay for Forrest Gump, and I will readily admit that I was not looking forward to watching that movie again for this project. I hated it the first time I saw it in the theater, and my distaste for it has changed little over the years. I didn't particularly dislike The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but its emotional impact is just too stunted for it to truly be considered one of the best pictures of the year.

Oscar Wins: Art Direction, Makeup, and Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor (Pitt), Supporting Actress (Henson), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, and Sound Mixing

Terms of Endearment (1983)

True confession time: When I finally got around to purchasing a videocassette play back in the mid-1980s--I was never an Early Adopter, I guess--one of the first movies I purchased (on VHS, remember that?) was Terms of Endearment, winner for Best Picture of 1983. My other purchase was Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush. Don't ask me what they have in common other than being classic movies. And I got them both at the Wal-Mart in Starkville, Mississippi, so I guess it wasn't quite the cultural wasteland people might think.

Terms of Endearment starts with Aurora Greenway (a fantastic Shirley MacLaine) coming into her baby daughter Emma's room, fearful that the child has succumbed to crib death. Aurora tries to climb into the crib with her daughter, but failing that, she pinches Emma until the baby begins to cry. Satisfied that Emma is okay, Aurora leaves the room while the baby is still crying. With an opening like that, how can you resist watching to see how this relationship will unfold?

There are actually two main plotlines in Terms of Endearment--at least, until the final half hour--and they intersect briefly at various moments. One is the story of Emma, who grows up to be Debra Winger, a somewhat free spirit compared to the no-nonsense Aurora. Emma marries Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) over her mother's objections and proceeds to have three children while following her husband first to Iowa and then to Nebraska for teaching jobs. Along the way, she also starts up an affair with a married banker (John Lithgow) who is so very appreciative of the attention that Emma gives him.

The other story is, of course, what happens to Aurora after Emma leaves. She still calls her daughter every day, sometimes several times a day, just so they can gossip, but Aurora begins to fancy the former astronaut who lives next door, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson, far less annoying to me than he usually is). Theirs is a complicated romance, given his penchant for chasing younger women and drinking. Aurora considers herself to be a refined woman of the world, but she too begins to enjoy the burgeoning sexual relationship between them. Their first "date," a lunch followed by a drive along the beach, is hilarious.

Much of the film is comedic in tone, actually, which might surprise those who have only heard of Terms of Endearment as being a tearjerker. MacLaine, however, is a fine comedic actress, and she knows how to deliver a line for maximum effect. Even Winger's storyline as Emma is filled with lighthearted moments. Only the last half hour, once Emma has been diagnosed with a terminal case of cancer, is downbeat without much levity. It's a powerful half hour, though, highlighted by Winger's speech to her two sons. She's called them into her room to say her final goodbyes, and if you can keep from tearing up when she tells them how much and why she loves them, you're a stronger person than I am.

MacLaine was the sentimental favorite to win Best Actress that year (and did), but Winger is her equal here. They do have very different acting styles, but perhaps because their characters are so different from each other, it works here. Whatever might have happened off-camera during the shooting of this film (and the rumors have been rampant for decades now), it all seems to come together on the screen itself in a way that enhances their interaction.

I know a lot of people will avoid this film because it's too sentimental or too focused on the mother-daughter dynamic--they'll tag it a "chick flick," that demeaning term meant to suggest that only women would like it--but to do so cheats you out of watching some fine acting and some sharp dialogue (written by director James L. Brooks and based upon the book by Larry McMurtry). Terms of Endearment earns all of the laughs and tears honestly, and it features great supporting turns by Lithgow, Daniels, the child actors, even Nicholson. Perhaps that's why it was one of my first videotape purchases a couple of decades ago.

You Can't Take It with You (1938)

You Can't Take It with You, winner for Best Picture of 1938, was directed by Frank Capra, perhaps the most famous director of that decade. It deals with some typical Capra themes: the class struggle in America during the Depression, gender politics, our connections to our fellow human beings, all very much a part of the FDR era in the United States. Yet, at its heart, it's a farce, a story of how confusion can lead to the most intriguing of outcomes.

