Greg wrote:Is the lake drowning where the couple go skinny dipping at a picnic?
Yes, it's that scene.
Mister Tee, I'm curious -- had you never gotten through Catch-22 the novel by the time you saw the film, or have you never made it through EVER? Obviously its length prevents it from being a breeze of a read or anything, but I think it's quite enjoyable and often very funny, and would be surprised someone could find it to be an endurance test.
The Original BJ wrote:I strongly considered picking Ken Russell as Best Director, given that this is the only place to honor him, and I think Women in Love is a very impressive movie. What Russell accomplishes here is similar to what Scorsese does with The Age of Innocence, taking a classic period novel and making it feel completely fresh, a piece of cinema that feels fully contemporary rather than an embalmed mounting of literature. There are moments in this movie -- the nude wrestling match, the lake drowning -- that feel as bizarre and macabre as moments in the director's more outre films, and yet he wraps them in the glow of a beautifully-mounted, fiercely acted prestige period piece. It's this tension, between the modern and classical, that gives the movie much of its energy.
Is the lake drowning where the couple go skinny dipping at a picnic?
I see a number of people have the same general take on 1970 that I dd. As enthusiastic as I was about the films of 1969, this year seemed a real drop-off to me. American film was still groping to find itself (something it would do, magnificently, over the years just following), and, while this wasn't the completely retro dud 1968 was, it didn't produce much that truly excited me.
I'll risk scorn by saying my favorite movie at the time was one that has gone into the books as a colossal failure: Mike Nichols' movie version of Catch 22. Nichols was of course then still a hero of mine in his post-Graduate glow, and I found the movie hilarious and horrifying in equal measure. In my defense: 1) I saw this not two months after Cambodia/Kent State/the Northwestern student strike, which put me into as politically radical a period as my life has experienced, so I was well-inclined toward film's tone; 2) I'd never been able to get through Heller's novel, so there was no great memory it was desecrating; and 3) I haven't seen it since that 4th of July in 1970, and it's entirely possible I'd have a far lesser opinion today. But to practice perfect honesty, I have to say there's no film on the Academy's actual list about which I care nearly as much as I did about Catch 22 then.
Of the omitted, I'd also have gone all the way with Little Big Man, one of the few ambitious and mostly successful works of the year; its omission from the top categories can probably be chalked up to the fact that it didn't (outside of Chief Dan George) get massive critical support, and came from a small-time (soon to be defunct) film company.
I'd also throw in a film that's mostly forgotten: The Virgin and the Gypsy, directed by Sarah Miles' brother. It's by far the simpler of the year's D.H. Lawrence adaptations, but simplicity has its virtues.
By happenstance, the first report on the Oscar nominations I heard that year mentioned that the best picture nominees "included MASH, Five Easy Pieces, Patton and Love Story". I assumed the fifth nominee would be Ryan's Daughter (Gene Siskel had predicted those five in the Chicago Trib), which would have been dreary enough, but marginally acceptable compared to what actually filled the slot. I thought Airport was junk when I saw it during the previous summer -- I could see how the basic contours of the thriller plot drew in audiences, but I found it aggressively stupid and thought much of the acting was so horrible (including Burt Lancaster at perhaps his worst) that I couldn't believe the Academy took it seriously. This was Dr. Dolittle Redux as far as I was concerned.
In that context, I guess Love Story only seem sllightly silly as a nominee. Given that the movie was shattering box office records at the time of Academy balloting, its nomination was assured, and, honestly, I was a little afraid it might win at the time. (Patton's victory seemed a triumph of taste by comparison) I haven't actually watched the film in many a year, but, considering I thought it slick and shallow at the time, I presume I'd openly despise it now. But Magilla is right to the extent you ought to watch it to understand just what audiences put up with in 1970. You might also note that, by making MacGraw/O'Neal vaguely rebellious and throwing them into this cornball plot, the filmmakers were attempting one of the first mergers of the counterculture with the retro-culture. President Nixon famously said at the time he enjoyed the movie but complained how offended he was by MacGraw's foul language (which made it even more hilarious a few years later when his tapes full of Expletive Deleted's were released) Oh, and Arthur Hiller is one of the worst directors ever nominated.
