Countdown To Oscar: Midnight Cowboy

* * 1/2
Best Picture, 1969

Director: John Schlessinger
Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman

There’s no doubt that Midnight Cowboy is a watershed film, one of several that signalled a new direction in mainstream American film. It’s acceptance by AMPAS sets the stage for the series of dark, gritty films that would dominate the Best Picture race over the next decade; films that took chances and were willing to risk not being “crowd pleasers.” That being said, Midnight Cowboy is nonetheless a film that is exactly as unsuccessful as it is successful, as timid as it is brave.

As most people are no doubt aware, Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a Texan who comes to New York to make a career for himself as an escort for lonely, rich women. From beginning to end, he looks entirely out of place in this setting, striding through the streets in his fringed coat and cowboy hat, looking entirely too earnest, wearing his gullibility on his sleeve. Joe’s a big guy but you worry about him anyway because he looks like such an easy target. One of his first “clients” turns out to be a prostitute herself and Joe ends up paying her from his little store of cash. Later still, he’ll be duped again, this time by a lowlife named Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), who sends him to the apartment of an evangelist who tries to make Joe repent.

Joe catches up with Ratso eventually but, instead of exacting revenge on him, agrees to let him become his “manager.” Ratso’s reasoning is simple: Joe has the looks, Ratso has the brains. However, even with Ratso’s ability to scam, things continue to look grim for both men. They hole up together in an abandoned building, fighting against cold, hunger and the inevitability of finding themselves thrown out. These scenes are the best in the film, imbued with an ugly, unflinching realism that makes this movie different from any other. Hoffman’s sickly looking Ratso and Voight’s increasingly deflated and downtrodden Joe fit in this setting and the film would be better if it followed through on the promise of this aspect of the story and allowed itself to be an outright, uncompromising tragedy.

The film has a few flaws which, in and of themselves, could be surmountable but taken all together present a real problem to the film as a whole. The flashback scenes which detail both Joe’s childhood and an attack on him and a girlfriend in Texas, are intrusive and clumsy. These scenes suggest much more than they illuminate and given that the film ended up with an X rating anyway, Schlessinger should have just gone for it rather than wash it in ambiguity. Connected to this is the problem the film seems to have in dealing with its homosexual themes. Much has been said and written over the years about the relationship between Joe and Ratso which does, at times, seem almost marital, though I’ve always felt that it was rather one-sided with Ratso lusting for Joe and Joe accepting it because Ratso is more or less harmless. It’s a fascinating relationship, but the film seems to want to look away from this aspect of it as much as possible. Further, there’s a scene where Joe is with a John and turns violent with him and it seems so out-of-character that it disrupts the flow of the film.

There are a number of scenes which either don’t fit or just don’t work. One of them is the scene with the evangelist and another is the sequence which finds Joe and Ratso at a party. The whole flow of this sequence is out of step with the greater part of the story and Joe and Ratso’s inclusion at the party ignores a fundamental fact about their characters: they’re outsiders. The essence of these characters is that they exist on the very fringes of society and to have them in a situation where they’re not only invited but also accepted by these other people undermines their story.

While I think that Schlessinger is ultimately misguided and too timid in his direction, the film does have two things strongly in its favour: the performances by Voight and Hoffman. I think that this is Hoffman’s finest performance, playing this character who could easily have cross over the line to become a caricature, but Hoffman keeps him so grounded that he could slip off the screen and disappear into the streets. Voight’s role isn’t as flashy, but his performance is solid and assured and complements Hoffman’s nicely. These two actors in these two roles are the reason to see the film.

Countdown To Oscar: American Dream

* * * *
Best Documentary, 1990

Director: Barbara Kopple

I’m not an American so maybe there’s some sort of cultural nuance that I’m missing, but I’ve never understood why Ronald Reagan was - and, given that he ranked 2nd in a poll of greatest Presidents in 2007, remains - so popular, considering the adverse effect his economic policies had on the middle and lower classes. American Dream takes place during Reagan’s second term as President and provides an overwhelmingly critical look at the impact that Reaganomics had on working people.

The film is set in Austin, Minnesota and follows the strike of workers at the local Hormel plant. To fully appreciate the impact of the strike, it must be understood that the Austin is one of those smaller communities whose economic base is centralized with one company that has employed generation upon generation. In 1985 Hormel posted a profit of nearly $30 million but cut wages from $10.69 to $8.25 and cut benefits by 30 percent, prompting P-9, the local union, to begin talking strike action (“If we have to take a cut of $2.45 an hour when the company just made $30 million, I hate to think of what’s going to happen when they post a loss,” one employee states at one of the many union meetings the film depicts). The Hormel executives aren’t willing to budge, insisting that the economic climate makes it necessary for these cuts to be implemented, which in turn prompts P-9 to hire Ray Rogers, a strike consultant who begins waging a media campaign against the company in an effort to rally support to the union’s side.

