Moulin Rouge! (2001)

An exclamation point can make all the difference. Some movies are so audacious that they divide an audience. Some people love it while others hate it. Such was the reaction of the crowd when I saw Moulin Rouge!, a surprise nominee for Best Picture of 2001, at the Showcase Theater on La Brea Avenue. I, of course, loved that director Baz Luhrmann and the cast were taking movie musicals into wilder, uncharted territory. Partner At The Time, however, hated it, thinking it was overwrought and gaudy and tacky. Perhaps that's what I loved about it, to be honest.

Compared to the 1952 movie with the same title (but no exclamation point), Moulin Rouge! focuses not on the life of the artist Toulouse-Lautrec (played here by John Leguizamo). No, the 2001 version instead concentrates upon the love affair between a struggling young writer from London, Christian (Ewan McGregor), and the star of the nightclub stage show, the "dazzling diamond" Satine (Nicole Kidman). She mistakes Christian for a wealthy duke (Richard Roxburgh) and attempts to seduce him in order to guarantee money for a new musical production called, with no seeming trace of irony, Spectacular Spectacular. When she finds out that Christian is really a penniless artist, she tries to get rid of him, but he has already made her fall in love with him by writing a poem--a song, really--on the spot. The poem is actually the lyrics to Elton John's "Your Song," and as sung by McGregor with open voice, it's little wonder Satine is smitten.

However, you can't put on a show unless you have money, and Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent), as the owner of the Moulin Rouge, forces Satine to begin a relationship with the Duke. He wants the show to go on, regardless of what she must do to secure the Duke's attention. She keeps the Duke at bay for as long as possible while carrying on a secret relationship with Christian. The Duke, being a hysterically jealous man, discovers the true nature of the "rehearsals" Satine and Christian have been conducting, and he demands an ending to the musical-within-the-musical-movie that gives the character that is his surrogate control over the courtesan who stands in for Satine.

I've not yet mentioned the one little problem that complicates the love story even more. Satine has tuberculosis and will not live for much longer. She may not even survive to the opening night of Spectacular Spectacular. Zidler knows this, but he doesn't tell her until it is almost too late. He figures that the show must take precedence over her relationship with Christian; she just needs to make the Duke happy so that the money is secure. That makes him a pretty heartless pimp, to be honest. Neither Christian nor the Duke are aware of her condition, so the attempts by one of the Duke's henchmen to kill Christian backstage on opening night take on a greater poignancy. Even though the lovers escape these dangers, they can have no hope for a future given Satine's condition.

The film begins and ends with a red velvet curtain. I think it's supposed to call attention to the film itself as a "performance" rather than a representation of real life. There are numerous references to the fact that the film is not realistic in nature, not the least of which are the many incongruous choices of songs that the characters sing. The so-called Elephant Love Medley where Christian woos Satine includes, just as a small sample, U2's "In the Name of Love," Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way," Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs," and Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," as well as a generous portion of David Bowie's "Heroes." In addition, Satine continually talks about being a "real actress," a goal she hopes to achieve with the new production Christian will write for her and the Duke will bankroll. It's almost as if Kidman herself is making a bit to be considered a "real actress" with this role, given how much of a departure it was from her usual choices.

I have so many favorite moments in this film. Aside from the Elephant Love Medley, topping the list might be the wildest version of "Like a Virgin" committed to film, and that includes the performance Madonna gave of the song on the Video Music Awards. Broadbent's Zidler dons a tablecloth to act the part of Satine in order to persuade the Duke to give her more time to submit to his advances. While cute, young male dancers surround them in a whirl of activity, Zidler and the Duke act out a bizarre seduction sequence, ending with the Duke in full vampiric pose atop Zidler. It has to be one of the gayest production numbers in film history, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Close behind would be the secret love song that Christian writes for Satine as a way to confess her love for him without the Duke's knowledge. It's fully performed in a large-scale Bollywood-style number near the film's end, and in addition to being one of the few original songs in the movie, it earns our attention by expressing some heartfelt sentiments between two characters in whose lives we have become invested. The song, entitled "Come What May," was not nominated for an Oscar itself because it was written for Luhrmann's earlier Romeo + Juliet. It wasn't ever used in the 1996 film nor have I heard of it being recorded before the release of Moulin Rouge!, so it seems silly to me that Academy rules disqualified it from consideration.

I can't neglect mentioning the version of the Police's "Roxanne" by the narcoleptic Argentinian (Jasek Koman). Yes, you read that correctly. Performed ostensibly as a tango and intercut with scenes of the attempted rape of Satine by the Duke, it's not easily forgotten. The dancer who seems to be the object of the Argentinian's rage dances with several male partners, but none are quite as aggressive as the Argentinian himself when he gets his hands on her. I can't really describe why I am spellbound by this sequence; you have to see it to believe it. Perhaps it's the way that this song, like so many of the other popular hits that have been remade here, are recontextualized to fit the plotline. You can't quite listen to the Police's version without simultaneously considering the one in Moulin Rouge!, and that's true for many of the numbers included in the film.

Much of the film, aside from the framing device of Christian writing the story of his relationship with Satine, is set in 1899. To recreate the area of Paris known as Montmartre during that time period, the film makers chose to use CGI most of the time rather than actual sets. It's a gutsy move that allows them to manipulate the setting more easily. For instance, Christian can just step out of his building and be inside the elephant-shaped dwelling in which Satine lives, and they can both go to the roof of her elephant and be walking through clouds while singing. It's as simple as that.

