Unbelievably, this week’s film The Last Emperor is the 60th BP winner to be featured on FlicksChick.com! Crazy! Although this movie didn’t crack the top 20+ films in my personal rankings of Best Pictures, it’s still worth seeing and will be the focus of a couple more posts in the next few days; so please make sure to check back in for those!
Today I’m posting an updated list of my BP rankings–no major changes, though I did go through the list with a fine-toothed comb this time since I took such a long sabbatical from blogging this past fall. The Sound of Music still reigns as the best BP in my book–really, really special film there–followed closely by the stunning Gone with the Wind. At the bottom of the heap, Annie Hall and Tom Jones keep each other company and don’t need to ever take up any of my time again.
Some really big films are coming up in the next decade of BP winners (Schindler’s List, Braveheart, and Titanic, to name a few I’m highly anticipating), so you can definitely expect some changes toward the top of the following list. But for now, here’s how I rank the first 60 winners of the Academy’s highest prize.
“I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I’m sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul. There are times since, I’ve felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life,” protagonist Chris Taylor soberly remarks as Platoon closes. Pretty thoughtful words for a rather graphic and disturbing film–and sentiments that sum up brilliantly the significance of this BP winner.
In his final words to Platoon‘s viewers, Chris identifies his main conflict as with his fellow American soldiers and within himself, opposed to with the soldiers of the Viet Cong whom he actually physically fights. While much of the film deals with the military altercations between American and North Vietnamese forces, there is also an obvious divide between the American soldiers, with half following the heartless and cruel Sgt. Barnes and the other half admiring the more honorable leadership of Sgt. Elias. Just like with Americans at home during the war, for Chris and his comrades Vietnam and the U.S. troops’ purpose in being there is a hot-button topic about which no one can agree. Rather than come together to solve a problem, the Americans, home and abroad, bicker and antagonize each other, leading to the troops’ vulnerability and unpreparedness to appropriately respond (physically, mentally, and emotionally) to their surroundings and attackers.
Furthermore, Chris tells viewers that the enemy is within the American soldiers. He explains this idea further when he equates his two commanders, Elias and Barnes and their hatred for each other with the war for his soul that is waged between good and evil–Elias representing good and Barnes evil. Elias and Barnes (spoiler alert) don’t make it to the end of Platoon. In a shocking act of betrayal, Barnes murders (or facilitates the murder of) Elias, leading to the famous scene in which Elias gives up his life with his arms reaching toward the helicopters in the sky while the Viet Cong shoot him from behind. Toward the end of the film, Chris, convinced of Barnes’s guilt in Elias’s death, kills a wounded Barnes after he asks for a medic. In effect, then, evil kills good, and a man torn apart by the conflict of good and evil within himself eliminates evil. But Elias and Barnes (and thus, good and evil) live on within Chris, so he says, warring over his soul.
What Chris realizes is that Vietnam and his experiences there have changed him. Good and evil have become blurred, and it is as if those two opposites have become his “fathers.” He is the child of goodness and evil, and the deeds he is asked (and at times required) to do are both good and bad. He can’t always clearly determine what is right and wrong anymore, but he recognizes that they exist and that both affect him deeply–just like Elias and Barnes did.
Barnes and Elias face off (a.k.a. evil vs. good)
For Me Then…
Chris’s last lines reminded me a lot of Marlow’s thoughts in Joseph Conrad’s classic Heart of Darkness. As Marlow journeys up the Congo River in search of his fellow countryman Kurtz, he recognizes an evil lurking within the surrounding jungle and is shocked and horrified when he realizes later that the same evil is within him as well. He is not immune to the draw of the wildness of the jungle, and there is a twisted joy in the darkness he finds in his soul.
