I understand that writer/director/actor Don Cheadle has been dreaming of making the life story of legendary jazz artist Miles Davis into a film.
Sometimes dreams don't turn out the way we want them.
For a film that yearns, if not demands, that it be 'radically different' from a standard biopic, Miles Ahead picks a rather generic and uninspired title for such a subject, drawing from one of his albums when calling it Bitches Brew or Kind of Blue would have sufficed. The film itself is determined to be as experimental and improvisational as Davis' best work. The end result is a film that becomes far too impressed with itself, trying too hard to be as wild and inventive as Davis but failing just about every step of the way.
Bookended by a faux-interview with Miles Davis (Cheadle) as he emerges out of self-imposed musical reclusiveness, we wander throughout the rest of Miles Ahead as if a deranged dream, with not much rhyme and reason as we flip around left right and center through two days in Davis' erratic, drug-fueled crazed of a life.
As Davis holes up in his mansion, calling up DJs who dare compliment his music, enter Rolling Stone Magazine reporter Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor). He insists that he's there to write an article about Davis' 'comeback' with help from Davis' record company, Columbia. Davis is not just angered by Braden's work but by the notion at Columbia that a.) he would agree to be profiled, b.) that he was making a 'comeback', and/or c.) he would even release his super-secret recordings to Columbia.
So, what's a musical genius to do? Drag his faux-Boswell to Columbia and wave a gun about threatening to blow everyone out. Only Harper (Michael Stuhlbarg), an A & R man, dares stand up to him, calmly telling him that legally, Columbia owns all of Davis' work.
Well, Davis tolerates Braden because he can get him great coke at a discount (as everyone knows who Miles Davis is and is in awe). Davis is surprised to find a party at his mansion, unaware he gave permission to a girlfriend to have one. As he continues with Braden, Harper and his protégé, Junior (Lakeith Lee Stanfield), also crash the party, Harper determined to get Junior an informal audition with Davis. It's here that Braden, at first wanting to steal Davis' newest tracks to give to Columbia in exchange for an exclusive, leaves the desk drawer unlocked. In turn, Harper and Junior see the master disc, and decide to get in good with Columbia by bringing it to them without Davis' knowledge or consent.
Davis, enraged that someone has his master tape, drags Braden along to help him recover it, taking Junior hostage, getting involved in a shootout with Harper (resulting in Davis' own gunshot wounds) and ultimately getting his tape back.
This synopsis is actually more structured than the film itself, with intercuts this story with various scenes of Davis' tempestuous relationship with his first wife and great love, dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi).
Sorry, Miss Cicely Tyson...you just ain't it.
Bitches Brewed
Miles Ahead is remarkably artistic, but in a bad way. We get this right from the beginning, when the camera moves all over the place to capture the 'authentic' look of the Davis interview. Time and again Cheadle goes all-out in making Miles Ahead all the more bonkers and 'artistic'. The nadir of this is when we get the final confrontation between Davis and Harper. We have about three or four things going on simultaneously: the shootout, the image of Frances fleeing from a colliding memory of her fleeing her abusive, deranged husband who thinks a man she is having an affair with is hiding somewhere in his mansion, and Cheadle as a younger Davis playing his trumpet INSIDE THE RING and serving as the music for all this lunacy.
For me, this was perhaps the final straw in enduring what I saw as an overabundance of excessive artistry. I'm not opposed to doing something different with biopics (Frida for example, was more impressionistic, or should I say, surreal, than straightforward, and even something as weak as the Dali/Garcia Lorca biopic Little Ashes was more successful in its mix of art and biopic), but Miles Ahead went so far off the deep end that it becomes almost incomprehensible.
There's a moment when, after threatening to shoot the Columbia executives, Miles is in the elevator, then pushes the back of the elevator wall and ends up going back to his younger self in concert. I found it all a bit self-indulgent and self-consciously artsy. Same goes for when Miles beats Frances: Davis' music (at least I think it was Davis' music) drowns out the slowed-down screaming match.
Bits of information pop in and out but are either completely forgotten or left there. We get a quick mention of a degenerative hip disorder that affects Davis, but that isn't what is making Davis limp (that would be the gunshot wounds he got), and this is just thrown at us, never mentioned again or made of any importance.
It's a shame that Cheadle as director and cowriter (with Steve Baigleman) couldn't tone down the excessive artistic manner of Miles Ahead because underneath there are some strong elements in it. There's Cheadle as actor, who was compelling to watch as the eccentric musical genius in his reclusive stage (as Braden observes, "music's Howard Hughes...reviled and revealed"). I also thought well of Corinealdi as the loving yet suffering Mrs. Davis, who did excellent work for a limited role.
Sadly, McGregor, one of my favorites, was nothing more than an entry into this bonkers world, and I couldn't help think he reminded me of James McAvoy's role in The Last King of Scotland, essentially the white lead who observes the crazy title character.
Miles Davis was a true musical genius. Don Cheadle is a great actor. Somehow, however, things didn't pan out to where the meeting of the two worked. Cheadle loved the whole project enough to invest his talents and money, and take on roles of cowriter and director. The last two should have been handed over to someone else.
Excessively artsy, overdone to the point of almost comedy, Miles Ahead has good work from Cheadle as an actor and that wonderful Davis music.