Admittedly, the movie does have its weak points. Not everyone is a talented singer, but that's to be expected when you have performers better known for acting than singing. The central repeated theme of the film--"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"--is little more than a cliche. And, outside of one or two production numbers, the film never does very much with the motto of the bohemians who populate the film and surround Christian: "Freedom. Beauty. Truth. Love." Still, I think this movie was a deserving nominee for 2001.


I loved Kidman's performance here. She is, at different times, funny and tragic and sexy and delicate. I don't often think of her as a warm presence in films, but her Satine is one of the best performances she's ever given. And I love how she is often bathed in a blue light that accentuates the paleness of her skin, which is only enhanced visually by the redness of her hair and of her lipstick. McGregor makes a charming male lead, and even though I am sometimes distracted by how wide he opens his mouth to sing, I still think he's perhaps the strongest singer of the cast. I hate to use the word "campy" to describe the performances of actors like Broadbent and Leguizamo and Roxburgh because I think the word is overused and misunderstood, but they are all so good at going over-the-top with these parts that it's really the best word to describe them.

Personally, I was quite pleased that Moulin Rouge! was nominated for Best Picture. It wasn't a conventional choice, by any means, and the film certainly has its detractors. Most of the people who didn't like the film, I suspect, didn't enjoy the film makers' obvious lack of desire to follow more conventional storytelling techniques. Those of us who loved the movie tend to love it for just that very reason. The next year, a musical would win the Oscar for Best Picture for the first time since 1968's Oliver! (another exclamation point, eh?). That film, Chicago, is often given undue credit for reviving the musical as a film genre. However, Moulin Rouge! came first and rightfully deserves respect for being the movie that got people talking about musicals as an art form again.

Moulin Rouge (1952)

Moulin Rouge, a nominee for Best Picture of 1952, is as vibrant and colorful as the art done by the man who is the film's primary subject, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Perhaps best known for the lithographs advertising such nightclubs as the Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec was an artist of the underclass, people whose lives revolve around the world of darkness. Director John Huston uses a couple of montages to introduce the work of Toulouse-Lautrec to the movie-going audience, but the focus is primarily upon the rather sad life of the man himself. What a significant contrast there is between his personal life and the bright images captured in his artwork.

Jose Ferrer, who had won Best Actor two years earlier for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac, has the difficult task of inhabiting the body of a man whose legs were damaged in a fall and stopped growing. Ferrer had to walk on his knees at times with his legs strapped behind him; this was before the advent of computer-generated imagery, after all. At times, we see Toulouse-Lautrec in long shots, no doubt making it easier to fool the eye, but it must have been murder on Ferrar's knees when he had to be shown in a medium shot. I admire his dedication to the role, but I have to admit that I find him just as stagey and overly dramatic here as in his Oscar-winning role.

The film begins with a performance by two pairs of dancers at the Moulin Rouge nightclub. The women in the pairs are particularly vigorous in their dancing and are obviously rivals for attention. While they are dancing the can-can and pushing and kicking each other, Toulouse-Lautrec sits at his usual table sketching away on paper covering the table. Most of these sketches are rough, certainly, but they show the talent he has for capturing movement. The owner of the Moulin Rouge even offers to give him free drinks for a month if Toulouse-Lautrec will turn one of his drawings into a poster. Given that he is a somewhat insatiable alcoholic, Toulouse-Lautrec accepts the challenge.

On his way home from the nightclub, Toulouse-Lautrec starts to reminisce. We get a series of flashbacks of his childhood as the son of the Comte and Countess of Toulouse-Lautrec, first cousins who married each other. We are witness to the horrible fall down a staircase that led to his short stature. Despite attempts by several doctors, his legs just stop growing, leaving the rest of his body disproportionate to them. We, sadly, also have to witness the rejection he faces from women who consider him to be freakish. They make some of the cruelest remarks to him, such as claiming that he will never find anyone to love him. It's a lot of information for a flashback sequence to carry, but I suppose it's quicker than depicting all of these events from his first 26 years in greater detail and in a more chronological order. It does make for a very long walk.

Before he reaches his apartment that night, he meets Marie Charlet (played by newcomer Colette Marchand), a prostitute on the run from the police. He takes her back to his place after lying to an officer about her whereabouts for the evening. She likes the place because it has a tub and because he gives her money for a new dress, so she stays, at least for a while. It's quite apparent that Toulouse-Lautrec is trying to rescue Marie from her life on the streets and that he has fallen in love with her. However, she often disappears for the night, leaving him jealous and distraught. When he tries to paint her portrait, she demands money from him because he pays models to pose for him. It's a rather dysfunctional relationship, to be honest. She seems to be in love with another man, Babare (Walter Cross), and can't really give up being a prostitute for Toulouse-Lautrec's benefit. When he confronts her in a bar that she frequents, she calls him "a runt and a cripple," shocking even the other bar patrons.

Distraught over Marie's behavior, Toulouse-Lautrec goes home and turns on the gas with the intention of committing suicide. Instead, he starts to finish a painting of the dancers at the Moulin Rouge and decides to turn the gas back off. We are meant to understand that at this moment he has decided to devote his life to his art rather than to love. What follows is a sequence where he seemingly invents the process for reproducing bright colors in a lithograph, and his first masterpiece, called "La Goulue" after the dancer who inspired it, becomes a controversial hit on the streets of Paris. Even though opinion is divided, everyone is talking about his work, including his father (also played by Ferrer), who is appalled at the subject matter.

