Best Screenplay 1996

[Greg]

Whatever the reason, for me there a lot of films where there is one line that just seems to stand out in my memory. In The English Patient it is, "Your hair smells like marzipan."

[Sabin]

Italiano wrote
I've picked The English Patient because I read the novel it's based on and really - it must have been such a DIFFICULT task...Not a masterpiece, I know, but solid - the work of a good director, but probably of an even better screenwriter.

That's what makes its loss in this category all the more baffling. What Anthony Minghella does with The English Patient is fundamentally middlebrow heresy. He's turning written memory into watched flashback. And it works! The film's worst sin is that it works so well, it makes the film's present pale in comparison to the past. I understand the critique that because the scenes with Juliette Bincohe's saintly Hannah are less interesting than those between Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas, then the film must be wrongheaded. I think that's just natural byproduct of seeing Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas' romance on-screen. Anything else is naturally going to seem dispassionate by contrast.

I voted for Trainspotting, but even if Anthony Minghella didn't write the best script of this category, he must have had the hardest time writing it. I wasn't rooting for The English Patient to win a lot of awards that night. Were I to go down the line: maybe Juliette Binoche, sure Best Dramatic Score, I guess Sound Mixing (actually, a good win). It takes a lot for a film to become not just an Oscar juggernaut but the kind that makes watching the ceremony sort of unbearable (The Return of the King, Slumdog Millionaire, etc) and yet by the end of the night you think it was still kind of robbed.

[ITALIANO]

I am glad that we are doing Screenplay rather than Song. Aren't you? The level of these threads is much higher than usual - even by the already high standards of this board. I just hope that it will go on like this, even as we get to less recent years, when so many interesting - but maybe not-so-easy-to-find, and not always American - movies have been nominated in these categories. And, of course. I hope that only those who have seen ALL the nominess will vote.

In Original, I went with Secret and Lies. Improvised or not - and often movies which look or are said to be improvised, including some legendary ones made in Italy decades ago, are actually much more "planned" and written than they seem to be - it is at least VERY WELL improvised - the presence of its writer-director behind the cameras (its auteur actually, and one with a very strong and indivudual personality) is clear: this is "a Mike Leigh movie", and one of his best - intelligent, with his usual care for social aspects and details but also with an unsual, for him at the time, emotional, affective side. This movie may be low-key, but it has a warmth, and a humour even, which made it, back then, a box-office hit and not just a critical one - for once, for good reasons. It also started, of course, the Academy's love story with Mike Leigh (after all, as my grandmother used to say, "opposites attract") - a love story which may not be over.
But really - Fargo was and would be also a good choice - nobody can deny that. And then there's Lone Star - another excellent script by John Sayles. Any year with three nominees of this caliber would be an excellent year, really. (Jerry Maguire belongs to a more commercial vision of screenwriting, but it is professional and it has its moments, too).

In Adapted, I am one of those who never really understood the acclaim for Sling Blade - except for Billy Bob Thornton's admittedly intense performance. To me, it looked like just another good-ish, but not especially memorable, American independent movie, certainly with its own "mood", and with obviously some well-directed performances, but not with an especially great script. It's true that this time this category was definitely less good than Original, but both Trainspotting and The English Patient are clearly worthier writing efforts. I've picked The English Patient because I read the novel it's based on and really - it must have been such a DIFFICULT task. The movie is obviously less profound than the book, less lyrical, it has a less complex narrative structure - but it preserves most of the original themes, it rarely banalizes them, and it has an epic power and, by the end, an emotional impact which are probably even stronger than on page. It's also the kind of movie that we rarely get to see today - mainstream yet intelligent, "big" yet intimate (rather than just big like other Oscar winners of those years like Braveheart or Gladiator). Not a masterpiece, I know, but solid - the work of a good director, but probably of an even better screenwriter.

[The Original BJ]

For a change, the Adapted Screenplay race was the one with the fallow field this year. Of alternates, I wouldn't consider Emma a top-drawer nominee, but it would at least have made more sense than some we got. (It definitely has some clever structural transitions that reveal the obvious hand of its screenwriter.)

There are definitely far worse movies that have ever been nominated in this category than Hamlet, which is, though nothing boldly inventive, pretty well-mounted. But few nominations seem as patently absurd, given that the film's big marketing hook was that Branagh cut not a word of Shakespeare's text. Clearly the recognition here was for his achievement in getting such a big project made, and probably for his string of successful Shakespeare films. It goes without saying that Branagh's "screenwriting" merits zero consideration here.

