Ebert's Greats #9: The Firemen's Ball (1967)

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Director: Milos Forman

Milos Forman won Oscars and international acclaim for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus, but 1967’s The Firemen’s Ball is arguably the film that has had the greatest impact on his life and career. Made during a particularly politically fraught time, the film ended up being banned in what was then Czechoslovakia and Forman was forced to emigrate or face 10 years in prison. Nevertheless, the film managed to nab an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and became a seminal film from the Czech New Wave, one of the richest and most interesting artistic movements of the 20th Century.

The Best Picture Countdown #57: Amadeus (1984)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Milos Forman
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce

Whenever someone complains about a film being historically inaccurate, I can’t help but think of Amadeus. Amadeus is not a film that presents the literal and factual story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but it is nevertheless a great and entertaining film. Does it suffer for its inaccuracies? Not a bit. In fact, the liberties that the film takes only make it stronger.

One of the reasons that Amadeus works so well is perhaps that it’s less a biopic than a story of two artists, one disciplined but of moderate talent, and another who seems to have been given a gift by God, but who wastes it through his wanton ways. This is a story that could be made about any two artists, creating in any artistic medium, at any time in history. This film just happens to be about Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the man who (according to the film) kills Mozart, but only succeeds in destroying himself.

The story is presented largely from Salieri’s point of view. We meet him as a reasonably popular and passably talented composer and regular at the court of the Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). He’s thrilled by the music of Mozart but appalled by Mozart’s behaviour. Salieri, who must suffer to produce something that he knows to be of average quality, sees Mozart produce beauty at the drop of a hat, with seemingly no effort, in between binges of drinking and partying and sex. Salieri’s jealousy of Mozart’s ability consumes him and he sets out to destroy him. However, even when audiences turn away from Mozart, and even after Mozart is dead, Salieri still cannot find peace. It doesn’t matter that Mozart has fallen out of favour; Salieri, as a first class connoisseur (if not a first class creator) of music, knows how brilliant Mozart is, even if other people won’t acknowledge it, and he knows how average he himself is, even if the people decide, for a moment, to favour him. It isn’t the fame that Salieri wants, it’s the ability, and this is made apparent by his assertion that God is mocking him through Mozart’s talent.

The scenes of Mozart’s death are the best in the film, playing at different levels. On one hand, Salieri is “winning” because Mozart is dying. On the other hand, Salieri loses because Mozart’s Requiem, which he has dictated to Salieri while dying and which Salieri had planned to pass off as his own, has been confiscated by Mozart’s wife (Elizabeth Berridge). Salieri wants Mozart to die because Mozart’s life and art are like a curse to him. But, as Mozart dictates to Salieri, as Salieri works in the presence of genius, there is also part of him that wants Mozart to live and continue creating the work that only he is able to produce. At some level, Salieri knows even before the deed is done that his rival’s death will solve nothing for him, but once the course is set it must be followed through to its end.

There is a lot of darkness and pathos in Amadeus, but there is a great deal of joy as well. As a matter of fact, for a story about one composer who slowly goes mad and another who drives himself to an early and tragic death, this film is a lot of fun. The Mozart who is presented to us is like a modern day rock star who gains fame too easily at too young an age, overindulges in all manner of vice, and burns himself out – but, boy, does he have a good time doing it. Further adding to the rock star image is the punk aesthetic at play in the way Mozart is costumed, most notably in his wigs which are a shade of pink in contrast to the white wigs worn by everyone else. The impression that the film leaves you with is that Mozart was a fun guy who valued a good time over everything else and just didn’t know when to say when, and Hulce plays this aspect of the character for everything that it’s worth. There are more serious moments as well – when he’s dying, when he’s defending his music against critics – but for the most part, Mozart is at the center of all good times, of all laughter, of all ecstasy. Meanwhile, Salieri broods in the corner.

