Unforgiven (1992)

Unforgiven, the winner for Best Picture of 1992, is one of my favorite Westerns of all time. It's an amazing film with some of the best dialogue ever written. And it features one of the greatest of Clint Eastwood's performances; he was never better than he is in Unforgiven. I realize that this is a revisionist Western, but it uses the symbolism of earlier films so astutely and so thoughtfully that even fans of the classical form of the genre will admire it.

Eastwood plays William Munny, a "retired" gunfighter who has been reformed by his wife (now dead) and who lives a rather unsuccessful life as a pig farmer. He hears of a reward for the deaths of two men who are responsible for cutting the face of a prostitute in Big Whiskey, a reward offered by her fellow prostitutes, and soon joins the Scholfield Kid, an untested gunfighter, and Munny's partner from his past, Ned Logan. Ned is played by Morgan Freeman, and he gives another of his exceptional performances here. He is, at turns, funny and serious and cunning and deceitful.

As soon as the three men arrive in Big Whiskey, however, they are confronted by Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett, a brute of a man who uses his deputies to inflict pain and terror. (Daggett is played with glee by the great Gene Hackman.) They have a rule requiring everyone to surrender any firearms upon entering the city, and that frequently causes problems for people who are attempting to collect the reward money. Munny and his friends, though, are a bit too stubborn to leave quickly, resulting in several encounters with Daggett's men. You know there's going to be at least one shootout--it is a Western, after all--but how the final confrontation plays itself out is a masterful sequence.

This is certainly a violent film at times, but all of the violent acts have a context. They have meaning. Munny is also no heartless killer. He struggles throughout the film with the competing desires of living up to his dead wife's wishes and his own desire for money to help with his children's future. It's no simple-minded, formulaic approach that the screenwriter, David Webb Peoples, has taken here. Eastwood serves as director as well as star, and this film demonstrates the maturity of his vision as a filmmaker. He has directed numerous great movies over the past several decades, but his achievement in Unforgiven still stands as the high mark of his career, in my opinion.

I've mentioned the dialogue, and I want to give just two brief examples. After the Scholfield Kid kills a man for the first time, Munny tells him, "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever going to have." Those are my favorite lines in the film, actually. Earlier, after spending some time with the scarred woman who is the central figure in all of this action, Munny tells her after initially rejecting her sexual offers, "You ain't ugly like me. It's just that we both have got scars." Simple dialogue, really, but when you watch those lines spoken in the context of their scenes, they are intensely powerful.

Marty (1955)

Marty, the story of a single butcher in New York City, won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1955. It's a very heartwarming movie, particularly if you have reached a point in your life when you too, like the title character of this film, have almost given up on the possibility of happiness and love. This is a simple movie about very simple, realistic people. I found it to be charming and quite touching.

Ernest Borgnine plays Marty, who is under constant pressure to get married like his siblings have done. However, Marty sees himself as an unattractive (perhaps even ugly) man, someone who is not appealing to women. He spends most of his time hanging out with his friends, particularly Angie. (They are the originators of the "What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" style of dialogue that has been in hundreds of movies.) He's dated some women, but Marty has yet to fall in love. One night, at the goading of his mother, with whom he still lives, he goes to the Stardust Ballroom and meets Clara (played by Betsy Blair). They start talking and soon fall in love with each other.

His friends don't find Clara appealing; they keep referring to her as a "dog," a term Marty also uses to describe himself. His mother doesn't like her either; she thinks Marty should keep looking for another girl. Marty initially bows to pressure from his family and friends and, of course, is miserable because he wants to be with Clara. If the plot sounds astonishingly simple, that's part of its magic. The filmmakers of Marty have chosen instead to depict what life would be like for people in this situation. And it still has the same power today as it did in 1955. There are moments, for example, when you will feel the sense of rejection that Marty and Clara feel, especially in one scene where Clara is waiting for the phone to ring so that she can go out to the movies with Marty. It's heartbreaking to watch some of this film, but the payoff at the end is certainly worth it all.

Borgnine is very good in the part, the best work he ever did. Blair is very delicate, almost fragile. She never had a huge Hollywood career, thanks in part to the blacklisting of the 1940s and 1950s. However, she's remarkable here, perfectly suited to the role. Most of the rest of the cast play Marty's family and friends, and they all bring a nice light comedic touch to the movie. This is a well done character study, a small film about "real" people.

