Judging Oscar: 1973

I have watched or re-watched the films nominated for Best Picture and Best Director and then placed a value judgment on what I saw cinematically.  Last time I did 1980.  This is 1973. 

BEST PICTURE

WINNER: The Sting (dir. George Roy Hill)

Charm and entertainment value can go a long way, and why shouldn’t it?  This is a perfectly executed update and expansion of the Depression-era programmer that has as much fun with its scenery as it does with its plot.  And I won’t hold any of that against it.  Snappy dialogue, scenery-chewing performances, period costumes, a wonderfully evocative ragtime score.  David S. Ward's script is sharp and sparkling, perfectly structured and paced and kept that way by George Roy Hill. It is impossible for me to view this film objectively anyway, as it was the first “grown up movie” that my parents let me see (at around 13 or 14 I was determined to see any Oscar nominees I could from the 70’s through the 90’s).  I loved it then, even as it spun my head around in circles, and I love it now for Robert Shaw, for Paul Newman, for all the bit character actors like Durning and Gould.  I love it for the sets, for the feeling, for the nostalgia.  I love it for the plot mechanics.  I could sit down and watch it just about any time.  I don’t have to figure it out; I like going along for the ride.

American Graffiti (dir. George Lucas)

I’m sure there were boomer nostalgia movies before American Graffiti, but there were definitely boomer nostalgia movies after it, giving birth to a whole niche genre.  But the thing that makes American Graffiti stand out from the imitators and wannabes is it isn’t simply about recreating a feeling of a time and place, but planting characters within that time.  Paul Le Mat’s “little too old for high school” hot rodder who gets tricked into driving around town with a flirtatious 12-year old, Richard Dreyfuss’ confused, wandering attempt to contextualize purpose for his life and thereby figure out what he is supposed to do about college (and along the way stumbling into the craziest antics that anyone in the film engages in), Candy Clark’s dim-witted beauty, who is strangely impressed by the exaggerations of a dork.  All the characters seem so perfect, subverting the archetypes and finding interest underneath.  There is enough doubt and confusion and uncertainty in everything the kids say and do to keep it from being simply a deification of 1950’s Americana, and Lucas grounds the film at the end by giving us a brief description of what happens to the four main males after that night.  But, it also captures a feeling better than many imitators do, probably because it eschews a conventional narrative storyline in favor of a vignetted portrait of one crazy night, yet having the intelligence not to pretend that one crazy could be every night.  It only happened once and after that nothing felt the same.

Cries and Whispers (dir. Ingmar Bergman) 

Believe it or not, there was a time when European art house films could grab some Academy Award attention.  Bergman’s dissection of the lingering tensions and hostilities between three sisters and a maid is a revelation, the dictionary example of the intimate epic.  Small rooms, small gestures, close ups: classic Bergman.  What works about it is the way he is able to pull so much meaning out of seemingly random, seemingly insignificant events.  He steps away from much of the spiritual/religious hypothesizing that bogs down some of his other films and takes to building psychological tension by carefully structuring the seen memories of each character.  It is difficult to get a grasp on what is happening at first, but by the time I realized it I was already immersed in the dynamics between these sisters.  Death, doubt, betrayal.  Big themes, played out in miniature.  The most startling realization is that despite Karin and Maria’s care for their sister, neither really love their sister.  It is familial duty and few dissect the unspoken obligations and frustrations of the home better than Bergman.  Just when we think progress has been made, Bergman subverts our expectations by showing us the shallow, careless, even heartless reactions of the family after the funeral.  It is a brutal and biting film, gorgeous to look at and rich in its performances, but it is bleak.  I think it's splendid, but I’m surprised the Academy liked it enough to nominate it.

The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin)

Though it is the movie that put paranormal horror movies on that map as a potential money-maker, it is the family drama behind and around the demonic possession that makes The Exorcist an interesting film to me.  Ellen Burstyn is wonderful, creating the working mom who abandons her child to pursue a career in the movies, who just as quickly abandons her career to try and salvage her preteen daughter.  The early scenes between mother and daughter feel genuine, and it is to Friedkin’s discredit that he basically forgets all that once the possession is accepted as being beyond science.  There is that tension between science and faith, but all that seems a little hollow.  I don’t think Friedkin particularly cares about it except as a signifier to hit on his way to another Oscar.  I guess the movie gets points for ambition, but the horror doesn’t work beyond trying to be shocking (the true horror to me now are the rigorous tests they put Regan through) and the faith-questioning priest is such a tired stereotype that all I’m really left with is half a character study and some oppressive scientific machines.  Jason Miller is fantastic but I feel Friedkin doesn’t really care about Damien’s character.  In light of that, the movie is overlong and self-important, though beautiful and bold in a few places.

A Touch of Class (dir. Melvin Frank)

This is what Hollywood can do really well and this is exactly the type of film we lost after this era: a smart, adult comedy that only pretends to be about sex, proving that was all just an excuse to get us to follow these characters for a while.  Romance becomes battle-of-the-sexes before dovetailing into doomed romance.  The chemistry between Jackson and Segal is wonderful and, though the film veers into some broad comedy moments, Melvin Frank keeps things moving and doesn’t allow us to grow complacent with where the film is heading.  He does well to avoid playing the suspense of “are they gonna get caught” too heavy, instead making it about whether they can survive at all under the weight of this unintended extra relationship.  Being discovered could have made it easier for them, an excuse to break things off finally.  The film becomes a startling treatise on the futility of extra-marital affairs by toying with yet eventually avoiding the Hollywood ending.