Eye In the Sky is well-acted, stays true to its views about the morality/immorality of drone attacks, and has been highly praised. Why is it therefore that I found it a slog, a bore, a bit pretentious and ultimately lecturing? I think it is because despite its claims Eye In theSky isn't interested in making a balanced story about whether raining death from the air to potentially save others is good. It's more interested in telling us what to think rather than let us come to a conclusion about what we've seen.
Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) has just received notice that a major terrorist leader and British national has been spotted in Kenya. She has been tracking this Susan Danforth for six years, and now at last it looks like she will not only be able to capture her but her husband as well, a major Al-Shabaab leader. That is the original plan: to capture them and bring them to trial in Britain.
To help with this plan she has both Kenyans and Americans working alongside the British. In the U.S., we have the pilots who are the literal 'eye in the sky', Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox). In the field is the agent Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi), who is entering Al-Shabaab held territory. Back in London, various ministers are watching what they believe will be a capture operation, with Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman in his final role) aiding the various officials and awaiting the minister's orders to capture them.
Things, however, take a turn for the worse when they leave the original house and drive to another location, the one in enemy territory. From there, the eye in the sky not only sees the major targets, but also that they have people creating suicide vests. Powell and Benson urge the ministers to change this from a 'capture' to a 'kill' mission, with their drone able to execute with extreme prejudice.
It's at this point that various governments are thrown into chaos. While the British ministers bicker about the legality and/or morality of using drones, particularly where civilian causalities cannot be avoided, they all appear to not want to issue the final authorization, constantly insisting they 'refer' this to various officials (the British Foreign Minister, off in Singapore and on the toilet, the American Secretary of State, playing Ping-Pong in Beijing).
The various leaders go on and on about whether any of this is right or wrong: they are British and American citizens being targeted, they are in a friendly country that hasn't attacked them (Kenya), is it right to rain down death on anyone...on and on they go, while Powell and Benson constantly argue on the side of striking due to the growing imminent threat.
At long last, after a LOT of befuddling hand-wringing, the various government officials sign off on the mission. THEN we get ANOTHER wrench into this: an adorable little girl whom we know as Alia (Aisha Takow) suddenly gets into this mess. She just happens to set up a bread-selling stand literally right outside the house where all these 'bad' people are at. Watts, who has been ordered to fire the drone into the house, recognizes the little girl from earlier, where he observed her using a hula-hoop (something he is unaware is forbidden by "Islam").
With that, he refuses to fire lest said adorable little girl get killed. Now we have to find a way to get adorable little girl out of the way so he can drop the bomb on the house (I figure that if there were other cute little children in the vicinity they wouldn't cause him to get all teary-eyed). MORE time is spent to find a way to get her out, and after a lot of struggle Powell manages to talk her officer in the U.K. to minimize the danger to an acceptable 45% possibility of said adorable little girl getting killed (the entire British government apparently thrown into fits about sparing her for either moral or propaganda reasons).
At long, long last Watts finally finds a level of violence which he, Air Force officer that he is, can live with (even if he has to virtually cry to get through it). He launches the drone and it hits the target, and Alia is hit but apparently not killed instantly. To Powell's great consternation Danford is still stubbornly alive, and she orders the second drone. Watts and Gershon, now both virtually blubbering messes (who knew signing up for the military meant actually killing people) drop the second one.
That one I'm sure killed Alia, who is rushed to hospital by those wonderful humanitarian Al-Shabaat militants who earlier were beating a woman for not having her wrists covered up. One of the fussy ministers berates Benson for finding it so easy to drop bombs, and he in turn berates her for saying that a military man knows nothing of war versus her own 'vast' experience.
Somehow, despite what Eye In the Sky wants us to believe, the film doesn't want to have a serious debate about the morality of drone strikes. I am convinced that screenwriter Guy Hibbert and director Gavin Hood are very much firmly against it. I reach this conclusion given how they opted to not showcase little Alia on a constant level. It was clear she was going to cross paths with the potential drone attack, and we the audience were just waiting for the two to come into collision,
I am puzzled by how both the ministers and the military never apparently seriously considered that the mission might shift from 'capture' to 'kill' or that there hasn't been a precedent for such a scenario before. So much time is apparently spent debating and shifting responsibility, leading to sometimes straight-up bizarre moments.
Take the American Secretary of State, who makes it very clear he has no objections to blowing out an American who joined a terrorist organization. As far as the Americans are concerned, said citizen has taken arms against his country and loses whatever legal protection he might have had. It's the British who seem so excessively wishy-washy with all this, and I figure having the Foreign Minister in the toilet was meant as some odd commentary on foreign policy.
Even worse, for my point of view, is Watts' character. Aaron Paul is all teary-eyes, which if the film is believed is his sole indication that he finds any of this morally questionable. Granted, Paul has beautiful, soulful eyes, but nothing in the character as played by him shows that he has any questions about the actions. Even worse the weepier Gershon character, who is the antithesis of the strong Powell, who sees a mission and wants to prosecute it. The two of them looking all sad does not make me sad or even mildly concerned about any internal conflict.