Abraham is pitch perfect as Salieri – alternately smug, envious, vengeful, sorrowful and, finally, mad. The film features one of the best endings in cinema, with Salieri in an insane asylum, being wheeled along a corridor while telling the other patients, “Mediocrities, I absolve you… I absolve you… I absolve you all!” At the end Salieri is free, having absolved himself not for killing Mozart, but for failing to be Mozart. The only downside is that he had to go mad before he was able to do it.

The Best Picture Countdown #48: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Milos Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher

I always tend to think of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as a comedy and it’s only upon reflection that I remember that it’s actually a drama in which some scenes play as comedy. The deftness with which it mixes comedy and drama is no doubt one of the reasons why it remains so well-loved and why its ending is still so devastating. Given the lighter-hearted moments of screw-you-rebelliousness from Randall McMurphy, the film seems to be moving on a trajectory towards a happier ending, and the fact that it doesn’t makes it all the more powerful.

Randall McMurphy (played marvellously by Jack Nicholson) is a convict faking mental illness in order to serve out his time in a mental hospital rather than prison. The hospital’s administrators are more or less on to him from the beginning, but let him play out his con nevertheless. He and the audience are then introduced to a group of colourful patients and, of course, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). McMurphy spends the rest of the film trying to teach his fellow patients to take charge of their lives and not be blindly submissive to authority, and going head-to-head with Nurse Ratched in one of the great film rivalries.

The comedy comes whenever the patients are all together, but this isn’t a movie that makes fun of mental illness, or that gets laughs at the expense of those who suffer. In its scenes of group therapy, it highlights the absurdity of putting together a group of people with different problems and different needs in terms of handling those problems, and providing all of them with the same treatment. When he arrives McMurphy essentially begins hijacking the therapy sessions in his ever-growing battle with Ratched, but it’s difficult not to be on his side. He’s usually standing up for the others in the face of rules that he believes to be unfair, imposed simply because the staff has the authority to impose them and because the patients are convinced that they have no choice but to accept them. The comedic highlight of the film comes when McMurphy, the only “sane” one, discovers during one of the sessions that he’s the only one actually committed to the hospital; the others are all there voluntarily. It is of course a commentary on larger socio-political issues that those who rebel against the dominant ideology are forced into submission – in McMurphy’s case it is first through confinement, then through drugs, then shock therapy, and finally a lobotomy which leaves him a vegetable – while the masses voluntarily submit to their own oppression and help the power structure remain intact.

Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), the silent giant of the film, represents the fear of the average person in going against the status quo. Assumed to be deaf and dumb by everyone else in the hospital, he eventually speaks to McMurphy, revealing that he, too, sees things for the way they are, but that he lacks the courage to go against it. “My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That’s why everybody worked on him… I’m not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they’re working on you,” he tells McMurphy. To rebel is to risk standing alone and having the world come down on you with full force. Chief knows this – he’s seen it happen – and so he’s resigned himself from the world, playing along in order to be left alone. But as the film and McMurphy’s schemes progress, he can no longer be content to stand idle, an observer rather than a participator in life. The film’s final and most powerful moments are so profound because McMurphy rebelled and failed, but his spirit inspired the Chief (“Now we can make it Mac; I feel as big as a damned mountain.”), who will succeed.

There are far too many great supporting performances to mention them all (though of all of them, I’ve always thought Sampson as the Chief is the best, expressing so much with so little dialogue), but it’s impossible not to talk about the performances by Nicholson and Fletcher, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances. Nicholson has a nice, showy role but doesn’t overplay it and it isn’t until the film is over that you really realize how close he kept it from going over the top. Fletcher, too, walks a fine line, playing a character who is evil in the most reasonable of ways, a character who is of the firm conviction that what she’s doing is right, even when it seems cruel (as it does near the end, when it leads to Billy’s suicide). The key to both these characters is that neither one can just walk away from the other; both need to see this through until one is thoroughly defeated. McMurphy has lots of opportunities to escape, but somehow always fails to take them. Ratched has the chance to send McMurphy back to prison, but declines, insisting on keeping him in the institution. Ultimately, these two need each other, they need to fight each other and define themselves by this fight. And with two so finely matched competitors, you can’t help but have a show worth watching.

