TERMS OF ENDEARMENT(1983)

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (DIR: JAMES L BROOKS) (SCR: BROOKS, BASED ON THE NOVEL OF THE SAME BY LARRY MCMURTRY)

The best picture winner of 1983 was a triumph for writer, director and producer  James L Brooks (who also won Oscars for his direction and script), made even more impressive by the fact that he had never directed a film before.  It's a moving family drama, filled with warmth and humor, and even if it lapses into some maudlin territory towards the end, the terrific performances still make it a winning film.

Brooks first began his career working in television in the mid sixties, eventually going on to produce hit shows like THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and TAXI.  His first foray onto the big screen was as writer and producer of 1979's well received comedy  STARTING OVER.  For his directoral  debut he decided to adapt Larry McMurtry's 1975 novel, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.  He bought the rights from movie actress Jennifer Jones, who wanted to play the important part of Aurora Greenway, but  Brooks talked her out of it.  He spent two years on the script while looking for another Aurora; Anne Bancroft and Louise Fletcher were both considered, but finally the role went to Brooks's first choice, Shirley MacLaine.  He also added the character of retired astronaut Garret Breedlove as Aurora's love interest, with Burt Reynolds in mind, Brooks having worked with Reynolds before on STARTING OVER.  Reynolds loved the  part, but he was already committed to making STROKER ACE (talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous!), and Jack Nicholson was picked instead.  Debra Winger, hot off the hit AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, was chosen to play Aurora's daughter Emma, and fine actors Jeff Daniels and John Lithgow were also added to the cast.  The film was shot on several different American locations, and while there was some reported tension between MacLaine and Winger, the shooting was not difficult, and the film was finished for around eight million dollars; it would go on to make over a hundred and eight million. 

The film is about the decades long relationship between the widow Aurora Breedlove (Shirley McClaine)and her daughter Emma(Debra Winger), starting with Emma's wedding day.  Over the years, they both have trouble with the men in their lives and stick by each other.  When Emma is stricken by cancer, Aurora moves to hold her family together.

Shirley McClaine & Debra Winger

When shooting this film, Brooks demanded that it be shot entirely on the various locations that the story is set in and not on Hollywood sets;  this is important to its sense of realism, like when Emma goes to visit New York City for the first time, we can understand her feeling of awe, because we've already seen the kind of places that she has lived all her life. That sense of realism pervades the entire film, which cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak shoots with naturalistic lighting and no fancy editing or camera set ups. This is exactly the right style for  the film's story, which is also completely believable; the characters all feel like real people, real decent, flawed people,  living their lives in an ordinary way.

Working on the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (which was considered groundbreaking for having a female lead that was single, both a rarity in TV at the time) seems to have given Brooks a real affinity for creating likable female characters.  And he couldn't have done better than mama Aurora and daughter Emma, with McClaine and Winger both giving marvelous performances (both were nominated for the best actress award, with McClaine winning).  While certainly neither character is  perfect, they both are likable, funny and relatable; both actresses get big dramatic moments that they deliver wonderfully, and add nice, small eccentric touches to their performances (Winger gets stoned and dances in front of a mirror wearing her bridal veil on the night before her wedding, McClaine tips over while leaning out the window to spy on her neighbor). Most importantly, they share excellent chemistry, even when they're just talking on the phone.  Their bond seems so strong that it is both moving and appropriate that the last thing Emma does before dying is look at Aurora one last time.