Ten years pass and Toulouse-Lautrec is on his way home when he sees a woman on a bridge. He thinks she is contemplating suicide, but instead she is merely throwing away a key that was given to her by a lover who wants to keep her but not marry her. After another chance encounter with this woman, they begin attending the theater and going to dinner together and taking in other social events. Myriamme (played by Suzanne Flon) begins to fall in love with him, but he does not return her affections. In fact, he seems completely oblivious to her attentions, perhaps as a consequence of his earlier mistreatment by Marie. He has become very bitter about love and romance as the years have passed. After they meet her old flame Marcel at the race track--he's played by a young Peter Cushing--she confronts Toulouse-Lautrec about her feelings and then decides to go back to her former lover. Toulouse-Lautrec starts drinking heavily, well, heavier than he was already drinking, which was pretty heavy anyway. He falls down another staircase and winds up dying in a bed at his family's estate.

By focusing on these two periods in Toulouse-Lautrec's life, the time of his first success and his later period of fame, Moulin Rouge does miss an opportunity to provide a full portrait of the artist. For the sake of brevity, we are given only highlights of his brief life, the flashback sequence to his childhood being a prime example. The rest of the movie is primarily about his relationships with Marie and with Myriamme. I know we shouldn't expect a biographical film to be completely accurate, but quite a few of the details are significantly wrong here. For example, Toulouse-Lautrec didn't break both of his legs at the same time; the accidents were a year apart. He also didn't die as a result of another fall; his death is usually attributed to the consequences of alcoholism and syphilis. I suppose those are small matters to dispute, and admittedly, you couldn't have talked about syphilis in a mainstream Hollywood film in 1952, but the emphasis on Toulouse-Lautrec's relationships with a prostitute and with a woman whose love he doesn't return gives an inordinate sense of importance to those relationships.

The description above perhaps makes the film sound pretty mundane, and in many ways, it is. Making the artist's life your focus, in this particular case, means an unhappy plot overall. However, there are several aspects of the film that make it interesting to watch. The performances at the nightclub are spectacular, especially the athletic can-can dancing. There's such a flurry of petticoats during those dance numbers, it's tough to keep track of how many people are actually on the dance floor. Even though she has a small part, it's also a delight to see Zsa Zsa Gabor as an egocentric singer. Her singing was dubbed, of course, and you can easily tell she's not proficient at lip syncing, but when she goes on about her latest conquest, you can't help but smile. And, of course, there are the paintings themselves. Toulouse-Lautrec called himself a "painter of the streets and of the gutter," yet he found such beauty in the places he drew that it's enjoyable just to watch the montages of his work flash across the screen.

Love Affair (1939)

Love Affair has been remade at least twice. The first time was as An Affair to Remember in 1957 with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant, and almost everyone is familiar with that version thanks to Sleepless in Seattle (if someone didn't know about it before, that is). The most recent remake in 1994 starred Warren Beatty and his wife Annette Bening, and it's pretty much a disaster. When you return to the original, though, you realize that no one needed to tamper with what was already a charming, deeply romantic film. It certainly had no shot at beating Gone With the Wind that year, but Love Affair is a movie still worthy of our attention and our affection.

Charles Boyer plays Michel Marnay, a French playboy who is taking a steamship to America so that he can finally be wed. His bride-to-be, Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn), is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. (Aren't all industrialists in the movies wealthy?) He gets a lot of attention on board the ship because everyone has heard of his reputation as a womanizer; his name appears frequently in the newspapers, usually in rather large headlines. He is a famous public figure who has never even had an occupation. The news media have, obviously, changed a great deal since 1939…. He meets Terry McKay when the letter he's reading blows through a porthole and she picks it up and starts reading it. They begin talking, and he invites himself back to her cabin. Terry, played by Irene Dunne, is pretty sharp, though, and doesn't fall for his advances, especially when she learns that the letter is not from his fiance but from the fiance's best friend with whom Marcel has shared an intimate trip to Lake Cuomo.

This portion of the film being set aboard a ship, they conveniently keep bumping into each other. After they begin dining together and having drinks together regularly, the other passengers start to become suspicious of a shipboard romance. People even try to eavesdrop on their conversations, and there is some very witty banter there, especially as delivered by Dunne. Michel and Terry don't help to squelch the rumors when they rip out film from a camera after their picture is snapped. They do try to split up, but they are seated side by side when they request individual tables. It's inevitable that they spend time together and start to learn more about each other.

During one of the ports of call, the last before they make their way to New York, Terry accompanies Michel to the top of a mountain in Medeira to visit his grandmother, played with Old World charm by Maria Ouspenskaya. The older woman knows a romance when she sees one, and she talks to Terry about her grandson in such a way that you know she's trying to set them up. Soon Terry knows that Michel is a talented artist who has never seriously considered a career as a painter, and she seems to forget that he is already engaged to another woman. It's when Terry sings, though, that Michel falls in love with her. Ouspenskaya's grandmother is playing the piano at his request, but it's Dunne's voice that makes him realize that Terry would be a better choice than Lois. One of Boyer's best moments in the film is his reaction to Dunn's charming performance; you can see the love develop in his eyes as he looks at her.

They quickly remember, however, that both of them have partners waiting at home. In fact, their partners will both be at the docks when they reach New York. They discuss how they might know if their circumstances change and they can be together. They make a plan to meet in six months at the Empire State Building. That would make it July 1, and before that day arrives, both of them deal with some significant changes in their lives. Michel breaks off his engagement to Lois, a story which is carried in the papers, and Terry moves to Philadelphia to resume her career as a singer. Her apartment in New York has a direct view of the Empire State Building, and the building's reflection shines in the open door. No wonder she has to leave; she has a constant reminder that she loves someone other than her fiancé, and it’s a rather… um… “predominant” reminder too.

