My Favourite Best Picture Winners

Spoilers Below 

In my last post I wrote about 10 films which didn't get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Now, I want to discuss my favourite winners in this category, ones where I think the Academy got it (pretty much) right. The Oscars are always a fascinating snapshot in time. They're reflective of what people liked in the moment more than what lasts. But these films certainly have. So, let's get on with the list.

Casablanca

The late Roger Ebert once wrote of Carol Reed's The Third Man, that more than any film he had seen it embodied the romance of going to the movies. I feel that way about Casablanca. From its witty and poignant script, to the intrigue, the romance and its heroic finale, Casablanca has everything. It's pretty much a perfect film, maybe the best film to come out of the golden age of Hollywood. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, even if they had never starred in anything else significant, would still be immortalizes forever as Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund. Rick is the cynical cafe owner, Ilsa is the woman he loved and left him because she was secretly married to resistance leader Victor Lazlo, and whom walks back in to his life. Rick. who's in possession of stolen letters of transit, is the only one who can help Ilsa and Victor out of Casablanca. But will his torch for Ilsa stop him from doing so? Yes, we know he'll do the right thing but its how we get there that matters. 

Lawrence of Arabia

The king of al epic movies, only rivaled by The Lord of The Rings, if you count that as one movie. The reason I call Lawrence of Arabia such is it's a great character study as well as a technical marvel. You have movies like the Star Wars prequels which  are conceptually and technically impressive but character and story-wise needed some script refining. And then you have certain superhero films which have some great character stuff but are compromised by formula, weak spectacle and uninteresting direction- but with Lawrence of Arabia, neither the character work or the grand-scale filmmaking feel anything less than stellar.. Another thing thing that impresses about the film is how effectively it both romanticizes T.E Lawrence while also portraying him as a complex, sometimes terrifying figure whom the audience is free to interpret the character, the man, however they like. In the greatest screen debut in cinema history, Peter O'Toole is beautiful, almost feminine, giving a performance that combines grace and madness. This is a mythic and majestic film.

The Godfather and The Godfather Part II

The great epic of American cinema, and still the only time a film and its sequel have both won Best Picture. It's hard to imagine that feat ever being replicated. I guess it's cheating to list both Godfathers under one heading but they compliment each other so well and tell one sprawling story that it makes sense to list them side by side. Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) transformation from war hero and the good son who didn't want to become part of the family business to ruthless mob boss who will murder his own brother for his act of betrayal is possibly cinema's greatest character arc. That Pacino didn't win for either is one of Oscar's greatest travesties. Michael's arc is complimented by Part II's showing of how his father Vito went from orphan in Sicily to Don in turn of the century New York. These flashback add to the sprawling nature of the narrative, with Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro both winning Oscars for their performance as the Don. 

Director Francis Ford Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo, working from Puzo's popular novel, took the gangster film and put it on a Shakespearean scale while creating a lived in world with authentic people. The films are operatic yet subtle and nuanced. They also transport us back in time to early 1900s New York, post war New York and late 1950s Havana, just before revolution. These are simply unrivaled feats of filmmaking from the Hollywood studio system.

The Silence of the Lambs

The last film to win the top five Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), and one that has only gotten better with age. While Anthony Hopkins is iconic as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, it's Jodie Foster as F.B.I trainee Clarice Sterling, on the trail of serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) who gives this film its grounding and heart.  The film's director, the late Jonathan Demme, was a master of the close-up, using them to show the perspective of characters looking at each other. The film blends the gothic and realistic in such a way that we accept them both as existing in the same world. And again, it's Foster who grounds the whole thing.

The Apartment

The optimistic cynic, Billy Wilder, along with his longtime collaborator, I.A.L Diamond, crafted a perfect screenplay for The Apartment, the story of C.C. "Bud" Baxter, an office worker who lends his apartment to his superiors for their extramarital affair. It's already a difficult situation for Bud, having to spend nights out in the cold, getting him sick. Things get more complicated when he discovers his boss Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) is having an affair with Elevator girl Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the object of Bud's affection. All of this could be contrived but Wilder and Diamond's script, along with Wilder's direction, create believable characters whose actions make sense, even in a scenario such as this. It's established that this whole apartment lending situation started out with just one guy wanting to use Bud's apartment and then escalated to many men at the office wanting to use the apartment, with Bud using it to his advantage, being granted perks by the higher-ups. Bud is selling his soul but Lemmon is such a likable and sympathetic everyman that we aren't immediately offput by his actions. Bud's not a bad guy and we can see how we could end up in a predicament like this. 

