Werth: So, Wise...
Wise: Yes, Werth?
Werth: The smoke from Sacha Baron Cohen's Oscar prank has finally cleared and the winners have stumbled home with their goodie bags from various and sundry Oscar fetes.
Wise: And it's time for us to salute those who didn't get to go home with a golden statuette.
Werth: Last year, we examined actresses in iconic roles whose dreams of Oscar glory were crushed by the Academy, and in honor of the three legendary directors who got the sharp end of the stick this year, let's take a look at directors who failed in the quest for the film industry's most prized phallic symbol.
Wise: No director springs to mind faster than Martin Scorsese whose Hugo spent most of the awards season neck and neck with Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist only to lose in the final tally.
Werth: And who got shout-outs and thank you's all night long—not to mention becoming the cue for a drinking game for Rose Byrne and fellow Oscar-loser Melissa McCarthy.
Wise: But it's an earlier Scorsese film that seems an even more egregious loss. The Aviator (2004) isn't very much like the films of Scorsese's maverick 70's heyday, but it does reveal a remarkably sure directorial hand, plus it was his fifth nomination in the category. Those two facts combined made him look like a shoo-in for the prize—
Werth: Because if the Academy loves anything more than giving Best Supporting Actress to a one hit wonder, it's presenting a Hollywood institution an award for later, and lesser, work.
Wise: Perhaps The Aviator wasn't lesser enough because Scorsese turns what could have been a run-of-the-mill bio-pic of legendary millionaire/germaphobe Howard Hughes into an epic history of Hollywood that's also a meditation on the costs of ambition. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Hughes, and his twitchy energy brings humanity to a life that had been flattened into caricature by rumor and tall tales.
Werth: That and Jane Russell's rack.
Wise: Of course the stand-out—and Oscar winning—performance is Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn. Taking what could have been an opportunity for cloying mimicry of a Hollywood legend, Blanchett imbues the movie Kate with passion and tenderness in a performance that feels more like a revelation than an impersonation.
Werth: She was so good, I honestly wanted to leave Hughes when she did and watch Blanchett play the rest of Kate's life.
Wise: Nowhere are Scorsese's talents more apparent than in the visual vocabulary of the film. Using the evolution of photography (from garish two-strip Technicolor to the lush hues of the 40's to the lurid spectrum of 50's spectacle), Scorsese not only signals the passage of time, but also the progress and eventual deterioration of his subject's mind.
There are nods throughout to classic Hollywood films, but nostalgia didn't work for Scorsese (losing to Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby) until he produced an imitation of his own best work, finally winning Oscar gold for The Departed two years later.
Werth: Scorsese wasn't alone this year in having to eat The Artist's dust in the Best Director category. No less than Terrence Malick and Woody Allen (neither of whom deigned to show up) had to eat Oscar crow. And usual Oscar darling Steven Spielberg didn't even get nominated.
Wise: I guess horses and comic books don't have the same dramatic heft as American slavery and the Holocaust.
Werth: It reminds me of the 17th Academy Awards held in March, 1945. Otto Preminger (Laura), Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity) and Alfred Hitchcock (Lifeboat) lost to Leo McCarey's Bing Crosby-starring love letter to the Catholic church, Going My Way. Now, McCarey was a fine comedy director, but aside from the occasional Sunday hangover TCM viewing, Going My Way holds little of the regard that the other three films do.
Wise: Nor does it have Bob Hope or Dorothy Lamour—two of my favorite hangover cures.
Werth: I'm particularly fond of Lifeboat. Hitchcock had already made quite a name for himself with several American films like Rebecca (1940) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), but Lifeboat's style holds glimpses of some of his future filmwork like Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder (1954) and Rear Window (1954). The setting of Lifeboat is—a lifeboat. There are no cutaway shots to other sets, or a family waiting back home, or flashbacks to a happier time. Hitchcock forces us to join a group of castaways after their liner is sunk by a German U-boat by trapping us with his camera. There is nowhere for these survivors to run in the open sea, and by limiting all but a couple of the camera shots to the boat, the visual claustrophobia makes us as stir crazy as this motley crew. And what a crew!
