Best Director: Akira Kurosawa. Ran is so vastly superior to any of the Best Pictures nominees this one is a total no-brainer. Like Bergman with Fanny and Alexander, I don't know if Ran is necessarily the director's finest movie, but it's such a fantastic late-career triumph that serves as a wonderful culmination of the director's work. Visually, it's spectacular, a gloriously photographed and designed epic. Dramatically, I find it to be a very compelling riff on King Lear, with numerous character descending into madness in a very powerful and disturbing manner. And compared to a Best Picture slate full of movies I find pretty tedious, it's actually full of genuine energy and excitement en route to its inevitable tragic ending. It's too bad Kurosawa only got this one career nomination, but this is one of his major works and there's no way I'd pass up the chance to honor him.
My personal favorite movie of the year might be After Hours, which I find to be a wickedly funny little corker of a thriller, and a wonderful change of pace for Scorsese. But I don't at all dissent from the consensus that Brazil is one of the year's truly significant achievements, and Gilliam probably would have had my Best Director vote for his visionary creation. I also find Back to the Future and The Purple Rose of Cairo to be hugely pleasurable and full of invention. Plus, I still have a lot to see (notably Shoah and Come and See...maybe I'll plan a themed movie weekend and knock off both!). And though I wouldn't consider it quite at Best Picture level, Blood Simple marked a very auspicious debut for a filmmaking team that would go on to be one of the significant voices in American cinema.
As far as the Best Picture nominees go, I'm not especially fond of any of them. I also rate all of them about at the same level -- I don't find any one of the films to be the obvious worst (and none are as place-filler as the worst of the '60's and 70's nominees, to be fair). But if "NONE" had been an option, I'd have more enthusiastically voted that way before I picked any of these.
Kiss of the Spider Woman was the last of these movies that I saw, and I was really hoping it would pull through to be my favorite in the category, but that was not to be. For starters, it's a pretty minor piece of moviemaking: much of the narrative takes place in one claustrophobic cell with two actors -- two good actors, I'll acknowledge -- and I doubt that even a director far more exciting than Hector Babenco wouldn't have been able to mine all that much from this set-up. But where I really think Babenco falters is in the depiction of the movies that serve as Molina's escape. I know the two films have very different aims, but The Purple Rose of Cairo this same year accomplished a far better portrait of cinema's transporting power than Spider Woman's bland fantasies here. And though the relationship between Molina and Valentin is unique enough, I don't think it's explored in a manner that's any deeper than Curtis & Poitier bonding through close proximity despite their differences in The Defiant Ones. And, minor thing, but seen decades after its release, the depiction of Hurt's character comes off as pretty retro. Overall, all of these demerits add up to a pretty lackluster movie.
Peter Weir is a puzzling director to me. When his films succeed, I genuinely think his work is a major element of their success, so I'm not completely able to dismiss him as an uninspiring filmmaker who sometimes gets lucky with good scripts. But at the same time, his films that don't work out so well don't ever feel better because of him, because he never seems to improve lesser material the way so many special directors can. I put Witness firmly in the second category of his films. It's probably telling that Witness is so often used as a teaching tool in screenwriting classes -- the movie's fans would call the screenplay the epitome of perfect structure, but for me, I find its narrative almost slavishly and simplistically tied to formulaic tropes. Take a VERY standard cop thriller, add a dash of fish-out-water culture clash, and mix and stir for instant movie! I just can't believe so many see a special movie here. As for Weir, it just seems like he's checked out -- there's no sense of the director who brought such haunting style to something like Picnic at Hanging Rock -- and the direction, like everything else about the movie, strikes me as hopelessly bland.