Talk is given about the risks of letting people with suicide vests go off and potentially attack and kill people (including more children), but as far as Watts is concerned, we have to save one little girl rather than save anyone else. I would have called his actions virtual insubordination, and am astonished that he could get away with it so nakedly.
It isn't the fault of the actors. Pity that Rickman is no longer with us, for he was good in virtually everything he did, and Eye In the Sky is no exception. His Benson is thoroughly military, frustrated by the weak as water ministers impeding what he considers his mission, but he is not a heartless figure. He does have a heart (showcased by his desire to get the right doll for his own daughter) and his final put-down of the obnoxious moralistic minister is as strong a rebuke to the idea that drone warfare is somehow 'immoral'.
Mirren too played Powell as a steady, mature figure who wants to bring people to justice or bring justice to people. She's not the type to lose sleep over whether someone gets their day in court, though I figure she'd rather they do, leaving the kill option as the last resort.
It's good to see Abdi back on the screen, and here's hoping more scripts are catered to him, and that those scripts don't involve terrorism in any way.
I was not impressed by Paul, who is a genuinely good actor. I have no idea who Fox is, but her 'I'm SAD that I had to use force' performance struck me as mighty weak.
In fact, Eye In the Sky struck me as mostly manipulative, unable to generate true tension or bother to have a serious debate about the morality of drone attacks.
In fact, the only real drone in Eye In the Sky was the preachy, talky, weak script, which leaves one more frustrated that they couldn't get things done and spent all their time talking about whether it was right or wrong. Hamlet didn't vacillate this much.
It might be good to make a film about Churchill's decision to bomb Dresden during World War II if one wanted to make a film about morals during wartime. Eye In the Sky is not a film about the virtue of saving one life versus saving others.
All I could think of was the Vulcan saying, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one". Going by that logic, I think Weepy Watts was wrong.
A bit preachy, dull, but not without some good performances, Eye In the Sky is not a film I'd like to revisit anytime soon. There's something about being lectured to that rubs me the wrong way.
For all their flaws, at least THEY didn't go on and on about the morality of attacking the enemy. They just did it.
For anyone interested, it takes a bit past the one hour to see the glory that is Alexander Skarsgard's extraordinary physique. Until then, we have to sit through a lot of talking, a meandering story, and some pretty sleep-inducing moments. I say this because during The Legend of Tarzan, I fell asleep and once I did wake up still struggled to stay awake. It isn't as though I don't appreciate what The Legend of Tarzan wanted to do. It's just that I don't think it did it well.
King Leopold II of the Belgians has taken his personal colony of The Congo and essentially run it to the ground. He not only is in serious debt but has done everything possible to make the lives of the native population miserable, down to reintroducing slavery. As part of some rehabilitation plan to showcase that the stories of Leopold's abusive acts are false, he asks the British government to send in John Clayton III, His Grace Lord Greystoke (Skarsgard), who was once known as "Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle". His Grace has no interest in returning to Africa, but is persuaded by American envoy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson). He is upfront about his real reason to go on this merry jaunt through the jungle: he wants to see if the slavery rumors are true.
In reality, everyone is being deceived. Tarzan is being lured to the jungle thanks to Leopold's envoy Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz). He has made a secret deal with a major Congolese leader, Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), who wants Tarzan for reasons revealed later in exchange for diamonds the greedy and desperate Leopold will use to pay off his debts. Back in Britain, over his objects Jane, Lady Greystoke (Margot Robbie) insists on returning to Africa to reconnect to her own roots and see her old stomping grounds.
Rom waits for Lord Greystoke but is unwittingly given the slip when His & Her Grace along with Dr. Williams take another route. Tarzan reunites with his old father figure and the village where he first knew Jane Porter. It takes three days for Rom to go to the village but he does so, taking both of them prisoner. In the melee that follows, Tarzan is accidentally set free while Jane is held prisoner, the bait that will bring Tarzan to Jane...and to Mbonga.
Tarzan and Williams join forces, albeit reluctantly, while Jane does her best to escape the clutches of the virtually mustache-twirling Rom. As they traverse the jungle, Tarzan fights old simian foes, and Jane manages an escape. Eventually both groups meet up when Rom catches up to Jane as she is besieged by the various apes that Tarzan now fights as Lord of the Jungle. Mbonga then confronts His Grace, accusing him of killing his heir long ago. Tarzan in turn rebukes the Chief due to his son having murdered Tarzan's adoptive mother, leading to a defensive killing.
Mbonga is spared by Tarzan and his ape army, but now they all go after Rom, leading to a final confrontation between them for ownership of the jungle. At the end, a year passes. Greystoke is left cold and alone in Britain, while His and Her Grace continue to live in peace in the native village, where at long last Greystoke has an heir born in his true home: Africa.
Part of me admires that The Legend of Tarzan tried something new or at least original than the more traditional story of finding Tarzan in the jungle. Part of me however kept wondering that The Legend of Tarzan essentially played out like a sequel to a film I hadn't seen. I think this is due to Adam Cozad and Craig Brewster's screenplay, which had a very curious set of flashbacks which filled in information that again felt like clips from a previous Tarzan film.