I always feel that Wilder's dramas were very funny and his comedies very dark. The Apartment walks the line between comedy and drama so expertly that that it feels unbalanced. And like many other Wilder films, it ends on the perfect note.

No Country For Old Men

I just re-watched this and man does it hold up. This is a fantastic movie that's only gotten better with age. It's one of the perfect matches of source material (Cormac McCarthy's novel) and filmmakers (the Coen brothers). From their first film, Blood Simple (1984), the Coens have played around with genre conventions, creating films that both belong in their respective genres but also exist somewhat outside them. There's an offbeat quality to their work, with No Country For Old Men being populated by familiar types who are also different from anyone else we've encountered before. Hit man Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem in an Oscar winning performance), with his weird haircut and pre-occupation with a coin toss- a flip of faith- is one of the most unusual villains in recent memory, genuinely terrifying whenever he shows up. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is the "good old boy" who's smarter than we may at first realize, a character who would be a supporting player, killed off pretty early in another film but takes center stage here. And then there's Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who we assume is maybe going to be killed when he catches up to Chigurh, but narrowly misses him. 

The movie sets us a up for a showdown between Moss (Josh Brolin), who has stolen 2 million from a drug deal gone bad, and  Chigurh but Moss is killed offscreen,  and the final scene is Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) talks to his wife about two dreams he had- "Then I woke up" is the final line, cutting to black. There's no satisfying resolution to anything. It's a bleak but it fits the noir style, where there are no heroes or heroic endings. The villain gets away and the survivor, Bell, retires because he doesn't know how to deal with the new kind of evil he's seeing in the world now, though ultimately this kind of evil, the evil Chigurh represents, has been forever, with Chigurh being a devil/grim reaper figure, haunting the whole film

Amadeus 

Maybe it's my own feeling of mediocrity that makes Amadeus the most relatable film to be, but I think it's also a brilliant idea to tell the story of a great artist through the perspective of the bitter rival who wasn't as great. Peter Shaffer's play was the basis for Milos Foreman's glorious film, one of the best of the 80s, a decade that's not one of my favourite, despite some great films. F. Murray Abraham, received a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as the proud but jealous and old-fashioned Antonio Salieri, while Tom Hulce was nominated for his performance along Abraham for his mischievous performance as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart is childish but also serious when it comes to music. The fact that such an immature young man could be so talent enrages Salieri but he but he feels guilt for Mozart's death, believing he killed him.

On the Waterfront

If you were going to ask me what my favourite performance of all time is, I would say Marlon Brando's Oscar wining performance as Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront. This is Brando at the peak of his physical beauty and acting abilities. While A Streetcar Named Desire established his image, and The Godfather his most iconic, On the Waterfront is his most sensitive and tender work, masculine but feminine. Movies are time capsules that can keep an actor forever young in their prime, and that's what this film is for me when it comes to Brando. 

Of course, the film's director, Elia Kazan, was the ultimate actors' director, his films being defined by a rawer, more naturalistic style of acting, and the film is full of other superb performances, including Eva Marie Saint (who won Best Supporting Actress), Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Rod Steiger When Kazan won an honorary Oscar in the late 90s (on of Oscar's most controversial moments), Martin Scorsese called Kazan a poetic realist, and you can see why just by looking at this film, which blends realism with stylish flourishes. 

The story is that of  Malloy, who testifies against the mob boss (Cobb) who runs the docks. Malloy has to decide between loyalty to this father figure and doing the right thing, which could lead to redemption for Malloy after being involved in the murder of another dock worker.