I think you're all being too kind to Fellini here; I find Satyricon pretty close to a hideous movie -- garish and boring. I was only glancingly familiar with the source material from high school Latin, but I don't think Fellini got a whole lot closer. It seemed almost as if he wanted to validate his nastiest critics, to whom he was by then just the barker of the freak-show. I find most of the film's actors unappealing if not downright repellent, and the plot -- such as it is -- drearily "daring" (in retrospect, it seems the gateway to the Guccione Caligula). Fellini's worst nomination, hands-down.
I'll agree with Bob Rafelson that the most famous scene from Five Easy Pieces is unrepresentative -- it was the only scene in the whole movie to which I responded. I've mentioned here before that the movie is one of my all-time "I don't get it"'s -- many guys I know (and it's almost always guys) consider it a great American movie. I'm with BJ's basic response, only in spades (and this is based on my viewing in 1970 and another look only two years ago). I've often said that when people say they love the movies of the 70s, you have to ask them to be specific -- if they answer Five Easy Pieces, Two Lane Blacktop, A Woman Under the Influence and Rancho Deluxe, they're on a totally different wavelength from someone who loves Chinatown, Cuckoo's Nest and All the President's Men. Five Easy Pieces to me was a movie that aped the moodier European films of the era and impressed critics with its affectlessness. It left me cold.
Patton obviously wasn't a truly special movie -- it was a major step down from the David Lean epics to which it seemed to aspire. But it wasn't all the way down in the class of such later bloated Oscar epics as Gandhi and Braveheart, and for that we can mostly credit the great George C. Scott performance. Michael Gebert makes the case it was Coppola's screenwriting contribution that gave the character so much life, largely because the "He's appalling/he's fascinating" approach is similar to what Duvall showed in Apocalypse Now. Whoever's responsible, Scott runs with it, and gives one of the most bracing, subversive performances we'd then seen at the center of such a biopic. I'd rate Patton as an unexciting but acceptable best picture winner for that year, and, given how many bad options there were, I counted that a happy ending to the evening.
But I'll agree with BJ, that Schaffner and Avildsen belong in the "you got lucky" school of best director winners. You could include George Roy Hill in that group, as well, along with Attenborough a decade on -- and, if you were a truly exacting taskmaster, you might throw in Friedkin, Redford, Pollack and Levinson over the two decades that followed. This isn't to label all these men bad directors -- I quite like at least some efforts from all. But, given that we got through the era with Altman, Kubrick, Bergman, Pakula ignored, and Polanski and Scorsese deferred till a new century, you have to look at most best director winners in the era as not especially the representative voices. It was not ever thus. For the first four decades of the Oscars, the most revered names often prevailed (Ford, Capra, McCarey, Huston, Wilder), as their films were popular with traditionalists as well as critics. And maybe Wyler, Kazan, Stevens, Zinnemann and Lean haven't endured as auteurist favorites, but they certainly don't fall into the one-hit-wonder class of so many directing winners in this period. (Of course, the freakest of them all, Michael Cimino, was both of-the-era AND one-hit-wonder) You could almost draw a red line after 1966 -- over the decades that followed, a few of-the-day directors managed wins (Nichols, Schlesinger, Fosse, Coppola, Allen). But, because the conflict between 70s New Hollywood and Academy oldsters was so severe and resulted in so many compromise choices (of which Patton and next year's winner are clear examples), all too often the journeymen took home the prizes instead of the auteurs.
Back to 1970:
Women in Love was the one time Ken Russell flirted with the mainstream. A year later he was on to The Devils, and his wild-man reputation kicked in, never to let up. Here, like David Lynch with The Elephant Man, he applied the gifts of invention that characterized his later work within a (somewhat) more standard framework, and captured alot more of the Lawrentian spirit than seemed likely at the time. There's tremendous sensuality to the film (I recall an early scene of Alan Bates traipsing naked through the brush, where you could almost feel him inhaling the earth around him), memorable images (beautifully shot by Billy Williams -- I can almost forgive him for later winning the cinematography Oscar for Gandhi), and solid performances from all, with Glenda Jackson making a sensational emergence. In a close call, Russell gets my best director vote.