Likewise, Chris comes to Vietnam–as a volunteer infantryman–with a naïve mindset and the hope that he can make a difference there. What he discovers is that he is a nobody, a cog in a broken machine. He intends to do what is right and serve his country, but what is right becomes murky in the Vietnamese jungles where his own commanders fight each other. Evil isn’t just present with the Viet Cong, but is also within Chris’s comrades–and himself–too. Chris confronts the evil of Barnes, but he isn’t any better than Barnes when he chooses to administer justice himself by executing his wounded superior officer. In the end, Chris, like Marlow, must come to terms with the evil within himself and the realization that he will spend the rest of his life trying to hold that evil at bay while he seeks some sort–any sort–of goodness and meaning in this world. The meaning that Chris seems to find (also expressed by director Oliver Stone in his Oscar acceptance speech) is that by telling his story to others at home perhaps another such disaster like the Vietnam War can be avoided. This is the hope that Chris wants to cling to as Platoon closes. Still, I can’t stop thinking about Marlow at the end of Heart of Darkness as he drifts into the cloudy and hopeless future of his life, confused and disillusioned by his past experiences. Chris might realize the struggle of choosing right in a world full of wrong, but telling stories of past mistakes isn’t a guarantee those wrongs won’t be repeated.
Chris on the helicopter to freedom, still fighting a battle against evil.
At the 1987 Academy Awards, Steven Spielberg was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, an honor handed out periodically by the Academy to “creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” This is the same Steven Spielberg whom we can partly blame/thank for the current Netflix-and-the-Oscars controversy, which the Department of Justice now feels warrants their attention and possible intervention (what is this world coming to?).
Anyhow, the great Spielberg isn’t the only link between the present time and the year that gave us this week’s Best Picture winner Platoon (1986, Hemdale Film Production; Orion). In fact, Platoon pulls together a whole bunch of issues that frequent current news headlines: U.S. troops fighting in foreign countries for reasons unknown to them, PTSD and other mental illnesses, and racial and social inequalities. Oliver Stone, director of Platoon, is certainly not one to shy away from hot-button topics in his films. Just take a look at some of his notable directorial efforts: Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), JFK (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994), Nixon (1995), and W. (2008).
Interestingly for this week’s focus on Platoon, Stone’s very first film (a short called Last Year in Viet Nam) also chronicles some of his experiences as a U.S. Army soldier in the Vietnam War, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Stone had written Platoon in the 1970s, fairly soon after his return home from military duty overseas; and he later went on to make two more films about the war: Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven & Earth (1993). All three of Stone’s Vietnam films draw upon the confused and tormented emotions of the people who participated in and/or were affected by the Vietnam conflict and who struggled (and still do) with feelings of disillusionment, abandonment, and loss.
Platoon has often been called one of the most realistic war movies of all time, and it certainly reflects a, for lack of a better word, nausea toward the war, rather than the glorification of battle that is often seen in film. The movie won four Oscars out of eight nominations, taking home statuettes for Film Editing, Sound, Directing for Stone, and Best Picture (it failed to win Cinematography, Writing [Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen], Actor in a Supporting Role for Tom Berenger as the diabolical Sgt. Barnes, and Actor in a Supporting Role for Willem Dafoe as the more honorable Sgt. Elias).
Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, and Tom Berenger in Platoon
What is also of note regarding Platoon and its 1987 win is the plethora of Vietnam films that were also released around the same time. Although the topic of the war had been included in film earlier, no one had really used Vietnam geographically in a movie or explored the psyches of the men who had been involved in the war there until the mid-to-late 1970s when that trend began to turn. Films such as 1976’s Taxi Driver, 1978’s BP The Deer Hunter, and the critically acclaimed Apocalypse Now (1979) launched a new era of exploration into one of America’s most hated historical events. Platoon was joined by 1987’s Full Metal Jacket; Good Morning, Vietnam; and Hamburger Hill, as well as 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July and Casualties of War, among a few others.
