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In 1985, the Academy had a chance to give Akira Kurosawa a long-overdue Oscar for directing one of the best films of his career, Ran, so of course they gave it to Sydney Pollack. Not that Out of Africa is a bad picture, any more than a Quarter Pounder is a bad hamburger—just a wholly forgettable one. But that's the Oscars for you.
By the way, despite what the poster above says, Out of Africa did not star Gilbert Roland and Norma Talmadge—but it might as well have. (That's one I made for the Great Recasting Blogathon back in July.)
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Brazil (prod. Arnon Milchan)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Back To The Future (prod. Neil Canton and Bob Gale)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Ran (prod. Masato Hara and Serge Silberman)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: William Hurt and Raul Julia (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Michael J. Fox (Back To The Future)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Mia Farrow (The Purple Rose of Cairo)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Akira Kurosawa (Ran)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Zemekis (Back to the Future)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Mieko Harada (Ran)
SCREENPLAY
winner: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, from the novel by E.M. Forster (A Room with a View)
It's an interesting thing about Hitchcock—where other directors saw light, he saw darkness. And I don't mean in terms of the stories he told, I mean in terms of the actors he chose.
When Americans looked at, say, Ingrid Bergman, they saw virginal purity, but Hitchcock saw a deeply conflicted woman, the one who would eventually run off with Roberto Rossellini. That he liked to tear the wings off Cary Grant and reveal the tortured Cockney kid underneath is a matter of record. Anthony Perkins was the all-American boy prior to Psycho. Why, even in Grace Kelly, an actress so beautiful a better looking one would make you go blind, he saw mostly spoiled petulance.
And while Jimmy Stewart had already revealed a dark side in Capra's It's A Wonderful Life and in all those Anthony Mann westerns, Hitchcock ramped it up in Rear Window to include obsession, misanthropy, voyeurism and impotence, ground they would explore again in Vertigo.
As an artist, I'd say Hitchcock was even a great judge of his own character—after all, Vertigo is largely a self-portrait of his own voyeuristic, controlling, misogynistic impulses—but as a man, he was unable to rein himself in and he eventually drove himself into the bridge abutment that was Tippi Hedren.
But then, I think an artist often see truths that the man himself doesn't.
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Rear Window (prod. Alfred Hitchcock)
nominees: The Caine Mutiny (prod. Stanley Kramer); Creature From The Black Lagoon (prod. William Allard); Dial 'M' For Murder (prod. Alfred Hitchcock); The Far Country (prod. Aaron Rosenberg); Johnny Guitar (prod. Republic Pictures); On The Waterfront (prod. Sam Spiegel); 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (prod. Walt Disney)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: A Star Is Born (prod. Sidney Luft)
nominees: Hobson's Choice (prod. David Lean); Sabrina (prod. Billy Wilder); Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (prod. Jack Cummings)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai) (prod. Sôjirô Motoki)
nominees: Gojira (Godzilla) (prod. Tomoyuki Tanaka); Miyamoto Musashi (Samurai I: Miyamoto Musashi) (prod. Kazuo Takimura); Sanshô dayû (Sansho The Bailff) (prod. Masaichi Nagata); Senso (prod. Lux Film); La Strada (prod. Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti); Touchez pas au grisbi (prod. Robert Dorfmann)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Marlon Brando (On The Waterfront)
nominees: Humphrey Bogart (The Caine Mutiny and The Barefoot Contessa); Bing Crosby (The Country Girl); Kirk Douglas (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea); Ray Milland (Dial 'M' For Murder); Takashi Shimura (Shichinin no samurai a.k.a. Seven Samurai); James Stewart (The Far Country and Rear Window)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: James Mason (A Star Is Born)
nominees: Howard Keel (Seven Brides For Seven Brothers); Gene Kelly (Brigadoon); Charles Laughton (Hobson's Choice); John Mills (Hobson's Choice)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Grace Kelly (Dial 'M' For Murder, Rear Window and The Country Girl)