I didn't vote for Robert Altman here because I know I have far greater opportunities for that down the line. But also, truth be told, I'm not that enormous a fan of MASH, and part of this stems from the love for Catch 22 I indicated at the top. The two films, both being subversive war comedies, were frequently compared. MASH opened much earlier -- late winter -- and was much the critics' choice. I, on the other hand, didn't get to MASH till a month or so after Catch 22, and I found it disappointing. There were things I liked about it -- the entire Painless sequence, while it no doubt would be deemed sexist today, seemed very sweet -- but the film felt kind of aimless to me, especially as it went on, and a part of me felt like it was just a hipper, R-rated Sgt. Bilko. I've seen the film more recently (though not in the last decade or so), and did like it quite a bit more -- its more delicate touches reached me. It's possible that, coming in cold today, I'd be more appreciative of the whole thing. But, again practicing complete honesty, I can't say I ever loved it like I was supposed to.
But, you know what? In this dismal group, falling in like with something is enough to get my vote. Compared to the rest, MASH stands out. So, a somewhat half-hearted cheer and vote for the least bad movie on the Academy's 1970 list.
Last edited by Mister Tee on Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1970 was in many ways a pale shadow of 1969. 1969 gave us all those breakout films we discussed in that year's thread while 1970 gave us a lot of imitations. The Easy Rider; Medium Cool and If... wannabes were particularly embarrassing. We had things like Getting Straight and The Strawberry Statement stinking up the box office. That audiences retreated to the safety of old-fashioned claptrap like Airport and Love Story was not surprising, nor was the Academy's blessings. I think anyone who is interested in film history ought to see those two films at least once to understand the movie-going vibe of the time. They are still comfort food for many today who discovered them either when they were first shown or later on TV or video.
Patton is not in the same class. It was very much a prestige film of the day. Its long in the works screenplay was by Edmund H. North, who wrote The Day the Earth Stood Still among other things with a touch-up by wunderkind Francis Coppola. George C. Scott's performance is nothing short of brilliant. Schaffner's direction is sturdy. It is not the innovative work of a Rafelson, Altman, Russell or Fellini, but it is sure and strong and not an embarrassment in the way that John G. Avildsen's win for Rocky is an embarrassment. The 1970 equivalent would have been Arthur Hiller, who actually did win the Golden Globe along with his film, which won Best Picture - Drama.
The Original BJ wrote
Given the number of quintessential '70's directors who never won the Best Director Oscar, or had to wait decades for one, it's pretty disappointing that the Academy wasted a trophy on guys as cinematically insignificant as Schaffner (and John G. Avildsen).
I haven't seen Patton. While it's possible I will watch Patton down the road, I'll likely never waste my time on Airport or Love Story, so I'll never vote on this poll. If there is one thing that I have come to know about the Academy Awards it's that these people do not care about "wasting trophies". In fact, the director's branch more often than not will be thrilled to honor the industry workerman who has put up with more of the bullshit that the average workerman director in the director's branch will himself do instead of honoring a firebrand maverick type.
I have not seen the majority of films here. I have not seen Satyricon. I don't have much love for MASH like I do Altman's others but I can appreciate the watershed aspect to it. Five Easy Pieces was my jam and Bob Rafelson's omission sounds more criminal than Shaffner's award.
I guess I didn't mean anonymous in terms of overall career -- he definitely had a resume, and it's not hugely embarrassing or anything. As I said, I don't think Patton is an unworthy movie. And though I'm not any huge Planet of the Apes fan, I know it's not insignificant to film history either. And those TV credits are obviously of some importance.
But stylistically -- at list for every movie of his I've seen -- he's pretty much a nonentity, and that's what I was referring to...so I guess stylistically anonymous would be a more specific way to put it? Given the number of quintessential '70's directors who never won the Best Director Oscar, or had to wait decades for one, it's pretty disappointing that the Academy wasted a trophy on guys as cinematically insignificant as Schaffner (and John G. Avildsen).
He received one of his three DGA nominations for that tour of the White House. He was Emmy nominated for the original version of Twelve Angry Men and for both writing and directing the first TV adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
His film career was spotty, but varied. His better films included The Stripper; The Best Man; The War Lord and Planet of the Apes before Patton and The Boys from Brazil after Patton. Unfortunately it also included the ponderous Nicholas and Alexandra and the later inanities, Sphinx; Yes, Giorgio and Lionheart.