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, requires patience. It's a very slow-moving film, clocking in at just a bit more than three hours long. It has very little in the way of action sequences, and it's really very confined, for the most part, to a single cell block in a Louisiana prison. In fact, it's almost an hour into the film before you even find out a central point, one that is the key to the entire film's plot. And yet this is a mesmerizing film. It's quite a presentation of the ideas of faith and goodness.

Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a guard on Death Row who comes to realize that he is in the presence of a miracle after the arrival of a very large convict named John Coffey, played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Edgecomb and his fellow guards are, with one notable exception, all good-hearted men. They seem to want to treat the prisoners with respect and dignity, unless the prisoners fail to deserve such treatment. Only one, really, does that, and he's played by Sam Rockwell doing a rather bad Gary Oldman version of a crazy convict. I suppose Rockwell's "Wild Bill" Wharton is meant to show the contrast between good and evil, but he does go a bit over the top at times.

Duncan, a giant of a man, plays John Coffey very simply and effectively. He's a man who only wants to do what he thinks is good, and he seems to possess the ability to know when someone good is in need. He realizes that Edgecomb is suffering from a bladder infection and asks the guard to come to his cell to talk to him. He grabs Edgecomb's crotch until the prison's lights start to get brighter and then what appear to be insects fly out of his mouth. It's a pretty stunning sight the first time you witness it; actually, it's a pretty stunning sight each time. What to do with John Coffey becomes a discussion for all of the guards after he brings back to life a mouse that a fellow prisoner has befriended. How does one behave when confronted with a miracle?

You're going to have a couple of very uncomfortable moments watching this film, so be warned. Three people are executed by the electric chair; they are on death row, after all. The filmmakers present each of these executions in pretty explicit detail. You'll learn a great deal about how executions took place during the early part of the 20th Century whether you want to or not. The second one, in particular, involving Michael Jeter's Del, who speaks with such an indecipherable accent that I had to keep rewinding, is the most gruesome, thanks to the aforementioned "bad guard," the aptly named Percy Wetmore. He's one of the true villains of the piece, something that John Coffey notices almost immediately.

The members of the cast are well chosen. In addition to Hanks and Duncan, I'd single out David Morse as one of the other guards, Brutus Howell. His character is nicknamed "Brutal," but really he's just a quiet man who takes his job very seriously. Warm-hearted Bonnie Hunt plays Edgecomb's wife, James Cromwell offers some stoic support as the prison warden, and Patricia Clarkson makes a brief but illuminating appearance as the warden's cancer-stricken wife. Percy Wetmore is played by Doug Hutchison, and he's so very good at playing someone with a rotten core. I suppose one could say that the good characters are "too" good and the bad ones "too" bad, but the actors infuse their parts with a real sense of humanity.

I didn't particularly enjoy the frame narrative involving the now-elderly Edgecomb telling his story to another resident of the retirement home where he stays. It doesn't seem necessary, and I think it actually lessens the impact of the overall story somewhat. I suppose the filmmakers wanted to have some sort of "reason" to start and end the narrative, but I think what happens on the Green Mile (the nickname for death row because of its green floor) is intriguing enough. It doesn't need anything more to make it a compelling story.

I hope people don't watch The Green Mile thinking that it's some sort of parable about religious faith. I don't think it has anything to do with any specific religion, really. In fact, John Coffey says that he doesn't even want a minister when it's time for his execution. There's a lot of talk here about what constitutes heaven and what might or might not be a miracle, but this doesn't seem to be a movie obsessed with pushing a particular religious agenda. It's more about our personal faith, what we choose to believe in or not believe in, about how we decide to live our lives.

The Caine Mutiny (1954)

The Caine Mutiny was a nominee for Best Picture of 1954, and it's a very intriguing look at what constitutes leadership in times of crisis. It's the fictional story of a naval mine sweeper during World War II and what happens to its crew after the arrival of a new captain. A series of strange events leads several of the officers, in particular, to suspect that the captain is mentally unstable, a belief that leads to one of them taking command of the ship during a typhoon. The film ends with the court martial of that man, who is accused of mutiny by the captain.

