by Chris Marshall:
I spent so much time dreading The English Patient that it became something like a superstitious
object. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that it was the worst movie
ever made, maybe even worse than The Great Ziegfeld. I guess that had a lot to do with its tone and subject
matter, as well as being perhaps the clearest example of Oscar bait in many
years. Whatever the reason, I always viewed this film as the last real
roadblock of The Oscar Project.
Then I watched it, and strangely enough, it wasn’t as
horrible as I had feared. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked it, but it was nowhere near the worst Best Picture winner I’ve
seen on this journey. The most obvious comparison that came to mind while
watching it was Out of Africa. I
could recognize why it’s considered a “good movie,” but at the same time, it
was the type of film that often fails to capture my interest.
I’ve had a long-running joke with my former (and future)
roommate Justin, in which I claim that nobody has ever actually seen The English Patient, and it won the
Oscar because all the voters assumed it was probably good but didn’t want to
take the time to sit through it. This is a slight
exaggeration, of course, but I’d venture a guess that it is probably the least
seen Best Picture winner of the last 25 years.