After a couple of brief flashbacks, the movie opens with Aurora sternly warning Emma not to marry Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels, who is very good), a college professor.  Aurora even goes so far as to boycott the wedding ceremony (although, in true form, she constantly calls Emma the next day).  And while it would appear that the marital trouble that soon occurs would prove her right, it's to the film's credit that Flap is no villain: he truly does seem to love Emma at first, and he does the right thing when she falls ill.  And while he philanders with at least one adoring student, Emma herself has an affair with likable married local banker Sam Burns(John Lithgow), who, again to the film's credit, is portrayed as a perfectly good man who strays from his wife out of sexual frustration.
As Emma's marriage deteriorates, Aurora finds herself slowly being drawn to her next door neighbor, former Astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson).  Now Brooks may not have written the role for Nicholson, but, as usual, Nicholson made it his own, giving the film an energetic shot in the arm and some very funny moments whenever he's on screen (he won a best supporting actor award for the role).  And, can any other actor go from lecherous to charming in a heartbeat the way he often does here?  At first glance, he and Aurora would seem like an odd pairing; her the proper lady, him the leering boozy womanizer, and early in the film, when she seems him drunkenly flirt with two younger women, she seems repulsed.  But she can't stop thinking about him, and although she has several adoring admirers (one of whom is humorously played by Danny DeVito), they lack the animal magnetism of Garrett.  And so, she decides to accept his invitation to a lunch date, even if she's late by few years (Nicholson's reaction to this is classic!).  The date is both a disaster and the film's comic highlight, as McClaine gets wind blown while sitting in Garrett's top down sports car, has Garrett inform her that she needs to get drunk, and then has to sit in his car as he speeds down the beach, sitting on top of the car and steering it with his feet!  And yet, despite all of this, later, on her fiftieth birthday (which may actually be her fifty second) Aurora invites Garrett over to her house, and so begins a most unlikely, but eventually understandable relationship. It's great to see a loving, sexual coupling in a movie  between two people who are not young or physically perfect, and I love how giddy Aurora gets talking about it with  Emma.  Along with his humorous over the top antics, Nicholson also gets to show moments of tenderness, especially when, in the film's most romantic moment, he unexpectedly arrives to provide moral support to Aurora as she cares for the cancer ridden Emma. ("Who would have expected you to be a nice guy?", says Aurora, seeing what she always sensed in him.).

Jack Nicholson

There is some debate to the film's final third, when Emma slowly dies of cancer, with some people dismissing it as an obvious, melodramatic development that sinks the film into TV movie disease of the week territory.  Personally, I don't think the cancer is necessary to a story that already has plenty of drama, but this movie is  too well made and well acted to be dismissed so lightly, especially when the cancer is just one part of the story.  And Brooks shows enough restraint to keep the film from sinking into heavy handedness. For example, he actually allows Winger to truly look sick, instead of flooding her with heavenly lighting and making her look beautiful like director Arthur Hiller so infamously  did to Ali Mcgraw in 1970's LOVE STORY.  He also mostly avoids over the kind of sappy, over the top musical cues that so often drown stories like this in sentiment, even during the powerful scene in which the dying Emma reaches out to her eldest son Tommy(Huckleberry Fox).  And he never allows his sense of  humor to disappear, using it to temper the darker moments, as when a doctor tells Aurora "I tell people to hope for the best and expect the worst" and she responds "And they let you get away with that?".  Most importantly, Emma's illness allows Brooks to make an important point about how friends and family can come together in a crisis and forget their differences, as the actions of both Flap and Garrett show. Unfortunately, this idea is one that proved so influential that it has become a timeworn cliche in movies about families, like 1998's STEPMOM or 2004's FINDING NEVERLAND, (and who knows how many TV movies on the LIFETIME network), so, through no fault of its own, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT has become dated over the years.  Yet I still feel that it a great movie, worth watching just to see two female stars at the top of their game (a rare commodity in modern Hollywood!).

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

Just as with 1982's GANDHI, this is another tough call for me, because while I do love TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, I think that another, better film was released that year: Philip Kaufman's outstanding THE RIGHT STUFF, one of the few patriotic movies that I really admire.  But TERMS OF ENDEARMENT is still a fine choice.

GANDHI (1982)

GANDHI (DIR:RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH) (SCR: JOHN BRILEY)

In awarding GANDHI best picture, the Academy made an obvious choice:  here was an epic biopic with noble intentions about one of the world's most revered historical figures that was a labor of love for director Richard Attenborough, and that featured an impressive performance from a virtually unknown actor in the lead.   Its grand scale is reminiscent of 1962's Best Picture winner LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and it rails against injustices like other Best Picture winners such as  1935's MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and 1937's THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA.  (And also like those two films, the injustices that it rails against are ones that occurred decades before the film was made in other countries, making them safe and noncontroversial choices).  Overall,  I think Attenborough's reverence for his subject occasionally sinks the film into hagiographic territory, but I it's still think it's a  terrific achievement.

