THE DEER HUNTER (1978)

THE DEER HUNTER (DIR: MICHAEL CIMINO) (SCR:  DERIC WASHBURN)

After the bittersweet charms of ANNIE HALL, the academy plunged into far darker material with its pick of THE DEER HUNTER as the best picture of 1978.  Made just three years after the official end of the Viet Nam war, it would be the first best picture winner to deal directly with the war, and the first mainstream Hollywood film to do so at all (except for John Wayne's much maligned pro-war 1968 film THE GREEN BERETS).  Therefore, this is a historically important film that deal with the nation's difficult healing process after its first real military loss.  And, while the film is well acted,  and wonderfully, hauntingly shot, I find its mix of searing realism and outright fantasy uneven, and its running time far too long.  I don't think it brings the Viet Nam experience to the audience as effectively as later films like PLATOON and APOCALYPSE NOW would.
It's long journey to the screen began in 1968 when the British record company EMI started an off shoot film company and producer Michael Deely purchased a script by Louis Garfinkle and  Quinn K Redeker called THE MAN WHO CAME TO PLAY, about a wounded Viet Nam veteran who gets involved with a Russian Roulette game in Las Vegas.  The script bounced around for years with no takers, mainly because of the war element.  Eventually it came to the attention of  Michael Cimino, who at that point had directed only one film, 1974's likable  heist film THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT.  Cimino liked the script and worked on it with Deric Washburn, whom he had collaborated with on the screenplay for 1972's Sci fi film SILENT RUNNING.  They boldly decided to throw out the Las Vegas setting, split the personality of the main character into three separate men, and to play up the war elements of the script. (Cimino and Washburn would eventually have a falling out, leading to a fierce debate as to the actual authorship of the script.  Arbitration by the writer's guild awarded Washburn sole credit, but gave story credit to Cimino, Garfinkle and Redeker).
 Deely loved the new script, but felt that he needed a big star to get it made; luckily for him, he was able to interest Robert De Niro, who was then riding high after THE GODFATHER II and TAXI DRIVER.  Along with De Niro, other young up and coming actors like Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken were cast, and the movie was green lit with Universal Pictures co funding it with EMI.  The exacting Cimino took six months to shoot the film (with Thailand standing in for Viet Nam), and its initial budget of  eight and half million dollars swelled to over thirteen.  After much battling with the studio, Cimino managed to get the film released his way, with a running time of just over three hours, even though that length would cut down on the number of possible daily screenings at theaters.   Despite this, it would go on to make almost fifty million dollars.

Robert De Niro

It tells the story of three young steel workers, Michael (De Niro), Nick (Walken) and Steven (John Savage) in Pennsylvania who are drafted into the Viet Nam war in the late 60's.  While there, they are captured and forced to play Russian Roulette by the Viet Cong.  After a bloody shootout, they all escape, but the shell shocked Nick remains while Michael and the now crippled Steven return to America.  Eventually, Michael returns to Viet Nam to attempt to save Nick.

The film opens with shots of the three main characters working in a still mill, with bursts of flame and molten steel, nicely presaging the violence that is to come later.  Then there are scenes of the three men joining other friends and heading to a local bar, and Cimino really shows a flair for portraying the foul mouthed, rough camaraderie between the men, who are immediately believable friends.  Then comes Steven's wedding, a long scene with much dancing and singing, which the studio felt should have been shortened.  Personally,  while I agree that the wedding scene does go on too long, I think it introduces the characters well, and firmly establishes the setting that the young soldiers will soon be leaving, so I don't think it hurts the film.   One thing that I think is missing in these early scenes is any serious discussion by the men of the war that they are about to go fight in; by the late 60's, the war had been going on for years and was being heavily protested all around the country, but we never hear how they feel about it, other than a few drunken gung ho shouts. An odd scene in a bar in which they try to talk to a green beret who ignores them hardly counts as a serious discussion.  I get the impression that Cimino wanted to a avoid politics in the film, but surely these men would have felt something about the war, and I think that should have been shown.

The moments of combat and capture in Viet Nam are actually comparatively short to the rest of the film, but they are the most memorable, leading up to the famous (some might say infamous) Russian Roulette scene, in which Michael and Nick are forced by their guards to play against each other.  It is so well acted by De Niro and Walken, and so intensely made by Cimino that it is difficult to watch.  It caused some controversy, with many historians saying that the Viet Cong never actually forced anyone to do such a thing.  Personally, I don't have a problem with that because  of the scene's undeniable power and Russian Roulette's  metaphorical resonance for the horror and madness of the Viet Nam war, and really, war in general.  (Sadly, it would lead to several copy cat suicides after the film was shown on television). My only real problem with the scene is that there is over an hour of film left after it, none of which holds up to it.

Christopher Walken

In the latter part of the film,  Michael, thinking both of his friends are dead, returns to his hometown and hooks up with Nick's girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep) while having trouble readjusting.  The story beings to meander a bit here, but the acting is strong enough to keep the audience's interest.  Then the film takes an odd turn: first, Michael discovers that the disabled Steven is alive and in a hospital.  Even more surprising, when he visits Steven, he finds out that someone in Saigon has been sending him money, and he's convinced that it must be Nick.  Michael travels to Saigon, which is in chaos as the war is drawing to a close.   After some realistic shots of the city in turmoil, he finds out where Nick is, and the movie takes a turn to the surreal as he takes a boat ride through a shadowy, flaming river that clearly is supposed to resemble the river Styx.  While the boat ride is beautifully shot, it is in such jarring contrast to the documentary like feel of the preceding scenes that it seems like something from another movie.  And then things get even weirder, as Michael discovers a heroin addicted Nick, who has no memory of him.  Somehow, Nick has been successfully playing Russian Roulette for some time and has made quite a bit of money at it.  Michael bribes his way into a game with Nick, which briefly jars Nick's memory. But Michael can't end the game, and Nick winds up shooting himself.   Since the idea of someone consistently winning at Russian Roulette is, of course, impossible, the only way this can work in the story is as a metaphor, and while I've previously stated that I'm alright with the use of Russian Roulette earlier in the film as metaphor for the self defeating madness of war, here I think it completely unravels, pushing the film into far too unreal territory after setting up a mostly realistic world.  It appears that the implication of this entire sequence, beginning with the boat ride and ending with Nick shooting himself, is that Michael is traveling into hell to rescue his friend, only to find him already damned, an interesting idea, but one that I think is both unnecessary and damaging to a film with more than enough story going on without this surreal trip. 