100 Days, 100 Movies: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Foreman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher

I always tend to think of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as a comedy and it’s only upon reflection that I remember that it’s actually a drama in which some scenes play as comedy. The deftness with which it mixes comedy and drama is no doubt one of the reasons why it remains so well-loved and why it’s ending is still so devastating. Given the lighter-hearted moments of screw-you-rebelliousness from Randall McMurphy, the film seems to be moving on a trajectory towards a happier ending, and the fact that it doesn’t makes it all the more powerful.

Randall McMurphy (played marvellously by Jack Nicholson) is a convict faking mental illness in order to serve out his time in a mental hospital rather than prison. The hospital’s administrators are more or less on to him from the beginning, but let him play out his con nonetheless. He and the audience are then introduced to a group of colourful patients and, of course, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). McMurphy spends the rest of the film trying to teach his fellow patients to take charge of their lives and not be blindly submissive to authority, and going head-to-head with Nurse Ratched in one of the great film rivalries.

The comedy comes whenever the patients are all together, but this isn’t a movie that makes fun of mental illness, or that gets laughs at the expense of those who suffer. In its scenes of group therapy, it highlights the absurdity of putting together a group of people with different problems and different needs in terms of handling those problems, and providing all of them with the same treatment. When he arrives, McMurphy essentially begins hijacking the therapy sessions in his ever-growing battle with Ratched, but it’s difficult not to be on his side. He’s usually standing up for the others in the face of rules that he believes to be unfair, imposed simply because the staff has the authority to impose them and because the patients are convinced that they have no choice but to accept them. The comedic highlight of the film comes when McMurphy, the only “sane” one, discovers during one of the sessions that he’s the only one actually committed to the hospital; the others are all there voluntarily. It is of course a commentary on larger socio-political issues that those who rebel against the dominant ideology are forced into submission – in McMurphy’s case it’s first through confinement, then through drugs, then shock therapy, and finally a lobotomy which leaves him a vegetable – while the masses voluntarily submit to their own oppression and help the power structure remain intact.

Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), the silent giant of the film, represents the fear of the average person in going against the status quo. Assumed to be deaf and dumb by everyone else in the hospital, he eventually speaks to McMurphy, revealing that he, too, sees things for the way they are, but that he lacks the courage to go against it. “My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That’s why everybody worked on him… I’m not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they’re working on you,” he tells McMurphy. To rebel is to risk standing alone and having the world come down on you with full force. Chief knows this – he’s seen it happen – and so he’s resigned himself from the world, playing along in order to be left alone. But as the film and McMurphy’s schemes progress, he can no longer be content to stand idle, an observer rather than a participator in life. The film’s final and most powerful moments are so profound because McMurphy rebelled and failed, but his spirit inspired the Chief (“Now we can make it Mac; I feel as big as a damned mountain.”), who will succeed.

There are far too many great supporting performances to mention them all (though of all of them, I’ve always thought Sampson as the Chief is the best, expressing so much with so little dialogue), but it’s impossible not to talk about the performances by Nicholson and Fletcher, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances. Nicholson has a nice, showy role but doesn’t overplay it and it isn’t until the film is over that you really realize how close he kept it from going over the top. Fletcher, too, walks a fine line, playing a character who is evil in the most reasonable of ways, a character who is of the firm conviction that what she’s doing is right, even when it seems cruel (as it does near the end, when it leads to Billy’s suicide). The key to both these characters is that neither one can just walk away from the other; both need to see this through until one is thoroughly defeated. McMurphy has lots of opportunities to escape, but somehow always fails to take them. Ratched has the chance to send McMurphy back to prison, but declines, insisting on keeping him in the institution. Ultimately, these two need each other, they need to fight each other and define themselves by this fight. And with two so finely matched competitors, you can’t help but have a show worth watching.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Amadeus (1984)

Director: Milos Foreman
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce

Whenever someone complains about a film being historically inaccurate, I can’t help but think of Amadeus. Amadeus is not a film that presents the literal and factual story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but it is nevertheless a great and entertaining film. Does it suffer for its inaccuracies? Not a bit. In fact, the liberties that the film takes only make it stronger.