The film had been a passion project for director Attenborough since he read Louis Fisher's biography of Mohandas K Gandhi in 1962.  Over the next eighteen years the film bounced from one stage of production to another, with David Lean at one point slated to direct Alec Guiness in the lead role (an intriguing possibility!).  Finally, in 1980 the funding for the film came through, with a combination of both Western and Indian production companies putting up the money, along with Attenborough selling off his share of the long running British play, THE MOUSE TRAP to help raise funds.  For the lead role, little known British TV actor Ben Kingsley was cast, while better known actors like Candice Bergen and John Geilgud were given supporting roles to beef up the film's star power.  Shot almost entirely on location in India, and utilizing literally hundreds of thousands of extras, it's final budget came out to around twenty two million dollars; it would make around fifty seven in the US alone.

The film's story begins in 1948, when the elderly Gandhi (Kingsley) is assassinated.  It then flashes back to 1893, when the 24 year old Gandhi, living in South Africa, is thrown out of a first class compartment on a train because he is an Indian.  And so he begins a life long struggle to end English colonial rule of India through nonviolent protest and resistance.  

Ben Kingsley

This was such a  passion project for Attenborough, that his feeling for the material and the character of Gandhi show up in nearly every frame of the film, from its beautiful, sweeping shots of India to its tense action scenes, to the very way that Gandhi practically glows with righteousness.  I find it interesting that it took an Englishman like Attenborough to portray such a negative portrayal of British colonialism and prejudice, and he seems to take a definite pleasure in the way that he punctures the balloon of England's superior nature and sense of entitlement.  Although there is a likable English priest (played by Ian Charleston) who supports and admires Gandhi, the vast majority of Brits in the film are either brutal police and military officers, (like Edward Fox's chillingly vicious General Dyer, who's order to fire upon nonviolent protestors was one of the turning points in the British rule of India),  or they are pompous politicians like John Geilguld's  Lord Irwin, who underestimates our hero's resolve and influence.

John Geilguld

Ben Kingsley won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Gandhi, and even some thirty years later it is still seen as his signature role (in 2000, when he played a sadistic criminal in the film SEXY BEAST, many critics couldn't resist saying that Gandhi had gone bad).  And really, it is a great performance, one in which he is on camera almost throughout the film without ever losing the audience's interest.  Kingsley not only captured Gandhi's look (credit must also be given to the makeup department for pulling off an impressive resemblance)  and the cadences of his  speaking style, but, more importantly, both his charisma and his humility.  He rarely raises his voice, even when giving speeches, but he always holds himself with a quiet dignity that commands the attention of those around him.  And he also ages fifty years believably, never losing his sense of purpose, even as an old man. Bottom line, if we don't buy him as a great, influential leader, than the film doesn't work, and Kingsley more than accomplishes that.  That said, I wish John Briley's script gave him more humanizing moments, and didn't treat him with such reverence, which is the film's greatest flaw: early in the film, Briley has Gandhi quote Jesus, making a decidedly unsubtle comparison.  And from then on, Gandhi the man is always portrayed as a noble, brave, man who is a devout Hindu,  but completely open to other religions, and utterly committed to the cause of nonviolence.  The more controversial aspects of Gandhi's life (like his alleged sexual peccadilloes)are ignored in favor of pure fawning.  It is of course, difficult to portray the entire essence of such an influential figure in world history (a fact that the movie acknowledges in an opening credit), but I prefer my biographical films to show their subjects as real humans, warts and all. Perhaps Attenborough felt so strongly about getting this film made, and about the character of Gandhi that it prevented him from making a more honest portrayal.  It is interesting to contrast this film with another epic biographic film that was a passion project: Spike Lee's 1992 film MALCOLM X, which portrayed its hero in a far more real fashion, making it a film that I think surpasses Attenbrough's. 
Furthermore, I think that GANDHI goes on a bit too long,  with some of its impact lost in the second half of the film.  Also, the stars that are cast in supporting roles to beef up the film's box office appeal are a mixed bag; while Geilguld has fun in the mostly comic role of the dim witted Lord Irwin, Martin Sheen's reporter is not really necessary.  Worst of all is Candace Bergan as photographer Margaret Bouke White, who has so little screen time or impact on the story that she just seems like a distraction.  (Amazingly, Bergen got second billing after Kingsley!).  Still, if their casting was necessary to get funding for the film, then such are the realities of big budget filmmaking, and their presence is far from ruinous.  And it should be pointed that the non famous supporting cast are all uniformly excellent (I particularly like Alyque Padamsee as Mohammed Ali Jinah, the future founder of Pakistan).  So, the combined strengths of the film certainly outweigh its weaknesses and given that this film introduced Gandhi the man to a generation who had never heard of him before, it is certainly praiseworthy.


SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?


When GANDHI is compared to other good films released in 1982,  the difficulty of rating wildly different films becomes all too clear; how, exactly, does GANDHI compare with Sydney Pollack's wonderful comedy TOOTSIE?  Or Ridley Scott's influential BLADERUNNER?  Or my personal favorite, Steven Spielberg's enormously popular ET-THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL?  It's never easy to say, but given how long it took Attenborough to get the film made, and how fine a film it is on the whole, I won't carp about the Academy's choice.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE (1981)

CHARIOTS OF FIRE (DIR:HUGH HUDSON SCR:COLIN WELLAND)

The win for CHARIOTS OF FIRE as  best picture of 1981 remains as one of the biggest Oscar upsets in history: somehow, this unassuming, low budget English film, with no big stars won out over Steven Speilberg's rousing RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Warren Beatty's sweeping epic REDS, and Mark Rydell's sentimental hit, ON GOLDEN POND, surprising many people on Oscar night, and causing some to think that perhaps the three bigger films split the vote and pushed it over the top.  In any event, director Hugh Hudson's movie remains one of the most unlikely (and least liked) best picture winners ever.  If the film is remembered today for anything at all, it's for composer Vangelis's beautiful soundtrack, one of the most famous in movie history.  Personally, I find the film pleasant enough, hand some looking and well made, but it falls far from greatness, with many slow moments that don't justify its two hour running time.

It began when film producer David Puttman wanted to make a film about someone who follows his conscience, like 1966's best picture winner A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Then, while flipping through a copy of THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS he decided that a movie about the British athletes of the 1924 Summer Games would fit the bill.  ("Sport is such a clean simple metaphor" he would later say).   He hired writer Colin Welland (who had mostly worked in British television) to write the script; Welland researched heavily, interviewing surviving athletes and even getting copies of letters that one of the runners sent home.  (Despite Welland's research, there are, somewhat inevitably, a few historical errors in the film). Puttnam felt that it was important to have new faces in the film instead of established stars, even if that would make getting the funding more difficult.  He also made the surprising choice of Hugh Hudson as the film's director, even though Hudson had only directed short films and documentaries up to that point.  Eventually, the film was privately financed by the Allied Stars company, with distribution controlled by Hollywood film companies 20th. Century Fox and Warner Bros.  Unknown actors Ben Cross and Ian Charleson were cast in the leads, and the film was set.  When shooting was completed, Vangelis's all important score (his first) was added.  The finished film was wisely opened in London before reaching America, and good word of mouth aided it's arrival in the states, where it eventually grossed around sixty million dollars on a budget of around six.

The famous opening 

The film's story is about two British runners, the Scottish missionary Eric Liddell (Charleson) and the Jewish Englishman Harold Abrahams, who are rivals before both being picked for the 1924 Olympic games in Paris.   Although trouble comes when Liddell refuses to run on a Sunday for religious reasons,  he is allowed to switch with another runner, and both he and Abrahams go on to win gold medals.