The nomination for The Crucible at least honored the author who created his film's narrative, characters, and dialogue. And there was at least some adaptation here in bringing his play to broader life on the screen. I've been a huge fan of this play ever since I saw a high school production of it as a teenager, and I think it's amazing that material written over fifty years ago about events that took place centuries ago hasn't lost any of its timely edge. I think the film version is a solid adaptation, though not overwhelmingly special, and in considering voting for its screenplay I run into the same problem I usually do with stage adaptations: it seems like there's a lot less actual screenwriting than other candidates on the ballot.

Others here have explained to me how Sling Blade managed its win basically due to the campaign that emphasized that Billy Bob Thornton wouldn't be winning Best Actor, and ought to be compensated for it here. But even considering that, the film's win here is pretty indefensible to me, as a wee indie crashing the sweep of an epic Best Picture winner whose adaptation had been very acclaimed. And, in my opinion, Sling Blade was a pretty mediocre indie as well. I think there is some decent writing scene-to-scene -- as low-key character drama, it's got a nice sensitivity and sense of humor that runs through it. But about half way through, I think it becomes painfully obvious where the story is headed, and at that point it just turns into a march to the inevitable, with very little surprise along the way. It just seems to me that, in adapting his short film, Thornton just didn't expand it to include enough story to be a worthy winner here.

Trainspotting is one of two movies about which I can get excited here. It's a wildly energetic film, full of exciting humor but also a dark, realist sensibility that doesn't shy away from showing the horrific side of drug abuse. I know at the time the movie had detractors who argued that the movie glorified heroin use, but that accusation strikes me as patently ridiculous. The movie captures -- perhaps more than any other -- both the simultaneous pleasure and life-destructive pain that comes with drug addiction, and the movie's alternately exciting and chilling (sometimes even in the same sequence) events congeal to form a startling portrait of the all-consuming power of substance abuse. The narrative feels loose and fluid (I understand the book was essentially a collection of short stories), but its lack of structure feels completely appropriate given the subject matter, as well as surprisingly disciplined for a film that could have easily turned into a tedium of rambling episodes. It definitely feels like the hippest script of the bunch, and I understand people voting for it.

But I think The English Patient -- though more squarely in quality Oscar-bait territory -- is an even grander accomplishment. It's hard to feel bad for Anthony Minghella for losing here, given how overwhelmingly he and his film were rewarded elsewhere. But I think his screenplay is one of his film's strongest achievements, and I think he should have been rewarded for it. This was another case of a filmmaker taking the basic raw elements of a novel's story but finding a completely new structure for the film, one that allowed him to weave together disparate strands into a lovely, poetic narrative about various people whose lives have all been seismically altered by the same war, but in strikingly different ways. Yes, it was a film whose gorgeous visual elements were a key part of its appeal, but it's among the most literate of historical epics of its kind, with its twisty narrative, complicated (even realistically contradictory) characters, and deeply touching romantic scenes (between Fiennes/Thomas obviously, but also Binoche/Andrews.) It's so odd to me that movies like Gandhi and Dances With Wolves -- with far less notable writing credentials -- could sweep along their screenplays based on sheer momentum, but the more script-centric The English Patient couldn't do the same despite seemingly similar enthusiasm. But Minghella gets my vote here, for turning a book I didn't think could ever work as a film into a traditional but still beautifully executed one.

[Sabin]

You are correct. Still kinda weird to me that they went for Leigh over the Flynt script. Not for reasons of quality but because Leigh didn't write a script per se. Then again, it's still a little strange to me that Leigh is a reliable Original Screenplay mainstay.

[Big Magilla]

Obviously the odd film out here was The People vs. Larry Flynt, inexplicably the recipient of a Golden Globe for screenwriting as well as a WGA nomination

The People vs. Larry Flynt was not nominated for a WGA award. It was given the honorary Paul Selvin award.

According to Wikipedia:

"The Paul Selvin Award is a special award presented by the Writers Guild of America. It is to be given "to that member whose script best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere and to whose defense Paul Selvin committed his professional life."

[Heksagon]

The Original line-up is quite strong, as these are all good films. Still, it’s an easy choice with Fargo.

This time, the Adapted is the weaker category. Trainspotting is a highly innovative film, and gets my vote here. The English Patient is a good film also. However, Sling Blade felt like a mediocre film to me, and it’s one of those films where I just don’t understand where the admiration comes from. The Crucible and Hamlet are both rather unnecessary nominations.