Rebecca

Hitchcock's first film in America, and the only Hitchcock film to win Best Picture (Hitchcock's other 1940 film Foreign Correspondent was also nominated) and on Hitchcock attributed more to producer David. O Selznick than himself. However, the Hitchcock is not absent in this entertaining gothic melodrama, base Daphne Du Maurier's splendid novel (one of my favourites), about a  unnamed woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries a rich widower, Max de Winter (Laurence Oliver), who former wife's presence still haunts his home of Manderley. Fontaine and Oliver were both nominated for their performances (Fontaine would win the next year for another Hitchcock film, Suspicion, with Cary . Grant) and Judith Anderson is sublimely creepy as Manderley's housemaid Mrs. Danvers, who still adores Rebecca. I wrote more about the film here: Davies in the Dark: The Essential Films: "Rebecca" (1940) (thenoirzone.blogspot.com)  

So, what are your favourite Best Picture winners? Comment and let me know. 

Some Thoughts on the 2020 Oscar Nominations

Earlier this week the nominations for the 2020 Oscars were announced; and as expected there was controversy over who was nominated and who wasn't, especially in regards to race and gender. Greta Gerwig became the new Barbara Streisand as her adaptation of Louis May Alcott's Little Women garnered 6 nominations including Best Picture but she was left out of the Best Director line-up, which was completely absent of any women. I do wonder if the outcry over Gerwig's lack of a Best Director nomination will help her win Best Adapted Screenplay. Though if she wins there it'll feel like the Academy attempting to brush aside the problem. 

Todd Phillips' Joker led with 11 nominations, including Best Actor for its star Joaquin Phoenix and Best Picture. While I think they overdid it with the nominations I'll say it's incredible we're at a point where a film based on a comic book character can receive the most nominations from the Academy Awards. I do believe The Dark Knight paved the way for Joker, and Black Panther getting in last year. I remember the push to get Christopher Nolan's film to get in the Best Picture and Best Director race. Now with the expanded line-up, The Dark Knight would be a shoo-in for at least a nomination in both categories.

Could Joker win Best Picture? I know even the thought of the film winning gives certain people aneurysms. Many people believed the film would incite violence, claiming it appealed to incels, though the fact the film grossed a billion dollars and has received awards and nominations shows it appeals to people outside of that democratic. If Joker does win, there's a chance Best Director doesn't go to Phillips. Sam Mendes, who won Best Director 20 years ago for his debut film American Beauty, stands a very good shot at winning his second Oscar since his war epic 1917, crafted to look like one continuous shot, is perhaps the *most* directed of the Best Picture nominees, and the Academy often go for that kind of direction.

Then there's Quentin Tarantino, nominated for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, who's never won Best Director but has two screenwriting Oscars. Tarantino is arguably the most due of any Hollywood director right now, and if there's a film for which the Academy may finally give him Best Director, it's likely OUATIH, which feels like his most personal and humane film. Also, the film is a love letter to Hollywood, and the Academy has awarded films about itself in the past.

Brad Pitt appears to be a sure thing for OUATIH in the Best Supporting Actor category. He has the advantage of being the only nominee without an acting Oscar (he has one for producing Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave) in this category. He also has the overdue factor and if he wins it'll be as much for his career as this particular performance. Joe Pesci could upset him. Martin Scorsese had to coax him out of retirement for The Irishman, so this will likely be Pesci's last appearance in a film. He has the sentimental factor, as does his co-star Al Pacino, who's nominated for the first since finally winning Best Actor for Scent of a Woman. I love Pacino and I think it's a shame he didn't win for either of the first two Godfather films, Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon. 

Tom Hanks received his first nomination in nearly 20 years (for Castaway) for playing Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Hanks could win a third Oscar some day but I think this is a more of a "Welcome back Tom" nomination. The same goes for Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes, his first nomination in 22 years, his last being for Amistad in this category.

As with Pitt, Laura Dern winning Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story feels like a career win, though her speech about the double standards for men and women is a quintessential "Oscar scene." Her co-star Scarlett Johansson received not only her first Oscar nomination but two, Best Actress for Marriage Story, and in this category for JoJo Rabbit, Taika Waititi's satire about a boy in Nazi Germany whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler. 

While Renee Zellwegger's turn as Judy Garland in Judy has made her the de facto front-runner, I'm thinking Johansson could upset her here. I don't feel the passion around Judy and without Zellwegger  there'd likely be more of a narrative for Johansson winning. She's had a long career in Hollywood and has reinvented herself from child actress to indie darling. She became a sex symbol and Marvel hero. Now she's becoming somewhat of a character actress. And with Marriage Story having more support in other categories I think she genuinely has a shot. 