One of the big criticisms of this film is that it feels more like a long episode of the English TV series MASTERPIECE THEATER than it does an actual film, and I think that that is a fair point; like that show, this is a film set in a highly romanticized version of England's past, in which the upper crust live on beautiful estates, attend Cambridge, engage in low key, high toned conversations with muted emotions and dress in dinner jackets  while attending Gilbert and Sulivan performances.   Unfortunately, this also means that the film, like the show, often feels pallid and bloodless when it should be emotional and up lifting.  The movie only really succeeds during the racing scenes, which are excellently photographed by David Watkin and edited by Terry Rawlings.  They contain all of the drama and excitement that the rest of the move often lacks, and, fortunately there are quite a few of them. In one striking moment, the camera shows the race track from the runner's point of view seconds before the race begins, and it seems to stretch out to infinity.   Another great moment comes when Puttnam shows Abrahams racing victory at normal speed, and then immediately flashes back to the same race in slow motion, heightening the hard fought nature of the runner's achievement.
The performances are all fine, especially considering how the actors had to train hard to believably  portray Olympic caliber athletes, but I wish there was a little less classic British stoicism in our two leads and little more sense of feeling.  This is especially true in the romance between Abrahams and singer Sybil Gordon (Alice Krige), which is distinctly lacking in passion.  My favorite performance in the film is given by Ian Holm as Abrahams trainer, Sam Mussabini, who's outspoken energy and gruff likability gives the film a needed shot in the arm whenever he's on screen, and who really should have been in the film more.

Ian Holm

I think the film really misses an opportunity in having the characters of Abrahams and Liddel share so little screen time together.  Here you have a Jewish man who's running is fueled by his anger and frustration at being Jewish in a mostly Christian country( he calls running a "weapon"), and a Christian missionary who is willing to give up Olympic glory if it means running on a Sunday.  Surely these two men would have something interesting to say to each other, especially when they go from being rivals to being on the same team.  But the film keeps them mostly apart, even when they are both traveling to the Olympics on the same ship.   I do admire the fact that the film doesn't take sides when they are competing, showing them both as honorable and dedicated men who run for good reasons.

I've already mentioned the excellent score by Vangelis, and really, it's hard to imagine the film without out it, especially in the famous opening shots of the young runners racing down the beach.  Using electronic music for the soundtrack of a film set in the 1920's was a very interesting gamble that pays off, as the music highlights the beauty and tension of the races.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

It's clear that, apart from the racing scenes, I'm not a big fan of this film, and I don't think that it should have won best picture.  Along with preferring both REDS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, I also liked Louis Malle's ATLANTIC CITY and Karel Reiz's THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN more.

ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980)

ORDINARY PEOPLE (DIR: ROBERT REDFORD) (SCR: ALVIN SARGENT, BASED ON THE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME BY JUDITH GUEST)

In 1980, for the second year in a row, the Academy awarded a serious family drama as the best film of the year.  But, unlike KRAMER VS. KRAMER, ORDINARY PEOPLE has not held up all that well; while it certainly isn't a poor film, in fact, it's quite good, it is almost maddeningly uneven, with effective moments followed by clunky ones, and it has even a few cringe worthy scenes that just don't ring true in a film that, as its very title implies, is supposed to be portraying a normal family.

Before it was a movie, it was a successful novel published by Judith Guest in 1976, which came to the interest of Robert Redford, who at the time had become frustrated at being just an actor and longed to direct a film.  He purchased the rights to the book and hired veteran screen writer Alvin Sargent  to adapt the novel.  The script took over two years to finish, with Sargent remaining faithful to the novel while turning its dialogue heavy style into something more cinematic.  For the central role of troubled teen Conrad, Redford conducted a nation wide search before choosing Timothy Hutton who had only a few roles on TV before this, and who posed as an outpatient at a private psychiatric hospital for a week to prepare for the part.  In the role of the sympathetic father, Redford cast Donald Sutherland, normally known for playing oddballs in films like MASH, against type.  Even more offbeat casting came when Mary Tyler Moore, still most famous for her perky role on her self titled TV show, was cast as Beth, the cold mother  of the family.  Another important role, that of the psychiatrist  Dr. Berger, was offered  to Gene Hackman, but he turned it down, so it  went to another TV star, Judd Hirsch from the show TAXI.  Made on a low budget of around six million dollars and shot mainly in Illinois, Redford basically got everything he wanted on the film with little studio interference. After being critically acclaimed, it would go on to make over fifty four million dollars at the box office.