How Tarzan came to be, his encounters with Jane, her life in Africa, his battle with Mbonga...all those came floating by in bits and pieces, intercut with the general story we're being told. I am not convinced that they were well-integrated into The Legend of Tarzan, primarily because one either had already worked out some things or was kept waiting to see why certain things were the way they were.
Take Mbonga's hatred for Tarzan. We first learn of it when we meet Mbonga, who has spared Rom after killing all his men who entered his kingdom as a way to get his fierce enemy back. It isn't until almost the end that we learn why Mbonga had such a hatred for Tarzan, but I wonder whether we could have had that brought up earlier, either in an earlier flashback or in a pre-credit scene.
I think structurally The Legend of Tarzan was trying to be too clever with the material, to get away from a more straightforward telling of a well-known story. The end result for me was something that caused me to nod off and fight to stay awake on more than one occasion.
This issue with structure I think is clear from when we first meet the title character. He isn't Tarzan. He's Lord Greystoke, and a very stoic Lord Greystoke too as played by Skarsgard. I'm the first to acknowledge Skarsgard's great physical beauty, but I am yet to be convinced that he is an actual actor (not having seen him in True Blood). I used to tease a coworker who was passionately in love with Skarsgard (a Christian woman for whom Skarsgard was her one slice of sin) about him being 'box office poison', every film of his being a bomb. This doesn't make me think my initial analysis is wrong.
Throughout The Legend of Tarzan, I found Skarsgard to be very remote and generally inexpressive, making me wonder whether the character was always suppose to be so unemotional. No matter what was going on, Skarsgard/Tarzan/Lord Greystoke didn't seem to show any emotion, making things a bit curious to me.
Much better was Robbie as Jane. Robbie is proving to be a much better and stronger actress than I gave her credit at the beginning of her career. At first I thought of her as just an extraordinary beauty (and she is indeed that). However, she was a much more interesting character and gave a stronger performance as Jane, this strong woman with a mind of her own, one who genuinely loved Africa and its people, and one who didn't have either a racist or patronizing view of the native Africans. In fact, her Jane was the only character who not only seemed to do something but who wasn't stained with either a sense of superiority or a 'white man's burden' view of the people she grew up with.
That is until she is a bit sidelined as the 'damsel in distress' (though to her credit Robbie at least on screen fought that idea).
Jackson too was a bit sidelined and I wondered whether his less-than-athletic Dr. Williams was a bit of comic relief. Comic relief (intentionally or not) came from Waltz's gleefully villainous Rom, vamping it up for all its worth to where I'm sure he'd twirl his mustache if it were long enough (a joke about it where Jane mocks it was a nice highlight).
I think director David Yates at least went for something different, something original with a story that is pretty well-known. I don't think it worked: The Legend of Tarzan coming across as a bit slow with a rushed, excessively rushed ending and at times pretty dull. Still, given just how awful 2016 has been, The Legend of Tarzan is not BAD bad, just a bit less than its parts.
Even if those parts belong to Alexander Skarsgard.
From cinema's first days the medium has been used to promote political/social agendas either directly or indirectly. The Birth of a Nation, Battleship Potemkin, The Beast of Berlin, The Eternal Jew, Triumph of the Will, Song of Russia, Salt of the Earth, The Green Berets, W., Taken, Saving Christmas. From the various films of the Soviet empire down to ISIS recruitment videos, film is not immune from propaganda. In fact, in those countries where film is controlled by the government, their whole industry is built around using cinema to glorify the state and promote whatever agenda it has in mind.
Even now, the art of motion picture is still able to influence, subtly or overtly, people's views. I'd be hard-pressed to call any Michael Moore film a true documentary given his whole reason for being is to use film to persuade you to his point of view. If you've heard talk about "overturning Citizens United" in the Supreme Court, let it be known that the case is built (as far as I understand) around a non-fiction film entitled Hillary: The Movie (I don't use the term 'documentary' here either, and one guess as to what the Citizens United group thinks of the 45th President of the United States). President Hillary Clinton, in turn, blamed a trailer for a short film, Innocence of Muslims, for the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the deaths of four men inside the compound (a charge which has been called into question, though the video did incite other riots throughout the Islamic world).
As a side note, the Islamic world was enflamed decades earlier when photos of Egyptian actor Omar Sharif kissing Jewish-American actress Barbra Streisand for the film Funny Girl were released. Touchy, touchy, our Arab/Islamic friends.
The use of film to promote a particular agenda in short is nothing new. However, a question arose for me while watching Eye In the Sky. Something about this film just struck me as a bit off, as if instead of getting either a straightforward story or even allegory I was getting lectured to about the evils of drone strikes. In short, I wasn't being asked to make up my own mind...I was being led to particular conclusions whether I agreed to them or not.
The premise, if I understood it correctly, was that we should not use drones if a cute little girl is likely to get killed. Even with all the arguing about how those in the house about to be attacked were putting on suicide vests and could kill over 80 people theoretically, the main focus was on whether or not to send the drone even if it meant an innocent girl selling bread next to it might get killed.
What made it curious for me was that while watching, the old Vulcan saying, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one" came to me. I'm no Trekkie, but if we applied Vulcan logic to the scenario in Eye In the Sky, there would have been no question about launching the drone.
Biopic or Propaganda?