Terry returns to the city on July 1 with only a few minutes to spare, but thanks to an interruption by her former fiance, she has to rush to get to the Empire State Building, and a car hits her when she tries to cross the street quickly without looking at the traffic. Michel has, of course, already gotten to the observation deck of the building, but he doesn't see what happened below. After waiting several more hours, he leaves thinking that she chose not to see him. He leaves the United States again, hoping to see his grandmother, but when he gets to Medeira, he discovers that she has already passed away. She has left behind a shawl that she promised to Terry, though; even after death, she has conspired to get the two of them together.

When he finally returns to New York after starting a career as an artist, Lois convinces him to join her at the theater on Christmas. He sees Terry with her fiancé as he leaves the theater, and he is shaken. The next day he tracks her down at the orphanage where she works teaching singing and confronts her as to why she never came. He does so by lying that he didn't show up and by speculating as to why that might have been the case. Slowly, he learns the truth of what happened that day and that she is still an invalid. They are reconciled, and she promises that both of them will achieve their dreams.

It's tough not to notice the repeated visual references to the Empire State Building. When Terry and Michel have their conversation on the ship about the plans for the July 1 meeting, it towers above the fog of New York City--something that might have been possible in 1939 but seems unlikely today given the number of subsequent skyscrapers that have been built. I've already mentioned the reflection of the building on Terry's door. What a testament to the cinematographers at RKO that they could pull off that shot. While he is waiting for July 1 to arrive, Michel takes a menial job as a billboard painter. One of his jobs has a clear view of the Empire State Building. Filmmakers in those days knew how to use a visual cue consistently throughout a movie.

This is not a perfect movie, however. For instance, the orphans are a bit too well-scrubbed, and all of them are talented singers. That must have been some very selective orphanage, but you need good child singers to make Terry seem more successful at her job. However, the bigger issue is what makes Terry so stubborn about getting word to Michel about her injury. Surely he would have understood and rushed to her side if he truly loved her. Yet she claims she doesn't want him to know. She seems to want to be her perfect self whenever she's with him. I guess that makes the ending even more touching and romantic, but it inflicts a great deal of pain on both of them in the meantime. I suppose that's why we've come to expect some pain and separation in most romantic films.

If you watch Love Affair, perhaps you too will develop a craving for pink champagne, Michel's and then Terry's favorite drink. You'll also witness two great actors, Dunne and Boyer, doing some of their best work. Dunne was adept at drama and comedy, and she has a lovely quasi-operatic voice that she displays here. Boyer was always charming and dashing in his roles, and here’s he’s at his most charming, smooth persona. He could play a villain well, as in the movie Gaslight, but he was so good at playing the romantic lead. Here he is given a chance to express with his face the growing depth of Michel's affection for Terry, and it's a masterful performance. Dunn was nominated for Best Actress of 1939, but Boyer was overlooked in the Best Actor category. That's a shame because both of them are outstanding.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Actress (Irene Dunne), Best Supporting Actress (Maria Ouspenskaya), Best Original Story, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Song (“Wishing”)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Bonnie and Clyde is one of (at least) two groundbreaking movies to come out in 1967; the other was The Graduate. The fact that both of them were nominated for Best Picture is a testament to the foresight of the members of the Academy. That both of them lost to In the Heat of the Night is an indication that the total number of Academy members with foresight was too small indeed that year. Perhaps it was the violence, so unexpected in a mainstream film then, that put off the voters, or maybe it was the frequent discussion of sexual matters that led them to choose a "safer" film to be awarded Best Picture. Regardless of the reason, anyone looking at the list of nominees for that year would certainly pick either The Graduate or Bonnie and Clyde; personally, I'm leaning toward Bonnie and Clyde because of its brilliant script by David Newman and Robert Benton and the great performances by most of the cast and its innovative style.

The film is the story of two of the most notorious bank robbers of the 1930s, a couple whose fame spread way beyond Texas and Missouri and Oklahoma, the states where they committed most of their crimes. People everywhere seem to have heard of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and the members of their gang. Obviously, the film version romanticizes these outlaws, and it makes them more attractive than their real-life counterparts in multiple ways. There are several photos of the two of them, and I can assure you that they don't look anything like Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

At first, the two of them are really rather inept at robbing banks. The first bank they try to rob, for example, failed three weeks earlier and has no money. Bonnie has a big laugh about that. Clyde almost gets killed by a butcher when he tries to rob a grocery store, and even after they add C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) to the gang to serve as the getaway driver, he almost gets them caught by parallel parking the car and then not being able to get it out of the space quickly enough. After the addition of Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman) to the gang, they become more successful at robbing banks if not at acquiring huge sums of money. The legend begins to grow very quickly, and rumors of the Barrow gang spread throughout the country.

In its depictions of the newspaper accounts of Bonnie and Clyde, the film addresses the issue of celebrity and how enticing it can be and how debilitating as well. Bonnie and Clyde love seeing their names in the paper; Bonnie even pens a poem about their exploits that gets published. However, when the information is incorrect, such as when a robbery is attributed to them by mistake, Clyde can get furious. He seems to want to control the image of the two of them, but it has quickly gotten out of hand. C.W. notes that even Buck gets mentioned in the newspapers at times, but he is never identified. That may be good in terms of what eventually happens to the rest of the gang, but he undoubtedly feels a bit left out of the notoriety. He, like Clyde and Bonnie, becomes more than a little distracted by what others are saying about them.

The film also indulges in a bit of revenge fantasy. Bonnie and Clyde begin robbing banks as a way to get back at the banks that began taking over houses and forcing people to leave their homes during the Great Depression. Given the increasing wealth gap at the time of the film’s release in 1967, contemporaneous audiences must have felt that aspect of the film to be quite relevant. The shots of the run-down towns the gang travels through evoke some strong imagery of the time period, and the film shows some beautiful sequences of driving along country road and through wheatfields and cornfields. The cinematography was justly recognized by the Academy; it’s a beautiful film even when we’re seeing just how depressing the times were.