Despite my reservations about the final part of the movie, this is still too good a film to dismiss, mainly because of the performances; after playing gangsters in MEAN STREETS and THE GODFATHER II and a psychopath in TAXI DRIVER, its great to see Robert De Niro prove that he could play a decent, normal blue collar guy (in his customary way, he spent time socializing with steel workers before shooting). De Niro's macho male Michael (who obsesses about killing a deer with one shot when hunting) and Walken's more sensitive  Nick (who admits he mainly likes to go hunting just to see the trees) play well off each other in the early scenes, and they're both still good even in the more unreal scenes towards the end.  I like the way that the strong Michael desperately reassures Nick that they will survive during their capture, or the tentative way that he later romances Streep's Linda.  De Niro is on screen in almost every scene in the film, and he's never less than compelling.  On the other hand, Streep, who reportedly wrote her own dialogue, does what she can with her small role, but lacks enough screen time to make the kind of impression she would in later roles.  Like most war films, this is mostly a story about men.

Finally, I think its important to mention another controversy about the film: racism.  When this film played at the Berlin film festival, Russia and other Soviet bloc countries withdrew their films in protest of the depiction of the Viet Cong.  While I personally don't object to the scenes in which the Viet Cong torture the prisoners, since, even if they didn't specifically force prisoners to play Russian Roulette, there are definitely many accounts of them torturing captured American soldiers.  What I do object to is the complete lack of a single sympathetic Asian character, with the Viet Cong all being portrayed as sadistic monsters. So yes, the racism charge I think does have some merit, but not enough to completely ruin the film.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

While this was a bold and controversial choice for the Academy, there was another movie about the Viet Nam war that came out that year that was better:  Hal Ashby's COMING HOME, which wasn't afraid to be political about the war, and was far more realistic.  I also prefer Terrence Malick's THE DAYS OF HEAVEN to THE DEER HUNTER.  Still, it's a strong, well acted film, and therefore not a bad choice for the Academy to have made.

ANNIE HALL (1977)

ANNIE HALL (DIR: WOODY ALLEN) (SCR: WOODY ALLEN & MARSHALL BRICKMAN)

ANNIE HALL was the first comedy to win best picture since 1963's TOM JONES, and more importantly, it showed that America's greatest comedy movie star of the time could also be a great director, and that he could inject serious, bittersweet moments into one of his films and still be funny.  Although I imagine the Academy weren't too thrilled with the withering jokes the film aimed at Los Angeles and Hollywood, they managed to swallow their pride and award Woody Allen's classic film a deserved award.

Allen's career began when he started getting jokes published in local newspaper columns while still in high school. In the 1950's he graduated to writing for television, which included a stint with Sid Caesar's YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, which Mel Brooks and Neil Simon also worked on.  After performing stand up for a while, he graduated to films.  In 1965 he wrote and starred in (but disowned) the disappointing comedy, WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?.  In 1966 he made his first film as a director, WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, but that film mostly consisted of a bad Japanese spy film redubbed by Allen and some other voice actors.  His first proper credit as a director is 1969's hysterical TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, which he wrote and directed along with starring in. He managed to negotiate a deal for himself in which he got complete control over the content of his films as long as he remained within a certain budget, making his films more intensely personal than almost any other Hollywood director.  After TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, Allen would continue to write direct and star in movies for the next six years, making a  string of four more films that,  along with his first, would come to be known as "the funny ones": BANANAS (1971), EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK (1972), SLEEPER (1973), and LOVE AND DEATH (1975) . Each one of these films is bursting with big laughs and great comic ideas, even if the plots and characterizations are often thin. (EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX is really just a series of comic sketches with a central connecting theme).   As a comic performer, Allen was a true original; while influenced in his one liners by Groucho Marx and Bob Hope, Allen's neurotic intellectual persona was new to film.  While he wasn't  above slapstick silliness (1973's SLEEPER has him tripping over a giant banana peel), Allen's films were smart and filled with highbrow references (1975's LOVE AND DEATH is a parody of Leo Tolstoy's novels). 

After proving he could make us laugh, Allen dug deeper by taking a honest look at romantic relationships with ANNIE HALL.   Amazingly, his original conception for the film was quite different; working with cowriter Marshall Brickman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, (who taught Allen many of the more technical aspects of filmmaking) the film's original cut was over two hours long, and was described by co-editor Ralph Rosenblum as a "chaotic collection of bits and pieces that seemed to defy continuity".  It even featured a murder mystery!  Thankfully, Allen and Rosenblum wisely cut the film down until it focused almost exclusively on the relationship between Alvy Singer (Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton).   Another smart move was to not tell the story chronologically, so that different periods in the relationship could be compared and contrasted.  The result is one of the best romantic comedies ever made and one of Allen's most popular movies, grossing almost forty million dollars on a budget  of around three million.

Dianne Keaton and Woody Allen

The film opens with Allen directly addressing the camera;  after making a few jokes and comments about life and love, he admits that he has just broken up with his girlfriend Annie.  It's a bold stroke: here is Allen, still playing the funny kind of character  that he had in his earlier movies, admitting that the film you are about to see will not have a happy ending.  Speaking of his breakup with Annie, he says that he is "sifting the pieces of the relationship through my mind", perfectly establishing the jumbled chronology of the film that resembles the fractured nature of human memory.
This movie was really a turning point for Allen as a  visual filmmaker; while his early films are certainly funny, the camerawork in them is usually at the service of the jokes and nothing more.  Here, he and cinematographer Willis create beautiful long takes of his characters walking thorough New York that  enhance the  clever dialogue instead of just serving it.  As with his earlier films, Allen often plays with the boundaries of reality in the film: along with his occasional asides to the audience, he uses split screens, a moment where subtitles tell us what Annie and Alvy are really thinking when they talk,  and even a brief, highly amusing animated sequence.  But, all of these surreal moments are important to the story and the characters, so they fit into the overall film perfectly.