It tells the story of the Jarrett family, father Calvin (Sutherland), mother Beth (Moore) and high school teen Conrad (Hutton).  The film is set about a year after a boating accident that Conrad was involved in that caused the death of his older brother Buck; shortly thereafter, Conrad tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized.  Out of the hospital for a few months, but still wracked with guilt, Conrad sees psychiatrist Dr. Berger (Hirsch) and becomes more and more alienated from his grieving mother.  Eventually, this leads to marital tension between Beth and Calvin.

Timothy Hutton and Mary Tyler Moore

The film opens with autumnal shots of suburban middle america that cinematographer John Bailey shoots with picture postcard beauty, but Marvin Hamlish's melancholy score on the soundtrack sets a mood of sadness that punctures that beauty, setting up the film's theme of the sorrow that lurks underneath a seemingly perfect American family.  It's a feeling that pervades the early scenes of the film as we see the (obviously well off ) family going about their business in a normal way, but with something off about it all, seen especially in the sunken eyes of young Conrad, so it's no surprise when we see him eventually decide to make an appointment with Dr. Berger.  While I think Redford lets some of these early scenes go on too long (do we really need to hear so much idle banter when Calvin and Beth go to a party?),  he does a good job of subtilely bringing out the tension of the family. But then, in a major misstep, the lack of connection between mother and son is illustrated by having the two of them share an awkward conversation that ends with him barking like a dog!  The moment is played completely straight, but I find it hard not to laugh at its absurdity and the way that Conrad's decision to bark seems to come from nowhere (yes, they were vaguely talking about  a dog, but still...).  Surely a less ridiculous way of showing their lack of communication could have been found by Redford and Sargent.

Unfortunately, this scene highlights what is the film's biggest flaw: how unlikable the Beth character is.  In interviews before making the film, Redford described his surprising casting of Moore by saying "I became interested in the dark side of Mary Tyler Moore", and while he sure found it,  I think he overdid it.  While there is a certain perverse pleasure in watching America's sweetheart play a villainess, the credibility of the film is hurt by it.   Moore does what she can with the role, but her perfect ice queen mother is often unbelievable: by the end of the film we learn that she never visited her son in the mental hospital, that she would rather go on vacation then spend time with him, that she has no intention of meeting with her son's psychiatrist, and that she even has trouble returning her son's hug!  Her coldness comes to a head in what is perhaps the film's low point: while on vacation with Calvin, she flies into a rage when her husband merely mentions her son's name.  Honestly, by the film's end, when Calvin tells her to leave, it's hard to believe he waited so long.  Furthermore, I find it strange that  the film never comes out  and says what the obvious motivation for her anger towards Conrad is: clearly, she loved Buck more than Conrad (we see evidence of this in a flashback), and she blames Conrad for Buck's death.  It seems odd that in a film that showcases people talking seriously about their feelings, this obvious point is never brought up and dealt with by the characters.  It's interesting to compare Moore's character with the one that Meryl Streep played a year before in KRAMER VS. KRAMER; while both of them are unsympathetic mothers, Streep's Joanna gives a speech at the end that explains her motivations, effectively humanizing her.  Moore's Beth has no such scene, and really, the only moment of sympathy we feel for her is when she  stands in her dead son's bedroom, forlornly gazing at old trophies and photos.  Other than that brief moment, she's pretty much a monster, too much so for my taste in what is an otherwise realistic film.

Judd Hirsh and Timothy Hutton

While I think Moore's character hurts the film, it still has many moving moments that make it worth watching; this is mainly due to the excellent performance by Hutton.  It is likely that Redford cast him in the film because he saw a younger version of himself in the boyishly handsome, immediately likable nineteen year old actor, who carries the film handily (save for the aforementioned "barking" scene).  He seems to have that same quality that James Dean had in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE of being able to play a young man who often engages in foolish or dangerous behavior, but who is still essentially a good person with good intentions.   All of his interactions with Sutherland and Hirsch are very good (unlike Moore's character, the two men seem to radiate kindness and intelligence), especially in the film's most powerful scene when Conrad emotionally recollects the death of his brother with Hirsch in order to finally put it behind him.  He's also good in the film's lighter moments,  like when he romances Elizabeth McGovern or hangs out with his friends from school.  Yes, it's an impressive debut, one for which he won a best supporting actor award, even though he clearly is the lead.  