Try as I might I could not shake the idea that Eye In the Sky was not a 'real' film, but more a tool for a particular political viewpoint, almost to being propaganda. It made me think of other films that I suspect of being close to if not actual propaganda films. Three came to mind: The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, and High Noon. I wondered to myself whether these films, and perhaps others, had more to them than the surface story, whether the filmmakers did slip sociopolitical viewpoints into them as a way to 'convert' me.
This is not a dying issue. American Sniper was met with fierce criticism from the likes of Seth Rogen and John Fugelsang, who saw it as an almost obscene work of jingoistic pro-Iraq Invasion horror. I personally saw it as a story of the torment of war on one man. However, did I miss something the first tine I saw American Sniper or another film that met with the same attacks, Zero Dark Thirty?
As such, I decided to embark on a new, occasional series which I'm calling The Politics Of...
In these essays, I hope to watch a film in question and see whether I can spot anything that can be seen as promoting a particular agenda and offer my own views on the subject. This, I hope, will be an interesting and entertaining foray into the subject of propaganda in films ostensibly free of such things.
I cannot say for certain that any malevolent intentions were meant because I would need the writer/director/producer to verify it, and most are dead and I am not about to hold séances. I offer only observation and speculation.
I might find that one can interpret a film as having more than meets the eye...or maybe that a movie is just a movie.
I look forward to the series, with an aim for one essay a month, and hope that we all can be open-minded on the subject.
Cloris Leachman: Best Supporting Actress for The Last Picture Show
TUESDAYS WITH OSCAR: 1971
The 44th Academy Awards had one highlight that is undisputed. Charlie Chaplin closed the show with the presentation of his Honorary Oscar, unofficially closing one of the most controversial chapters in the annals of Oscar.
Chaplin had been essentially exiled by the United States in 1952 due to a mix of his political views and his scandalous private life, his reentry visa having been revoked. He was bitter about what he perceived as American hypocrisy and refused to return, settling in Switzerland. This now-unofficial exile ended nearly twenty years later when he returned to accept the Oscar (take THAT, George C. Scott). The emotion of the night overwhelmed him. It looked for a time that he might be too ill to come, with him in a wheelchair, sitting backstage looking at the highlight film of his career. Then, once he had to go on stage, he rallied and gave a brief but heartfelt thank you to those "wonderful, sweet people" who had invited him.
It was a reconciliation long in the making, the bitterness of nearly twenty years dissipating between both sides.
In terms of the awards there were some interesting notes. The Academy was acknowledging the era by awarding its highest honor to The French Connection, a tale as solidly in the 1970s as any. It even ventured into being more adventurous when it came to the music categories as we shall see. The Best Supporting Actor and Actress nominees were both all first-time nominees, and both had two nominees from the same film that didn't cancel each other out.
As always this is just for fun and should not be taken as my final decision. I should like to watch all the nominees and winners before making my final, FINAL choice. Now, on to cataloging the official winners (in bold) and my selections (in red). Also, my substitutions (in green).
1971 Academy Awards
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
The Age of Not Believing: Bedknobs and Broomsticks Bless the Beasts and Children: Bless the Beasts and Children Life is What You Make It: Kotch All His Children: Sometimes a Great Notion Theme From "Shaft": Shaft
Oh, sweet Mother of Mercy! WHO came up with this idiotic list?! Apart from The Age of Not Believing and Theme From "Shaft", whoever heard of ANY of these songs? Even the fact that they've pretty much been forgotten perhaps could be forgiven if they were, well, anything other than so hopelessly square to make milquetoast seem almost avant-garde. I listened to all five nominees, and truth be told I'm not sure there's much difference between Bless the Beasts and Children and Life is What You Make It. If you played just the melody, could you tell the difference between four of them? For Heaven's sake, TWO of these dry ditties have "Children" in the title! Syrupy, Syrupy, Syrupy!
There's not a lick of a difference between the first four, so Theme From "Shaft" was not just the right choice, but a massive jolt to the staid Academy, making its win downright revolutionary. The bridging between the urban sound with strings and some pretty daring lyrics with double entendres was if not particularly brave at least an acknowledgement of the brilliance of Isaac Hayes' song. Even the production number from the Academy Awards presentation wasn't the embarrassment it usually is. It would have been absolutely horrifying if any of the other songs would have won, and one of the lowest points in Oscar history.
Fortunately, sense hit the Music Branch and we were spared a disaster.
Normally, I would just put in my own choice (which isn't the Theme From "Shaft"), but instead, I think it will let you listen to those themes that the Academy could have nominated but chose to overlook for such songs as All His Children.
From Diamonds Are Forever, Diamonds Are Forever. Music by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black.
From Harold and Maude, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out. Music and lyrics by Cat Stevens.
From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Candy Man. Music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Pure Imagination. Music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
Now, I ask you, which of the official nominees do YOU remember apart from Theme From "Shaft"?
Think on those and then go down to see my winner.
Diamonds Are Forever: Diamonds Are Forever If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out: Harold and Maude Theme From "Shaft": Shaft The Candy Man: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Pure Imagination: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Pure Imagination. Music and Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
I found four better and more remembered songs than such things as Life is What You Make It or Bless the Beasts and Children, all eligible as far as I know, and all blissfully ignored for perhaps one of the worst slate of nominees in this category. Ah, if we can count on one thing when it comes to the Music Branch of the Academy, is that they will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity (to quote the late, great Abba Eban). Their official list of Best Original Songs of 1971 makes the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton look downright rational.