Wise: Please tell me there isn't a Skipper or Gilligan among them.
Werth: More like a Mrs. Howell. Tallulah Bankhead as reporter and bon vivante Connie Porter gives the best screen performance of her storied career. Her droll line deliveries (in English and German) and cigarette gesticulation are mesmerizing. And since she's got some free time on this boat, why not seduce the handsomest sailor (John Hodiak) aboard?
Wise: Why not indeed?
Werth: The cast is full of fantastic character actors like William Bendix, Hume Cronyn and Walter Slezak, and it's really surprising how many sharp plot twists writer John Steinbeck pulled out of such a little boat. All told Lifeboat is much more fun to watch than Der Bingle buh-buh-buh-booing through a Catholic boy's school.
Wise: That'll get you in trouble these days.
Werth: But back then it got him an Oscar for Best Actor—and in this week's blog, being a winner makes him a real loser.
Wise: We'll discuss more Tinseltown winners and losers in next week's edition of Film Gab.
Wise: Happy New Year, Werth! How was your Christmas?
Werth: It was busy. I single-handedly re-vamped the FBI, shot a film with Laurence Olivier, and this weekend I become the first female Prime Minister of England!
Wise: It sounds like someone's been catching up on the bio-pics of 2011.
Werth: It's a bumper-crop of bio-pics this Oscar season with Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover in J. Edgar, Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
Wise: All three should compete in the Best Actress category.
Werth: Hollywood loves movies about famous people, and why not? Their stories are full of inspiration, real-life challenges, and strange accents—roles that actors and actresses love to sink their teeth into. And no one takes a juicier bite of history than George C. Scott in director Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton (1970).
Wise: From Maggie Thatcher to Old Blood and Guts. Is the testosterone increasing or decreasing?
Werth: Patton is a bio-pic tailor-made for the man in all of us. Chronicling the WWII African and European campaigns of General George S. Patton, the film is an action-packed smorgasbord with well-choreographed battle scenes that thrill, but also remind us of the horror and indignity of war. The scope of the filming is epic with wide camera vistas, rousing score (by Oscar Goldsmith), and a three-hour running time complete with intermission.
Wise: Let's go out to the lobby, indeed.
Werth: But eclipsing all of that is Scott. His portrayal of Patton is so expertly transcendent that he even towers over the invasion of Sicily. Patton was a brilliant hardass who rallied his troops to do impossible feats in the midst of impossible circumstances. Scott stomps around with his riding crop and boots, spouting French and theories on reincarnation, scowling with a jaw of granite one moment then breaking into a cocky grin the next, making us willingly fall in line—even if we think he's a Napoleonic blowhard.
The iconic opening scene in front of an immense American flag perfectly encapsulates Scott's ability to horrify and charm his audience with a performance that defines the power of conviction. Scott doesn't make Patton human as much as he makes his legend real. And the film feels amazingly fresh in the context of our current wars and questions about the nature of patriotism. Patton won seven Oscars including best Director and Best Picture, but Scott refused to accept his statuette because he didn't feel actors should be in competition with each other. It's probably not a stance that the medal-loving George S. would have taken.
Wise: Although Elizabeth (1998) purports to be a biography of the most famous queen of England, it's really more of an historical fever-dream about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett). Director Shekhar Kapur began his career making Bollywood flicks and that frenzied, colorful style definitely influenced this film, transforming the traditionally staid British historical drama into something exotic. The film also catapulted Australian actor Blanchett to international stardom and provided a delightful bit of irony in having a native of a former colony playing The Virgin Queen.
Werth: Coincidentally, a role I often played when I first moved to New York.
Wise: Blanchett is terrific in the role. Bio-pics are uniformly about Overcoming Adversity and Achieving Success Despite the Odds, but Blanchett invests her performance with an amazing amount of subtlety despite all the drama swirling around her. Plus, she easily withstands the scenery-chewing supporting turns from the likes of Geoffrey Rush, Sir John Gielgud and Richard Attenborough. She is even able to overcome the elaborate period costumes which have swallowed up many a lesser actress.
Werth: I want a poisoned dress...