Alvy and Annie Animated

Keaton was Allen's on and off girlfriend offscreen, and this would be their third film together; although she had some nice moments in those earlier films,  this would be her first film with him where she really comes across as a full fledged character, and she would win a best actress Oscar for her work.  Her Annie is sweet and completely endearing, even if she's often lacking in confidence and bit scatterbrained (I love the way that she is so giggly when she first meets Alvy).  And the chemistry between her and Allen is wonderful, as mismatched as they might at first seem.  We also get to see her grow as a person onscreen, becoming more confident and secure the more she is around Alvy.
As for Allen, he shows that he can still deliver a funny one liner ("Don't knock masturbation", he tells Annie, "it's sex with someone I love.") and also show the poignancy of the character behind the jokes.  While Alvy is a bundle of nerves, it's clear that he truly adores Annie and misses her when she's gone. Really, the sad irony of their relationship is that it is Alvy who convinces Annie to better herself through adult education and therapy that causes her personal growth to go beyond her need for him, despite his still strong desire for her.  I adore the last shot of  the film in which Alvy, saying goodbye to Annie on a New York street long after they've broken up but remain friends, watches her walk away for a long moment before turning and leaving himself; it's a subtle but moving piece of acting that shows romantic longing without resorting to tears or histrionics.
Along with the sharp relationship scenes, there are also many other funny moments in the film; Allen's jabs at LA (where they "don't throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows") are great.  My personal favorite comedy moment in the film comes when Alvy, to shut up a pompous windbag who is pontificating about Marshal Mc Luhan, pulls out the real Mc Luhan to tell the windbag just how wrong he is. Along with being very funny, it illustrates something that so many of us wish we could do to certain people!

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?




I think it's obvious that I'm crazy about this movie, and despite good movies like Steven Speilberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND also coming out that year, I think ANNIE HALL was  definitely the  best choice.

ROCKY (1976)

ROCKY (DIR: JOHN G AVILDSEN) (SCR: SYLVESTER STALLONE)

The Academy's choice of ROCKY as best picture of 1976 seemed like an obvious one: here was a low budget, uplifting film with no big stars that became the biggest hit of that year, and whose unlikely star's rise to fame  paralleled that of the character that he played in the film.  Personally, I think there were better films released the same year, and that the film is a bit overrated, but it is so eager to please, so aggressively in favor of its underdog hero, that it's hard to resist.

Its journey to the screen began  when struggling actor Sylvester Stallone heard the story of Chuck Wepner, a little known boxer who in 1975 got a chance to take on Heavy weight champ Muhammid Ali and managed to fight him for 15 rounds before losing on a technical knock out.  Stallone obsessed over the story, and wrote the script for ROCKY in a week, channeling his own frustrations as an actor trying to make it into the title character.  It is widely reported that the studio loved Stallone's script, but wanted an established star to play the lead, and that Stallone refused to sell his script unless he himself were cast in the lead, even though he had little money in the bank.  But, according to the 2010 movie trivia book BLOCKBUSTING, this was a lie concocted by the marketing department to promote the film that Stallone dutifully repeated in interviews.  In any event, Stallone was cast, the budget was around one million dollars, and John Avildsen was picked to direct, mainly on the strength of his finishing the film JOE on time and under budget in 1970.  Shot almost entirely in Philidelphia, the film went half a million dollars over budget, but eventually returned over one hundred million dollars at the box office.

I should mention that it is difficult for me to watch ROCKY objectively, seeing as how the film would be followed by five disappointing sequels, and that, along with those sequels,  Stallone, would go on to make some of the worst movies of the 1980's and '90's, killing all the goodwill he had built with this film.  So much so that in 2000 he was given the "Worst actor of the Century" award by The Golden Raspberry Award foundation.  And yet, when I try to forget Stallone's subsequent career and look at ROCKY as a singular film, I do find it rousing, well made, and effective.  Much like THE GODFATHER had refurbished the gangster film a few years earlier, ROCKY took elements of old boxing films like BODY AND SOUL and GOLDEN BOY and modernized them for a new audience with winning results.  

It tells the simple story of Rocky Balboa, a small time boxer who lives in Philadelphia. He lives in a run down apartment and makes ends meet by being an enforcer for a local loan shark (Joe Spinell).  His best friend, Paulie (Burt Young), has a sister, Adrian (Talia Shire) that works at a pet shop, that Rocky starts dating.  Meanwhile, heavy weight champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), discovering that his challenger for a title fight has had to pull out, picks out Rocky as his opponent literally at random, giving Rocky his one chance at greatness.

Sylvester Stallone

Director Avildsen uses the Philadelphia locations well,  and gives the film a nice, gritty, urban look. From Rocky's filthy apartment to the battered down gym he works out in, the world the characters reside in looks lived in, adding to the realism and relatability of the story.  And Avildsen hits all the uplifting moments right, from Rocky's iconic fist raising run up the steps of the Philidelphia museum of art as Bill Conti's horn heavy score blares, to the exciting final title bout, (all of which was carefully choreographed by Stallone and Weathers). 