Several experts have explored the portrayal of the Vietnam War in film and have made some very interesting observations and conclusions. First, while there was an enormous amount of World War II movies made immediately after the close of that conflict (and even during the war), this was not the case with the Vietnam War. Vietnam had divided Americans and spawned countless protests across the country involving hundreds of thousands (and probably millions) of people. Returning veterans were not hailed as heroes as were the soldiers of the previous World Wars. Instead, they were often seen as murderers of the innocent. But as the 1970s grew older, films began to look at those who had fought in Vietnam–from the perspective of how those veterans were adjusting to life back at home (this was usually negative). When the 80s arrived and action movies were all the rage, the “tortured Vietnam vet” motif morphed into the conflicted soldier in the midst of graphic violence–thanks to the popularity of and demand for action movies, as well as action heroes like Rambo. With this background of tormented soldiers and high-paced (though brutal) adventure, film slowly began to confront the politics of the Vietnam War until the narrative became one of regret, the “we-shouldn’t-have-gone-there” storyline in which the soldier becomes a tragic hero led to the slaughter by his own disconnected and misguided government.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” A scene from Apocalypse Now.
What Platoon does, then, as one of the most popular films of the 80s, is draw upon the tortured vet and thrilling action ideas–and combine them with an exploration of good and evil within men pushed to their physical, mental, and emotional limits. In the face of constant fear and commonplace death, the film asks what actions are acceptable and what deeds are reprehensible. Though certainly not an enjoyable movie, Platoon does present a glimpse into the minds and hearts of those who were in Vietnam and perhaps even helps those of us who came afterwards to understand them and their experiences a bit more. As Oliver Stone said as he accepted his Oscar for directing Platoon, “I think that through this award you’re really acknowledging the Vietnam veteran. And I think what you’re saying is that for the first time, you really understand what happened over there. And I think what you’re saying is that it should never, ever in our lifetimes happen again. And if it does, then those American boys died over there for nothing, because America learned nothing from the Vietnam War.”
For more thoughts on Platoon and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!
“I had a farm in Africa,” Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke tells us over and over in Out of Africa. In addition to this farm around which much of the film revolves, Karen also considers herself the owner of a slew of furniture pieces, knick-knacks, and one fancy cuckoo clock that absolutely fascinates the native children who live on the farm. To put it mildly, Karen has a lot of possessions that she highly values. Upon her arrival in Africa, she is astonished (and super stressed out) that the local people would even consider sitting and walking on top of the crates that contain her Limoges and her crystal. Sarcastically, Denys Finch-Hatton, a big-game hunter and lover of Africa (and later of Karen) reassures her that the men “didn’t know it was Limoges.” This exchange becomes a pattern for the rest of the film: Karen often evincing a love of and desire to possess something and Denys trying to convince her that most things (if not everything) cannot actually be owned by anyone. The possession motif lends itself to everything from Karen’s farm and physical belongings to the land and people of Africa–as well as to Denys when he and Karen share a romantic relationship and Karen wishes that they would marry.
Karen and most of the other Europeans have come into Africa and taken charge as if it had been their land from the beginning–displacing the indigenous people, using up their natural resources, and slaughtering the wildlife. Denys laments the fact that much of what he loves about Africa (the wide open plains and towering mountains, the waters and the animals) will soon be gone as more and more Europeans invade the continent in search of wealth and power. Denys sees himself as similar to the land prior to the arrival of droves of Europeans: untamed and free. He refuses to marry Karen–and thus puts quite a damper on their relationship–because he feels marriage is restrictive (i.e., that Karen wants to own/keep him like one of her other precious belongings). This disagreement, of course, kills the relationship.
Ironically (spoiler alert!), Karen’s attempt at farming in Africa turns out to be an economic disaster, and she is forced to sell nearly all of her belongings (even the cuckoo clock) at the end of the film. By this point in the movie, though, Karen has experienced so much–a world war, the infidelity of her husband, a life-threatening illness, the love of her life, the end of that love, and the failure of her beloved farm–that other “things” have become more important to her. She has discovered a love for Africa and its people that has nothing to do with owning a piece of that land or controlling those people. She has found that things don’t matter as much as experiences, memories, and love. And this new life perspective applies to her feelings for Denys as well. At his funeral (so sad!), Karen reads from a poem about a young man dying before his time and then remarks that everyone loved Denys well, but “he was not ours. He was not mine.” Denys dies free–of everything and everyone–and Karen leaves Africa, never to return again.