Wise: Quibblers can pick out the inaccuracies of the film, but in movies like these, slavish respect to the past is beside the point. They're all about big gestures, big set pieces and big emotions, but it's the truly good ones that transform all the pageantry into something real.
Werth: All this talk about 'big' makes me want to start work on a cheese dip for tomorrow night.
Wise: Tune in to next week's Film Gab to see how 'larger-than-life' we get. Happy New Year Everyone!
Wise: Ahoy, Werth!
Werth: Um, hi, Wise. What's with the yachtsman's cap?
Wise: I went sailing with my parents last week and I've been feeling pretty nautical ever since.
Werth: Does this mean that you've been making tuna noodle casserole for dinner?
Wise: No, but it does mean that I'm itching for cinematic adventures on the high seas.
Werth: Ooh! Set sail, Cap'n Wise! Set sail!
Wise: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) emerged from Wes Anderson's deep affection for Jacques Cousteau's oceanic travelogues, and it follows the title character's (Bill Murray) faltering career as an undersea documentarian and the comic misadventures that unfold as he pursues both a relationship with the son he abandoned (Owen Wilson) years before and revenge upon the fabled jaguar shark that made a fricassee of his best friend.
Werth: Is the jaguar shark part fish, part cat?
Wise: The Life Aquatic is perhaps Anderson's most whimsical film. Always a writer/director with a very specific point of view, Anderson allows his boyhood fancies to drive this film closer to fantasy than any of his other work. Of course his usual preoccupations are on full display—strong mothers and absent fathers, the dreamer battered by experience, densely layered set and character design—and they mix with the outlandish elements with varying degrees of success.
There's a marvelous image of Anjelica Huston lying dreaming in an underwater observation pod, while the final encounter with the elusive jaguar shark seems freighted with undecipherable meaning.
Werth: It's totally undecipherable. How would a jaguar be able to hold its breath long enough to mate with a shark to make jaguar shark babies?
Wise: I have to admit that Aquatic isn't my favorite Anderson film, although it does reward repeated viewings. It's always interesting to watch a filmmaker reach beyond his usual concerns, plus the shaggy nature of the movie allows for for some standout performances, including Cate Blanchett as the kind of tough-talking yet vulnerable girl reporter Katherine Hepburn might have played, and Michael Gambon as Zissou's silver-tongued producer on the lam.
Also of note is the gorgeous undersea menagerie designed and animated by Henry Selick. But it's the central performances from Murray and Wilson as the mountebank and his guileless offspring that really makes this movie set sail.
Werth: Now that you've gotten me obsessed with sharks, I can't help but talk about the best shark/sailing movie ever, Jaws (1975).
Wise: If only The Poseidon Adventure had starred a Great White.
Werth: Based on Peter Benchley's hit book, Steven Spielberg's Jaws swam into theaters June 20, 1975, and officially originated the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster. With nothing but a couple small films and TV under his belt, Speilberg created a national sensation with this movie about a lone shark rampage in the waters off sleepy Amity Island on Fourth of July Weekend.
People all over the country mimicked John Williams' Oscar-winning, iconic main title and, "You'll never go into the water again," became a national catchphrase that caused as much H2O aversion as Hitchcock's shower scene in Psycho.
Wise: I haven't showered within sight of the shoreline since I could press "Play" on the Betamax.
Werth: While its terror factor is off the charts, Jaws is also, at its heart, a male, sail-bonding adventure. Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Sam Quint (Robert Shaw) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) hunt the killer shark in Quint's small boat, The Orca, and work together on the empty to ocean to destroy this awesome beast. It is through this shipboard interaction that their layered characters emerge—most profoundly with Quint's mesmerizing "USS Indinapolis" monologue.
These scenes of camaraderie on the ocean make what could have been just a fishy monster film a much richer dramatic experience. It was a methodology that Spielberg would utilize on successive films to make popular movies and a boatload of money.
Wise: I wouldn't mind setting sail in just a dinghy full of cash from Spielberg's boatload.
Werth: Well, sailor, in the meantime you and our readers should just hoist the misenmast on the S.S. Film Gab!