Anthony P. Kirby (the solid Edward Arnold) is trying to obtain a monopoly over the munitions industry in America. To do so, he needs to buy up all of the property in a 12-block area, but he faces one holdout: an elderly gentleman named Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), who lives in a home full of eccentrics. What Kirby doesn't know is that his son Tony (the young and smoothly handsome Jimmy Stewart) is in love with Vanderhof's granddaughter Alice (Jean Arthur), who works as Tony's secretary. Tony and Alice are unaware of the machinations of the elder Kirby, and even Grandpa Vanderhof doesn't make the connection to Kirby upon first sight because the businessman has been using a go-between for the negotiations. Tony meets Alice's family and still wants to marry her. Alice then tries to set up a dinner with Tony's parents where the Vanderhofs are all on their best behavior. When the Kirbys arrive a day early for dinner, all hell breaks loose.

You may be wondering what is so eccentric about the family. Grandpa quit work one day and hasn't earned a living in almost thirty years; he's also refused to pay his income taxes. His daughter, played by Spring Byington, has taken up playwriting because a typewriter was delivered by accident to their home; she keeps getting stuck, though, because she puts her characters into situations (like being in a monastery) about which she has no knowledge. Her husband makes illegal fireworks in the basement. Alice's sister Essie (Ann Miller in one of her earliest movie roles) has taken up dance lessons with an exiled Russian who likes to wrestle--that is, when she's not busy making candy named "Love Dreams" in the family's kitchen. Her husband (played by Dub Taylor, who has apparently always sounded that way) plays the vibraphone for her and likes to put cards in the candy with sayings like "The Revolution Is Coming." And those are just the family members. Anyone who wants to live in the house is welcome so long as he or she continues to have fun.

I'm not sure that this family would be considered all that odd these days, to be honest. More restrictive times might have called for them to be more isolated, yet they are friends with everyone in the neighborhood. In fact, when everyone in the house is arrested--oh, it's too complicated to explain it all here--the courtroom is filled with their friends, all of whom take up a collection to pay for the bail money as soon as the judge passes sentence. The judge looks on with bemusement as the collecting of the money renders his courtroom too chaotic to control with his gavel. It's actually one of the funniest courtroom scenes I've watched since What's Up, Doc?

There are some serious issues at work here as well. The elder Kirby begins to develop a conscience after spending time in jail with some of the poorer classes of people. And Grandpa Vanderhof spouts some pretty Socialist-sounding ideas at times. Not that those ideas would have been uncommon in 1938 anyway, given the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal and all. This movie is quite obviously on the side of the downtrodden and tends to showcase their humanity and friendliness. Those who make money are all portrayed as greedy and unconcerned with the fate of other people. They're also friendless, perhaps the greatest indignity of all in the context of this film. All of it is pretty typical of a Capra movie from this time period.

Just as an aside, I'm still trying to figure out why Jean Arthur has such a great reputation as a comic actress. She's good here, certainly, but everyone else in the movie outshines her in terms of getting laughs. I've seen two movies with her now, and as competent as she is, I don't think she's been quite as underrated as some claim. She might even be overrated if this and The Talk of the Town are any indication.

This is a fun movie, but it doesn't break any new ground stylistically or thematically. It's charming in its depiction of the kind of people who aren't often the subject of movies, but even they are given a pretty glossy shine. There's no "real" poverty on display here; all of the members of the family are perfectly content with their lives and none of them are struggling to find food to eat or shelter or any other of life's necessities. You Can't Take It with You has a message at its heart, but I doubt it's a message that was "radical" when the film was released. I'm pretty certain almost everyone would have been against corporate greed in the midst of the recovery from the Great Depression. Perhaps it was just the timing of its release that worked in its favor, what with its message that everyone wanted to see being reinforced, but I suspect it might have just been the hard-to-resist thought of living with such a band of people who live how they want to live, no questions asked.

The Broadway Melody (1928-1929)

The first sound film to be awarded Outstanding Picture, The Broadway Melody is a backstage musical about two sisters who have been performing the vaudeville circuit and have now come to New York to become successful on Broadway. One of the sisters, Harriet “Hank” Mahoney (Bessie Love), has a boyfriend waiting for her there, the song-and-dance man Eddie Kearns (Charles King). Her younger sister, Queenie (Anita Page), starts to get all of the attention, leaving Hank to make a few difficult choices about her future. The plot isn’t really the most important or even the most outstanding element of the film, though. This film is really more about showing off the new sound technology.