nominees: Shirley Booth (About Mrs. Leslie); Joan Crawford (Johnny Guitar); Ava Gardner (The Barefoot Contessa); Giulietta Masina (La Strada); Eleanor Parker (The Naked Jungle); Jane Wyman (Magnificent Obsession)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Judy Garland (A Star Is Born)
nominees: Brenda de Banzie (Hobson's Choice); Dorothy Dandridge (Carmen Jones); Doris Day (Young At Heart); Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina); Judy Holliday (It Should Happen to You); Jennifer Jones (Beat the Devil); Debbie Reynolds (Susan Slept Here)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Akira Kurosawa (Shichinin no samurai a.k.a. Seven Samurai)
nominees: Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny); Federico Fellini (La Strada); Alfred Hitchcock (Dial 'M' For Murder and Rear Window); Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront); Kenji Mizoguchi (Sanshô dayû a.k.a. Sansho the Bailiff); Nicholas Ray (Johnny Guitar)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: George Cukor (A Star Is Born)
nominees: Stanley Donen (Seven Brides For Seven Brothers); David Lean (Hobson's Choice); Billy Wilder (Sabrina)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Toshirô Mifune (Shichinin no samurai a.k.a. Seven Samurai)
nominees: Jack Carson (A Star Is Born); Lee J. Cobb (On the Waterfront); José Ferrer (The Caine Mutiny); Walter Hampden (Sabrina); Fred MacMurray (The Caine Mutiny); Karl Malden (On The Waterfront); Fredric March (Executive Suite); Edmond O'Brien (The Barefoot Contessa); Rod Steiger (On The Waterfront); John Williams (Dial M for Murder and Sabrina)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront)
nominees: Nina Foch (Executive Suite); Kyoko Kagawa (Sanshô dayû a.k.a. Sansho the Bailiff); Mercedes McCambridge (Johnny Guitar); Thelma Ritter (Rear Window); Kinuyo Tanaka (Sanshô dayû a.k.a. Sansho the Bailiff)
SCREENPLAY
winner: John Michael Hayes, from the short story by Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window)
nominees: Budd Schulberg (screenplay and story), suggested by articles by Malcolm Johnson (On The Waterfront); Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman, from the play "Sabrina Fair" by Samuel A. Taylor (Sabrina); Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni (Shichinin no samurai a.k.a. Seven Samurai)
SPECIAL AWARDS
"The Man That Got Away" (A Star Is Born) music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Ira Gershwin (Song); John Meehan; Emile Kuri (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea) (Art Direction-Set Decoration); Loren L. Ryder (Rear Window) (Sound)
Spencer Tracy's performance in Father of the Bride is one of those that looks effortless until you start thinking of all the ways it could have gone wrong. The film's producers initially talked of casting Jack Benny, which on the surface makes sense—he was one of the most popular entertainers in America and he was famous for playing cheapskates:
"Your money or your life!"
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!"
But Benny in the title role would have very quickly become a one-note joke—he's cheap, we get it.
And then there's the remake with Steve Martin, a very fine comic actor, but boy, was he a disaster in this part. His relationship to his daughter isn't touching, it's creepy, bordering on the incestuous. Not to mention I did the math in my head while I was sitting in the theater watching this some twenty-plus years ago (good lord, when did I get to be this old?) and I realized the wedding was costing him something like $125,000—those are 1991 dollars, mind you—a ridiculous amount of money. That Martin was unable to make his objections to this runaway insanity seem even remotely reasonable is an indictment of both him and the remake's writers.
With apparent ease, Tracy steered his performance away from all these potential disasters, and in the process, makes us feel sympathy for him—the money, the loss of his "little girl"—even as we laugh at his foibles.
It's another movie, perhaps as in all of his movies, where you're tempted to say, "He's not really acting, he's just playing himself." Except that when you see his top six or eight movies—Fury, Libeled Lady, Captains Courageous, Woman of the Year, Adam's Rib, Bad Day at Black Rock—and compare them to each other, you realize he's covered a lot of ground. What he consistently does is find the core of humanity in his character, no mean trick, I think.