The film is mostly well cast, with Talia Shire making a sweet Adrian who's often quiet character can say a lot with a look,  and she has surprisingly good chemistry with the hulking Stallone.  Meanwhile, Weathers makes a most formidable opponent to Rocky, and I like the way that his Apollo is flamboyant in public (he arrives for the July 4th. title fight decked out in red white and blue) and a canny businessman behind the scenes.  And Burgess Mereidth as Rocky's  elderly fight trainer Mick manages to be both crusty and likable, and he has a really good scene in which he pleads with Rocky to let him be his trainer for the big fight after kicking Rocky out of his gym earlier.  The only weak link in the acting department to me is Burt Young as the overbearing Paulie; this character is so obnoxious and loud mouthed that I often wonder how Rocky can stand him, and I find myself cringing every time he's onscreen.   As for Stallone himself, he has an undeniable magnetism and charisma here, not unlike Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy in ON THE WATER FRONT. And even though his Rocky is a motor mouthed fool (he even talks to his pet turtles when no one else is around), he has a tender streak of vulnerability, especially in the moving moment when he admits to Adrian that he doesn't think he can possibly beat Apollo ("all I wanna do is go the distance".)  I do think making Rocky an enforcer for a loan shark early in the film was a miscalculation on Stallone's part, as it makes it hard to completely sympathize with him; even if he is clearly reluctant about using force.  I also find it hard to believe that Apollo would choose to fight Rocky sight unseen, just because he likes his nick name ("the Italian Stallion", a  name that Stallone got from a character he played earlier in a soft core porn movie!).  Still, these are not major flaws in what was an otherwise solid script.

Talia Shire and Sylvester Stallone

Although this is considered a sports movie, it is just as much a love story, and while Rocky and Adrian may not make the most likely couple, their scenes together have a definite charm to them; like the now famous scene in which Rocky rents out a closed ice skating rink and walks by her as she awkwardly skates.  And I like the way the film presents the change that Adrian goes through as she gets more attractive and less shy the more she is with Rocky, leading her to stand up to the repellent Paulie.  It is therefore totally appropriate at the end of the film that Rocky and Adrian embracing and declaring their love for each other is more important than the results of the fight itself; clearly, Rocky's ability to go the distance, even if he officially loses the fight, is not only a victory for him but for her as well.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

As endearing a film as this is, I don't think it was the best in what was a very good year for films.  Martin Scorsase's dark classic TAXI DRIVER, Sidney Lumet's scathing TV satire NETWORK, Alan Pakula's ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and Marin Ritt's THE FRONT are all films that I admire more. But ROCKY was more crowd pleasing than any of those, and it's had an undeniable influence that lasts to this day, so it was an understandable choice.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)

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ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (DIR:MILOS FORMAN) (SCR: LAWRENCE HAUBEN & BO GOLDMAN, BASED ON THE NOVEL BY KEN KESEY)

When Milos Forman's extremely popular ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST won as best picture of 1975, it was the first film since 1934's IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT to win all the major categories: best picture, director, adapted screenplay, actor and actress.  And while I do find the film's subtext at times troubling (more about that later), it is a great, moving, funny and well acted film that played into the tenor of the times by celebrating  rebellion and non conformity.

It began life as a novel published in 1962 by Ken Kesey, based on his real life experiences working at a veteran's hospital.  Movie star Kirk Douglas bought the rights, thinking that he could play the lead role of RP McMurphy.  When Hollywood turned him down, he managed to get a Broadway production of the play made that was unsuccessful.  For years his continued attempts to adapt the book into a film were fruitless, and he eventually gave the film rights to his son, Micheal.  Micheal was able to interest producer Saul Zaentz, who got the film funded independently, using money from his Fantasy Records music company.  Years earlier Kurt Douglas met  Czech born director Forman in Prague, and thought he would be a good choice to direct the film.  It would be his first English language movie.  Since the film had taken so long to be produced, Kurt Douglas was too old to play McMurphy, and while James Caan was considered, the role inevitably went to Jack Nicholson.  It was perfect casting, with the anti authority image of Nicholson meshing just right with the character in what probably would become his defining role.  Forman and Zantz wanted the film to be shot in an actual mental home, which proved difficult since the film was seen as an attack on such institutions.  A suitable location was found at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, under the proviso that actual inmates had to be hired as crew members.  This wound up helping the film, as Forman had his actors shadow the inmates to research their performances.  The total cost of the movie was around four million dollars, and it was not until its completion that it found a distributor (United Artists), but it wound up making over a hundred million.  Not everyone was pleased with the film: when author Kesey's suggestions were ignored, he publicly disowned the movie and vowed never to see it.

Set in 1962, it's about RP McMurphy, who, to avoid serving a full criminal term for statutory rape at a prison, pretends to be insane and winds up in a mental home instead.  There he confronts the sadistic Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who calmly runs the ward with an iron hand.  His rebellious ways inspire many of the other inmates to act out, and things come to a head when he plans to escape with the help of an old girlfriend.

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson first began his film career appearing in "B" movies made by the likes of Roger Corman in the late fifties and the sixties.  His breakthrough role came as a drunken small time lawyer in Dennis Hopper's 1969 cult hit EASY RIDER, and by the time of CUCKOO'S NEST he was a big star on the strength of excellent performances in films like CHINATOWN and THE LAST DETAIL.  With his lascivious grin, gravelly voice, and mercurial, often manic energy, Nicholson was a star like no other; really, how many other actors are famous for scenes where they violently lose their  tempers? For years his name has become synonymous with his slightly crazed persona, from his outright psycho in 1980's THE SHINING to his even nuttier Joker in 1989's BATMAN, up to his over the top crime boss in 2006's THE DEPARTED. (To be fair, he is capable of more subtle work, as in 1985's PRIZZI'S HONOR).  In many ways, the character of McMurphy in  CUCKOO'S NEST feels like it was written for him, and he's so entertaining to watch in it that it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role.  In his first scene, Nicholson wastes no time living up to his image, as he whoops wildly and kisses a guard for no reason only moments after being lead into the mental home.  And while the story gives him more than one chance to show his famous temper, I also enjoy the smaller moments, like when he tries to teach the other patients how to play cards or basketball.  And most importantly,  he does grow to show a genuine warmth and affection for the other patients; indeed, it is the fact that he cares about them that leads to his sad downfall at the end.