Saoirse Ronan received her fourth nomination for Little Women. An argument could be made she deserved to win for Gerwig's debut feature Lady Bird, the Academy likely feels they can get to her later. There's no urgency to reward her just yet.

Joaquin Phoenix has been the front-runner for Best Actor since Joker premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in September I feel he's pretty locked to win. He has the overdue factor as well as the big showy role. And if Joker wins awards through the night before Best Actor is announced, it'd be odd if its star is ignored. I also think Hildur Guonadottir could win Best Original Score for the film. She's already built up an impressive resume with her collaborations with Denis Villeneuve and Alejandro Inarritu and had a breakthrough year with Joker and the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.  She's only the seventh woman to be nominated for Best Original Score and would become the fourth recipient if she won. If the Academy feels they need to make up for the lack of female nominees this year it'd also help Gunadottir's chances. 

Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's long time editor, received her eighth nomination for The Irishman and has won three times previously for Raging Bull, The Aviator and The Departed.  I could see Parasite or Joker winning here. Joker feels like it could do really well on Oscar night though it could also under-perform. 

OUATIH missed out in editing; the editing nomination is seen as essential for a film to win Best Picture, with the exception of Birdman which was made to look like a continuous shot, which is likely the reason why 1917 also failed to receive an editing nomination as well. I think Best Picture is wide open. Parasite could become the first Foreign Language Best Picture winner. Alfonso Cuaron's Roma seemed pegged to take that honour but lost out to Green Book. If Parasite wins, it'll make history and act as a make-up for Roma.    

Now, I want to talk a little bit more about the controversy surrounding the lack of female and POC nominees this year, which has also been an issue previous years as well. I believe that the lack of diversity in the Oscar race is a symptom of the larger problem in Hollywood rather than the cause. If this problem is to be fixed we have to approach it from the angle from how movies are made and who gets to make them. I know this also easier to say then to do but it's important to remember the Oscars are part of a larger problem. 

So, those my overall thoughts on this year's nominations. How do you feel about the nominations? Who did want to get in and who do you think will win. Let me know.

Films of the Decade: "Collateral" (2004)

This is a series of writings where I'll talk about some of the most fascinating films of the last decade.

The last time I did one of these I was writing about Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Now, I'm tackling a film from a director who has been a big influence on Nolan's work in the past, particularly in regards to The Dark Knight: Michael Mann. Someting I've noticed, in terms of Mann's crime films, is that he goess beyond the archetypes of good guy/bad guy, cop/criminal and finds the texture and humanity in his characters.

In his 1995 film Heat, Mann views Robert DeNiro's bank robber Neil McClusky and Al Pacino's detective Vincent Hanna as professionals above anything else, two men who do what they do. They learn to understand each other, which makes their dynamic more complex than cop/criminal. In his 2004 film, Collateral, it's easy to view Vincent (Tom Cruise), the hit man who forces cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) to drive him around while he does his rounds, as the villain and Max as the protagonist. And the surface veneer of the film reinforces this. But it's a surface that is always on the verge of collapsing underneath these characters' and the audience's feet.

While the film begins with Vincent receiving the information he needs for the job via a briefcase exchange with Jason Statham (Yes, that Jason Statham), the character we first get to know is Max. Max has been a L.A. cabdriver for 12 years even though he calls it a "temporary" job. He wants to start his own limo service but makes up reasons why he can't start it up. He picks up Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett-Smith), a prosecutor, and they have a lovely scene where we learn about Max's dreams and Annie's fears about her new case. When he drops her off, she gives him her number to which he's very surprised and happy.

I love that the film allows this small interlude. It really allows you to get to know Max and connect with him before Vincent enters his life. It also makes Max's descent in to Vincent's world feel more real because it shows Max's life before Vincent enters it-Max is stuck in a rut but meets a woman who makes his day-and then life throws him a curveball in the form of Vincent. We can imagine the same thing happening to us. Fate doesn't care about what path we're already on, it'll inevitably send you down another. What's intriguing about Vincent's plan is that Max was never supposed to know what he was up to. Vincent then shoots a man out of a window and he falls on Max's cab. This is when things get more complicated-not only for Max, but for Vincent as well. Vincent is an efficient and calculating man and he'd no doubt prefer if Max was none the wiser.