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Sunset Boulevard (prod. Charles Brackett)
nominees: All About Eve (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); The Asphalt Jungle (prod. Arthur Hornblow, Jr.); Gun Crazy (prod. Frank King and Maurice King); The Gunfighter (prod. Nunnally Johnson); In A Lonely Place (prod. Robert Lord); Night and the City (prod. Samuel G. Engel); Wagon Master (prod. Merian C. Cooper and John Ford); Winchester '73 (prod. Aaron Rosenberg)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Harvey (prod. John Beck)
nominees: Born Yesterday (prod. S. Sylvan Simon); Cinderella (prod. Walt Disney)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Rashômon (prod. Minoru Jingo )
nominees: Los olvidados (prod. Óscar Dancigers, Sergio Kogan and Jaime A. Menasce); Orphée (Orpheus) (prod. André Paulvé); La Ronde (prod. Ralph Baum and Sacha Gordine)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: William Holden (Sunset Boulevard)
nominees: Dana Andrews (Where The Sidewalk Ends); Humphrey Bogart (In A Lonely Place); Marlon Brando (The Men); José Ferrer (Cyrano de Bergerac); John Garfield (The Breaking Point); Stewart Granger (King Solomon's Mines); Gregory Peck (The Gunfighter); James Stewart (Winchester '73); Richard Widmark (Night and the City, Panic in the Streets and No Way Out)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Spencer Tracy (Father Of The Bride)
nominees: Ronald Colman (Champagne For Caesar); Broderick Crawford (Born Yesterday); James Stewart (Harvey); Clifton Webb (Cheaper By The Dozen)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard)
nominees: Anne Baxter (All About Eve); Peggy Cummins (Gun Crazy); Bette Davis (All About Eve); Gloria Grahame (In A Lonely Place); Eleanor Parker (Caged)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday)
nominees: Joan Bennett (Father Of The Bride); Betty Hutton (Annie Get Your Gun)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Akira Kurosawa (Rashômon)
nominees: Luis Buñuel (Los olividados); Jean Cocteau (Orphée a.k.a. Orpheus); Jules Dassin (Night and the City); John Huston (The Asphalt Jungle); Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy); Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve); Anthony Mann (Winchester '73); Nicholas Ray (In A Lonely Place); Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Henry Koster (Harvey)
nominees: George Cukor (Born Yesterday); Vincente Minnelli (Father Of The Bride); George Sidney (Annie Get Your Gun)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: George Sanders (All About Eve)
nominees: Louis Calhern (The Asphalt Jungle); Sam Jaffe (The Asphalt Jungle); Toshirô Mifune (Rashômon); Erich von Stroheim (Sunset Boulevard)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Celeste Holm (All About Eve)
nominees: Jean Hagen (The Asphalt Jungle); Josephine Hull (Harvey); Machiko Kyo (Rashômon); Marilyn Monroe (The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve); Nancy Olson (Sunset Boulevard); Thelma Ritter (All About Eve)
SCREENPLAY
winner: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, from the story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr (All About Eve)
nominees: Mary Chase and Oscar Brodney, from the play by Mary Chase (Harvey); Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto, from the stories "Rashômon" and "In A Grove" by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa (Rashômon); Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr. (Sunset Boulevard)
SPECIAL AWARDS
Hans Dreier, John Meehan, Sam Comer and Ray Moyer (Sunset Boulevard) (Art Direction-Set Decoration); Russell Harlan (Gun Crazy) (Cinematography)
Katie-Bar-The-Door and I are back in town, and with half-a-dozen blog-a-thons now in my rearview mirror, I'll be getting back to my regular blogging schedule shortly with a series of reviews of the films of 1918, starting with D.W. Griffith's little-seen World War I movie, Hearts of the World.
I'll also be going back and responding to comments you left last week, so don't despair—the Monkey still loves you.
Speaking of love, while Katie and I were on the road, we caught the Cirque du Soleil's performance of Love at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Being a fan of both the Beatles—I probably know more about them than I do about the movies—and the Cirque du Soleil, I was pretty pumped to see the show. My review is the same as Katie's: best soundtrack ever, worst Cirque du Soleil, if by Cirque du Soleil, you think of acrobats, jugglers, trapeze artists, contortionists, death-defying stunts and Zen-like beauty—basically, Ed Sullivan on acid, for those of you who are old enough to understand the reference.