[Sabin]

I feel now as I did then that if it wasn’t for Joel & Ethan Coen’s Fargo that it would be a lot easier to make the case for the other nominees in this category, save for Shine. Coincidentally, I’m struggling to think of another film that theoretically was poised as the underdog to win Best Picture that’s been so thoroughly forgotten. It makes The Cider House Rules feel like a hearty-ass meal. It would have been nice to see Cameron Crowe take something for all of his terrific dialogue in Jerry Maguire, a film that always seemed to me a little too unfairly maligned for doing what it does very well (mostly). It certainly feels a little shocking that the screenplay for Lone Star only won an award from funnily enough The Society of Texas Film Critics Awards and (hm?) The Lone Star Film & Television Awards. And Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies was so clearly going 0/5 at the Academy Awards and this being his major mainstream breakthrough it would have been nice to see him win something.

But it was The Coen Brothers’ mainstream breakthrough as well. It’s strange to think back that at the time people thought it a neck-in-neck race between the screenplay for Fargo and the screenplay for Jerry Maguire. These guys are too damn smart. They know every rule they’re breaking and by introducing Frances McDormand in at the launch of the second act, they’re equally making the case for “The Case” being the plot. There are writers who would wait until the proper B-Story moment (minute 30) or try to wedge the whole thing in at the Catalyst. But that’s really the difference. The fact that Frances McDormand was nominated as lead and William H. Macy as support is almost an example of how damn good they were at writing this film.

Obviously the odd film out here was The People vs. Larry Flynt, inexplicably the recipient of a Golden Globe for screenwriting as well as a WGA nomination, and it missed out over Mike Leigh’s improvised film. A lot of people really must have refused to see that thing. Shine is the only major stinker of the lot. Not at terribly-written one and certainly very engrossing in David Helfgott’s early life, but it just goes off the rails when apparently it won most people over.

My choice for Best Adapted Screenplay is Trainspotting. This is one of the only instances in which I have read or seen all the source materials which were adapted. I’m not entirely sure why exactly Anthony Minghella ended up losing Best Adapted Screenplay to Billy Bob Thornton. I’m sure it was some kind of Minghella-overload. Truthfully, who was this guy who was veering towards one of the great modern Oscar nights? But there was so much writing involved in his adaptation, and not just writing for writing sake but writing that out of faint implication on the page padded out a narrative that took home 9 Oscars, that it seems so odd to deny him this particular award.

Kenneth Branagh’s nomination for Hamlet is just about the oddest thing ever, especially considering how much of a hit Miramax had in Emma over the summer and how chic Jane Austen still was.


Best Screenplays of 1996 in my opinion:
1. Joel & Ethan Coen, Fargo
2. John Sayles, Lone Star
3. John Hodge, Trainspotting
4. Audrey Wells, The Truth About Cats and Dogs
5. Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, Citizen Ruth

[mlrg]

Fargo and The English Patient

[Precious Doll]

Could only vole in the original category (Secrets & Lies).

The adapted category is a largely awful selection.

[Big Magilla]

What can you say about a year in which one of the nominees was Kenneth Branagh for writing William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the official title of his adaptation of Shakespeare's play?Branagh's staging was certainly impressive but this is supposed to be a writing award. Much was made at the time of the fact that Branagh used Shakespeare's original text, restoring scenes and dialogue that had been cut in previous versions of the play including the Oscar winning 1948 Olivier version. Clearly this was not a film for the generation that laughed at the screen credit "additional dialogue by Sam Taylor" that accompanied the 1929 version of The Taming of the Shrew.

It wasn't as though there weren't actual adaptations that could have been nominated. The WGA did nominate Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma and Elaine May's adaptation of Jean Poiret's La cage aux Folles now called The Birdcage instead of Branagh's adaptation of Hamlet and Arthur Miller's adaptation of his own The Crucible. Also overlooked was Hossein Amini's Golden satellite nominated adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure shortened to Jude. No arguing, though, with the choice of Billy Bob Thornton's adaptation of his own short film, Sling Blade for the win.

The Academy went straight down the line with the WGA's pick of originals this year. I don't really have a problem with any of the nominees although Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's absorbing screenplay for The People vs. Larry Flynt might have been a better choice than Mike Leigh's largely improvised Secrets & Lies. Nor would I object to a nod for my second favorite film of the year, Flirting With Disaster, which is still my favorite David O. Russell film and one that I would have nominated over the meandering Trainspotting. Nothing, though, tops the sheer joy and inventiveness of the winner and still premier accomplishment of the Coen Brothers, the hilariously over-the-top Fargo.