The smart thing that Sargent's script does is to mostly avoid unnecessary subplots, and overt melodrama; the story focuses  almost entirely on Conrad's mental state and how he, his family and his psychiatrist deal with it.  It's that rare Hollywood film in which the main character's goal is an entirely emotional one. I just wish that Moore's character could have had more sympathy; this is a story that should have no villain.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

  

It's obvious that I find this film uneven, and despite Hutton's performance, I don't think that it was the best film of that year.  Not when Martin Scorsase's RAGING BULL was released the same year.  Unlike ORDINARY PEOPLE, RAGING BULL is a film that only improves with age.

KRAMER VS. KRAMER(1979)

KRAMER VS. KRAMER (DIR: ROBERT BENTON) (SCR: BENTON, BASED ON THE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME BY AVERY CORMAN)

KRAMER VS. KRAMER, the 1979 pick for best picture, was both a film that fell into a classic Hollywood style ( a domestic and courtroom drama) and something new and different; a serious, realistic film that looked at divorce and changing gender roles in the American family.  Moving without ever being maudlin, and wonderfully acted by both the adult stars and by child actor Justin Henry, it holds up beautifully and,  although some of the relationship discussions have now become cliches, (a wife leaving her husband tells him "It's not you, it's me", and later says she left to "find herself") it raises issues that remain relevant to this day.

It began as a novel by Avery Corman published in 1977 and purchased by producer Stanley Jaffe.  French director Francois Truffaut was originally considered as the director, with Robert Benton writing the script; eventually, Benton, who had directed only two films at that point, was picked to helm the film along with writing it.    For the lead role of Ted Kramer, Jafee knew right away that he wanted Dustin Hoffman.  Hoffman, who, along with Robert DeNiro, was quickly becoming famous for giving great performances in a wide variety of films, initially turned the role down, partly because he himself was going through a painful divorce at the time.  But Jaffe and Benton lobbied Hoffman hard for the role, and after several long, grueling script discussions between the three of them, he agreed to it.  He wound up bringing so much of his own feelings and experiences about divorce into the script that  Benton offered him a co screenwriting credit, which he refused.  Kate Jackson, star of TV's CHARLIE'S ANGELS, was cast as Joanna Kramer, with Meryl Streep cast to play Ted's one night stand Phyllis, but when Jackson's TV schedule kept her too busy to be in the film, Streep was bumped up to the role of Joanna and Jo Beth Williams played Phyllis.  And for the pivotal role of the six year old Billy Kramer, seven year old Justin Henry, who had no acting experience at all, was chosen after being discovered by his next door neighbor, who happened to be a casting director.  The filming of the movie ( done entirely in New York city) went smoothly, with a budget of around eight million dollars.  It got great reviews, and  really struck a cord with moviegoers, as divorce rates were skyrocketing around the country.

It tells the story of the Ted Kramer (Hoffman), a successful ad executive who is forced to care for his son Billy alone after his wife Joanna (Streep) abruptly leaves them.  Despite not knowing much about his son, Ted eventually bonds with him, but then Joanna returns, demanding custody of Billy.

Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry

Throughout the film, Benton had cinematographer Nestor Almendros use naturalistic lighting, which, combined with location shooting, gives the film a realistic look, the perfect set up for scenes about people discussing their feelings and emotions.  (He also uses long takes and avoids too many close ups, letting the feelings expressed by the actors reach the audience indirectly.)  All of this adds to the sense of believability that pervades the film; really, this truly is a rare and wonderful thing, a Hollywood film that has a story that seems taken from the real world, without a hint of melodrama.  Even in the film's most harrowing scene, when Ted has to rush Billy to the emergency room, it comes from Billy falling off a jungle gym, an ordinary, everyday kind of accident.  The film is filled with nice, true to life moments than any parent can identify with, like Billy riding a bicycle for the first time, or mumbling his way through a school play.  