I'll grant that Out of Africa is a more compelling movie than, say, Gandhi. But it still very much fits into the category of historical epic bloat that has always been catnip to Oscar voters, but reached a high during this era -- the score is gorgeous and the African scenery is truly beautiful, but the experience of watching the film? It's pretty dull. Or, to put it another way, the movie just "reeks of quality," to borrow a line from Pauline Kael. Though I liked Sydney Pollack's other two nominations, I view them as more the exception to his career rather than the rule. With Out of Africa, Pollack puts forth the tasteful but mostly anonymous directorial vision that served a lot of his movies -- even those beautiful shots of Africa are pretty because Africa is beautiful, not necessarily because his camera captures the sights and the actors in much of an inventive way. And here's another movie that just feels so dated in its politics -- its white-folks-on-the-Dark-Continent narrative doesn't seem that much more progressive than King Solomon's Mines. I don't think Out of Africa is aggressively bad or anything -- and by the end, when the news about Robert Redford's fate comes to Meryl Streep, I admit I found myself moved -- but I could never understand the enthusiasm that would result in an Oscar sweep.
It's interesting that Mister Tee called The Color Purple sloppily made, because, though I do agree that the movie is pretty a much a botch, one thing I will say in its favor is that Spielberg is Spielberg, and this film is clearly directed by an actual filmmaker, who actually seemed to have thought through where to place the camera, when to move it, and how to assemble his images into a dramatic whole. (Watching some of these other movies, I'd question whether the directors even had the filmmaking gene.) The problem, though, is that even though Spielberg is a very good director, he was so clearly the wrong director for this material, and I'm not referring to the much-debated topic about whether a white person could (or should) have directed this story. Throughout his career, Spielberg has never been particularly interested in stories about women, and he's always been a very sex-less filmmaker. So...Alice Walker's dark and brutal novel about a group of women frequently confronting issues of sexuality (from rape to lesbianism) essentially becomes an inspiring fairy tale on screen. I found the entire film to be a completely miscalculated representation of the book, and notion that the film was somehow treated unforgivably by the Oscars (put forth, unsurprisingly, by Roger Ebert) has never made sense to me.
That leaves Prizzi's Honor, a movie with all kinds of flaws. Overall, I don't think John Huston really finds the right tone for this material. The movie is way too facetious to be taken seriously as the epic crime drama which it seems to aspire to be in some places. And at the same time, it's far too bluntly brutal elsewhere to really work as a more tongue-in-cheek comedic take on a mob drama. And from the opening scenes, I had some trouble following the story, because Huston shoots the backs of so many characters for the first few minutes, I kept wondering when any character I knew I was supposed to follow would be introduced. And throughout, all of this tonal and visual chaos doesn't make the (too-copious) twists and turns of the narrative especially engaging, because the film really seems to lack clarity about what it wants to be. But...I have to vote for something, and Prizzi's Honor is the movie on the ballot which most seems to be striving for something unique, for something excitingly off-center. As I said, I don't think the movie is entirely successful at pulling off its aims, but its blend of thrills, laughs, and romance (and yes, Nicholson and especially Huston make a memorable pair) never feels stale, which is more than I can say for a lot of these movies. So, I give the film my unenthusiastic Best Picture vote.
Best Picture and Director 1985
-
The Original BJ
- Emeritus
- Posts: 4312
- Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 8:49 pm
-
Mister Tee
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8648
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
1985 had been such a dreary year for mainstream film that I went into awards season wondering if there was any film that could win best picture. This feeling was only intensified when I opened my NY Times that Monday in mid-December and read that Brazil – a movie of which I’d never even heard – had swept the LA Critics’ film/director/screenplay categories. I’d thought the critics were making some sort of quixotic gesture (especially when I read about the machinations going on behind the scenes at Universal – Jack Matthews’ The Battle of Brazil is a terrific account of this, for those who don’t know the background). But when I saw the film, sometime in January, I revised my opinion, deciding the critics had made the obvious choice: Brazil is, by me, easily the best of the year, and a bravura directing feat by Terry Gilliam.
