The Oscar Project #66: Schindler's List (1993)

by Chris Marshall:

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of all time, and I think it’s unfortunate that, at least in some circles, his contributions to cinema aren’t appreciated to the fullest extent. I think most people enjoy his movies, but he’s not often considered as one of the top “artistic” auteurs in the medium. Perhaps there’s some truth to that, but when you have a filmography like his, it’s impossible not to acknowledge his genius.

I believe this lack of universal respect for his artistry is the main reason why only one of his movies has won Best Picture. He’s considered more of a populist director, and while many of his biggest blockbusters have been nominated, only Schindler’s List took home the top prize, likely because it is an “important” movie in addition to just being a great one. Just to be clear, I am taking nothing away from Schindler’s List; it is brilliant, but I wish his more “fun” films garnered more respect.

Anyway, about the movie. I assume it’s a movie where, even if not everybody has seen it, at least everybody knows what it’s about. It is a holocaust film, yes, but more than that, it’s about a man who dared to take action, at great personal risk, in an attempt to save the lives of more than 1,000 Jews.

The Oscar Project #65: Unforgiven (1992)

by Chris Marshall:

Unforgiven is a work of genius, one of those rare films where I felt like I was experiencing greatness while I was watching it. I expected it to be good, but I was completely taken off guard by how much I loved it. It was nearly perfect.

Clint Eastwood is one of the immortal legends of American cinema, and his very presence in a film means something. That’s not to say that every one of his movies is good; that’s far from the truth. But particularly in the latter part of his career, his face carries such a heavy symbolic weight that he hardly needs to say anything at all. Of course, Eastwood is typically at his best when he’s silent.

Eastwood, as the “reformed” outlaw William Munny, has plenty of lines in Unforgiven, but he delivers them in a way that lets us know that he never says anything without contemplating it deeply. He has acquired a deep wisdom, both from his worst days and from his best days. But he knows he will never truly be a good man, for he has committed unspeakable atrocities, sins that he can never atone for.

The Oscar Project #64: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

by Chris Marshall:

I remember liking The Silence of the Lambs well enough the first time I saw it, and I’ve watched various parts of it a few times since then. But I’ve never really considered it a classic, at least not in the same sense that many others do. I never bothered with the prequels or sequels (it seems like there are so many) because I just never had any real interest in them.

Upon revisiting it for The Oscar Project, I was reminded of just how well crafted a film it is. It very well might have been the “fastest” movie so far, by which I mean it felt much shorter than its two hour running time. Everything flows together so smoothly and swiftly that you never have to wait for a new development in the plot.

Still, I’m not completely sold on it being an all-time classic, despite its dominance at the Oscars. The Silence of the Lambs became the third film, after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest[1], to win all five major Academy Awards: picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay. I don’t think it’s quite in the same class as those two films, however. Maybe I’ve gotten so used to Oscar winners being about “important” things that I’ve forgotten how to enjoy films that are simply well-made and fun to watch.

The Oscar Project #63: Dances with Wolves (1990)

by Chris Marshall:

I went into Dances with Wolves absolutely expecting to hate it. I’ve never liked Kevin Costner, and nothing about the plot seemed really appealing to me. But then something happened that I never could have anticipated: it was really good! I found myself becoming absorbed in the story, and I couldn’t pull myself away.

Costner, who directed and starred in the film, certainly had some Costner-y moments, but on the whole, he did a fine job as Lt. John Dunbar, who is eventually given the name Dances with Wolves by the Lakota Sioux tribe he joins. After the first few minutes of the film, which are preposterous, he finds his comfort zone, and once he is assigned to his outpost on the frontier, everything starts to flow naturally.

Because of his courage/stupidity during a Civil War battle, Dunbar is given his choice of where he wants to be assigned. He picks an isolated “fort” on the frontier, claiming he wants to see it before it’s gone. While he’s there, he develops a friendship with the local Sioux tribe and a romance with a white tribe member (she had been adopted as a child after her family was killed). When the white men inevitably come to appropriate the land for themselves, Dunbar, known at this point by Dances with Wolves, sides with the Indians.

The Oscar Project Interlude #6: Best of the 1980s

by Chris Marshall:

Well, as I somewhat feared, the 1980s as a whole was one of my least favorite decades so far in The Oscar Project. It’s not that every movie was terrible, just that there was no film that was really great. Every other decade has had at least one: Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, All About Eve, The Apartment, half of the 1970s. But the 1980s didn’t provide a film approaching that caliber.

And yes, there were a couple I just didn’t like at all. I feel like I was able to find some redeeming quality in every movie I watched this decade, but Chariots of Fire having a cool soundtrack doesn’t make up for all of its other flaws. I don’t think the 80s was a particularly bad decade for film in general, but it was a bad decade for the Academy. I mean, why wasn’t Ghostbusters or Back to the Future winning Best Picture?