In hindsight the hiring of Rogers seems to create more problems than it solves as his aggressive style winds up putting P-9 in conflict with the international union, led by an increasingly frustrated Lewie Anderson. Time after time Anderson is exasperated by what he sees as inept negotiating by those with P-9, who seem to have an inflated sense of what they’ll be able to accomplish. This leads to a rift between the local and the international, the result of which is that when P-9 does go on strike, it does so without the support of the international union. What’s particularly interesting to me about this film is that it doesn’t reduce the issue down to corporation vs. union, but takes a close look at inter-union politics and the way that infighting made it all the more easy for Hormel to get away with exactly what it wanted all along. What occurs at the end of this film is brutal and infuriating, a startling demonstration of that 80s era mantra, “Greed is good.”

Director Barbara Kopple is a very unintrusive storyteller. She doesn’t insert herself into the narrative as Michael Moore does, but instead stands back from the story and allows the people within to speak for themselves. Her methods personalize the story in a number of ways, but the most impactful as far as I’m concerned is the film’s look at the way the strike affects the relationship between two brothers. Both work at the Hormel plant but while one is a staunch supporter of P-9 and the strike to the bitter end, the other is less certain, wanting to do what’s right by supporting the union, but also wanting to do what’s right by providing for his family. When Hormel begins giving away the striking workers’ jobs, some of those on strike return to work, including one of the brothers. What is ultimately a minor nuisance to the Hormel company is dividing the town in half and tearing families – the fabric of any community – apart. This isn’t just a story about economics; it’s a story about fundamental and irrevocable changes in America’s heartland.

In the final analysis, American Dream isn’t necessarily a pro-union film despite its overwhelming criticism of the way the corporation treats its workers. The heroes of the film are not the union leaders, many of whom are characterized as believing their own hype at their peril, but the average people caught in the middle of the fight. Between the corporate leaders and the union “stars” are hundreds of workers who just want to make ends meet and the “American dream” that seems more detached from reality than ever.

Countdown To Oscar: Best Supporting Actress

I recently read a blog post (I wish I could remember where, but I haven't been able to find it again) which questioned the need for separate actor and actress categories, pointing out that the acting categories are the only ones which are gendered. While I would argue that separating the actors according to gender is necessary given that film is such a male dominated medium and that women are at a disadvantage, having so few really good roles available to them (even looking through the list of winners of Lead and Supporting Actress you find a number of roles that could be summed up simply as "wife/girlfriend" or "mother"), I do wonder sometimes what the point is of separating "Lead" from "Supporting" now that the lines have become so thoroughly blurred. It seems like every year someone is falsely campaigned as a Supporting Actor/Actress due to a crowded Lead category, which makes the distinction seem redundant.

With Kate Winslet safely tucked away in the Lead category as she should be, the five Supporting Actress nominees this year truly are the supporting players of their respective films - and 4 out of 5 of them can be described as "wife/girlfriend" or "mother," for those keeping track. The nominees:




Amy Adams, Doubt
The sole nominee whose role can't be described in such simple terms, Adams plays the innocent caught in the struggle between "good" and "evil" (which side is which depends on your reading of the film). I have to be honest, I don't really think this was a deserved nomination and I would have preferred to see the spot go to Rosemarie DeWitt for her stellar work in Rachel Getting Married or to the criminally overlooked Emma Thompson in Brideshead Revisited. Adams was nominated once before for Junebug and while I think she's a capable actress, I think it's time for her to move away from the doe-eyed babe in the woods roles.



Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Amongst the nominees, she's my choice for this year's best as force of nature Maria Elena in Woody Allen's latest. Oscar has been kind to women in Woody Allen films, particularly those nominated as Supporting Actress (particularly those named Dianne Weist). Cruz has been nominated once before for her wonderful performance in Volver (if you haven't seen it yet, get thee to a video store). She was the early favorite in terms of critics awards, collecting the National Board of Review, LA Film Critics and New York Film Critics circle awards amongst several others, but Marissa Tomei and Viola Davis quickly caught up, with each taking a number of awards themselves.



Viola Davis, Doubt
Davis' role in Doubt is small, consisting of just one long screen, but it's powerful and really steals the show. Oscar has awarded brief but memorable performances before (Beatrice Straight in Network, Judi Dench in Shakespeare In Love) so the length of her screen time shouldn't be an issue. She's been rewarded by a number of critics associations and nominated for all the major awards, save the BAFTA.



Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This is another performance that I don't think was necessarily strong enough to warrant a nomination. Henson is fine in Button but there's nothing about her performance that really stands out for me. That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if she were to win, if only because with 13 nominations, I assume that Button has to walk away with something and, given that it's up against Slumdog (which is shaping up to be an awards juggernaught) in many categories, the wide-open Supporting Actress race is probably the most likely place where the Academy will choose to reward it.



Marissa Tomei, The Wrestler
Tomei won in 1992 for My Cousin Vinny and has been haunted ever since by the "mistakenly given the Oscar" urban legand. It's unfair because Tomei has shown herself to be a consistently wonderful actress and has turned in a number of memorable and well-rounded performances since her win. I haven't had a chance to see The Wrestler yet, but nothing that I've read about it suggests to me that she's anything less than great. I would predict her for the win were it not for the lack of a SAG nomination, which suggests a considerable lack of support for her from her fellow actors within the Academy.

Countdown To Oscar: Nowhere In Africa

* * * *
Best Foreign Language Film, 2002

Direcotr: Caroline Link
Starring: Juliane Kohler, Merab Ninidze

I’ve only been able to see two of Caroline Link’s films – this one and Beyond Silence - but those two have been more than enough to make her one of my favorite filmmakers. Both films involve young girls coming of age who find themselves divided from their parents both in the normal, generational way, and by particular circumstances. In Beyond Silence the girl is a musician with two deaf parents; in Nowhere In Africa the girl sees her family’s move from Germany to Kenya as an adventure rather than displacement by the Nazi menace. Both films are incredibly effective and well-realized.

The story is told largely from the point-of-view of the daughter, Regina (played by Lea Kurka as a child and Karoline Eckertz as a teen), whose childhood memories of Germany are few. She’s aware, in a vague sense, that her family encountered the growing hostility of the state towards Jews, but the family packed up and fled before ugly epithets turned to violence and so her experience of discrimination isn’t burned into her memory and doesn’t define her actions. The same cannot necessarily be said of her parents, Walter (Merab Ninidze) and Jettle (Julianne Kohler), who understand not only the prejudice they face in Germany as Jews, but also the prejudice they face abroad as Germans. Shortly after Jettle and Regina arrive in Kenya (where they rejoin Walter, who had left months earlier to find a place for them to settle) the family is placed in an internment camp by the British, who fear that they are perhaps spies for Germany.

Their time in the camps (Walter is placed in a men’s camp that actually looks like an internment camp; Jettle and Regina are sent to a women’s camp which is actually a fancy hotel) is brief and they’re given management of a farm thanks in large part to the shine a British officer takes to Jettle. At the farm they meet Owuor (Sidede Onyulo), who becomes their cook and a great friend to Regina, much to Jettle’s dismay. One of the film’s strengths is the arc the character of Jettle follows as she grows and changes during her time in Kenya. Despite having experienced prejudice and discrimination at home, Jettle nonetheless espouses racist ideas in Kenya until a fed-up Walter finally exclaims that they left Germany to escape those kinds of attitudes. This facet of her character is important because the idea that you can at once be a victim and a proponent of the same thing is so rarely explored in films and it gives a lot of depth and realism to the story. When she first arrives in Kenya, she tells Walter that it’s beautiful but insists that they can’t live there. “People do,” Walter says to which she shrugs and replies, “Africans.” However, when the time comes that Walter wants them to return to Germany, Jettle is unwilling to move, not just because they’ve established a home, but because of the way that she’s changed through the experience of living there. Not only has she learned that difference shouldn’t automatically equal fear, she’s also matured from a spoiled princess relying on her looks to get what she wants to an independent woman who has proved herself capable of managing a farm on her own while Walter was away, fighting with the British. This is a character that is pretty intolerable at the beginning, but ends up being very compelling and naturally displaces Regina as the centre of the story.

Though the relationship between Walter and Regina is always pretty solid, the relationships between Jettle and Regina and Jettle and Walter are often fraught. Regina is aware of her mother’s infidelity with the British officer and at one point uses it as a weapon to hurt her. It’s significant, I think, that this occurs when Regina is a teenager because it implies that not only is she resentful on behalf of her father, but also that she has a growing awareness that being a woman can make her place in the world precarious and so she lashes out at her mother out of fear that she may one day find herself in the same position Jettle did, where her indiscretion had more to do with bartering than lust. For his part, Walter seems aware that Jettle hasn’t been faithful, though there’s a great deal of ambiguity about what he knows and what he thinks. Did Regina tell him what she saw, or do the comments he makes stem from a more general feeling of emasculation regarding the situation? He’s ostensibly the provider of the family but it’s Jettle who gets them out of the camp and placed on the farm and, eventually, it’s Jettle who runs it. It may be that he knows she was unfaithful, but it may also be that he simply resents her growing independence and control and is acting out against it the only way he can.