The iconic scene in which Karen and Denys fly over gorgeous sections of wild Africa, a scene in which Karen recognizes the uselessness of attempting to tame and control such a place.
For Me Then…
There are many aspects of Out of Africa that lend themselves to discussions of the movie’s significance, but the idea of possession–who owns what and how and why–particularly struck a chord with me last week. Like thousands of others, a couple of months ago I discovered Nexflix’s Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (if you haven’t watched this short series, you should totally check it out!); and now my apartment is a disaster of sorting piles. The chaos of going through all the stuff that has piled up for decades is both traumatic and therapeutic. Lots of unneeded clothing and books have been moved on to lives with others who need them/will use them, and hopefully more such donations will be coming in the near future.
But similar to delving into a film for indications of what is important in a culture, wading through what one owns also lends itself to soul-searching, to showing us who we are by what we hold on to and what we value. For Karen in Out of Africa, possessions are a comfort, a connection to a previous home and life–and symbols of her European culture’s attempt to take over the home and culture of another people. When Karen relinquishes her belongings and humbles herself in front of the other aristocrats to beg for land for the African people on her farm, she rejects her society’s view of ownership (and the power it supposedly brings) and accepts the beauty of the freedom of choosing people over possessions, souls over things. Her speech at Denys’s grave reinforces this idea: no one can truly own anything–not items, not land, not people. Like Job says in the Bible, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.” Things are temporary; possession is an illusion.
“I had a farm in Africa,” says Karen. She possesses the farm like she possesses the Limoges, the African locals, and Denys. They belong to her in her mind until she loses each of them. Before leaving Africa forever, Karen gives Farah, her closest African servant a compass that Denys had given her and tells him, “This is very dear to me. It has helped me to find my way.” In a nutshell, Karen encapsulates the purpose of the possessions she formerly loved: they are here to enable us to “find our way,” to accomplish the purposes that God has given to us. They are not eternal, and they are not really ours. Out of Africa, then, is a film about freedom–the freedom of a continent and of a man and a woman, but freedom also from ourselves and the burden of loving what we only think we own.
Blessed with a gorgeous score and boasting sweeping aerial panoramas of African mountains, plains, waters, and exotic wildlife, Out of Africa (1985, Universal Pictures Limited Production; Universal) surprised no one with its 7 wins out of 11 Academy Award nominations (well, perhaps The Color Purple people were a bit astonished, but that would be due more to their not taking home a single statuette for their 11 nominations, not because of Out of Africa‘s victory). In addition to winning Music (Original Score) and Cinematography, the film also took home Oscars for Art Direction, Sound, Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), Directing for Sydney Pollack, and Best Picture (it failed to win Film Editing, Costume Design, Actor in a Supporting Role for Klaus Maria Brandauer as Bror, and Actress in a Leading Role for Meryl Streep as Karen).
Because of the timing of its filming and release (1985), Out of Africa really makes some interesting points about culture, colonialism, land, and society that go beyond any intended message of the original 1937 memoir Out of Africa by Karen Blixen (also known by her sometimes-pen name, Isak Dinesen). In 1985, Africa was a continent in chaos and distress. Many of its countries were suffering economically for various reasons, some of which had to do with their ties to the U.S.S.R. (now entering its desperate final years) and, thus, to communism as well, and others of which had to do with the fact that most of the African nations were dealing with the aftermath of being colonial holdings. South Africa was struggling with the ugliness of apartheid and the violence of attempts to dethrone institutionalized racism. Elsewhere, such as in Ethiopia, drought and subsequent poor harvests had given rise to a famine of biblical proportions. In short, African countries were attempting to (re-)create themselves while lacking basic human necessities such as food. And scores of people were dying because of this.