  The film opens with a close up of Joanna's face showing mixed feelings of warmth and sadness.  With a quick cut we pull back to see her caressing the face of her sleeping son; normally this display of maternal emotion in a film indicates a simple, tender moment, but her expression tells us otherwise.  This short, silent scene is crucial to her character, in that it shows how much she realizes how momentous the actions is about to take are, and that she is not acting lightly, but with deep thought and sadness.   Although the audience can criticize her decision to leave, we can also feel sympathy for the obvious pain that decision is bringing her.  Before this film, to portray a woman who abruptly leaves her child for fifteen months as anything other than a monster would be unheard of, and even today it's rare, but Benton wisely avoids making a villain out of Joanna, and the film is all the richer for it.  

When film actors are asked what kind of role is the most difficult to play, they usually say the same thing: it's not playing someone famous,  severely handicapped or insane that's the hardest.  No, the most tricky portrayals are ones of normal people who have normal things happen to them, because they have to keep the audience's interest without the inherent drama that unusual people come with.  By that standard, Hoffman's performance as Ted Kramer may be the best of his impressive career (he won a best actor award for it, his first). In charting the emotional change of a distant father (who has no idea what grade his child is in!) to a loving one, Hoffman never takes a false step or displays the wrong emotion; although he has some big moments of anger and bitterness, they always feel natural to the character, and he is just as good in the quieter scenes.  I love the way he deals with having to make French toast for Billy right after Joanna has left, attempting to put on a brave front of strained, almost manic joviality for his son, only to wind up breaking down in anger as he accidentally burns himself and curses his absent wife in front of his son.  (In a nice, understated moment, we later see Ted and Billy calmly make French toast together to show how much they've grown together.)

Hoffman reportedly talked over each scene carefully with his young costar before shooting, and the result is not only a believable father son relationship, but one that evolves from distant to close as the movie continues.  The fact that little Justin Henry had no acting experience before this film actually works to his advantage; he is cute, but not in the cloying,  Hollywood way that so many child actors are,  and when he is acting bratty, his anger is authentic and never played for laughs. In the famous scene in which he eats ice cream even as his father forbids him, (an idea Hoffman came up with based on a real argument he once had with his own daughter) he truly seems like a young child testing his boundaries.  Henry was nominated for best supporting actor for the role, the youngest actor to ever be nominated, and while just how much of his performance comes from him instead of the subtle manipulations of Benson and Hoffman is debatable,  he is excellent.  Without being too perfect, Billy is an  immensely likable kid that we can believe the two parents would fight over.

Meryl Streep

Although Streep's Joanna is gone for a large part of the movie, her absence is always felt, and her return is inevitable.  Like Hoffman, Streep won an Oscar for her role (as best supporting actress), mainly on the strength of her excellent court room speech in which she explains her reasons for leaving, and her desire to have Billy back in her life. Streep was not happy with the way the speech was originally written, and Benton allowed her to write it herself, a wise decision that makes it all the more moving.  The courtroom scenes in general are so intense, with both Ted and Joanna being forced to expose raw feelings, that they are almost unwatchable, and we feel sympathy for both of them as their opposing lawyers tear into them.  Although some divorce lawyers have criticized these scenes for being inaccurate (having had no personal experience in these kind of proceedings, I can't really comment on that), they get to a deeper truth: in divorces and custody battles, there often are no real winners.  This is the rare courtroom drama where both sides of the case have a point, and the judge could easily go either way.    

Other strengths in the film are Howard Duff's fine performance as Ted's tough but likable lawyer and George Coe as his boss.  Another stand out is Jane Alexander as Joanna's friend Margaret, who starts out the film not liking Ted, but who eventually befriends him (it's a rare delight to see a man and a woman become friends in a movie without any romantic entanglements).  Yes, by trusting  his actors, and striving for realism, Benson made a powerful yet understated classic that anyone going through a divorce, or just dealing with being a parent can relate to.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

This really is a tough call, that shows how difficult comparing vastly films can be: 1979 was really an outstanding year for films, with many films that have withstood the test of time being released, such as Bob Fosse's ALL THAT JAZZ, Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, Hal Ashby's BEING THERE, Woody Allen's MANHATTEN, and Martin Ritt's NORMA RAE, all of which have their strengths.  Still, for its straightforward, emotional story, and great performances, I think KRAMER VS. KRAMER was a fine choice.

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.