As much as Nicholson's vibrancy dominates the film, the other performances are also good: in strong contrast to Nicholson, Louis Fletcher plays the cruel Ratched with a soft voice and flat expressions that make her all the more unlikeable.  I love the way that she gazes hatefully at McMurphy for the first time while he slaps playing cards during a group session, or how she has a small but definite look of triumph when McMurphy realizes that most of the other patients are there voluntarily.  I also enjoy all of the different actors playing the inmates, who all manage to not overplay their roles, with Brad Dourif's tragic stutterer Billy really standing out.

Forman's direction is consciously straight forward and realistic using the documentary techniques he perfected in Czechoslovakia.  Really, this is one classic film with more memorable performances and dialogue than images, except for Forman's lone indulgence: the beautifully poetic last shot of Big Chief (Will Sampson) running off into the distance, which works to give the tragic story an uplifting ending, so I certainly don't object to it. 

I don't find the film perfect: one of its most famous scenes comes when McMurphy steals a bus and takes  the inmates out boat fishing.  Although many people seem to love this scene, it doesn't work for me: first of all, it seems far too easy for McMurphy to break out and steal the bus, and the comedic nature of the whole sequence seems too broad, with the characters various mental problems being played for laughs more than they are in the rest of the film.  Worst of all, I think taking the inmates out of the ward hurts the momentum of the story, which is really about that one setting and the conflict with Ratched.  But this certainly doesn't ruin the film.

Louise Fletcher

More troubling to me is the unavoidable message that seems to lurk beneath the main story of the film. Although the themes of the film may be about rebellion and the repression of the individual, with the hospital representing a microcosm of society, there is a crucial difference in the make up of that society; in the hospital, all of the patients are white men (except for  Big Chief ), who are held in check by a powerful woman, who uses black orderlies to help her maintain order.  In other words, the white male power structure is turned upside down, so of course the system has to be repressive. This is really emphasized by the way the Ratchid character is presented; while I have mentioned my admiration for Fletcher's performance, I do object to the scripting of her character.  Ratchid is portrayed as, quite simply, a completely evil woman, who coldly but clearly enjoys controlling the patients, keeping them docile with pills and soft music and denying them luxuries like watching ball games on TV or cigarettes out of sheer cruelty.   She has no real desire to cure them, and instead may even be taking a sexual pleasure in infantilizing them ("she really has you coming and going" McMurphy says at one point); when the hospital director expresses a desire to remove the clearly sane McMurphy from the hospital, it's obvious that she objects because of her desire to break McMurphy, to tame him to her will.  No attempt is made to humanize her by showing her life outside of the hospital or  even to show her expressing any warmth to her coworkers.  No, she is a straight up villain, so much so that when an enraged McMurphy reaches his breaking point and attempts to strangle her, the film seems to endorse his actions.  To me, it's hard not to see this as a criticism of putting a woman in charge of men, a troubling undercurrent indeed, one that may have been a (subconscious?) reaction to the women's rights movement of the time.   

While this all certainly raises food for thought,  the power of the story and the strength of performances still make me an admirer of the film.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

It's obvious that I think this a worthy movie, but that doesn't make its victory a slam dunk; 1975 also gave us John Huston's highly entertaining adventure film THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and Steven Spielberg's superlative thriller JAWS, both of which would have been just as worthy as ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, but, as with so many of the Academy's choices, it's certainly not a bad one.

THE GODFATHER II (1974)

THE GODFATHER PART II (DIR:FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA) (SCR: FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA & MARIO PUZO)

THE GODFATHER II was the first sequel to ever win a best picture award, and, with its epic sweep, gorgeous period sets, and terrific acting, its victory was far from surprising.  Whether or not it's superior to the original is often still debated, but what isn't is how impressive an achievement both films were for writer director Francis Ford Coppola, who, somewhat amazingly, also made the excellent THE CONVERSATION the same year that this was released.

Given its enormous box office success, it was no surprise that Paramount studios wanted a sequel to THE GODFATHER.  At first, Coppola, remembering all the difficulty he had with the studio on the first film, did not want to direct it himself, and he recommended Martin Scorsase to the studio as a director, while he himself would produce it. Although Scorsase had already made the gangster film MEAN STREETS by then, (to great critical acclaim) the studio said no, and so Coppola agreed to accept the directoral reins himself.   But this time he was able to dictate his own terms: he would, for the most part, be given unlimited funds for the film, and there would be no studio interference.  Also,  he wanted the film to be called THE GODFATHER PART II and not THE GODFATHER PART 2.  Although the studio initially balked at the use of a roman numeral, which had never been used for a sequel to a Hollywood movie before, it would eventually become a standard usage for film series, with even the trashy FRIDAY THE 13TH movies using roman numerals!

Coppola would work again with the novel's original author, Mario Puzo, on the script, and early on they realized that they could not only tell the continuing story of Micheal Coreleone, but that they could use flashbacks to cover the early days of  original Godfather Vito Coreleone and his rise to power.  It was a brilliant move, in that it allowed the film to show the enormous changes that both the Coreleone family and the country itself went through over the years.  Then mostly unknown actor Robert De Niro was cast to play the young Vito after Coppola remembered what an impressive audition he had given for the first film.  Most of the rest of the cast from the first film returned, except for Marlon Brando, who was slated for a cameo but turned it down because he was still mad about how little he was paid for the first film. Also, Richard Castellano, who  played Clemenza in the first film,  couldn't come to terms with Coppola about his role in the second film, so his character was rewritten to be Frank Pentangeli, with gravel voiced playwright  Micheal Gazzo cast in the role.  And for the crucial role of Jewish mobster Hymen Roth (loosely based on real life gangster Myer Lansky), legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg  was brought in for his only film role.   Surprisingly, given how much he and Coppola fought while shooting the first film, Gordon Willis returned as cinematographer. Nino Rota was also brought back to do the soundtrack, although much of his now famous score for the first film was reprised.  In contrast to the first film, the shoot for this one went smoothly, moving from different locations in the US to Italy and the Dominican Republic (substituting for Cuba), while no expense was spared in recreating early twentieth century Little Italy in New York. The final budget for the film was over fourteen million dollars, about twice that of the first film, and its final box office take was around forty eight million, less than half of the first film, still, it was far from a flop. 