One small face of famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s
The Western world stood by for a while, not knowing exactly how to help those who needed it most. Ethiopia’s particular situation was both dire and frustratingly political, for its Marxist government had been squandering any aid it received by diverting it to its armed forces in order to cement the military dictatorship of one Mengistu Haile Mariam. It was, ironically, music that softened the West’s resolve to help the estimated eight million people at risk of starvation. In December of 1984, after hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians had already died, a group of British singers that included such notables as Sting, Bono, Boy George, and Phil Collins recorded the now-familiar “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Profits from the song, credited to the group “Band Aid,” raised over $10 million for charity. American musicians joined the cause as well at the beginning of 1985 when a group of artists (including Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder) met after the American Music Awards to record Michael Jackson’s and Lionel Richie’s “We Are the World,” which grossed over $60 million to help Africans in need. That same summer, the Brits and Americans teamed up for Live Aid, a worldwide, 16-hour “superconcert” that featured more than 75 acts performing at either Wembley Stadium in London or in Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. Broadcast around the world to an audience that numbered over one billion, Live Aid garnered $127 million for famine relief in Africa (and it featured that stellar Queen performance seen in this year’s BP nominee Bohemian Rhapsody).
Live Aid, July 13, 1985
A few months later on December 10, 1985, Out of Africa premiered in Los Angeles, far from parched and hungry Ethiopia and its southern neighbor Kenya, which serves as the film’s setting. Out of Africa isn’t about drought or famine, but it does tell a tale of survival, of a woman’s hunger for independence, of a strong people in a beautiful land. The film emerges from a year of African desperation and European/American confusion to unite characters from both cultures as they are tied to that continent so much a focus of 1985.
For more thoughts on Out of Africa and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!
I watched a good film the other day, Out of Africa (BP winner, 1985) and intended to publish two posts about it this week. But circumstances being what they are (crazy and hectic), I’m delaying the posts until next week. Don’t panic–just enjoy some March Madness, finish your taxes, and visit FlicksChick.com again next week for new material.
Amadeus opens with a rather gruesome scene: An aged Antonio Saliere is locked in his room moaning and crying out, “Mozart! Mozart, forgive your assassin! I confess, I killed you!” Upon opening the door, Salieri’s servants discover him on the floor in a pool of blood. He has attempted to cut his own throat.
Placed in an insane asylum, Saliere is visited by a priest who offers to take his confession, but the wily Saliere instead recounts the struggle of his life to his would-be confessor, and we viewers are treated to the symphony of Salieri’s perceived rivalry with the young and gregarious Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But more than just chronicling the competition generated by each man’s musical creations and ascension to royal and public favor, this film wrestles with the concept of God-given gifts, their implementation, and their human vessels.
Salieri, aging asylum resident
Salieri recounts how he “acquired” his divine talent when a child by making a deal with God: “While my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of: ‘Lord, make me a great composer. Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world, dear God. Make me immortal. After I die, let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return, I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life, Amen.'” Salieri sees his ensuing musical talent as “a miracle,” and admires what he at first believes are the similar musical gifts of the prodigy Mozart–until he meets Mozart and discovers that he is an annoying, arrogant libertine. Mozart’s moral depravity shocks Salieri, who has sacrificed so much for his music and perceives himself to be doing God’s duty on earth. Still, Salieri must admit that Mozart’s compositions and musical abilities are brilliant, and he goes so far as to describe listening to Mozart’s music as “hearing the voice of God.”
Believing he has been duped by God, Salieri descends into the horror of self-doubt and jealousy, wrestling with the fact that God has chosen to speak through an idiotic buffoon and has only permitted Salieri’s music to be “mediocre”: “All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing…and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?” Just as God abandoned him (or so he believes), Salieri abandons God and vows to “hinder and harm [His] creature” and “ruin [His] incarnation.” Subsequently (spoiler alert!), Salieri’s most heartless attack on Mozart is to disguise himself as Mozart’s deceased father and commission the grieving, ailing genius to compose a requiem for a “friend.” Desperate for money, Mozart takes the job, but is haunted by the specter of his demanding parent, eventually collapsing from stress and illness while conducting one of his operas.