I think each of these songs could have easily have won and I'd have no objection to any of them winning. I also think Theme From "Shaft" is one of the greatest Best Original Song Oscar winners. However, I'm going with Pure Imagination due to the fact that it's so iconic, and if you listen carefully, the music holds a bit of a creepy, off-kilter mood to it, as if beneath the sweetness of the lyrics there is something dark and menacing lurking just beneath.
BEST DIRECTOR
Peter Bogdanovich: The Last Picture Show William Friedkin: The French Connection
Norman Jewison: Fiddler on the Roof
Stanley Kubrick: A Clockwork Orange
John Schlesinger: Sunday Bloody Sunday
My issue with A Clockwork Orange is that not only did I find it creepy in a bad way but highly pretentious. I remember being dragged to a screening by my friend Fidel Gomez, Jr., and found it in turns horrifying and self-important. I don't object to Friedkin winning, for The French Connection is an extremely good film. However, I was so moved by the tale of lost youth in Texas that my heart goes to Bogdanovich's work in The Last Picture Show.
Peter Bogdanovich: The Last Picture Show
Clint Eastwood: Play Misty For Me
William Friedkin: The French Connection
Norman Jewison: Fiddler on the Roof
Don Siegel: Dirty Harry
Despite some great work by others, I see nothing to shift my view that Bogdanovich shouldn't win.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Ann-Margret: Carnal Knowledge
Ellen Burstyn: The Last Picture Show
Barbara Harris: Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? Cloris Leachman: The Last Picture Show
Margaret Leighton: The Go-Between
In a rare moment, two actresses from the same film didn't cancel each other out. For me, Leachman's performance as the lonely, lovelorn housewife, a cougar with a heart, was a devastating one. Her last scene where she seems to scream out to the world was simply fantastic.
Rosalind Cash: The Omega Man
Rosalind Harris: Fiddler on the Roof Jill St. John: Diamonds Are Forever
Cloris Leachman: The Last Picture Show
Natalie Trundy: Escape From Planet of the Apes
Despite that, and despite some really strong work by others, my heart goes to the sassy, flirtatious, delightfully devious Tiffany Case from Diamonds Are Forever. St. John knew what the part was, and played it to perfection. Her Tiffany Case (among the more amusing Bond Girl names) was unapologetic about being a thief, and moreover made Tiffany Case something so rare in a Bond film: a funny and fun Bond Girl who was smart enough to make it funny and fun. Part comic relief, part self-reliant woman, Jill St. John is among my favorite Bond Girls, and unlike others before or after her, St. John has never regretted either her role or in being called a "Bond Girl".
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jeff Bridges: The Last Picture Show
Leonard Frey: Fiddler on the Roof
Richard Jaeckel: Sometimes a Great Notion Ben Johnson: The Last Picture Show
Roy Schneider: The French Connection
In a rarer turn, we have TWO categories where TWO actors from the same film are nominated and don't cancel each other out. Sometimes a single monologue can be so good that it's worthy of recognition. This is how I feel about Ben Johnson's performance in The Last Picture Show. A sense of tragedy, of loss, of that deep pain beneath that we keep within us, that one that got away...it's all there.
Jack Albertson: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Jeff Bridges: The Last Picture Show
Leonard Frey: Fiddler on the Roof Ben Johnson: The Last Picture Show
Roy Schneider: The French Connection
No, nothing to have me change my mind.
BEST ACTRESS
Julie Christie: McCabe & Mrs. Miller Jane Fonda: Klute
Glenda Jackson: Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vanessa Redgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots
Janet Suzman: Nicholas and Alexandra
Here is another rarity indeed: two biopics losing Best Actress, back when a biopic wasn't an automatic Oscar win (like Eddie Redmayne). The film may have been called Klute, but it doesn't seem like his story. It seems like Bree Daniels' story. Bree is no Happy Hooker. She's a survivor, someone who knows the difference between sex and love, and who is in danger.
I am no fan of Fonda's politics, but at least she was sensible enough to know that the Academy Awards were not the appropriate venue to get her views out. A lot of people, particularly the producers, were in terror of what Hanoi Jane might say, and some Academy members weren't thrilled when they saw Tom Joad's daughter virtually dancing with men killing their sons in battle. However, if we go by performances, I think for now I'm going with Fonda.
Julie Christy: McCabe & Mrs. Miller Jane Fonda: Klute
Kim Hunter: Escape From Planet of the Apes
Geraldine Page: The Beguiled
Ruth Gordon: Harold and Maude
Fonda was such an odds-on favorite that three of her nominees didn't bother showing up. Only Suzman bothered to appear. I had Page win for some time, but opted at the last minute to go with the Academy and give it to Fonda.
Geez, why would ANYONE be upset about this?
BEST ACTOR
Peter Finch: Sunday Bloody Sunday Gene Hackman: The French Connection
Walter Matthau: Kotch
George C. Scott: The Hospital
Chaim Topol: Fiddler on the Roof
AT LAST MY GENE HACKMAN LOVE CAN BE EXPRESSED!