The film's story cuts between the early twentieth century, when a nine year old Vito makes his way to America from Italy and eventually becomes a criminal leader, and 1958, when Vito's son Micheal considers expanding his criminal empire from hotels in Las Vegas to Cuba while dealing with the duplicitous Hymen Roth.  He also discovers that he has been betrayed by his dim witted older brother Fredo (John Cazale).

Al Pacino

While Marlon Brando's regal Vito and James Caan's dynamic Sonny are both sorely missed from the first film, (Caan camoes in the film's final scene) there's no denying that Coppola once again gets great performances from his full cast.  Pacino may be even better here than he was in the first film; his Micheal now has a dead eyed glare mixed with a volatile temper that shows just how low he has sunk.  And the moment where he confronts Fredo after learning of his betrayal has rightfully become a classic scene in movie history.  And Cazale's Fredo, who has relatively minor in the first film, really comes across here, playing a man who is not only a fool, but one who is tragic and embittered over the fact that his younger brother is the one who runs the family business instead of him.  He has a great scene late in the film where he first begs with Micheal to forgive him and then lashes out at him.  And Diane Keaton, who is mostly in the background here, gets a very strong moment in which finally confronts Micheal and storms out on him for good; Talia Shire also has a very good scene(she's much better here than she was in the first film) in which she begs Micheal to forgive Fredo, still simmering with her anger at him for having her first husband killed.    And, like in the first film, Coppola  sometimes used non movie actors, like Micheal Grazzo and Lee Strasberg,  and once again it worked like a charm.

But the real discovery in this film is, of course, Robert De Niro, in his first real break out role as the young Vito Corleone, for which he won a Best Supporting Actor award.  After he was cast in the part, De Niro, showing the  attention to detail for a role that would become his trademark, lived in Sicily for a while before shooting to more understand his character and get his accent right.  De Niro wisely avoids imitating Brando's performance from the first film and instead creates a totally new and believable character, one who genuinely seems to grow in stature and power right before our eyes.  Coppola and Puzo frame him as the classic American immigrant success story, in which that success just happens to be in organized crime.  And its fun to see that Vito entrance to a life of crime was an inadvertent one, as he literally has a bag of stolen guns dumped in his window by a young Clemenza (Bruno Kirby).

The cutting between the past story and the more recent one works wonderfully: it allows us to see not only the contrast between Micheal and his father, but the changes the country itself went through in a single generation.  While Vito  flees Italy as a child to wind up in a Little Italy that is almost the same as the country he left,  Micheal, who, it is pointed out, does not have a single Italian musician playing at his son's communion party, has moved so far from his father's Italian New York roots that he now spends most of his attention on Las Vegas and considers moving on to Cuba.  It also shows how far Micheal has gone from his father's belief in the importance of family (Vito kills a rival gangster, and then immediately goes home to hug his wife and kids), as Micheal winds up alienating his wife, sister and brother.  

The increase in budget over the first film allows Coppola enjoyable indulgences like an extended recreation of the Cuban revolution and the lovely staging of a religious festival in Little Italy.  And while Gordon Willis's camerawork may be a bit too dark and shadowy, at times,  he mostly delivers a terrific looking film, that at two hundred minutes, never slows down.

Robert De Niro

As I mentioned in my review of THE GODFATHER, Coppola was stung by accusations that he made 

his gangsters too likable, and he certainly seems to have taken that to heart with Micheal's character; much of the film has him being confronted by people dumping on him for terrible things he has done or is considering doing, until he is truly all alone.  While we can admire his intelligence in knowing how to run his business well (he sees the Cuban revolution coming and makes sure he can get away, and later figures out how to avoid jail time by applying the right kind of pressure on a witness), this is undercut by his complete lack of joy in his work; he wants more power and money for power and money's sake.  Even a scene where he tenderly talks to his young son is undercut by the clear implication that he expects his son to someday join him in the family business.   Michael's complete moral corruption is strikingly shown in a montage of killings (one character is coerced into suicide) being carried out on his orders towards the end that purposely echoes a similar montage at the end of the first film, but with  striking differences: although the murders in the first film are brutal, they are carried out either as defense against attacks or in order to increase the family's interest.  In other words, they are strictly business.  But in the second film he has Roth and Pentangeli killed, even though he has already undercut both of them, and neither could possibly be seen as a threat.  And to make matters worse, he has Fredo killed, even when his brother has admitted that he was wrong and begged for his life.  It's an act of complete bitter spite.  While I understand what Coppola and Puzo were getting at here, I do think it highlights what is the film's biggest flaw; while there is a lot going on the first film, I think it's mainly a tragic story about how Michael, a young man from a criminal family, tries to avoid being drawn into his family's business, but is eventually corrupted, and winds taking it over completely.  The second film begins with his character already evil, and shows him sinking lower and lower, until he doesn't even wince as he hears the gun shot that kills his brother.  I find the changes his character goes through in the first film more compelling, and therefore I think the first film is slightly better.  But really, they're both wonderfully made, excellent films that continue to watched again and again by modern audiences.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

1974 was a terrific year for film, with not only Coppola making this and THE CONVERSATION, but also Scorsase's ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE and Bob Fosse's LENNY,  not to mention those perennial comedy classics MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and Mel Brook's YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN being released that year.  But to me, the film that stands above the rest and that should have won  is Roman Polanski's outstanding detective movie,  CHINATOWN.  As much as I love GODFATHER II,  I think Polanski's film was the really outstanding one of that year.