The most brilliant scene of Amadeus places the fading Mozart in bed with only Salieri to keep him company. Deceived into believing his requiem must be completed by the morning, Mozart enlists the aid of his rival; and the two men spend a sleepless night composing the masterpiece–only to have it locked away by the newly returned Constanze, Mozart’s wife. Salieri has been thwarted by God again; for while he believes (correctly) that overworking Mozart will kill him, he thinks (incorrectly) that his co-writing of the requiem that would be played at Mozart’s funeral would bring him at last the glory that he seeks. The requiem is never finished, and Mozart is unceremoniously deposited in a communal grave outside the city.
Mozart and Salieri burn the midnight oil to compose the requiem together.
While Salieri at first claims responsibility for killing Mozart, in his conversation in the asylum with the priest, he turns the blame on God: “He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture!” Salieri’s main rival, then, is really God, not Mozart, a mere man used by God to give the world glorious music. Faced with the reality that he cannot defeat God and what He ordains and believing himself to be mocked by his Creator, Salieri attempts to take his own life–and fails at that as well. In the end, he laughs at God–yet it is notable that he does this from within an abode of the insane–and absolves “mediocrities everywhere”–but again, the only people he sees are his fellow residents in the asylum.
For Me Then…
It is unclear what Salieri deems to be the sin from which the “mediocrities” need to be absolved. Perhaps it is imperfection, or the arrogance of believing God has graced them with His gifts and that they can do something for Him or to please Him. Whatever their supposed crimes, Salieri’s own inability to take his focus off himself is what leads to his misguided views of God–and, ironically, to his devaluation of himself and the usefulness of his life. God isn’t mocking him by giving Mozart greater musical talent. In fact, had Salieri truly understood God’s character and His generous gifts, he would have known that God often chooses “lesser vessels” to use in his works. Mozart’s life is far from the wonderful one Salieri envisions he has. He struggles in all his relationships (familial, marital, social, financial, etc.), and he also exhibits doubt about his abilities. So, in fact, Salieri and Mozart have much in common.
And as the climactic scene of this film brilliantly demonstrates, Salieri and Mozart are more than capable of working together. Truly, the requiem they construct is the most glorious musical piece in the movie–and the only project they share. Furthermore, their unwillingness to part from each other in Mozart’s final hours stems from more than Salieri’s desire to ensure Mozart’s death. There is definitely an element of a bond between the two men brought about by the purpose of putting to use the talents God has given each of them in varying degrees and styles. They do not need to be competitors; they could be partners in a relationship that would resolve many of their individual issues and bring glory to God through music. But though both composers briefly recognize a type of greatness in the other, it is too late. There are regrets on both sides, and a madness ensues for the surviving man. Finally and desperately, in his utter incomprehension of divine will, Salieri laughs at God, but inside he weeps over himself. Tragic.
What do Best Picture winners A Man for All Seasons, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King all have in common? Well, each of those films boasts someone involved with the work Amadeus in one of its various productions. Paul Scofield, who won the Academy Award in 1966 for his leading role in A Man for All Seasons, played Antonio Salieri in the original British production of the play Amadeus at the Royal National Theatre in 1979. Milos Forman, director of the film version of Amadeus, won the Oscar for directing One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975. And Ian McKellen, everyone’s favorite Middle-earth wizard in Peter Jackson’s unparalleled trilogy, took the role of Salieri in the Broadway rendition of the play Amadeus in 1980, the year for which the drama was given the Tony Award for Best Play.
Hence, by the time Amadeus (1984, Saul Zaentz Company Production; Orion) became a Best Picture-winning film, it had already received numerous other accolades. Based on the play of the same name by Peter Shaffer (which itself is based on an earlier 1830 play by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri), Amadeus tells a fictionalized version of the lives–and apparent rivalry–of two great composers, Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Set to Salieri’s and Mozart’s music, Amadeus (the film) is a glorious pageant of powdered wigs, baroque palaces, and operatic extravaganzas. It’s like a cleaned-up version of 2018’s The Favourite, except with more depth and lovelier music. Yet the war within the mind and heart of Salieri, who recalls the story as an old man looking back on his life, is the most compelling aspect of this film. More about that this weekend…
Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, Amadeus won 8: Art Direction, Sound, Makeup, Costume Design, Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) for Peter Shaffer for his adaption of his own play, Directing for Milos Forman, Actor in a Leading Role for F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri, and Best Picture. It failed to take home statuettes for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Actor in a Leading Role for Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Tom Hulce as Mozart–very flashy crowd here.