Not that I would discourage a Beatles fan from seeing the show.
But at one point, the performers covered the audience with white canvas, a nod, I assumed, to John and Yoko's penchant for making public pronouncements in the late 1960s from the inside of a laundry bag. Lennon's explanation had something to do with the notion that if you couldn't judge a person based on superficial qualities such as looks, race or gender, you'd wind up focusing on their words, which for an artist is a synonym for substance.
And it occurred to me as we were inside this bag at the Cirque du Soleil that through the internet, we have achieved something like Lennon's ideal, the freedom to speak our minds anonymously. Because I doubt our parents actually named any of us Monkey or Muleboy or Thingy or Plain Chicken. Of course, the result is, ironically, a mixed bag—with anonymity comes freedom, but also a lack of accountability, magnifying both what is best and worst about us as human beings.
But you already knew that.
What you may not have known is that while we were out of town, Alfred Hitchcock narrowly defeated Akira Kurosawa for the title of greatest director of all time. At least on this blog. Congratulations, Hitch. I'm sure this makes up for the sting of never winning an Oscar.
And speaking of Hitchcock, Monty over at All Good Things has been hosting a best Hitchcock film tournament. The finals for the 1950s (minus North By Northwest) Bracket is set—Rear Window versus The Man Who Knew Too Much. You can click here to vote.
I imagine the 1959-to-the-end-of-Hitchcock's-career Bracket will start this weekend. You got to figure, what, North By Northwest versus Psycho for the chance to join the final four in that one, right?
The final pairing in the great directors tournament is set. The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, squares off against the greatest action director of all time, Akira Kurosawa.
Actually, the match-up has pretty much been set for one long anticlimactic week. Both Hitchcock and Kurosawa won blow-outs against their Final Four competition, silent film pioneer D.W. Griffith and comic genius Woody Allen, respectively. In retrospect, I should have allowed about ten minutes instead of ten days for those contests.
But no matter.
I assume Hitchcock and Kurosawa need no introduction. Indeed, if you don't know who Alfred Hitchcock is, well, you're still more than welcome to read this blog, but I'm not 100% sure why you would. In fact, if by some chance you've never seen a Hitchcock movie, go get Rear Window, North By Northwest, Psycho and Notorious and watch them, right now—we'll wait for you.
As for Akira Kurosawa, his movies are so good even the remakes of his movies are good. You like the classic western The Magnificent Seven starring Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen? That's a remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Prefer Clint Eastwood in A Fistful Of Dollars? That's Yojimbo. And if you've ever plopped yourself down in front of a little ditty we like to call Star Wars—well, that's The Hidden Fortress.
And I haven't even mentioned Rashomon, Ikiru or Ran yet.
You have until Halloween night to finish voting. Go to it.
Well, the final four is set and there are a couple of surprises.
As I would have guessed, Alfred Hitchcock continued his dominance of the Classic Hollywood bracket, soundly defeating Howard Hawks, 38-11.
And Akira Kurosawa easily dispatched Stanley Kubrick, 29-16, in the Art House Favorites bracket.
Of course, as Erik Beck of the Boston Becks pointed out, different seeding would likely have given us entirely different results.
The other two brackets resulted in mild upsets, at least in terms of the early Vegas betting line. Woody Allen edged Martin Scorsese by a single vote, 26-25, to win the Modern Era bracket. I confess, as a Woody Allen fan, I'm not unhappy about the result. Just mildly surprised.
In the Silent Era bracket, D.W. Griffith defeated one of my personal favorites, the always popular Buster Keaton, 24-22—and right after the Great Stone Face's birthday, at that! Personally, I didn't think Griffith had a chance. But if you've read my posts about him, you know I've come to the conclusion that Griffith belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of film directors, The Birth of a Nation notwithstanding.
All that aside, it's time for the Final Four matchups:
Alfred Hitchcock versus D.W. Griffith
Akira Kurosawa versus Woody Allen
You have until Sunday, October 23, to cast your vote.
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