This movie is also quite obsessed with penises. Well, really, it's just obsessed with one penis, the one belonging to Clyde. I don't know if the real Clyde Barrow was impotent, but Beatty plays him here as a man who wants to have sex but cannot seem to attain an erection. As he keeps telling Bonnie, he's "not much of a lover boy." Dunaway portrays Bonnie as perpetually frustrated by Clyde's inability to consummate their relationship. Her Bonnie becomes obsessed with his penis or anything that is meant to resemble or substitute for it. When they first meet, he shows her his gun, surreptitiously, of course, and she strokes the pistol's barrel as if she were going to deflower Clyde on the spot. She tries oral sex on Clyde, but that fails to arouse him. Later in the film, when she is posing for pictures, she takes Clyde's cigar from his mouth and puts it into her own. If he can't be a "real" man, I suppose, she can be—at least, in the photograph. Of course, she can only take on the trappings of masculinity. She can carry a gun of her own (after Clyde shows her how to shoot), and she can play with his cigar, but he isn't going to satisfy her sexually. It's all very Freudian stuff, isn't it, all of this penis envy and castration anxiety? By the way, it must have been fun for Beatty, such a notorious womanizer, to play someone who is unable to satisfy a woman.

All of the five lead performers were nominated for Oscars. The most egregious loss was Dunaway's defeat by Katherine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn has little to do in her film other than look lovingly at Spencer Tracy’s character. Dunaway and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, on the other hand, give unique and intriguing takes on their roles, and either one would have been a more worthy recipient. Beatty, as beautiful and charming as he is here, isn’t quite as good as Dunaway. We don’t learn much about his underlying motivations except for his obvious familial loyalty to his brother. He served as both actor and producer on Bonnie and Clyde and would in later years add director and writer to his resume. I think he’s better in Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait, for example, than he is here.

Hackman as Buck and Pollard as C.W. are both good here, and they competed against each other for Best Supporting Actor. I would give the edge to Pollard because he has a more intriguing character arc. He gets to change and become stronger as the plot progresses. Hackman, by comparison, doesn’t have as much to do other than be the faithful, supportive brother and husband. Oddly enough, Estelle Parsons was the only member of the cast to win an Oscar; hers was for Best Supporting Actress. However, I find hers to be the weakest performance of the five main actors. As Buck’s wife, she’s prone to screaming and complaining, neither of which endear her to an audience.

The scene in the film that has naturally and justifiably gotten the most attention is the one where Bonnie and Clyde are tricked by Mr. Moss, C.W.’s father (Dub Taylor), into stopping by the side of a road. There they are surrounded by police, who fire upon the robbers without mercy. It's pretty horrific to watch, frankly, as their bodies writhe from the bullets shattering them. And it seems to go on and on and on even though it only lasts about twenty seconds. The film goes into slow motion at one point, and I suspect many people think that sequence, in particular, glorifies the depiction of violence. A film about bank robbers, especially famous ones, has to include the violence for which they were known. It is a bloody film, certainly, but the context calls for it. When we see someone get shot, it's more realistic to see the blood that comes from such a wound. Later films would, unsurprisingly, become even more graphic and filled with violence, but Bonnie and Clyde paved the way for those more realistic depictions that followed.

Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Arthur Penn), Best Actor (Warren Beatty), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard), Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, and Best Costume Design

The Big House (1929-30)

The Big House is an early movie about life in prison. It was written by Frances Marion, the first woman to win an Oscar for a screenplay—for this film, actually. She would repeat as a winner the next year with the movie The Champ. Interestingly, both films star Wallace Beery, one of the quintessential tough guys of the early sound years in film. Marion and Beery seem to have been a good match professionally, making several films together over the years. And how intriguing that a woman won back-to-back Oscars writing two films about tough guys in prison and in boxing, respectively; I wonder if a studio nowadays would even contemplate a script about such men that was written by a woman. Nevertheless, The Big House is especially noteworthy viewing today for the ways it has obviously influenced almost every prison movie that has followed it.

Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery in an early leading role for him) has been sentenced to ten years in prison for killing another man while driving drunk. The opening scenes show us the process of admitting a prisoner: he has his picture taken with his prisoner number, gets fingerprinted, and changes from a suit and tie into prison garb. He also learns that he will be placed into a cell with a couple of hardened criminals, “Machine Gun” Butch (played by Beery) and Morgan (played by Chester Morris). One of the guards warns the warden (played by the ubiquitous Lewis Stone) about the influence such men could have on one so young as Marlowe, but the warden replies with a speech about overcrowding in prison. That should be your first hint that trouble awaits both Marlowe and the rest of the prisoners as well.

Butch is serving time for murder; he killed his girlfriend Sadie, among others. That he now regrets poisoning his girlfriend does not necessarily mean he wouldn't do it again, for the record. Morgan is in prison for robbery, and he too has apparently been guilty of more than one offense. Each one of them tries to be the boss of the cell, with a dispute over Marlowe's cigarettes giving Morgan an early edge. Butch is rather proficient at stealing other people's stuff, so Morgan has to chastise him on several occasions. They are, of course, friends beneath all of the bluster, but when in prison, you apparently have to act like a tough guy in order to survive.