It was an interesting year for film in 1984: lots of variety in subject matter among the nominees. From The Killing Fields‘ chronicling of the violence and trauma of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia to the Depression-era struggles of Places in the Heart, from the adventure of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to the hilarious and inspirational tale of Mr Miyagi and “Daniel-son” in The Karate Kid (an absolute favorite of mine), it’s interesting that Academy voters settled on Amadeus for their top prize, a period piece with a lot of fluffy clothes and over-the-top visuals. But if we believe that film is a reflection of ourselves (and I do think this), then something in Amadeus spoke/still speaks to people. The jealousy, hypocrisy, feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, hatred, and regret that consume Antonio Salieri are aspects of the human experience that confront and challenge each of us. In this way, Amadeus is not just a period drama, but a picture of raw humanity, broken at its core and seeking truth and relief from its own often-self-imposed darkness. In short, it’s a well-deserving BP winner (not to mention, it also boasts one of the sweetest movie posters ever).
For more thoughts on Amadeus and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!
About halfway through my viewing of Terms of Endearment, I started wondering if the film has any significant plot. It seemed like the vast majority of scenes consist of Aurora (the mother) talking to Emma (her daughter), usually over the telephone–which, of course, were those old landlines that have now become so antiquated and foreign to many people. I marveled a bit at the almost-forgotten quaintness of having to ask to speak to a particular person when calling someone’s household (you know, people used to share phones), and I grew more than a little annoyed at how Aurora and Emma talk to each other and act around others: Aurora often comes across as cold and unfeeling, while Emma seems to be irresponsible and flighty.
Early on in the film, during one of their many conversations, Aurora tells Emma that she doesn’t think Emma should marry Flap, a school teacher whom Emma is supposed to wed the following day. Not surprisingly, Emma is insulted and marries Flap anyway; Aurora skips the wedding, and the two women continue to talk constantly. It’s more than a bit weird. But Emma and Flap’s matrimonial situation deteriorates as the story progresses. While Aurora strikes up an unlikely romance with her philandering neighbor Garrett, Emma becomes convinced that Flap is cheating on her. Her reaction of anger and suspicion is justified, but her decision to begin her own affair with her banker Sam is hypocritical and inexcusable. Then the film takes a drastic turn (spoiler alert), and Emma is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Treatment options back then (late 1970s) aren’t what they are now, and what starts out as an almost comedic look at the lives of two women becomes a cry-fest of good-byes and final wishes.
Emma’s farewell to her two boys
When the melodrama finally comes to what is supposed to be a satisfactory close, the viewer is left to ponder the meaning of a film whose actors’ performances eclipse its story. So if I can pull some sort of a deeper meaning out of a film with a less-than-dynamic plot, something Aurora says towards the end of the movie really stands out to me. Big spoiler alert here! After Emma’s death, Aurora and Flap actually embrace briefly; and Aurora confesses that she expected to feel “relief” at Emma’s death, presumably because her passing would put an end to her suffering. Yet Aurora doesn’t feel relief at all. Instead, she says that “nothing is harder,” apparently meaning the loss of a child. While the conflicts and romances both women experience with men help to fill out the storyline of this film, the poignant scene of Emma’s death clarifies what the film is really all about: the relationship between a mother and her child. Just as the film opens with Aurora’s deep concern that the sleeping infant Emma has stopped breathing (she hasn’t), the end of the film again places Aurora near her child’s bed. Whereas in Emma’s earliest days, Aurora climbs into the crib to ensure her baby still lives, in Emma’s hospital room Aurora sits in a chair away from the bed while Emma actually does stop breathing. Then when Aurora weeps about her lack of relief, the film’s main point becomes clear: Despite the fact that mothers aren’t perfect, they will never stop loving their children. It’s a good point, but the film definitely takes a circuitous route to make it.