Collateral was shot on digital rather than film and Mann said in an interview he tried to make a look out of digital video rather than try to make it look like film. You can definitely tell it's shot digitally and while you wouldn't want every film to have this look, particularly with more films being shot digitally, it really works for this film because it captures what L.A. must really feel like at night.

My favourite scene in the film is the one at a jazz club where Vincent will kill a jazz player named Daniel Baker (Barry Shabaka Henley). Daniel sits down with Vincent and Max before he knows who Vincent really is. Daniel tells a story about meeting Miles Davis in the very same jazz club and playing with him. Daniel, like Vincent's other targets, is a witness for the prosecution in the case to indict drug lord Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem). Daniel implies he made a deal to stay out of a prison and was never going back. While Daniel only plays a small part in this film, Henley's performance gives us the sense of an entire life in only a few short minutes, a man who never quite achieved his dreams but nevertheless was for one night able to feel alive. "I was born in 1945 but that night was the moment of my conception." Vincent offers Daniel the chance to answer a question about Davis. If he answers correctly he can walk away. "Where did Miles Davis learn music?" is the question. Daniel says it was Julliard  Vincent shoots him. Vincent then says Miles dropped out and was mentored by Charlie Parker. This scene simultaneously shows Vincent's cruelty as well as his appreciation for the arts. It's almost darkly comic that this small detail is how he decided Daniel's fate-though it's hard to believe Vincent would have let him live either way. Daniel was "born" in that jazz club- and that's where he died.

Collateral almost becomes a bizarre take on the buddy film  in instances where Vincent helps Max stand up to his boss as well as take him to visit Max's mother in the hospital. We realize Max isn't always the nicest guy since he hardly visits his mother. It's moments like this that shows Vincent does have some nobility despite his violent nature. Thanfully, the film never makes Vincent completely soft, which makes these flashes of humanity all the more tragic. We learn Vincent had an abusive father, which he may have killed, and we realize this is man who was always destined to be who he is. Despite his inherent humanity, he can't escape who he is. He's in much of a rut as Max except Max can change his own fate. If Max makes it through the night alive, he can end up like Daniel, a man who never achieved his dreams or he can start to get his limo service up and running. There's a scene near the end of the film where Max and Vincent deconstruct each other's lives in ways similar to what I've just described. It reveals the film as not only a crime thriller but an existential study about purpose in an often disconnected and cold universe. 

While there's this meme that actors like Cruise are too famous to completely disappear in to their roles, Cruise's performance is more convincing than even his heroic roles. The silver hair he sports is a great touch that does a lot for his transformation in to Vincent. Cruise does a fine job of conveying Vincent's cold-bloodedness while suggesting the deeper reservoirs of pain that made him who he is today. Foxx is really good as well, both charming but vulnerable- showing how out of his element Max is. His greatest moment in the film is when he has to pose as Vincent in a meeting with Felix in order to get the information about Vincent's last two targets. At first Max is scared of Felix but  he slowly regains his confidence and pursuades Felix to give him the information. In this scene Max, while pretending to be Vincent, reclaims the assertiveness and confidence we knew he had at the beginning of the film.

The finale of the film is where things do become a little too coincedential, with Annie being the prosecutor for the Felix case as well as Vincent's last target. But it works because Mann keeps the tension up instead of resorting to gunfights and explosions. The film ends with what on paper seems like a typical Hollywood ending: Max kills Vincent on a train and walks away with Annie in to the sunset (or in this case sunrise). But Mann ends the film on a melancholic and somber note. Vincent mentions the story he told Max when they first met about a man who died on a L.A. train and no one noticed for hours. Vincent wonders if anyone will notice him. In his final moments Vincent acknowledges that despite being a man who determined other peoples' fates even without knowing them, his death will ultimately be insignificent to everyone except the man who killed him. While Max killed Vincent in the heat of the moment, in the fight for survival, there's nothing triumphant about his victory. Max and Vincent weren't friends but they saw each other clearer than anyone ever did. And inspite of everything Vincent did to Max, in a cold and disconnected universe, that connection meant everything.