MY PICK: The Sting

Some writers have called The Sting a weak Best Picture winner in-between two Godfathers, but in light of the Academy ignoring American masterpieces The Long Goodbye, Badlands and Paper Moon, I'm fine with The Sting winning out.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Academy looked at the bleakness of the nominees and went with the one that left them feeling the happiest when they left the theater.  Considering The Exorcist was probably the biggest other contender for the award (the weakest of the nominees, in my opinion), I’m glad they went with their heart.  I also went with my heart, though American Graffiti was a very close second.

BEST DIRECTOR

WINNER: George Roy Hill (The Sting)

One’s appreciation of The Sting is going to depend on one’s enjoyment of George Roy Hill’s immersive atmosphere.  Personally, I love it.  He has a great script in hand and keeps from weighing it down, keeping things constantly moving and allowing all his actors to have fun.  And every actor seems as if they are having a blast, with Robert Shaw being the standout.  Redford is a bit dull in moments, but he has a great smile and Hill isn’t afraid to use it.  It seems light in comparison to the other films nominated, but Hill perfectly fills the roll of the Hollywood director as craftsman.  There’s nothing wrong with great craftsmen but that’s also not where I would place my directing awards.  

Ingmar Bergman (Cries and Whispers)

There is no mistaking Ingmar Bergman and his fingerprints are all over Cries and Whispers.  He deftly controls pace and tone, finding in seemingly mundane moments the weightiness of life and death, love and betrayal.  He has always been one to paint with grand themes, and he does so again here.  But the people he follows give us enough paradox and mystery to keep the grand themes from becoming overbearing.  The performances are careful and complex and it is amazing how deep we end up going in only 90 minutes.  A great achievement.

Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris)

Last Tango in Paris is a baffling and beguiling film because of the mystery afforded by the film’s structure.  Ellipses keep us from being able to clearly ascertain the character’s full motives.  No human being is truly knowable.  Sometimes we see paradoxical behavior and unjustified actions.  This is just more of the strength of the film.  Bertolucci has crafted a dense film that has spawned a variety of justified readings.  Some of the improv seems to court the frustratingly juvenile variety of inner exploration, but why shouldn’t it?  What did we think was going to be inside Brando's character?  Bertolucci avoids pat psychological solutions (his wife, her father, blah blah) and instead paints a bleak portrait, not of modern society, but modern philosophy.  Humanism.  It is a great film and a startling directorial effort that allows the emotion to live while also keeping the mystery alive.

William Friedkin (The Exorcist)

The Exorcist is a strange case because it is both helped and hindered by its director (at the same time).  If it had been directed by most other people, it probably would have been forgotten.  Friedkin begins by placing the film within a realistic context of modern skepticism so that the exorcism can stand out and the possession is believed as being completely other.  He peppers the film with a few expressionistic touches, especially in the sound design.  His strength is rachetting tension but his weakness is his lack of interest in characters and the latter shows up in the uneven pacing and the way he totally jettisons the family drama element when he gets tired of it.  Still, Friedkin gives us some startling images and pulls some good performances from everyone involved, even though it adds up to feel a bit hollow in the end, losing the depth of emotion the film initially promised. 

George Lucas (American Graffiti)

It’s impossible now to view Lucas as a director without any notion of Star Wars, prequels, LucasFilm, special editions and marketing, going back to a moment in time where an ambling yet structured, nostalgic yet intelligent coming-of-age film was his breakout success.  But that’s what this was and, despite learning to hate him for what he’s become, I can see the appeal he garnered when he made this movie.  It is warm and affectionate, yet still smart enough not to give us simple swatches of feelings, but real people beneath the archetypes.  He pulled great performances from a young cast and kept the film fresh and interesting through every vignette.  Music is well utilized as the essential period element, the emotion played loud in cars and at the drive-in.  A world saturated by it.  In the end, Lucas subverts pure nostalgia to give us the startling revelation: it wasn’t all a dream, but it was only one night among thousands of less interesting ones.  How Lucas could find that resonance while still being unabashedly nostalgic is one of the small wonders of American Graffiti, and what makes his directing after this film one of the tragedies that should be listed in the epilogue alongside Ron Howard’s character becoming an insurance salesman in Modesto.

MY PICK: Bernardo Bertolucci

It is widely believed that Last Tango in Paris got Oscar recognition single-handedly on the glowing review of Pauline Kael.  Though I don’t agree with all the points Kael raises in her essay, I can’t argue with her lauding of Bertolucci.  The Academy went with George Roy Hill over William Friedkin, probably because Hill missed out in 1969 for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Friedkin had just won two years earlier for The French Connection.  I haven't seen anything Hill did after this, but craftsmen are always at the mercy of their material and it seems he never had the same stuff to work from after this.