The Original BJ wrote:
Franklin J. Schaffner is one of those names that makes you wish Best Picture weren't so typically tied to Best Director, because from time to time a totally anonymous helmer can snag the top prize over far more exciting directors simply because their movie happened to be The One that year.
I don't disagree with your overall statement, but Franklin J. Schaffner was far from an anonymous director. To quote his entry on the IMDb.:
Franklin J. Schaffner was one of the most innovative creative minds in the early days of American network television, utilizing a moving camera in the days when most television directors kept the camera static. His eye for visuals was developed in the dozens of live television programs he directed on prestigious shows such as "Studio One in Hollywood" (1948) and "Playhouse 90" (1956), not to mention his work in news and public affairs on "March of Time" and as one of the directors of TV coverage of the 1948 political conventions in Philadelphia. His visual sense came to be one of the important attributes of his work in feature films, such as the trek taken across the desert by the astronauts at the start of Planet of the Apes (1968). In addition to his Oscar and DGA Awards for Patton (1970), Schaffner also won Sylvania Awards in 1953 and 1954, Emmy Awards in 1954, 1955 and 1962 and a Variety Critics Poll Award in 1960.
He was Edward F. Murrow's director on Person to Person
He was John F. Kennedy's TV consultant throughout his presidency.
He was President of the DGA from 1987 to his death in 1989.
He also directed the famous Jackie Kennedy tour of the White House.
I had occasion to look up Schaffner's career record a year or so ago, and, like you, I found it surprisingly interesting.
Unfortunately, far more interesting than any film he ever made.
The Original BJ wrote:
Franklin J. Schaffner is one of those names that makes you wish Best Picture weren't so typically tied to Best Director, because from time to time a totally anonymous helmer can snag the top prize over far more exciting directors simply because their movie happened to be The One that year.
I don't disagree with your overall statement, but Franklin J. Schaffner was far from an anonymous director. To quote his entry on the IMDb.:
Franklin J. Schaffner was one of the most innovative creative minds in the early days of American network television, utilizing a moving camera in the days when most television directors kept the camera static. His eye for visuals was developed in the dozens of live television programs he directed on prestigious shows such as "Studio One in Hollywood" (1948) and "Playhouse 90" (1956), not to mention his work in news and public affairs on "March of Time" and as one of the directors of TV coverage of the 1948 political conventions in Philadelphia. His visual sense came to be one of the important attributes of his work in feature films, such as the trek taken across the desert by the astronauts at the start of Planet of the Apes (1968). In addition to his Oscar and DGA Awards for Patton (1970), Schaffner also won Sylvania Awards in 1953 and 1954, Emmy Awards in 1954, 1955 and 1962 and a Variety Critics Poll Award in 1960.
He was Edward F. Murrow's director on Person to Person
He was John F. Kennedy's TV consultant throughout his presidency.
He was President of the DGA from 1987 to his death in 1989.
The Oscar lineups in the 70's were probably the best of any decade, though this first year is probably the least impressive of that decade. I like my ultimate choice a lot, but the slate as a whole is rather underwhelming. And I haven't seen too many alts I'd offer up, beyond Little Big Man, and bumping up Women in Love to the main race.
I think Airport is a truly awful movie. For me, it's far less the equivalent of nominating something like Speed or Jurassic Park -- terrifically crafted popcorn entertainments -- and a lot more like nominating a Transformers movie -- a big, lumbering spectacle with a ludicrous screenplay that's just a trial to endure. And given that I had seen Airplane as a kid, by the time I got to this movie, I was practically poised to sneer at all the moments the later parody so deliriously skewered. I think this is the worst Best Picture nominee of this entire decade.
And Love Story was no kiss for Christmas either. Here is a romance as trite and generic as its title, with dialogue that makes Titanic's sound positively Shakespearean. From the opening "What can you say about a twenty-five year-old girl who died?" to the laughably iconic "Love means never having to say your sorry" the script is one howler after another. As for the rich boy/poor girl dynamic, the parents who just won't have it, and the eleventh hour illness that descends on our poor lovers...well, maybe those elements would have been more acceptable for Best Two-Reel of 1917, but certainly not for Best Picture now. At least the chemistry between Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw is...oh wait, that sucks too. It's not like Arthur Hiller had anything other than soap to work with, but he plays the material for maximum phoniness, and is the clear worst of the Best Director nominees.