One of the reasons that Amadeus works so well is perhaps that it’s less a biopic than a story of two artists, one disciplined but of moderate talent, and another who seems to have been given a gift by God, but who wastes it through his wonton ways. This is a story that could be made about any two artists, creating in any artistic medium, at any time in history. This film just happens to be about Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the man who (according to the film) kills Mozart, but only succeeds in destroying himself.

The story is presented largely from Salieri’s point of view. We meet him as a reasonably popular and passably talented composer and regular at the court of the Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). He’s thrilled by the music of Mozart but appalled by Mozart’s behaviour. Salieri, who must suffer to produce something that he knows to be of average quality, sees Mozart produce beauty at the drop of a hat, with seemingly no effort, in between binges of drinking and partying and sex. Salieri’s jealousy of Mozart’s ability consumes him and he sets out to destroy him. However, even when audiences turn away from Mozart, and even after Mozart is dead, Salieri still cannot find peace. It doesn’t matter that Mozart has fallen out of favour; Salieri, as a first class connoisseur (if not a first class creator) of music, knows how brilliant Mozart is, even if other people won’t acknowledge it, and he knows how average he himself is, even if the people decide, for a moment, to favour him. It isn’t the fame that Salieri wants, it’s the ability, and this is made apparent by his assertion that God is mocking him through Mozart’s talent.

The scenes of Mozart’s death are the best in the film, playing at different levels. On one hand, Salieri is “winning” because Mozart is dying. On the other hand, Salieri loses because Mozart’s Requiem, which he has dictated to Salieri while dying and which Salieri had planned to pass off as his own, has been confiscated by Mozart’s wife (Elizabeth Berridge). Salieri wants Mozart to die because Mozart’s life and art are like a curse to him. But, as Mozart dictates to Salieri, as Salieri works in the presence of genius, there is also part of him that wants Mozart to live and continue creating the work that only he is able to produce. At some level, Salieri knows even before the deed is done that his rival’s death will solve nothing for him, but once the course is set, it must be followed through to its end.

There is a lot of darkness and pathos in Amadeus, but there is a great deal of joy as well. As a matter of fact, for a story about one composer who slowly goes mad and another who drives himself to an early and tragic death, this film is a lot of fun. The Mozart who is presented to us is like a modern day rock star who gains fame too easily at too young an age, overindulges in all manner of vice, and burns himself out – but, boy, does he have a good time doing it. Further adding to the rock star image is the punk aesthetic at play in the way Mozart is costumed, most notably in his wigs which are a shade of pink in contrast to the white wigs worn by everyone else. The impression that the film leaves you with is that Mozart was a fun guy who valued a good time over everything else and just didn’t know when to say when, and Hulce plays this aspect of the character for everything that it’s worth. There are more serious moments as well – when he’s dying, when he’s defending his music against critics – but for the most part, Mozart is at the center of all good times, of all laughter, of all ecstasy. Meanwhile, Salieri broods in the corner.

Abraham is pitch perfect as Salieri – alternately smug, envious, vengeful, sorrowful and, finally, mad. The film features one of the best endings in cinema, with Salieri in an insane asylum, being wheeled along a corridor while telling the other patients, “Mediocrities, I absolve you… I absolve you… I absolve you all.” At the end Salieri is free, having absolved himself not for killing Mozart, but for failing to be Mozart. The only downside is that he had to go mad before he was able to do it.