We get what are now typical scenes in prison movies. The prisoners have to march in step as they walk out of their cells to the prison yard for exercise. They have to be lined up for meals in the mess hall. There's a near-riot in the mess hall over the quality of the food. Prisoners are sent to the "dungeon" (solitary confinement) when they misbehave. There are scenes involving the planning of a prison break, and there's even an escape using that always under-supervised area of a prison, the hospital ward. You'll witness all of these kinds of scenes in later movies set in prisons; they are so expected at this point to almost be clichés (if they haven't already achieved that status).

You're probably wondering about the issue of sexual behavior in prison. Today, such a topic would be and frequently is handled directly and perhaps graphically. However, aside from one couple among the prisoners who have their arms around each other's shoulders, I couldn't detect any homosexual or homoerotic behavior. Well, maybe the climactic scene with Butch and Morgan where they forgive each other has elements of the homosocial (to use Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's term), but that's the extent of it onscreen in The Big House.

There is, however, a woman in all of this, and it's Marlowe's sister. On the young man's first night in jail, Butch and Morgan see her picture and are immediately smitten. Morgan later sees Anne Marlowe (Leila Hyams) on visiting day, and when he escapes from jail, he goes in search of her, ostensibly to enact revenge for what he thinks is Marlowe's double-cross involving a planted knife. Instead, he falls in love with her, a rather unexpected turn of events, particularly since she knows that he is an escaped convict. Her brother has even written her to warn her about Morgan, yet she still dates him until the police show up at her parents' house to arrest him—on the very day he was leaving for the Pacific islands, no less. I guess it's understandable given how handsome Morris was. When a guy who looks like him says, "Gee, you're a peach of a girl," how could anyone resist?

The key sequence in the film is the attempted prison break, and it’s the focus of much of the last quarter of the movie. Butch and the members of his gang, including a rather unwilling Marlowe, plan to use a daily ritual involving a bouquet of flowers passed through the front gate as a means of escape. They are somewhat successful, making it to the storeroom where the weapons like Tommy guns are kept. However, the guards and the warden are quick to respond, and it isn't long before there's a lengthy shoot-out that leaves many dead and wounded on both sides. Butch wants to get revenge on Morgan because he thinks the returning prisoner has ratted him out, not realizing that Marlowe is truly responsible for the guards knowing about the plans for a break-out. Marlowe has a nervous breakdown, starts screaming, and gets shot. Butch and Morgan shoot each other, but Morgan survives to be proclaimed a hero for saving some of the guards who had been taken hostage. He is released early and reunited with Anne.

I know filmic technique isn't really the key to a movie's success most of the time, but when I watch some of these older films, I marvel at how they were inventing film language before our eyes. The Big House uses what has now become a cliche to mark time: the passing of months on the calendar. It's interesting to see what would have still been a fresh idea in 1930 but which has now become so overused as to render it almost laughable. I also particularly admired the use of a dissolve in the mess hall. First, we see the utensils on the table. Then the full hall comes into view; it's empty, just rows and rows of tables. Slowly, the dissolve brings the prisoners into view, and we watch as they are given their food. It's a stunning visual sequence.

If the dissolve isn't the most used technique in this film, then it would probably have to be the pan. Several times, we watch as the camera moves down a row of prisoners. For example, we see it in the mess hall as one after another prisoner is unable to eat the food placed before him. We see it under the table when Butch tries to get rid of a knife by passing it along to the other prisoners. We also see it in the chapel on Thanksgiving Day as we see the faces of the prisoners singing a most ironic choice of song, something about "opening the gates." That's followed by another pan of Butch and the other prisoners passing guns and bullets to each other for the big prison break. We don't even notice the use of these methods nowadays, I suspect, but that's because the editing today is much more seamless much of the time.

I know I shouldn't have been distracted by this, too, but the look of the prison is spectacular. This being a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, the art direction and set decoration are impeccable. The building appears to be one of those art deco masterpieces with long angles reaching to the sky. It's pretty amazing to consider that this is a prison and not the headquarters for some multinational corporation. That's how they did it those days at MGM. Everything had to look good, even a prison.

All of the actors are good in this film. Beery was a solid actor, capable of gruffness and tenderness whenever the script called for it. Montgomery plays the new prisoner with the right mixture of naiveté and self-righteousness. And Morris gives what I consider to be the best performance. In a sense, he's the moral center of the film. Despite being a robber and a prison escapee, he seems to make right choices more times than the other prisoners do. In the end, Morris' Morgan has earned his early parole for good behavior. Morris would later become best known for starring in the Boston Blackie movie series in the 1940s, but his performance in The Big House is an early standout in his career.

Oscar Wins: Best Sound Recording and Best Writing

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production and Best Actor (Wallace Beery)

In the Bedroom (2001)

In the Bedroom, nominated for Best Picture of 2001, was the feature film debut of director Todd Field, who had previously devoted much of his movie career to acting. Given Field's background, it's easy to see why In the Bedroom became such an actor's showcase, a trend he continued with his second feature, the underrated Little Children. Each performance in his first film is top-notch. The actors allow you to sense what emotions are driving their characters, and even though you can't go wrong with people like Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson as your leads, Field has directed some career-best performances from almost everyone in the cast.

Nick Stahl's Frank Fowler is a college student who is home in Camden, Massachusetts, for the summer, and he's started up a relationship with Natalie Strout (played by Marisa Tomei). She's older, separated (not divorced) from her husband, and parenting two sons. Unsurprisingly, Frank's parents are concerned about where the relationship is going. Wilkinson's Matt Fowler seems reassured when his son tells him that it's a "summer thing." However, his mother Ruth (Spacek) retains a bit of suspicion throughout the summer even if she is very open and welcoming in public.