Nothing else, on the Academy slate or elsewhere, came close, but there are a few films worth noting. Dreamchild is a wonderfully imaginative take on Alice in Wonderland, nicely weaving together the classic piece of literature, Lewis Carroll’s uneasy relationship with young Alice while he was writing it, and the memories of that same woman grown to old age. I also like Altman’s Secret Honor, a one-man imagined soliloquy from Richard Nixon after Watergate has exiled him to ignominy. I’m not quite as crazy about Come and See and okri and dws are, but it’s certainly filled with as horrifying images from the Nazi onslaught as had then been put on screen. (I have an idea Spielberg might have taken a look at the film before he made Schindler’s List) I’d also cite The Falcon and the Snowman and After Hours – not to argue they’re great, but to say I liked them more than most of the Academy’s nominees.
I think The Color Purple is about the worst of the nominees – played at a pretty cornball level throughout, lacking narrative coherence (especially in the last third, where crucial scenes seemed to be missing), and featuring, in Avery’s confrontation at the church with her father, one of the most stupefyingly misconceived sequences in the entire Spielberg canon. I’d been a huge booster of Spielberg after Close Encounters, and wanted to see him succeed, but I thought he fell so short here that it would have been an embarrassment for him to receive prizes for it.
Witness is less sloppily made, but not a notably better film. You shouldn’t blame the Academy for putting it on the slate, though; blame the critics, who gave it overwhelming undeserved praise for being some sort of profound mediation on violence. I thought it was a hack thriller mixed with city-slicker-goes-to-the-farm gags (and some forbidden love thrown in on the side), that purported to deal with non-violence but got nearly all its charge from threats or acts of violence. That this won for screenplay over Brazil and Purple Rose of Cairo is an enduring shame.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is at least a respectable piece of filmmaking, though I found it disappointing next to the critical response. The ideas in it don’t strike me as profound (or as well worked out, dramatically) as the writer and director seem to feel they are. And the climactic scene with Molina is staged so poorly I frankly had difficulty being sure what was going on. But the relationship between Hurt and Julia – and their performances – carries the film a decent way. Nothing special, but not an embarrassment like the previously discussed two.
I found Prizzi’s Honor, too, something of a letdown after the critical huzzahs, and for years I wondered if I’d just gone in with expectations too high and hadn’t given the film its due. It certainly seemed like the kind of film about which I’d have been more enthusiastic. So, I did something I’ve rarely done during this historical revise: I Netflixed the film and watched it the other night. And I found my original opinion pretty much reinforced. I think it’s an enjoyable enough movie, with some very funny moments, and at least two top-drawer performances (Nicholson’s and Huston’s). But I think there are significant lulls in the film, where it’s not as funny as it seems it wants to be; I think Kathleen Turner seems to be not in on the joke, and gives a performance out of step with the rest of the cast; I think overall the tone is not as well sustained as in the most famous Condon adaptation, The Manchurian Candidate; and I just don’t think the story adds up to much of anything in the end. For these reasons, I won’t be giving it my best picture vote, nor will I be singling out John Huston.
mlrg noted below that, while, at the time he posted, The Color Purple was leading for best picture (it’s since dropped back a bit), Kurosawa was running away with best director. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but that’s been something of a pattern in the most recent stretch of these polls. Once you get past the Annie Hall/Deer Hunter landslides in ’77 and ’78, the best picture races (with the exception of 1984) have been extremely close, often involving 3 to 4 films, but the best director votes are consistently decisive – the winner in all hitting double figures, often posting wide margins.
Kurosawa gets my vote here, as well, but in honesty I’m less enthusiastic about Ran than about many of his other films. As I’ve said here in the past, I have difficulty getting deeply engaged in films that are variations on work I’ve already seen. Throughout Ran, I kept anticipating the narrative rhythms from Lear, so, while I could admire the stunning visuals, I wasn’t fully taken with what I was watching onscreen (any more than I was while reading the far lesser Story of Edgar Sawtelle, thanks to its fidelity to Hamlet). Kurosawa is clearly the auteur of choice among this group (with only Huston even in the same ballpark), and, as I said, I’ve voted for him. But having to choose him for a film on which I was lukewarm is another example of why I find this year so uninspiring.