Is Fellini Satyricon the most bizarre movie to ever receive a major Oscar nomination? If it were released in today's era, I imagine it might make Holy Motors look like The King's Speech. Obviously, this was a more adventurous period (for Oscar and in general), and I get a sense of loopy pleasure out of seeing it on the ballot. But I don't think this is one of Fellini's better efforts at all. Of course I admire his visual gifts, and seemingly never-ending imagination. But I find the film a lot more impenetrable than usual -- there came a point where I just had to accept that I wasn't meant to fully comprehend the meaning of everything I was seeing, and I should try to enjoy what I did like about it instead. Given that I've voted for Fellini twice already for films I do feel passionately about, I feel no urgent need to recognize him for this.
Franklin J. Schaffner is one of those names that makes you wish Best Picture weren't so typically tied to Best Director, because from time to time a totally anonymous helmer can snag the top prize over far more exciting directors simply because their movie happened to be The One that year. Patton is a solid enough effort, though when it began, with that thrilling speech by George C. Scott, I thought the film had the potential to be something more invigorating. But once it settles into the main narrative, it becomes a fairly impersonal biography/war film, elevated almost entirely by the great performance at its center. Like In the Heat of the Night, it's a fairly middle-of-the-road compromise choice, respectable but not exciting.
My runner-up in Best Picture would be Five Easy Pieces, but it's a fairly distant runner-up. There are a lot of elements I like in the movie, beginning with the performances by Nicholson, Black, and Smith, who seem to be working in slightly different styles (or at least on different levels), but who all feel of a piece within their scenes together. And some of the scenes -- the chicken sandwich diner outburst, Nicholson playing piano in the back of the truck, the sequence in which Nicholson tries to talk with his father, and that great final shot that seems to go on forever -- are very memorable. But I don't feel that it adds up to the great movie many find it to be. I think part of the reason is that, while Five Easy Pieces was certainly a groundbreaking film, it greatly influenced a type of movie that I like a lot less than many do, even today: the listless indie, in which a lot of the pleasures of narrative storytelling are discarded for more introspective character beats, and which I tend not to find terribly engaging. (Many of these kinds of movies are greeted as major filmmaking accomplishments, when so many of them just seem so minor to me.) As I said, I don't in any way just write off Five Easy Pieces -- I recognize its historical importance, and I actually think it's a shame that Bob Rafelson was the one excluded from Best Director, for a film with some really nice grace notes -- but it pretty clearly doesn't get my vote.
I strongly considered picking Ken Russell as Best Director, given that this is the only place to honor him, and I think Women in Love is a very impressive movie. What Russell accomplishes here is similar to what Scorsese does with The Age of Innocence, taking a classic period novel and making it feel completely fresh, a piece of cinema that feels fully contemporary rather than an embalmed mounting of literature. There are moments in this movie -- the nude wrestling match, the lake drowning -- that feel as bizarre and macabre as moments in the director's more outre films, and yet he wraps them in the glow of a beautifully-mounted, fiercely acted prestige period piece. It's this tension, between the modern and classical, that gives the movie much of its energy. (Well, and the great Glenda Jackson gives the movie much of its energy as well.) I think this is a better film than almost all of the actual Best Picture nominees.
But I don't think it's as good a movie as M*A*S*H. I can't imagine how daring the movie must have seemed at the time, during a period in which the nation was engulfed in war. Even today, it feels alarmingly subversive, mocking the U.S. military to a degree that isn't ridiculous (as some war comedies since then have been), but just right on the razor's edge of comedy and horror, where the film becomes that much more piercing because we don't know if we should laugh or recoil at some of the actions the characters take. M*A*S*H rails against the ridiculousness of war without ever becoming parody, and for this I have to give credit both to the script as well as Robert Altman, who finds just the right tone to make it all work. I think the director would go on to refine what we now know as the Altman-esque style in later, even greater movies, but this movie marked essentially the beginning of his trademarks: sprawling ensemble casts, conversations happening all over the place, the camera quietly observing details it finds interesting, sharp satire that can turn violent at any moment. Obviously, the television series M*A*S*H inspired has earned its place in popular culture in its own right, but all that came afterward has in no way made the original film feel less special or unique. It gets my vote for Best Picture and Best Director this year.