In case you don't know, I'm an unabashed Gene Hackman lover. Get him a Kennedy Center Honor already! As the obsessed detective determined to bring down a major drug ring, Hackman brings his everyman quality to the role. It's intense, fiery, and he towers over all the other performances.
Clint Eastwood: Dirty Harry
Gene Hackman: The French Connection
Malcolm McDowell: A Clockwork Orange
Chaim Topol: Fiddler on the Roof Gene Wilder: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
For once, I'm going to temper my Gene Hackman love for another Gene and give it to Wilder's iconic turn as the slightly mad, slightly whimsical, always fascinating Willy Wonka. It turns crazy and gentle, Wilder will always be THE Willy Wonka, impresario of a world filled with Pure Imagination.
BEST PICTURE
A Clockwork Orange Fiddler on the Roof The French Connection The Last Picture Show Nicholas and Alexandra
The nomination for A Clockwork Orange is to please the critics, Fiddler on the Roof to please audiences, Nicholas and Alexandra to please the Academy's penchant for big/epic biopics. That leaves us with two choices: the gritty The French Connection and the tragic The Last Picture Show. I've no objection to The French Connection winning. It's a fine film. However, emotionally I was overpowered by this tale of Texas, an anti-Giant.
Therefore, I name The Last Picture Show the Best Film of 1971.
Escape From Planet of the Apes The French Connection Harold and Maude The Last Picture Show Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
I think there were better films than Nicholas and Alexandra or even Fiddler on the Roof, a rare musical to get a nomination when the genre was well out of fashion. And there I go, nominating a musical too. To be fair, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory forms a part of practically everyone's childhood and I think people don't think of it strictly as a 'musical', even though it is one. However, I see no real challenger to my original choice.
As such, I select The Last Picture Show as the Best Picture of 1971.
The entire aura around dog shows is a complete mystery to me. I wouldn't know one breed of toy dogs from another. In an odd way, Best in Show was a bit illuminating on the subject of animals and the humans who love them too much. It is by no means vicious when it comes to the characters (I can't think of a Christopher Guest mockumentary that is), despite their own lunacy. Best in Show is not a laugh-out-loud hilarious film (though there are times when you do laugh heartily). Its humor is more droll, more dry, and its to its credit that we can laugh at the characters while simultaneously having a soft spot for them.
It is the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia, and five disparate groups of people are coming. From Florida, Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), a nice middle-class couple who love each other but have a hard time thanks to Cookie's very wild past (no matter where they go, she ends up finding a former lover, much to Gerry's consternation). The fact that Gerry has literally two left feet makes him all the more self-conscious.
From the South, there's fishing store owner Harlan Pepper (Guest), who takes great pride in being able to name all sorts of nuts and in his Bloodhound. He's the only one not married.
Well, technically speaking, flamboyant gay couple Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof (John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean) aren't married either, but they too love their little dog and camp it up for all its worth.
We've got a highly neurotic yuppie couple, Meg and Hamilton Swann (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock), who are in turns excessively childish with their dog and with each other, bickering and going to therapy with their pooch.
Finally, we've got ditzy socialite Sherri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge), an Anna Nicole Smith-type who married a man old enough to be her grandfather and who sponsors her dog's handler, Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch).
Each of them makes their way to Philly, where those with money get nice rooms, and those who don't (like the unfortunate Flecks, unaware their credit card had been cut off) are forced to stay in the utility closet of the hotel. They go through the various mixers where they meet the competition, and start getting their breeds ready. Observing all this is Mayflower Kennel Club President Dr. Theodore W. Millbank III (Bob Balaban) and at the hotel, the manager (Ed Begley, Jr.). We also get play-by-play commentary from dog expert Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddock) and Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard), with the latter sometimes wandering off into strange rabbit trails (such as asking a puzzled Beckwith to speculate how much Laughlin can bench press or whether the show could attract more people if the dogs came in costumes).
Things don't go well for the Swanns, who freak out when their dog's toy is lost, and the agitation from both of them causes their pet to bark at the judge (instant disqualification). All the other owners find they move up from Best in Breed to competing against each other for Best in Show. All sorts of actions go on, from Christy coming out in a big way (throwing herself into a passionate embrace with an equally willing Sherri Ann) to Cookie's last-minute injury that forces her untrained husband to walk their dog in the final round.
Who Will Win?
We end with Six Months Later, where Gerry and Cookie opt to record terrier-related songs (and guess who the record engineer is...one of Cookie's ex-lovers), Harlan pursues his dream to be a ventriloquist (and doing a mess of a job on it), Sherri Ann and Christy, now a couple, publishing their own lesbian-centric dog-breeding magazine (American Bitch), Stefan & Scott creating a calendar of dogs recreating classic scenes from movies), and Hamilton & Meg happier now with a new dog...one that doesn't mind if they have sex in front of it.
Best in Show is droll, less interested in ridiculing these curious characters and more in showing them in a warm light. We can imagine that this group of people who really are passionate about their pets to where they don't see them as pets but as extensions of themselves.