As is my desultory but necessary vote for Out of Africa as best picture. Something has to win best picture from these five, and for me (as well as dws & okri), this reasonably intelligent, thoughtful piece of historic literature is pretty much the only choice, despite it being not remotely to my general taste. I’m not going to make an effort to convince anyone it’s special in any way, because it isn’t. What it is, is somewhat better than Kiss of the Spider Woman and Prizzi’s Honor, and substantially better than the other two nominees. Leave it at that.
On to next year, when there are at least some nominees about which I can muster some enthusiasm.
Nothing else, on the Academy slate or elsewhere, came close, but there are a few films worth noting. Dreamchild is a wonderfully imaginative take on Alice in Wonderland, nicely weaving together the classic piece of literature, Lewis Carroll’s uneasy relationship with young Alice while he was writing it, and the memories of that same woman grown to old age. I also like Altman’s Secret Honor, a one-man imagined soliloquy from Richard Nixon after Watergate has exiled him to ignominy. I’m not quite as crazy about Come and See and okri and dws are, but it’s certainly filled with as horrifying images from the Nazi onslaught as had then been put on screen. (I have an idea Spielberg might have taken a look at the film before he made Schindler’s List) I’d also cite The Falcon and the Snowman and After Hours – not to argue they’re great, but to say I liked them more than most of the Academy’s nominees.
I think The Color Purple is about the worst of the nominees – played at a pretty cornball level throughout, lacking narrative coherence (especially in the last third, where crucial scenes seemed to be missing), and featuring, in Avery’s confrontation at the church with her father, one of the most stupefyingly misconceived sequences in the entire Spielberg canon. I’d been a huge booster of Spielberg after Close Encounters, and wanted to see him succeed, but I thought he fell so short here that it would have been an embarrassment for him to receive prizes for it.
Witness is less sloppily made, but not a notably better film. You shouldn’t blame the Academy for putting it on the slate, though; blame the critics, who gave it overwhelming undeserved praise for being some sort of profound mediation on violence. I thought it was a hack thriller mixed with city-slicker-goes-to-the-farm gags (and some forbidden love thrown in on the side), that purported to deal with non-violence but got nearly all its charge from threats or acts of violence. That this won for screenplay over Brazil and Purple Rose of Cairo is an enduring shame.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is at least a respectable piece of filmmaking, though I found it disappointing next to the critical response. The ideas in it don’t strike me as profound (or as well worked out, dramatically) as the writer and director seem to feel they are. And the climactic scene with Molina is staged so poorly I frankly had difficulty being sure what was going on. But the relationship between Hurt and Julia – and their performances – carries the film a decent way. Nothing special, but not an embarrassment like the previously discussed two.
I found Prizzi’s Honor, too, something of a letdown after the critical huzzahs, and for years I wondered if I’d just gone in with expectations too high and hadn’t given the film its due. It certainly seemed like the kind of film about which I’d have been more enthusiastic. So, I did something I’ve rarely done during this historical revise: I Netflixed the film and watched it the other night. And I found my original opinion pretty much reinforced. I think it’s an enjoyable enough movie, with some very funny moments, and at least two top-drawer performances (Nicholson’s and Huston’s). But I think there are significant lulls in the film, where it’s not as funny as it seems it wants to be; I think Kathleen Turner seems to be not in on the joke, and gives a performance out of step with the rest of the cast; I think overall the tone is not as well sustained as in the most famous Condon adaptation, The Manchurian Candidate; and I just don’t think the story adds up to much of anything in the end. For these reasons, I won’t be giving it my best picture vote, nor will I be singling out John Huston.
mlrg noted below that, while, at the time he posted, The Color Purple was leading for best picture (it’s since dropped back a bit), Kurosawa was running away with best director. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but that’s been something of a pattern in the most recent stretch of these polls. Once you get past the Annie Hall/Deer Hunter landslides in ’77 and ’78, the best picture races (with the exception of 1984) have been extremely close, often involving 3 to 4 films, but the best director votes are consistently decisive – the winner in all hitting double figures, often posting wide margins.