The plot offers a bit of a new wrinkle on the old love triangle storyline. You see, Eddie falls in love with Queenie almost immediately after seeing how much she's grown into a beautiful woman. And the producer of the show in which they perform picks Queenie to be a featured player after the accidental fall of another girl from a high perch on a boat that's part of a set. Everyone talks about how talented Queenie is, but really all she does in the number is stand and point. Well, I guess some people have it and some don't. Queenie also catches the eye of one of the show's financial backers, Jacques/Jock Warriner (Kenneth Thompson), who begins showering her with diamonds and promises of even greater riches. It takes Hank to realize that she must give up Eddie so that Queenie can be "saved" from the clutches of the unscrupulous Warriner.

There is a certain quaint novelty to the film even today, despite movie musicals having grown considerably in quality since its initial release. Certainly, the backstage romantic triangle (well, quadrangle) is no longer a new plot device, but it might have been unique at the time to involve such close siblings in the mix. The incorporation of musical numbers into off-stage moments was also a very recent development in film. You can tell that the studio hasn't quite gotten the hang of making a sound film yet. The ability to hear the dialogue is wildly uneven at times, and during one of the tap dance numbers, the camera doesn't even show the feet of the dancers. Given that the camera had to be stationary in order to keep from making too much noise on the soundtrack, it's also disconcerting when characters sometimes just walk out of the frame or out of focus. And, to add to the overall effect of the newness of this medium, the film still uses intertitles to announce shifts in time and place. The Broadway Melody is obviously a transitional film from silents to sound, and all of the details that would need to be worked out are clearly in evidence here.

The song that provides the movie's title appears several times. My very unofficial count was five times. There are other songs, including a couple of renditions of the lovely "You Were Meant for Me," but "The Broadway Melody" is the star, and from the opening sequence to the end of the film, you'll never too far away from hearing some version of it. Interestingly, the lyrics for the songs in the movie were written by Arthur Freed. Perhaps only lovers of MGM musicals will recognize the name, but later in his career, Freed would be in charge of the musicals that came out of this greatest of all movie studios. How intriguing to see his name in the credits at the start of his career in "talkies."

Interesting, in the film’s plot, Eddie writes “You Were Meant for Me” for Queenie, not his fiancée. He clearly has already fallen in love with the younger sister, but he’s noble enough (?) to stay with Hank until, well, she dumps him so that he can actually be with her younger sister. We’re, of course, meant to see that the two sisters are very different from each other. Queenie is meant to be the beautiful one. She’s very sweet and rather naïve. She also has blonde hair, but her sister Hank has darker hair. Even in the late 1920s, Hollywood was setting up that dichotomy. Hank is also the more sensible one. She is smart and hardworking, and she tries to protect her younger sister. Hank also has quite a temper and is often ready to fight. For example, because this film is set in New York, there’s a bit of snobbery about vaudeville performers coming to Broadway. Hank and Queenie’s audition is sabotaged by a jealous chorus girl, and Hank wants to punch the girl.

The film actually begins with an attempt by Eddie to sing his new song “The Broadway Melody.” However, there's so much noise at the music publishing company—what with different songs in different styles being performed at the same time—he has to quieten them all down so that he can be heard. Everyone loves the song and wants to sing it, but he has plans to save it for the Zanfield Revue. If there's anyone who can't figure out that the film is playing off the Ziegfeld Follies, perhaps you should go back and study your musical history before giving this film a viewing. In fact, the musical numbers in The Broadway Melody could almost be considered a spoof of some of those ostentatious productions that Ziegfeld presented in his shows.

All that cacophony at the beginning of the film was certainly intentional. It was a clear way to tell the audience that “sound is here!” so you’d need to get used to lots of noise. Having the first big scene involve the musical theater industry and lots of people singing over each other is a rather smart way of letting everyone know that movies will not just be talking; they’ll also be singing (and dancing and…). The Broadway Melody was reportedly the first musical that fully used sound, and it was also the first musical produced by MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), starting a tradition that lasted for many glorious years at that studio. Of course, that means that in order to get even more musical moments into the film, the plot has to grind to a complete halt at times. That way we can see a full performance of “Truthful Parson Brown” by a quartet and a fully-staged production number in the Zanfield Revue called “The Wedding of the Painted Doll.” Neither of those numbers adds anything to the plot, but they do serve as showcases for what movies could potentially accomplish in terms of spectacle. Oddly enough, the Mahoney sisters have a number that we watch briefly before it’s cut from the show, only to have it followed by a very long solo by another dancer!