The Oscar Project #62: Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

by Chris Marshall:

I often complain about the tendency of actors playing Southerners to "over-Southern," but it really hasn't been that big of a problem so far during The Oscar Project. Driving Miss Daisy, on the other hand, runs with every possible opportunity to do it. I don't expect great acting out of Dan Aykroyd, but it's particularly off-putting when an actual Southerner, namely Morgan Freeman, does it.

That being said, Freeman did a superb acting job in spite of the minstrel show voice he adopted. As did Jessica Tandy, for that matter. I imagine that somebody less attuned to the nuances of a Southern accent would assume they were pitch-perfect in their roles.

Tandy, playing the role of an elderly Jewish woman in Atlanta in the mid-20th century, begins the film in her late 60s. She is widowed but still cares for herself, although she does have plenty of help from her black (her race is important) housekeeper. After having an accident while backing out of her driveway, her son (Dan Aykroyd) decides she needs a chauffeur. He hires a man named Hoke (Morgan Freeman) and tells him that no matter how difficult his mother is, he should carry on. She has no power to fire him, so there's no need for him to fear for his job. His goal is to make her accept him.

The Oscar Project #61: Rain Man (1988)

by Chris Marshall:

Rain Man is one of that handful of Best Picture winners I’ve seen multiple times, so there was a nice sense of familiarity when I watched it again. Like Forrest Gump, which I’ve seen probably more times than any of the others, it’s one of those that’s always on TV, so even if I haven’t seen it from start to finish more than once or twice, I’ve still seen all the scenes on several occasions.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly great about this movie, but it’s perfectly enjoyable. Tom Cruise hadn’t quite reached his peak yet, and Dustin Hoffman was already a well-established fixture in Hollywood. I think they work very well together here. Hoffman, of course, won Best Actor for his portrayal of the titular Rain Man, the autistic savant Raymond Babbitt, putting him in the elite group of actors who have won multiple Best Actor awards.

Cruise’s performance was effective, if not spectacular, and at least he made up for Valeria Golino’s terrible acting job as his girlfriend. Granted, I only know her from this and the Hot Shots! films, but I’m just completely unimpressed by her talents.

The Oscar Project #60: The Last Emperor (1987)

by Chris Marshall:

If nothing else, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is one of the finest looking Best Picture winners to date, even during the darker periods covered by the film. It spans the life of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, who was unseated from power after the rise of Chiang Kai-Shek. Unlike many stories about great leaders, Pu Yi did not rise from nothing to a place of great power. Instead, he began with everything and ended with nothing except his pride and his memories.

Because Pu Yi became emperor at the age of 3, he is played by a number of different actors, but we spend the most time in his adulthood, where he was portrayed by John Lone. There is very little star power in this film, with Peter O’Toole being the only widely recognizable star. But it is well-acted, despite the lack of known names.

Becoming an emperor when you are three years old presents an interesting set of benefits and challenges. Most of the benefits belong to Pu Yi himself, who is spoiled on a level that is unimaginable in modern days. If he misbehaved, what could be done? He ruled China absolutely, and absolute fealty was required among his subjects, even when he was a toddler.

The Oscar Project #59: Platoon (1986)

by Chris Marshall:

Before Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen became members of the Cleveland Indians in Major League, they fought together in Vietnam, and I think it’s safe to say their relationship was slightly more contentious in Platoon. Berenger, as the sinister Sgt. Barnes, is the platoon leader, while Sheen, playing the tastefully-named Chris, is a neophyte recent arrival to the war.

The film is mostly based on Chris’s experiences, particularly on his relationships with Barnes and Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe). In many ways, the main thematic element of the plot is similar to Oliver Stone’s next film, Wall Street. A character played by Charlie Sheen is forced to choose between the “good” father figure (Dafoe here, Martin Sheen in Wall Street) and the “bad” one (Berenger, Michael Douglas).

The Slovenian cultural critic Slavoj Zizek argues that the problem with Oliver Stone’s films is that the message he wants to deliver is obscured by the way he goes about it. Specifically, he argues that even though we are supposed to disagree with Berenger’s and Douglas’s tactics in the two films, that’s not what actually happens because the villains are the most dynamic, charismatic characters in the movies.

The Oscar Project #58: Out of Africa (1985)

by Chris Marshall:

It’s taken me a long, long time (like, three days!) to finish Out of Africa. This shouldn’t necessarily be seen as an indictment of its quality, but I did fall asleep four separate times while watching it. Rest assured, I went back and made sure I watched every moment of it, even if it did take several attempts.

At its most basic level, it’s not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a perfectly acceptable piece of cinema, and it’s obviously the type of thing that the Academy loves. But it is so far outside of my interests that it became difficult to focus on it for too long. It didn’t help matters that I tended to try to watch it late at night.

The film is based on the novel by Isak Dinesen[1], whose real name is Karen Blixen, and recounts the events of her life in Kenya, which was at the time a British colony. Blixen is Danish, and at the beginning of the film she marries Bror, which is a silly name. They aren’t particularly in love with each other, but trifling things like that didn’t matter so much back then. They were good friends and liked each other well enough, so why not?