Kurosawa gets my vote here, as well, but in honesty I’m less enthusiastic about Ran than about many of his other films. As I’ve said here in the past, I have difficulty getting deeply engaged in films that are variations on work I’ve already seen. Throughout Ran, I kept anticipating the narrative rhythms from Lear, so, while I could admire the stunning visuals, I wasn’t fully taken with what I was watching onscreen (any more than I was while reading the far lesser Story of Edgar Sawtelle, thanks to its fidelity to Hamlet). Kurosawa is clearly the auteur of choice among this group (with only Huston even in the same ballpark), and, as I said, I’ve voted for him. But having to choose him for a film on which I was lukewarm is another example of why I find this year so uninspiring.
As is my desultory but necessary vote for Out of Africa as best picture. Something has to win best picture from these five, and for me (as well as dws & okri), this reasonably intelligent, thoughtful piece of historic literature is pretty much the only choice, despite it being not remotely to my general taste. I’m not going to make an effort to convince anyone it’s special in any way, because it isn’t. What it is, is somewhat better than Kiss of the Spider Woman and Prizzi’s Honor, and substantially better than the other two nominees. Leave it at that.
On to next year, when there are at least some nominees about which I can muster some enthusiasm.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
What he said.dws1982 wrote:Not a bad year at all if you look at the international and non-mainstream options (many of which weren't Oscar-eligible that year, and wouldn't have gotten consideration if they had been). But for Oscar purposes, it was terrible. I don't care for any of the movies up for Best Picture. I would've abstained altogether, but I felt like I needed to cast a vote against The Color Purple. I've loved plenty of Spielberg films before and since, but The Color Purple really is the nadir. Give me any of his so-called disasters--Always, Amistad, even Hook--over this, any day. Went with Out of Africa, which is the least offensive option. In Director, Kurosawa is the clear pick. I'm not as big a Kurosawa fan as many, but out of this lineup, his work on Ran is impossible to deny.
I can't view 1985 as a bad year - not with Ran, Come and See, Plenty, Wetherby, Brazil, The Official Story, After Hours, Tampopo, and others. But this line-up is the dregs.
-
Precious Doll
- Emeritus
- Posts: 4453
- Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
- Location: Sydney
- Contact:
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
What a bad year for American films. I took a look at my 1985 list and my most highly rated American film is the The Purple Rose of Cairo which received a screenplay nomination.
I voted for Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Hector Babenco with the only other deserving nominee being Kurosawa.
I voted for Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Hector Babenco with the only other deserving nominee being Kurosawa.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
-
OscarGuy
- Site Admin
- Posts: 13668
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
- Location: Springfield, MO
- Contact:
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
I voted Color Purple. I think it's a better film than Prizzi's Honor, which is a terrific film as well. Both of which are significantly better than Out of Africa.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
Not a bad year at all if you look at the international and non-mainstream options (many of which weren't Oscar-eligible that year, and wouldn't have gotten consideration if they had been). But for Oscar purposes, it was terrible. I don't care for any of the movies up for Best Picture. I would've abstained altogether, but I felt like I needed to cast a vote against The Color Purple. I've loved plenty of Spielberg films before and since, but The Color Purple really is the nadir. Give me any of his so-called disasters--Always, Amistad, even Hook--over this, any day. Went with Out of Africa, which is the least offensive option. In Director, Kurosawa is the clear pick. I'm not as big a Kurosawa fan as many, but out of this lineup, his work on Ran is impossible to deny.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
on the other hand, Kurosawa is winning on a landslideITALIANO wrote:mlrg wrote:and 3 voters didn't identify themselves....ITALIANO wrote:The Color Purple is winning Best Picture on this board. Interesting.
They certainly feel shame - and who wouldnt?
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
mlrg wrote:and 3 voters didn't identify themselves....ITALIANO wrote:The Color Purple is winning Best Picture on this board. Interesting.
They certainly feel shame - and who wouldnt?
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
and 3 voters didn't identify themselves....ITALIANO wrote:The Color Purple is winning Best Picture on this board. Interesting.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
The Color Purple is winning Best Picture on this board. Interesting.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
Voted for The Color Purple and Kurosawa.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1985
pretty weak line up.