For Me Then…
I was prepared for this film to be sad, so I was confused when it tried to be funny and clever for much of the first half. But when the issue of cancer–specifically breast cancer–arose in the film, I forgot that I had been annoyed with Aurora and Emma’s relationship, and I was honestly a bit revolted by this movie.
Emma languishes in a sterile hospital room with just a few visitors who care about her while her husband cheats on her and her mother remains emotionally aloof (especially from her grandchildren). The biggest decision Emma and her family must make before she dies is who will raise Emma and Flap’s three children because Flap is teaching full-time and chasing other women. My reaction to this is to think how despicable it is that such a life-shattering event as terminal cancer must be mixed with the sexual exploits of a dirtbag husband/father and a mother who hated becoming a grandmother because it made her sound old to her (mostly male) friends.
Sure, Terms of Endearment might make the point that nothing can dissuade a mother from loving her child; but no one, not even Aurora, takes Emma’s flailing hand as she seems to reach for something/someone to hold at the moment of her death. And although Aurora gets custody of Emma’s children and everyone has such a lovely funeral luncheon at the end of the film, I just can’t shake that awful feeling I had when Aurora wept for the relief she was lacking at Emma’s death. For many people the sadness this film evokes arises from the loss of Emma, but for me the real tragedy stems from the lack of purpose and meaning we see in how Terms of Endearment‘s characters approach life–as well as death–combined with an utter ignorance of eternal hope. This, to me, is what makes Emma’s life and death unbearable to watch.
“You can’t handle the truth!” Sorry, but that line gets so stuck in my head whenever I see a Jack Nicholson film. Back to the former Best Picture winners we go this week; and although this week’s film Terms of Endearment (1983, Paramount) doesn’t actually contain the famous movie quote above, it does feature Jack Nicholson. His character, Garrett Breedlove, a retired astronaut, nearly steals the show in a film which examines several human relationships, but mostly focuses on the one between a rather uptight mother, Aurora (played by Shirley MacLaine), and her more free-spirited daughter, Emma (played by Debra Winger). Terms of Endearment also boasts solid performances by Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, and John Lithgow–all of whose characters are just quirky enough to give a comedic edge to a film that is widely known as a sure-fire tearjerker.
Adapted from the 1975 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry (who also wrote the 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove), Terms of Endearment won 5 Oscars for its 11 nominations. It nearly won the “Big Five.” Lacking a contender in the Best Actor category, the film instead brought Jack Nicholson his second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actor. It also took home statuettes for Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium), Directing for James L. Brooks, Best Actress for Shirley MacLaine, and Best Picture. It failed to win Art Direction, Sound, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Actress in a Leading Role for Debra Winger, and Actor in a Supporting Role for John Lithgow. Terms of Endearment rode the waves of its Oscar success and later spawned a sequel (book and film), The Evening Star (1996), for which MacLaine reprised her role as Aurora Greenway.
Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine in one of the most famous portrayals of a mother-daughter relationship
When we started looking at the films of the 1980s, we mentioned a bit about how the Reagan years were pretty conservative in nature–yet were still full of anxiety about the ongoing Cold War, obsession with material goods, and questions about the meaning of life and how to find true happiness. Terms of Endearment exhibits a lot of these 80s characteristics, but also challenges the conservatism of the times by bringing up issues like adultery, abortion, and drug use. The end of the film, which I won’t discuss just quite yet in this post, is especially odd, I think, in light of its time period. But it is partly because of these raw and challenging topics that Terms of Endearment is particularly, um, endearing to many people, I think; for the struggles of the film’s characters, with all their human imperfections, makes them seem more real–and hence, their suffering affects the movie’s viewers more. But we’ll talk further about that in a couple of days…
For more thoughts on Terms of Endearment and its significance, please check out the full post a little later this weekend!
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