THE STING (1973)

THE STING (DIR: GEORGE ROY HILL) (SCR: DAVID S WARD)

Sandwiched between the victories for the first two GODFATHER movies, George Roy Hill's THE STING is a good natured period piece made in the classic Hollywood style, complete with likable stars and a fun story.  While it is perhaps a trifle too light weight, it's still highly entertaining.  Its victory also marked the first time that a woman ever won an Oscar for Best Picture; the late Julia Phillips, who in 1991 famously penned a scandalous Hollywood memoir, YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN.

Screenwriter David S Ward first came up with the idea for THE STING while researching con artists for his first film, STEELYARD BLUES.  Loosely basing his script on the real life exploits of  brothers Charlie and Fred Gondorf, Ward wrote with Robert Redford in mind for the lead role of John Hooker.  Director Hill liked the script, and eventually he and Ward convinced  Redford to star.  Hill also brought along Paul Newman to play veteran card sharp Henry Gondorff; it seemed like a logical choice since it was Hill who had brought the two handsome stars together in 1969's BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, and their immediate, easy going chemistry had made that film a critical and commercial hit.  Although set in Chicago, creating the 1930's setting proved easier to do on sets in Los Angeles, except for a few exterior shots. The  shooting process went easily, and the film opened on Christmas day 1973.  Not surprisingly, it became an immediate hit, grossing over 160 million dollars on a budget of around five.

Set in 1936, its the story of John Hooker (Redford), a small time grifter who, with his partner Luther  (Robert Earl Jones), tricks a man on the street out of ten thousand dollars.  Unfortunately, the money belonged to big time gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), who has Luther killed.  John teams up with well known con man Henry Gondorff to get vengeance on Doyle; using a large gang, they set up an elaborate fake gambling parlor to trick Doyle.  Meanwhile, corrupt cop Lt. Synder (Charles Durning) is pressuring Hooker for money. 

Paul Newman and Robert Redford

This really is a fun movie, with lots of nice touches; from Edith Head's Oscar winning costumes to the great looking sets and sepia toned cinematography, not to mention the clever use of old hand drawn title cards, (made to look like Norman Rockwell paintings), to set up the story.  Hill said that he got the idea of using the music of Scott Joplin in the film after overhearing his son playing some in his room, and while a stickler may note that Joplin's music predated the film's setting by about twenty years, who cares when Joplin's arrangements are played so wonderfully by Marvin Hamlisch on the soundtrack, and add such a jaunty air to the film.

In keeping with the lighthearted tone, Redford and Newman never take themselves too seriously and rely on their natural charms to carry the film.  Newman often seems to be having fun here, especially when he rudely berates Doyle while cheating him at cards, meanwhile the more earnest Redford does a good job of using his natural likability to make himself a believable con artist.  And Shaw, with his loud Irish brogue and threatening limp, makes a good villain as  Doyle.  Durning also makes a good, despicable cop.

Robert Shaw

Hill makes sure that the film really zips along (his formula seems to be, whenever the story starts to slow down, have some bad guys start chasing Redford, which happens three times in the film!), and Ward's script comes up with a believable way for our heroes to fleece Doyle  and get rid of Lt. Synder without either of them coming across as total fools, with Newman's Gondorff using a small army of loyal con men to pull the scam off. The film's final twist doesn't really work, since it involves a moment where we are supposed to believe that Hooker has sold out Gondorff; really how many people in the audience would think that a Newman Redford buddy movie could possibly end with one of them backstabbing the other.  Still, this is a minor point that hardly hurts the film.

Overall, I do prefer the first paring of Newman and Redford in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, over this film, because that film had a historical heft and themes (the ending of the old west) that the more lightweight THE STING does not have.  Still, both films are a delight to watch, and I often wish the two stars made more films together.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

While I praise this film quite highly, I can't quite say that I think it was the best film of that year.  Not when George Lucas's AMERICAN GRAFFITI, Peter Bogdanovich's PAPER MOON(another movie about con artists), William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST (perhaps the best horror movie ever made), Bob Raphelson's THE LAST DETAIL and Bernardo Bertolucci's LAST TANGO IN PARIS were all also released then.  But, I can't say that THE STING is a bad choice.

THE GODFATHER (1972)

THE GODFATHER (DIR:FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA) (SCR: FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA & MARIO PUZO, BASED ON THE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME BY PUZO)

The Academy's pick of  THE GODFATHER for best picture of 1972 was such a natural, perfect choice, that it ranks up there with CASABLANCA as one the best choices that they have ever made.  Like CASABLANCA, THE GODFATHER has been remembered as one of the all time great Hollywood movies, one that is still quoted, homaged and parodied to this day.  And also like CASABLANCA, no one involved in the making of the film had any idea that they were making a classic during its production, especially not director Francis Ford Coppola, who came close to being fired by Paramount more than once during the shooting process. 

It's genesis began in 1968 when Paramount executive Robert Evans bought the rights to author Mario Puzo's treatment for the novel before it was published.  When the book was published to great success a year later, the studio put the film into production. After Sergio Leone passed on directing it, Coppola became the eventual choice.  He was also hired to write the script with Puzo, and they quickly went to work, wisely throwing out all the odd tangents the book went off on, keeping the story focused on the Corleone family.  As a director, Coppola had directed six not particularly well known features (most notably  THE RAIN PEOPLE) before being picked, and it has generally been admitted that the studio hired him because he was not well known and they thought he could be easily controlled.  Little did they know what they were in for; once Coppola got his teeth into the project he began to feel very strongly about it, fighting them on nearly every decision they had made, and in all fairness, who could blame him.  When one looks at the often boneheaded ideas that the Paramount execs had for the film, it seems downright miraculous that a classic was created: originally, the story's period settings were going to be thrown out so that it could be made more cheaply in a modern setting. They wanted Robert Redford(!)  for the pivotal role of Micheal Corleone.  They hated the idea of hiring the famously difficult  Marlon Brando to play Vito Corleone, and they didn't want to let Coppola shoot some scenes on location in Italy.  Somehow, the young director was able to win every argument with the studio, first demanding that the film be made as a period piece, then getting them to go along with Brando by shooting a screen test in full makeup at the actor's home; he also hired then unknown actor Al Pacino for the role of Micheal, and eventually got the studio to let him shoot some scenes in Italy.  The shooting process was often chaotic; the studio demands to finish the film  caused Coppola to clash with veteran cinematographer Gordon Willis when Willis took too long to set up his shots.  Amazingly, the studio wasn't even happy with the dailies they were getting. Meanwhile, the at first low budget picture's budget swelled to over six million dollars.  But Coppola soldiered on, and the film eventually became one of the highest grossing ever, bringing in over one hundred and thirty million dollars to the studio.