I can't end this posting without mentioning the homophobia that is evident in the film. The costume designer for the Zanfield show is portrayed as very effeminate, and he's the subject of ridicule each time he appears on the screen. He giggles over an ermine coat, and he’s subjected to a lot of teasing (bullying, really) by Zanfield’s “yes men” and investors. After complaining about how the chorus girls are not careful with his costumes, especially the enormous hats, he explains that he designed the clothes, not the doors to the theater. The response from the matron who oversees the chorus is that if he had, they'd all be lavender. Unfortunately, that must have been riotously funny to the movie audiences of 1929. It's sad to see an early stage in the genesis of such a stereotype, one that is unfortunately still too often evident in the movies.

Oscar Win: Outstanding Picture

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Actress (Bessie Love) and Best Director (Hugh Beaumont)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Winner of the Best Picture for 1967, In the Heat of the Night is the story of two men: a racist small-town police chief and an African-American police detective from Philadelphia with the misfortune to be stopped in Sparta, Mississippi, on the night a murder is committed. After being hauled to the police station and having his identity revealed, the detective reluctantly agrees to help the chief in the investigation. He is, after all, a homicide expert back in Pennsylvania--quite convenient for the movie's plot, isn't it? As the movie unfolds, the two men have to learn to work together despite their dislike for and mistrust of one another.

Rod Steiger won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Chief Gillespie, but I don't really see that he's doing anything particularly noteworthy in this performance. Any number of actors could have played this part just as well. His most distinguishing characteristic, in fact, seems to be his ability always to have gum to chew. He exercises his jaw muscles quite vigorously throughout this film. I suppose he does come to appreciate the talents of his fellow policeman by the end of the movie, but I suspect that as complicated as his reaction to a successful black detective might be, it would be overly simplistic to assume that he is no longer a racist after his encounter with this one man. The fact that he saves the detective from being attacked or that he forces some of the whites in town to cooperate with a black man in this investigation is less a sign of a growing sense of enlightenment on his part than a desperate need to solve the case so that he can go back to running the police department (and the town) in his own way.

Sidney Poitier is, of course, the detective from the North who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not a very showy part for Poitier overall; he really just has to be methodical in his investigation of the murder, demonstrating to the white police force and the racist townspeople that he is indeed smarter than they are. Given how quickly the chief jumps to conclusions each time he arrests another suspect in the case, it's not that difficult for Poitier's Virgil Tibbs to outshine Gillespie and the other officers. And, naturally, he must continue to elude the attempts by the racist townsfolk to harm him, no small feat given how outnumbered he is.

Poitier really only gets two spectacular moments in the movie, and both have been thoroughly analyzed over the years. When the chief asks, using racist language, what Virgil is called up North, Poitier replies, "They call me Mr. Tibbs." There is a fury in that line that no doubt inspired many people back when the film was released; it's still a great comeback on his part. The other moment, in my opinion, is even better, though. After the richest man in town, the orchid-growing Endicott, slaps Tibbs for implying that he was involved in the murder, Poitier slaps him right back, stunning Endicott and the police chief and a servant. That must have been a revelatory moment in 1967, akin to the appearance of Shaft just a few years later. Black characters just didn't do those kinds of things in the movies then, at least not without some retaliation, which is just what Endicott tells Tibbs after being slapped (although not in the context of it happening in a movie, of course).

The supporting cast includes the fantastic Lee Grant as the wife of the slain man. It's her insistence that keeps Tibbs on the case; she threatens to take away her husband's money that has been promised to bring new industry to the town. Warren Oates is also good as one of the police officers. He actually is key to several plot points: he finds the dead man's body, he arrests Tibbs, he is linked to a young girl who likes to walk around her house naked (and who later is relevant to the movie's outcome), he even gets accused of the murder himself at one point--all moments that allow Oates to showcase his talents for underplaying.

In his book Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris asserts that the selection of In the Heat of the Night was a middle-of-the-road option for the Academy that year. On the one hand, there were nominees like The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde that were forging a new type of Hollywood film, and on the other side, there were nominees like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (which also features a performance by Poitier) and Doctor Doolittle that represented a more old-fashioned Hollywood ethos. I'm inclined to accept Harris' premise because In the Heat of the Night does represent an opportunity for its filmmakers to show the intelligence and calm thoughtfulness of a character like Virgil Tibbs, and that was particularly rare in the 1960s. Poitier's Tibbs is really the focus of the film, and the fact that he comes across as more adept at police work than a man who thinks he is Tibbs' superior is all the more admirable.