Natalie's abusive husband, Richard (played by William Mapother), wants her back and makes his intentions eerily clear to her, often by entering her home to wait for her return. As the son of the owner of the local cannery, Richard has some clout of his own that he uses when he gets into trouble, which is often. For example, he beats up Frank when the young man attempts to shield Natalie from her husband's influence. Despite an attempt by Ruth to convince her son to end the relationship, Frank feels obligated to protect Natalie and her sons from Richard's violence. At one point, after destroying her house, Richard gets a gun and comes back to shoot and kill Frank. (As an aside, I thought it was an interesting choice on the part of Field and his editor not to show the reactions of Frank's parents to the news of his murder. We get a simple fade to black in each case--in fact, that's the transition used most often throughout the film.)

What follows in the film is a series of scenes about the frustrations of the slow nature of the criminal justice system and the family's reactions to the delays in seeing justice meted out. Richard is, of course, released on bail, and the trial date keeps getting pushed back again and again. Richard then claims that there was a struggle during the shooting in an attempt to get the charges reduced to manslaughter. It's perhaps the frustration over these stalling tactics and behind-the-scenes courtroom machinations that opens the fissures in the Fowlers' marriage. They grow distant, rarely talking to each other about their son or their work or even any significant aspect of their daily lives. When they do finally confront each other, the fight is an emotionally painful one as each accuses the other of being responsible for Frank's death. Matt accuses Ruth of being too controlling; she blames Matt for always allowing Frank to get his way.

The film works best for me, though, in some of the smallest and quietest of moments. After his son's murder, Matt enters the boy's room and begins touching the various objects there. He breaks down in tears. When Ruth sees Richard's reflection in a window, the conflicting feelings of anger and panic are evident on her face. Matt and his friend Willis (William Wise) have some very emotional conversations in a small diner. Even deciding what to order seems to have implications beyond the simple words that are being spoken. These quieter moments also evoke the day-to-day life of a community. There are scenes of a ballgame that reminded me of watching softball and baseball games when I was a kid, and the singing by the girls Ruth has been coaching all summer is quite a delicate, special moment in the film.

I suspect the most disturbing part of the film is just how quietly the scenes play out at the movie's end involving Matt's kidnapping Richard at gunpoint. A sense of calm pervades what would be handled in far more graphic and overly emotional fashion in a typical Hollywood film. Matt is really very matter-of-fact about his reasons for wanting to kill Richard. The trial would be too emotional for someone like Ruth, and she keeps running into her son's killer in town. He takes Richard back to the younger man's place to pack some clothes, telling Richard that he must leave town. However, Willis and Matt have planned all of the details of Richard's death, including the cover story that he has left town rather than face a trial. The drive back home afterwards, through an empty town early in the morning, is one of those moments I'd like to call disquieting if it weren't for its actual quiet nature. It's almost as unsettling as Ruth asking Matt, "Did you do it?" upon his return.

I think this film has, under the surface, some issues with the class structure that it is trying to address. The Fowlers are all professionals or soon-to-be professionals. Matt is a doctor, Ruth teaches music, and Frank seems headed to a career in architecture. Occasionally, Frank and Matt like to get their hands dirty by working with the lobster fishermen, but that's truly a sideline for them. When Frank talks about dropping out of school or delaying it for a year, both of his parents chastise him, as does Natalie. I think he almost feels like he is rescuing her from her working-class existence or that he doesn't want to buy into his family's upper middle-class belief system if Natalie represents the "real world." She works in a small convenience store, one that both Matt and Ruth go to at different times in the film. To be honest, it's little surprise to me that Spacek's Ruth would slap Tomei's Natalie when the younger woman tries to apologize. Had Natalie been of a higher socio-economic class, I suspect that Ruth would have instead attempted to provide comfort.

Spacek and Wilkinson are both excellent. Spacek has to be one of the most reliable actors working in the movies. She can play the full range of emotions, and Ruth's fight with Matt is a powerful, surprising moment of anger for her character. Wilkinson, showing no trace of his native English accent, provides a nice contrast to Spacek's acting style. He is more introspective and less flashy, perhaps, but definitely her equal in all ways. Tomei, still best known for shockingly winning Best Supporting Actress for My Cousin Vinny, redeems her reputation here. I think she invests the character of Natalie with a graceful sense of tenderness and a keen awareness of the frightening nature of some of her decisions in life. As good as Mapother is, I'm starting to wonder if he could ever play any role that doesn't require him to be menacing. Is it his looks that throw off casting agents and make him into the heavy each time? Even though he's only present for the first third of the film or so, Stahl too manages to make an impression. He's portraying an admirable if naive young man, and you can feel the freedom that someone his age is beginning to experience (even if his choices at times are destined for disaster). Field has made a complex, emotional film, and it's little surprise that Spacek, Wilkinson, and Tomei all received acting nominations.

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Anatomy of a Murder is a prime example of just how revolutionary the movies of Otto Preminger were. Preminger, thanks to his consistent tackling of controversial subject matter in his work, was one of the filmmakers most responsible for breaking the restrictions of the old Motion Picture Production Code, a prudish list of "shall nots" designed by men of rather puritanical tastes and morals. Preminger, through such films as The Moon Is Blue and The Man with the Golden Arm and Advise and Consent, was always pushing the envelope, trying to get more provocative material into theaters. Anatomy of a Murder, which is now more than sixty years old, is still capable of engrossing the viewer, and that's not true of many older films. It remains a powerful, shocking film about issues that are still relevant.