We see that these people are not crazies (well, maybe the Swanns) but not all that different from us or our neighbors. For them, their dogs are their passion, a hobby that didn't quite get out of hand but certainly takes up a great deal of their time. Perhaps one doesn't end up feeling any sense of ridicule against them is because Best in Show doesn't set out to ridicule them.
Instead, like a true documentary that it mocks, Best in Show lets the characters display their curious worlds. They themselves showcase what to outsiders might seem a bit, well, nuts, but the film never really thinks badly of them.
The performances, all based on adlibbing, are all quite excellent. I was particularly impressed by Guest, whose Southern accent was believable without being exaggerated or ridiculous. Each of the couples is portrayed in broad strokes, but they all did a commendable job painting realistic people. Granted, Willard's oddball commentator is perhaps the least realistic person in Best of Show, but his curious comments are so funny you wouldn't have it any other way. Moreover, Willard is a comedy icon and he can do anything he wants.
Given the film was made in 2000, it still is pretty amazing that Guest and co-scenarist Levy could get away with characters as campy and stereotypical as Stefan and Scott (the latter so outlandishly gay he wears makeup and dresses like a toreador at the finals). One wonders if now, given that almost any mocking of homosexuality is seen as a crime, the film's gay couple seems pretty outrageous.
Still, part of me thinks gay couples will find the portrayal more amusing than insulting.
Now, Best in Show isn't a knockout in terms of comedy. A side trip to Akron for the Flecks to meet an old boyfriend, resulting in their beloved Winky being taken up to the roof, isn't that funny. We also don't know exactly what happened to Sherri Ann's old (very old) husband. Leaving apart that, Best in Show is a light, amusing little film about the bond between man and beast.
Let's put this out there: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is not, repeat, NOT scary in the traditional sense, particularly I figure for today's audiences, who consider something like Insidious or any Paranormal Activity the height of horror. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is, however, extremely atmospheric, and a touch frightening in how it creates this mad world of somnambulists and generally crazed people.
Told primarily in flashback, our narrator, Francis (Friedrich Fehere) tells of how his fiancée Jane (Lil Dagover) became a virtual white zombie. She, Francis, and their mutual friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) had a solid group, despite the fact both were in love with Jane. At a fair, Alan and Francis go see a new act, that of Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss). It is to control his somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt). Alan asks how long with he live, and Cesare's answer is chilling: he has until dawn.
True to his word, Alan is found dead the next day, stabbed to death. Are Cesare and Caligari holders of supernatural powers, or is there something more sinister, more 'insidious' at play? Francis and Jane investigate, and the investigation takes a shocking turn when Cesare abducts Jane and races through the village, chased by a mob. Cesare dies as a result of shock, apparently, but Dr. Caligari has run off to the safety of an insane asylum.
Going in, Francis asks to speak to the director...who turns out to be Caligari himself! We learn the backstory to this insanity. Apparently the good Herr Doctor has been delving into the occult practices of a previous Dr. Caligari and had become obsessed with controlling people's minds, to see if he could get those under his control to go against their own morality and do his evil bidding. The hospital staff and Francis manage to capture the mad Dr. Caligari. With that, Francis ends his tale of deranged wickedness.
Then...we go into the asylum, and find that Francis, far from being the hero, may in fact be bonkers himself, for he IS a patient at the asylum. Furthermore, his fiancée Jane appears not to know him, but claims herself a queen, and Cesare is very much alive, wandering about. Alan sees the hospital director, who is the same 'Caligari' and goes after him, thinking him the mad scientist. Restrained in the straight-jacket, the doctor is ready to treat him...but is it the rational asylum director, or Dr. Caligari himself?
When people think 'German Expressionism', they may subconsciously be thinking about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The entire film is not meant to be 'realistic' in any way. IF you go into the film thinking that it would be like any other silent film (or film in general), be warned of a rude awakening. The sets in particular, with the off-kilter angles and obviously unrealistic paint make The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari like a fever dream, something that calls to the subconscious, the unreal, the hallucinatory, the surreal. Expressionism is the perfect term, for we get the ideas that this is a fantasy and fantastical world.
The real genius though is in the script, for the film never lets us know what is real and what isn't. For the longest time, we took for granted that Alan's tale of a mad scientist and his bewitched minion was true, but we then get that shocking twist. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari so brilliantly twisted our expectations, our sense of what is true and not true. Even when we get to the end, we still do not know what is the truth and what isn't. Was Francis' strange tale the truth? The ramblings of an insane man? The ramblings of someone warning on the dangers of those in command?
Much has been made about how The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari may have been prescient on the rise of a totalitarian leader like Hitler, an allegory before the fact of how the leaders, those in authority, are creating a madhouse of murder and mayhem. If people read that into the film, that works. I don't see a direct correlation but I won't dismiss it either.
It a bit difficult to judge performances in a silent film because they require a certain level of unreality that now comes across as wildly exaggerated. However, Krauss and the 'mad doctor' and Veidt as the possessed figure are excellent, bringing the appropriate chills to this bizarre tale. They are both appropriately creepy.
It seems that every year at the Plaza Classic Film Festival I end up watching a silent film. Each year, I find that said silent film is absolutely brilliant (Metropolis, Sunrise). I'm pleased to say that with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, their record remains intact.
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