Marlon Brando

Set in the time right after World War II, the film tells the story of the Corleone crime family, led by the aging Vito "the don" Corleone, aided by his sons Sonny (James Caan) and Fredo (John Cazale) and adopted son Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall).  His third son, Micheal (Pacino) has spent his whole life avoiding the family business, choosing to enlist in the army instead.  But when an assassination  attempt is made on Vito, Micheal finds himself joining in, eventually killing the men responsible and fleeing to Italy.  While he is gone, Sonny is killed by rival gangsters; shortly after his return the don dies of a heart attack, and Micheal takes over as leader of the family, proving to be even more ruthless than his father was.

Given how difficult the production of the film was, it really is amazing how excellent it is on every level: from Nino Rota's beautiful score to Willis's shadowy cinematography, to the terrific period touches from production designer Dean Tavoularis; even the old age makeup used on Brando, designed by legendary makeup man Dick Smith (who also aged Dustin Hoffman in 1970's LITTLE BIG MAN), is perfect, with Brando's look and raspy voice (based on real life gangster Frank Costello) quickly becoming iconic.    Impressively, Coppola managed to make a gangster film that acknowledged and homaged previous ones (a montage of newspaper headlines moves the story along, a favorite technique from classic Hollywood films) while also being boldly new in its realistic depiction of mob violence.  And the performances!  Even the casting of the smallest roles feel right; in a surprising risk that paid off wonderfully, the film is opened by a monologue given by an undertaker named Bonasera, played by Salvatore Corsitto.  Surprisingly, Corsitto had never acted in a film before, but he perfectly sells the emotion of an honest businessman who finds himself begging to a gangster for "justice".  And he has one of the best opening lines in movie history:"I believe in America." 

Al Pacino

Brando won a best actor award for his work in the film, and while I think his character is more of a supporting one, he is, simply,  great.  I love how he carries himself with a regal bearing, fully aware of his position of power.  He usually moves slowly and considers his actions carefully, although he is capable of sudden movements, as when he angrily slaps his godson Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino). And who can forget the way that he almost playfully chews over the soon to be legendary line "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." One nice thing about this movie is that it shows the famous, older Brando passing the torch along to younger actors who grew up admiring him like Pacino, Caan and Duvall. And they wouldn't disappoint him, from Duvall's soft spoken but ruthless Tom, to Caan's  fast talking, hot headed Sonny, each performance is memorable and solid.  And as for Pacino, I think he should have won the best actor award instead of Brando; the slow corruption of Micheal is really the film's fulcrum, and he carries it beautifully, displaying a subtlety that would often be sorely lacking in his later roles.  (The affecting moment where he looks down at his father lying in a hospital bed and pledges to protect him is a very important moment for the character that he underplays brilliantly).   I even think that Diane Keaton  is very good as  Kay Adams, a sweet young woman who falls for Micheal without knowing anything about his family; its a bit of a thankless role in that her acceptance of a marriage proposal from Micheal after years of not seeing him is hard to believe, but I think she's necessary to the story, being the only really likable character in the film.  And it is perfectly appropriate that the film's ending is seen through her eyes, chillingly showing just how vicious Micheal has become when a killer swears fealty to him while a door is slammed in her face. The only performance I have trouble with is Talia Shire's as Connie Corleone, who overplays her hot headed female Italian stereotype character.  The scene where she and her new husband  Carlo (Giani Russo) violently fight is perhaps the film's weakest; although not bad, it goes on too long.  

While the film is often remembered for its graphic, violent moments, such as the brutal shooting of Sonny, or the brilliant way that Coppola cuts from Micheal's son's baptism to scenes of his hit men killing rivals, many of my favorite scenes are the quieter moments, as when Vito and Micheal discuss family business with weary resignation of what must be done, while the mantle of power is passed from Vito to Micheal (Coppola admits that screenwriter Robert Towne quickly wrote this scene just before it was shot). Or the way that Vito powerfully breaks down upon seeing Sonny's bullet ridden corpse, and, the tables now turned, finds himself begging to Bonasera to make the corpse presentable, memorably saying"use all your powers, and all your skills. I don't want his mother to see him this way."

When gangster films first began appearing in the 1930's, moral critics of the day were outraged over how they humanized brutal men, and that same charge was made against THE GODFATHER;  while I love the film, I can't say that these charges are entirely wrong.  Although it is tragic that a good man like Micheal becomes a mob leader, it is hard to criticize his first gangster action when it involves protecting his helpless father.  And when he kills the men responsible for the shooting of his father, his desire for revenge is understandable.  Furthermore, Vito himself is likable when he refuses to enter the lucrative drug trade for moral reasons, and when the mob families all join together to finally discuss drug trafficking they seem reluctant, and pledge to keep it out of schools.  Really, in many ways the gangsters often seem like legitimate businessmen making deals, which I believe is Coppola's point;  Gangsters are the real Capitalists.   In any event, the charge of making the mob too likable stung Coppola, who consciously decided to make Micheal  more despicable in the second film.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

It is a real tribute to just how amazing a period the early seventies were for films that, along with THE GODFATHER, 1972 also gave us two other classics: Bob Fosse's CABARET and John Boorman's DELIVERANCE, and while I do love those films (I think CABARET is one of the best musicals ever), THE GODFATHER is such a great film, and one that holds up to repeat viewing so well, that its choice was as inevitable as it was right.