Certainly, the deck is rather stacked in the portrayal of the whites in this small town. (Isn't that always the case in movies that deal with race relations in the South?) All of the whites are insufferably racist, except (of course) for the white woman from the North whose husband has been murdered. A gang of whites tries to attack and kill Tibbs for no apparent reason other than his skin color. He's refused service at the diner where Oates' Officer Wood likes to stop for a Coke and a slice of pie. Even when he tries to inspect the body of the dead man, he gets no assistance from the funeral director, who just seems puzzled by the arrival of this black man with the police chief. He has to share a cell for a time with a man who, at least initially, spouts racist comments. To be morally and intellectually superior to people such as this is no great challenge, it seems to me. That Tibbs manages to maintain an air of dignity in the company of such people is a testament to Poitier's talents as an actor more than to the script and its use of what were tired stereotypes even then.

Tom Jones (1963)

Tom Jones, winner of the award for Best Picture of 1963, begins with the discovery of an illegitimate child in one of the beds of a country estate. The supposed mother and father, both servants, are kicked out of the house, and the country squire "adopts" the baby and raises it as his own. The baby, if you haven't already figured out, is Tom Jones himself, the hero of the Henry Fielding novel that bears the same name. After the baby grows up and becomes Albert Finney, the movie becomes a series of sexual encounters between Jones and various women, save for the one woman he truly loves, the beautiful Sophie Western (played by Susannah York). It's supposed to be a representation of the bawdiness of the early 18th century as depicted in the Fielding book, and the filmmakers have done a good job of keeping the tone lighthearted and fun throughout the movie.

At the time of its production, Tom Jones would likely have been quite a standout film. It was made during the waning days of the Production Code, after all, so the topics of promiscuity and illegitimacy and adultery would have been "hot stuff" to handle. However, given the sexual liberation in the decade that followed, much of the film's "outrageous" scenes no longer shock, and most of them no longer seem all that funny or even amusing. We never see any direct nudity, after all, just Finney's bare legs and chest at times and the naked back of a couple of the women, but that's it. This is hardly scandalous material nowadays, even if it is played for laughs here, particularly in the "mistaken identity" incident at the Upton Inn.

Finney is quite charming in the title role, but as cute as he might have been in 1963, it is difficult to imagine every woman in England being immediately smitten with him upon first sight. Hardly a female in the country seems able to resist him, and frankly, I just don't get it. Perhaps it truly was Tom's reputation for being a womanizer that made him such an object of interest to the various females, but in truth, other than a rather extended "relationship" with a poor girl named Molly Seagrim, he devotes much of his energy to his beloved Sophie.

The women of the film are actually more interesting to watch. Diane Cilento brings a particular atavistic charm to the role of Molly. Even when we discover that Tom has not been her only lover, you can still understand why he finds her attractive. York is charming as Sophie, and her attempts to resist all suitors but Tom provide some of the funniest moments of the film. Her aunt is played by that force of nature, Dame Edith Evans. I always thought Evans had a flair for comedic roles, and she proves that true in this case. My favorite performance in the film, though, is given by Joan Greenwood as Lady Bellaston. Greenwood, who was so good as a golddigger in Kind Hearts & Coronets with Alec Guinness, here plays a lady who toys with other people's lives for her own amusement. Underneath that placid surface of hers, you can see just how much she relishes the prospect of ruining someone else's happiness.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the "style" of this movie. Every imaginable kind of wipe and dissolve is used to full effect and to gain attention. There are even wipes that are shaped like pinwheels or fans or spirals or clocks. The characters, at times, directly address the audience, calling attention to the artificiality of the movie itself, and at other times, just a knowing look or wink to the audience lets us "know" that the characters are in on the joke as well. Even the voice-over narration plays a part in calling attention to the fact that you are watching a movie; the narrator repeatedly says that the film must cut away from scenes that might go "too far" in depicting sexual activity on the screen. Again, I suspect that this would have been innovative stuff back in 1963 when the film first appeared, but it's been imitated so many times since then that it fails to have much impact on a modern audience's response.