The movie begins with the return of Jimmy Stewart's Paul Biegler to Iron City, Michigan (the Upper Peninsula, to be specific). He's an attorney, but hardly a successful or even orthodox one. We are given clues throughout the film that he seems less than dedicated to creating a thriving law practice or becoming a financial success. He recently lost an election for district attorney, so now many of his days are spent fishing; his refrigerator is filled with his recent catches. He smokes Italian cigarettes, certainly some sort of sign of his decadence. He even hangs out with the town drunk, Arthur O'Connell's Parnell McCarthy, a former lawyer himself. And, perhaps most telling, he likes jazz music. He even plays it to relax, something you suspect no respectable person would have done in the 1950s, given its associations at the time with blacks and beatniks. (The film's score is a masterful creation by Duke Ellington, by the way, and worth listening to on its own.)

Biegler receives a phone call from Laura Manion (played by Lee Remick). Her husband has been charged with murder for killing Barney Quill, the man she says raped her, and she wants Biegler to represent him. Army Lt. Frederick Manion (played by Ben Gazzara) shot the victim five times but claims to have no memory of what happened. Our first image of Remick is unforgettable. She's wearing large dark sunglasses and carrying a dog. Each subsequent time she appears on screen, our impression of her gets even more complicated. She's sporting a bruised eye under those glasses, of course, but she claims her injuries are more widespread. She tells Beigler, "You should see all over" in such a suggestive manner that he has to pause a moment. At this point in your viewing of the film, you should start to realize that Laura is no shrinking violet. She's a party girl, and her past (and present) behavior is only going to complicate the trial. Biegler's assistant, played to the hilt by the great Eve Arden, describes Laura as "the kind [of woman] men like to take advantage of and do."

The suspect is little help to his own case. He can't pay Biegler; he can only offer a promissory note if he's found not guilty. He divorced his first wife to marry Laura, and there were charges of "cruelty" leveled at the time. Around the base and at the trailer park where he and his wife live, he's got the reputation of having a quick and violent temper, especially when his pretty wife and other men are involved. He didn't catch Quill in the act of raping Laura. In fact, it took almost an hour for him to find Quill and shoot him. Now he can't recall any of the details of what happened. Manion is diagnosed by an Army psychiatrist as having had a "dissociative reaction." He had an "irresistible impulse" that caused him to black out after killing Quill. Biegler sees his defense: temporary insanity.

It's an hour into the film before the trial itself actually begins. The prosecuting attorney (played by Brooks West) has—and needs—the assistance of George C. Scott's Claude Dancer, an assistant state attorney general with a quick mind and a sharp tongue. The prosecution is trying to keep the issue of the rape out of the trial, hoping that the members of the jury will only be allowed to deliberate the details of the murder. Stewart's Biegler, though, keeps using clever tactics to raise the issue until it is apparent that the rape must be discussed in open court. For example, he asks elliptical questions about the circumstances of the context of the murder—trying to hint that Manion was reacting to the rape of his wife—but the questions only serve to confuse the jury and the members of the trial audience. It's the testimony of a police officer that finally makes discussion of the alleged rape admissible.

Preminger and his screenwriters were not given free rein to represent the details of the case, though, even though the film was based upon an actual trial. This was still delicate material in 1959, and the language used in polite society was quite different then. For example, the doctor who conducted the autopsy must answer whether or not there was spermatogenesis in the deceased. It took me a minute or so the first time I heard that to realize that Beigler was asking if Quill had had sex right before he died, if he had produced sperm and if he had ejaculated. We have come so far in our depictions of crimes that you can hear such formerly intimate matters on a cop show any night of the week and described in much cruder language, too.

There's also the sensitive issue of what to do about Laura Manion's underwear. Well, that's not the word they use in the trial, and that's at least part of the issue. Everyone seems to want to call them "panties," but the judge is a bit worried about the reaction of the crowd to the use of that word. After casting about for an alternative, Dancer says he knows a French word for the garment, but that it might be suggestive. One of the biggest laughs in the movie—which has quite a few funny moments, actually—is the judge's response: "Most French words are." Eventually, he gives up and tells the crowd that the garment in question is a pair of panties so that they can all get their giggling and tittering out of the way.

The panties are important evidence. If they are found--they've been missing since the night of the murder—that could suggest that a rape did occur. The bartender at Quill's tavern, Alphonse Paquette (played by a young Murray Hamilton, the great character actor), implies that Laura Manion was coming on to Quill the night of the murder, going so far as to suggest that the way she played pinball was too suggestive. He thinks that any sex between Laura Manion and Barney Quill must have been consensual. Another employee of the tavern, Mary Pilant (played by Kathryn Grant, now best known as Mrs. Bing Crosby), rumored to be Quill's mistress, brings the torn panties to court and says she found them in the laundry bin at the motel where she and Quill (revealed to be her father, not her lover) lived. The jury returns a verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity," and the Manions leave town before Biegler can collect the promissory note. The note they leave behind says they had an "irresistible impulse" to leave quickly.

What I most admire about this film is that it offers no simple answers, it presents no obvious black-and-white conclusions about any of the people or their actions, and the performers make their characters multi-dimensional, complex individuals. Remick's Laura does not behave as you might expect a rape victim to act. Instead, she seems to be one of those women who enjoy the various adventures life can offer, and such women's morals are often called into question. That doesn't mean that they aren't sometimes victimized, though. Remick is astonishingly good in the part, an obvious star on the rise. Gazzara's Army lieutenant is also tough, at times, to support. While you want to believe that his crime is best classified as justifiable homicide, too many points along the way suggest that the act is more premeditated than he will allow us to see. What constitutes justice in a case such as this? Preminger must have relished choosing subject matter where there are no obvious heroes and villains.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jimmy Stewart), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott), Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Film Editing