Humphrey Bogart plays Captain Queeg, actually Lt. Commander Queeg, he of the infamous silver balls that he takes out of his pocket whenever he is under stress or must make a tough decision. (Could there be a more obvious symbol than a pair of balls that a man takes out of his pants pocket?) After taking the command of the Caine, Queeg attempts to impose some discipline on a crew that has become rather lax after years of being on the second-rate ship. He becomes obsessed with shirts being tucked in, for example, and he attempts to rewrite events so that he comes out looking guilt-free when he is to blame for a blunder. The most infamous event, of course, is the alleged theft of a quart of strawberries. So paranoid does Queeg become with finding the "guilty" party that every member of the crew has to surrender his keys to be checked. It's that sense of absurdity of behavior that leads his officers to question his reasoning ability.

The key moment, though, is during a storm when Queeg keeps giving out orders to the helmsman that could lead to the ship's destruction. Lt. Maryk (ably played by Van Johnson), fearing for the safety of the men on board, takes over command of the ship. Queeg charges Maryk with mutiny, and they both wind up at the proceedings of the court martial. It's during the court scenes that Bogart is at his best. He is pretty tame for much of the film, only showing a few moments of excitement, a flash here and there of emotion, but once he takes the stand, it becomes pretty clear very soon to everyone why Maryk reacted the way that he did.

There's a silly subplot involving a romance between one of the new ensigns and a nightclub singer, someone the ensign feels his mother might not approve of. There's also a rather condescending speech by Jose Ferrer's Lt. Greenwald that seems to support Queeg's position as captain. I found it rather insulting, frankly, to think that after the testimony in court, the lawyer who represented Maryk would still be so obviously opposed to his actions. I suspect it was a scene added to placate those who wanted to have some passing reference to respect of authority included.

I enjoyed the scenes on board the Caine. I can't vouch for their authenticity, of course, having never been in the Navy myself, but if they do approximate what life is like for the sailors, it's an interesting world out at sea. I think that's one of the appeals of this film. Its evocation of the ways that these men must live their lives, particularly when they are under the command of one person whose decisions must be followed and those decisions are questionable, is a key to the movie's overall success.

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1966, A Man for All Seasons is the story of Sir Thomas More, the chancellor who resigned his post rather than support Henry VIII's attempts to divorce his first wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. The first half of the film relates the tensions within the court over Henry's desires to circumvent the Catholic Church's ban on divorce, particularly for his marriage, which had resulted from a special dispensation from the Pope so that Henry could marry his brother's widow. The second half of the film follows More as the court and much of the country becomes more and more obsessed with issues of loyalty, particularly as they might be displayed by public statements or signatures.

This is an admirable film in many ways. It's beautifully photographed, and the acting is all strong. Paul Scofield as More won the Oscar for Best Actor that year, and he is ably supported by Wendy Hiller as his wife, Susannah York as his daughter, and dozens of other performers, including an incredibly young John Hurt. Almost the equal of Scofield is Robert Shaw, more famous now for his role in Jaws, but playing Henry VIII here as a petulant, infuriating monarch. Shaw only gets a few moments of screen time, but he certainly makes the most of them. The film also pays very close attention to period detail, with the sets and costumes all as lavish as you would expect among the royal court during the 16th Century.

However, despite all of these traits and despite the noble message of the film (to stand by one's principles even in the face of certain punishment, even death), I have to say that I think this is a pretty dull film overall. I can admire all of the work that went into the making of A Man for All Seasons, but as entertainment, I feel it falls a bit flat. This film is another in that tradition of costume dramas that were prevalent in the 1960s. I've already discussed a later film, Anne of the Thousand Days, which mines much of the same territory but with more of a sense of excitement. Perhaps it's the central hero that is the problem here. More is a solid man, a stable one, but he isn't a very passionate figure to deserve two hours of film for his story. I realize that Henry VIII cannot always be the center of a movie about this issue that England confronted, but he does seem to be a more compelling force than More does here.