I did enjoy watching Tom Jones. Don't misunderstand. It is a fun movie, but it seems like such a trifle to have been awarded the Oscar for Best Picture. Looking at the other nominees--America, America (haven't seen it yet), Cleopatra (are you kidding?), How the West Was Won (a hoot and a favorite of mine, but hardly Best Picture material either), and Lilies of the Field (a bit small in scope for the Academy's taste back then)--perhaps Tom Jones was the one that just seemed new and different. That we've grown past its innovations is perhaps a (small) testament to its influence.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Apocalypse Now, nominated for Best Picture of 1979, is a fever dream of a movie. For me, it's always been all about the imagery. I know that some people come away from this film confused about its plot; I don't have that particular problem, but I can see how it would be easy to be lured away from the details by the stunning visuals that float throughout this movie. From the images of palm trees being napalmed to the strains of The Doors' "The End" that open the film to the intercutting of the ritualistic slaughter of an ox and the death by machete of Col. Kurtz near the end of the film, the filmmakers have made a stunning visual masterpiece about the war in Vietnam and our role in it.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, best known for the Godfather movies, Apocalypse Now is the story of Capt. Willard (played by a young Martin Sheen), who is sent to "terminate" the command of Col. Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) after the colonel has abandoned army protocol and gone into the jungles of Cambodia to carry out his own version of the war. Much of the film follows the travels that Willard and the four men assigned to help him on the mission as they slowly navigate a river through Vietnam into Cambodia, where the United States was not "officially" supposed to be. It's the trip itself that provides much of the visual splendor of the movie.

By the way, I don't think it's truly a spoiler to tell you that Willard succeeds in killing Kurtz at the end of the movie. That's his sole purpose in the mission anyway, and I think it's far more interesting and suspenseful to see how much he learns about Kurtz as he's reading the documents provided to him about the colonel's history. Knowing that Kurtz dies doesn't detract from the way the film ends in any way. I've seen this film several times now--including its longer incarnation as Apocalypse Now Redux--and knowing how it ends has never left me feeling dissatisfied during the rest of the movie.

Here are just a few examples of the kinds of images I'm talking about: Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. Kilgore has his men play Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkries" as they descend upon a village; he claims playing opera from the helicopters scares the native people. A crowd of GIs swarms the stage as three Playboy Playmates try to dance to the song "Suzie Q," so overcome by lust are these men who have been trapped fighting in Vietnam. Boatloads of Cambodians with their bodies painted white greet Willard and his remaining men when they reach Kurtz's camp, and all around the camp are the heads and bodies of those Kurtz has ordered slaughtered. And everywhere in this movie there is smoke and mist, some of it from the weapons the men are using. I'm assuming that Coppola is making a point here about the "fog of war," but he never has any character comment upon it (thankfully). It's a beautifully rendered metaphor, though, and we as viewers are constantly struggling to see a clear path just as the characters in the film are.

Apocalypse Now is, certainly, a comment upon the insanity and ineptitude of the military leadership during the Vietnam War, and there are examples beyond the obvious one of Col. Kurtz (of course, his "insanity"--so described by the military brass--is also questionable). I'll just point out one: Duvall's Lt. Col. Kilgore. Duvall actually gives my favorite performance in this film and was deservedly nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He never flinches when shells land near him. No amount of gunfire can rattle him, it seems, and that's a rather scary trait in a man who should be somewhat more concerned about the safety of his men. It's as if the prospect of death holds no power over him any longer. He's also obsessed with surfing, paying more attention to the ways that the waves break than to the helicopter maneuvers he is supposed to be guiding during the attack on the Vietnamese village. I don't even think I need to comment on his most famous line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Everyone at the top, it seems, is crazy, or perhaps the war makes everyone at the top crazy. Either explanation is, I think, appropriate.

Sheen is very good here, but I'm still on the fence about his voice-over narration. I know we can't be privy to his thoughts in any other way at times; he is, after all, reading classified information. And the film is consistent in its application of this conceit, moreso than a lot of other films using the same device. I just wanted, at times, for there to be more direct interaction between Willard and some of the other characters. Yes, I do know that's not the point of the film, particularly on that long, rather silent journey up the river. I understand that it isolates us the same way that Willard isolates himself.

If you've read Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, you might understand the film in a different way. If you've read T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" or some of his other poetry, you might understand the film in a different way too. (I suppose if you've read both, you might understand it in a third way.) However, if you pay close attention to the plot, you won't get lost. It's a bit of a jungle, sure, just as you would expect a movie that trafficks in metaphors to be. But I'm not sure that you aren't just supposed to sit back and be dazzled by the way the story unfolds on a visual level anyway.

Oscar Wins: Cinematography and Sound

Other Nominations: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall), Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Film Editing