Out of Africa is nothing more than good cinematography and a catchy score.
Voted for Prizzi's Honor and Huston.
Out of Africa is nothing more than good cinematography and a catchy score.
Voted for Prizzi's Honor and Huston.
-
Big Magilla
- Site Admin
- Posts: 19337
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
- Location: Jersey Shore
Best Picture and Director 1985
1985 - the year in which no one seemed to agree on anything.
The L.A. Film Critics set year-end awards on their ears with their choice of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a film that they had seen in previews but which still hadn't received a release date. Universal quickly set a one-week qualifying run in both L.A. and New York beginning Christmas Day but the buzz was so strong that it was moved up a week to December 18th with a regular run scheduled for February, 1986. They also gave their Best Director award to Gilliam.
The National Board of Review went with the presumed Oscar front-runner, Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple while giving their Best Director award to Akira Kurosawa for his Japanese King Lear, Ran.
The New York Film Critics went with John Huston's last career triumph, Prizzi's Honor and gae the ailing director its Best Director award as well.
The National Board of Review reversed things with Best Picture going to Ran and Best Director to Huston.
The Golden Globes was the first to honor Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa with its Best Picture - Dram award while giving Best Picture - Comedy or Musical to Prizzi's Honor and Best Director to Huston.
The DGA went to Spielberg with Huston, Pollock, Ron Howard (Cocoon and Peter Weir (Witness the other nominees. Oscar substituted Kurosawa for Howard.
I don't know when I first saw Brazil or Ran, but I know it wasn't before the Oscars. My choices going in to the awards were The Color Purple and Huston. Over time, however, I've moved my allegiance to the non-nominated Brazil while sticking with Huston for the Best Director win.
As for the eventual Oscar winner, Out of Africa, I still don't get it. The film contained two good performances from Meryl Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer and excellent cinematography, but that was about it.
Nor have I ever understood the animosity toward The Color Purple. I don't know what the issues are regarding the film's alleged "niceness" never having read Alice Walker's novel. I thought it was intense enough. if anything, the men in the film were just about all jerks. The women, though, were strongly written and played characters.
My votes go to The Color Purple and Kurosawa for career recognition, although I still personally prefer Huston.
The L.A. Film Critics set year-end awards on their ears with their choice of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a film that they had seen in previews but which still hadn't received a release date. Universal quickly set a one-week qualifying run in both L.A. and New York beginning Christmas Day but the buzz was so strong that it was moved up a week to December 18th with a regular run scheduled for February, 1986. They also gave their Best Director award to Gilliam.
The National Board of Review went with the presumed Oscar front-runner, Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple while giving their Best Director award to Akira Kurosawa for his Japanese King Lear, Ran.
The New York Film Critics went with John Huston's last career triumph, Prizzi's Honor and gae the ailing director its Best Director award as well.
The National Board of Review reversed things with Best Picture going to Ran and Best Director to Huston.
The Golden Globes was the first to honor Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa with its Best Picture - Dram award while giving Best Picture - Comedy or Musical to Prizzi's Honor and Best Director to Huston.
The DGA went to Spielberg with Huston, Pollock, Ron Howard (Cocoon and Peter Weir (Witness the other nominees. Oscar substituted Kurosawa for Howard.
I don't know when I first saw Brazil or Ran, but I know it wasn't before the Oscars. My choices going in to the awards were The Color Purple and Huston. Over time, however, I've moved my allegiance to the non-nominated Brazil while sticking with Huston for the Best Director win.
As for the eventual Oscar winner, Out of Africa, I still don't get it. The film contained two good performances from Meryl Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer and excellent cinematography, but that was about it.
Nor have I ever understood the animosity toward The Color Purple. I don't know what the issues are regarding the film's alleged "niceness" never having read Alice Walker's novel. I thought it was intense enough. if anything, the men in the film were just about all jerks. The women, though, were strongly written and played characters.
My votes go to The Color Purple and Kurosawa for career recognition, although I still personally prefer Huston.