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hannah and Her Sisters, nominated for Best Picture of 1986, takes place over the course of one year. In fact, it begins with one Thanksgiving celebration and ends with the following year's party. It's an examination of the relationships between three sisters, played by Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, and Barbara Hershey. Each has her own set of issues to deal with, but many of them relate, quite unsurprisingly, to their relationships with men. This film, like many others by writer-director Woody Allen after Annie Hall, is somewhat episodic in nature, with intertitles separating scenes from each other and indicating the passage of time. By turns funny and charming and melancholy, Hannah and Her Sisters is a strong film overall, primarily due to the large and talented cast.

Hannah (Farrow) is divorced from Mickey (Allen) and now married to Elliot (Michael Caine). She's meant to be the stable one of the family, the one everyone else turns to in times of crisis, including their parents (the amazing Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O'Sullivan, Farrow's real-life mother). Wiest's Holly seems to be on a losing streak of late, having little success in her acting career and opening a catering business with a friend who turns out to be a rival for the affections of an architect. She has dated Mickey in the past, but a chance encounter later in the film starts them on a fresh relationship. Lee (Hershey) is happy, at least on the surface, in her relationship with an artist, Frederick (played by Max von Sydow), but once Elliot admits that he is attracted to her, Lee begins a clandestine relationship with her sister's husband.

Even in that brief summary, I've managed to leave out some remarkable moments, like the audition that Holly and her friend April, played with gusto by Carrie Fisher, attend. It's a disaster, by the way. There's also Daniel Stern's brief role as a potential purchaser of Frederick's art (so long as it's the right size for his big blank walls and matches the color of the furniture). The film also features several moments at Mickey's job, where he works with Julie Kavner and a series of other bright talents. The number of great performances in the movie is pretty staggering to contemplate, actually.

In the midst of all of this coupling and uncoupling and other activity, you have grand discussions of art and theater and television and numerous other "serious" topics. You also have an interesting series of vignettes involving Allen's Mickey going to doctor after doctor trying to determine if he has a tumor. It's overall a rather serious film by Allen, one that manages to blend comedic moments into realistic day-to-day events, the little moments that seem to become magnified when reconsidered. I know I've concentrated perhaps too much on the funnier aspects of Hannah and Her Sisters, but the overall emotional impact of the film is not primarily due to the bits that make you laugh. Instead, it's the warmth of the human interaction, the real feelings that are expressed--sometimes painfully--by these people. It's a well-written movie, of course, and worthy of its reputation as one of Allen's best.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for Best Picture of 1994. I've managed through the years to avoid this movie, thinking it would be a dull study of prison life. I just wasn't looking forward to it. Instead, I've realized that it's an intriguing look at the slow development of a friendship between two unlikely people: "Red," a long-time convict, and Andy Dufresne, a newly arrived prisoner. Over the course of nineteen years in the same prison, they come to know and respect and like each other. It's a testament to this movie that you don't find the tedium of day-to-day existence in prison to be tedious at all. What you concentrate upon are the different characters and the ways that they interact.

The film begins with Andy's arrival at Shawshank as those already in prison take wagers as to which of the "fresh fish" will cry. How that turns out is pretty gruesome, as are several other scenes in the film. However, this is not a violent movie overall. It instead takes its time to develop the individual characters in a way so that you can see their distinctions and their commonalities. It requires some patience on the part of viewers, but that patience is amply rewarded by the knowledge that we gain about these men.

Red is the prisoner who seems to be able to get his hands on just about anything from the outside that someone wants. Andy initially asks for a simple item, a tool used for shaping small rocks. He later asks for Rita Hayworth after he and the other prisoners watch Gilda one night. What he gets instead is a poster of Hayworth in her most famous pose. Those two items play a significant role in the film, but it's a testament to the skill of the filmmakers that you aren't made to feel this in any obvious way. In fact, much of this movie is incredibly subtle and low-key.

The performances by the two leads are top-notch. Morgan Freeman plays Red, and he's wonderful here, as he always is. His argument against having hope when you've been in prison so long is pretty remarkable. Tim Robbins plays Andy, and his part is less showy perhaps, but he is equal to Freeman's talent in this film. Robbins has to be the quieter of the two men, the one with greater patience and a stronger sense of hope. Overall, I guess this movie is about the depth of one's sense of hope, and the ending provides viewers with a clear sense of which side the creators of this fine film have taken in that debate.