Best Picture
1. Women in Love
2. Five Easy Pieces
3. Ryan's Daughter
4. M*A*S*H
5. Satyricon
The 6th Spot: The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Best Director
1. Ken Russell, Women in Love
2. Bob Rafelson, Five Easy Pieces
3. Robert Altman, M*A*S*H
4. Federico Fellini, Satyricon
5. David Lean, Ryan's Daughter
The 6th Spot: Sam Peckinpah, The Ballad of Cable Hogue
I've probably seen Five Easy Pieces more than any other film of 1970 including last night when I watched it for the first time with commentary from Bob Rafelson and his ex-wife, Toby, the film's art director.
A true independent film, IMDb. shows an estimated budget of $1,600,000, but Rafelson says it was made for $700-750,000, well under $1,000,000, scoffing at today's "small budgets" of $30,000,000. The film's most famous scene, the diner scene, although written by Carole Eastman, was based on an incident in Rafelson's life. He now regrets the scene because it gives a false impression of what the film is about to anyone who has seen the scene but not the film itself.
Nicholson, whose first starring role it was after fourteen years as an actor, had refused to cry in the film, finally relenting to do the scene with the actor playing his father after re-writing the scene himself. It was filmed with just a stationary camera and Rafelson holding a boom mic with his back to Nicholson and the actor playing his mute stroke victim father.
The film remains just as powerful the fifth or sixth time you see it, with or without commentary. Karen Black, never better, and Lois Smith, always impressive, are as memorable as Nicholson. Rafelson's failure to receive a Best Director nomination was one of the directors' branch's more blatant errors of omission.
Two other films I re-watched this past week because I hadn't seen them in some time were Women in Love and Airport.
I don't think I'd seen Women in Love since it came out and didn't recall much about it except Eleanor Bron's Isadora Duncan imitation; the drownings; the nude wresting scene and the ending. I had forgotten how literate Larry Kramer's screenplay had been or how controlled the usually flamboyant Ken Russell's direction had been. I had remembered Glenda Jackson's performance as being the standout, but had forgotten that Alan Bates and Oliver Reed were almost as good.
The last forty-five minutes or so of Airport make it a decent popcorn movie, but getting there is excruciating with only Helen Hayes' attention grabbing over-the-top performance and Jessie Royce Landis' amusing cameo to bring some levity to the soap opera nonsense that otherwise defines it. Shame on Burt Lancaster for turning down Patton to make this because Universal offered him more money than Fox.
Lancaster's loss, as well as a number of other actors who turned the part down, was of course George C. Scott's gain. The actor's acerbic personally suited him well to the apparent similar personality of the World War II general. Patton, though not as good a film in my estimation as Five Easy Pieces or M*A*S*H, the year's other contemporary masterpiece, is a well-made film that satisfied both fans of the genre and those looking for more rebellious heroes.
M*A*S*H, Robert Altman's breakthrough film about an Army medical unit during the Korean War, was the year's best comedy, and one of the best serio-comedies, or dramadies as they are now called, in years. It either established or cemented the reputation of a gallery of new stars including Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skeritt, Robert Duvall and Sally Kellerman.
What can you say about a movie that was the box office hit of its day other than that it was manipulative nonsense? Love Story was unique in that its screenplay was adapted into a novel before the film's release and mass marketed to become a best seller building up anticipation for the film. Everyone read it. On paper, it was manipulative, but readable. The film was watchable to a point, but Ali MacGraw's acting was so off-putting it was baffling to me at the time that she became the Oscar front-runner for her one-note performance. It had to be the character, not the actress, that was being touted. Fortunately for Glenda Jackson, Elizabeth R was a smash hit on PBS throughout awards season.
I would replace Airport and Love Story on Oscar's Best Picture list with Women in Love and Ryan's Daughter, David Lean's exquisitely filmed, albeit over-produced epic love story featuring unforgettable cinematography by Freddie Young and a rousing score by Maurice Jarre as well as at least four memorable performances from Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard, John Mills and an against-type Robert MItchum.
Also worthy of Best Picture consideration were Arthur Penn's Little Bag Man; Cy Howard's Lovers and Other Strangers and Gilbert Cates' I Never Sang for My Father.
Rafelson and Lean should have been nominated over Hiller with Russell and Fellini fighting it out for the fifth spot.
Voted for Five Easy Pieces and Atlman in lieu of Rafelson.