The film is, obviously, very layered and explores the situation from a variety of angles. In the final analysis, the story - which is based on a memoir by Stefanie Zweig - is about three people learning who they are and discovering how to reconcile themselves to each other to become a family, which I suppose it what makes it so powerful. It's very each to sink into this film and care about these people. From a visual stanpoint, it's stunning, capturing the landscape in all its beauty and essentially making the land itself one of the characters. It's a beautiful movie in every sense.

Countdown To Oscar: Gigi

* * * 1/2
Best Picture, 1958

Director: Vincente Minnelli
Starring: Lesley Caron, Louis Jourdan, Maurice Chevalier

Gigi is one of those enchanting little movies that sort of blends in amongst other Best Picture winners. It doesn’t stand out the way that some other winners do and if you were to rank the winners from best to worst, it would probably end up somewhere in the middle. It’s a surprising movie; a delightful, albeit lightweight winner, that is gently subversive in its treatment of gender roles and relations between the sexes, and filled from beginning to end with memorable musical numbers.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a Parisian girl just coming of age who has been raised by her grandmother Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold) and Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans) to enter the family profession and become a courtesan. During her period of education she spends time with Gaston (Louis Jourdan), a rich playboy bored with his decadent lifestyle and parade of mistresses. After ending his latest affair, Gaston decides that what he needs is a change of scenery and packs up to spend some time by the sea. Gigi and Madame Alvarez join him and, inevitably, Gaston and Gigi fall in love. Meanwhile, Madame Alvarez reconnects with a former lover, Gaston’s uncle Honore (Maurice Chevalier).

Once Gaston’s interest in Gigi is sparked, Alicia and Madame Alvarez seize the opportunity to push the would-be lovers to the next level, positioning Gigi to become Gaston’s next mistress. Gigi resists at first, not wanting to spend her life being used and discarded by men, but her feelings for Gaston ultimately lead her to accept her fate. On their first outing together Gaston is delighted at the change in Gigi; she’s no longer an awkward young girl, but a graceful young woman who seems completely in her element. A problem arises, however, when Gaston takes note of the way that the people around them look at and treat Gigi – they treat her like a common mistress when in fact she’s the woman that he loves.

The movie has a few things going for it, but I want to start with the music. There are a number of charming songs, but my favourite is “I Remember It Well,” which plays out as a gentle battle between Honore and Madame Alvarez as he tries to prove to her that he recalls everything about their fling years before and she corrects him at every turn:

Honore: “We met at nine/”
Alvarez: “We met at eight/”
Honore: “I was on time/”
Alvarez: “No, you were late/”
Honore: “Ah yes! I remember it well.”

Coming in second is “Gigi,” in which Gaston realizes that his feelings for Gigi are more than platonic. The only song I don’t particularly care for is “Thank Heaven For Little Girls,” a song which I think is kind of creepy, especially in this context where it opens the film and segues into Honore’s introduction: “This story is about a little girl. It could be about any one of those little girls playing there. But it isn’t. It’s about one in particular. Her name is Gigi.” While Gigi herself is an innocent, she’s also a very sexualized one by virtue of the occupation for which she is being groomed and that lends the song some unfortunate undertones. The songs come from the team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who also wrote My Fair Lady, and they give a nice, buoyant feeling to the story. The story itself, adapted by Lerner from a novella by Colette, is sharp and well-constructed and, it must be said, a little surprising given that it was made in 1958. “I was beginning to think of marriage,” Honore tells Madame Alvarez, explaining why he left her. “Imagine: marriage. Me! Oh no, I was really desperate! I had to do something, and what I did was the soprano.”

As Honore, Chevalier is particularly well-cast as the charming and lovable old rogue who acts as a well-meaning devil on Gaston’s shoulder. As the title character, Caron is charming enough and has good chemistry with Jourdan, but it almost seems like a waste to have her in this role. Like Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire, Caron is primarily a dancer rather than a singer (vocals in this film are performed by Betty Wand), so it doesn’t make much sense to cast her in a film that’s light on dancing and heavy on singing. Still, the end result is a movie that’s bouncy and fun and absolutely worth a look.