Best Screenplay 1989

[Heksagon]

In the Original category, this is an easy choice with Crimes and Misdemeanors, one of Woody Allen’s most mature films. Many of the remaining nominees are films that I have seen only once, a long time ago, and I should refresh. Do the Right Thing and Sex, Lies and Videotape were innovative films for their time, but already when I saw them in the late 90's they felt hopelessly dated.

When Harry Met Sally is also - in its way - an innovative film, and one of the better romantic comedies of the decade. It has also aged fairly well, and it could be my runner-up here.

The Adapted category is rather uninspiring. I’m going with Born on the Fourth of July. Enemies is one of those films I should desperately see again. I have seen it, and it didn’t impress me that much, but I was much younger then, and my taste has changed.

[The Original BJ]

Among Adapted alts, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Drugstore Cowboy, the ONLY movie in history to win Best Screenplay from the NY, LA, and National Society of Film Critics groups without eventually scoring an Oscar nomination. Personally, I think the bigger surprise was that it ran the table with critics to such an extent than that it missed with Oscar, but I'd still at least give it a nomination.

I'll also give a (perhaps nostalgic) shout out to The Little Mermaid, which in retrospect certainly defined a template that has influenced animation up until this day.

I explained a lot of my gripes with Driving Miss Daisy in the Best Picture thread. I will agree that the movie provides two wonderful actors with roles that allow them to shine, so it isn't like the script is completely incompetent. But it's just not for me. I know it's probably unfair to compare it with Do the Right Thing -- which is clearly attempting to accomplish something different -- but seeing Lee's invigorating, contemporary race drama stacked alongside this totally lightweight historical affair just makes me feel grouchy toward the timidness and lack of complexity in Daisy. And for a movie that covers so much ground time-wise, it sure doesn't feel like it adds up to anything major.

Field of Dreams wasn't necessarily a major movie either, but I agree that the plot is pretty well-worked out. If one were to judge a movie simply on whether or not it presented the viewer with an engrossing narrative, I think it would be hard to fault this one. The ending is definitely engineered to push big emotional buttons, but golly, if I didn't buy into it completely -- by the time the movie landed its biggest heart-tugging moment (Costner asking if his dad wants to have a catch with him), I was feeling like the movie had totally earned its tears, no matter the contrivances it had taken to get there. And, pleasingly, the script also had a lot of laughs. It isn't an ambitious enough effort to be a terrific script, but it's a fun one, and I have no problem with that even if I'd never vote for it here.

Seeing The Theory of Everything really gave me a new appreciation for the things My Left Foot does well. The writing has a grittiness to it that makes the film feel, if inspirational on the whole, a bit tougher than the embalmed disability drama it might have been. And My Left Foot -- mostly through Christy Brown's character -- has a sense of humor that doesn't feel like faux movie-humor, but is a bit more intelligent and ironic, and thus seems more honest and realistic. Clearly the movie isn't any great innovation -- like much of Sheridan's work, it fits into a far more traditional mode of storytelling. But I'm happy to salute the things it does well -- even on audience-pleasing terms, I think the more down-and-dirty quality to My Left Foot ultimately makes it a far more emotional experience than a lot of similarly-themed projects that reach for this effect.

Enemies, A Love Story is a movie I don't think I've ever heard discussed outside of this board. And that's unfortunate, because it's such an unusual work in many ways. It's a film in which as world-defining an event as the Holocaust hangs over every frame, and yet it's set years after the fact, on an entirely different continent. It tackles subject matter that's overwhelmingly tragic, but manages to do so in a way that feels full of humor, and even more amazingly, it never lets this comic sensibility diminish the horrors of the past that has plagued its characters. And it manages to craft a love quadrangle with three fascinating women, all of whom have their flaws and virtues, all of whom the movie grants a deserved level of respect (even if the hero doesn't always). There's a lot of strong writing here, and I'm not surprised many have voted for one of Mazursky's strongest efforts here.

But I'm going to let my Born on the Fourth of July fandom extend to this category and go for Stone and Kovic. It's very possible my affection for this movie is tied to circumstance -- my dad knew Kovic growing up, from his high school wrestling days. I saw the film in a class in college, in conjunction with reading Kovic's book, before he came to speak to our class about his experiences in Vietnam and afterwards. He was overwhelmingly generous, even staying afterward to talk to any students interested. He even autographed my copy of the book with a message to my dad. As for my (trying-to-be-objective) opinion on the script...well, I take the point that Kovic's work was pretty much right in Stone's wheelhouse to an almost redundant degree. But what I felt was so exciting about the adaptation was the way Stone (& Kovic himself) had taken a book that was less a narrative and more a collection of sensory images and sounds, and streamlined all of that into a filmic plot, while still preserving the visceral sensation I had while reading Kovic's story on the page. Stone is a filmmaker who, between the Picture, Director, and Screenplay categories, I feel like I've over-rewarded in this game, citing him numerous times. That said, I feel that his work in this period was hugely exciting, full of anger and ambition, but also a meticulous attention to craft, and, probably here above all, an emotionalism that gave this story tremendous heart to go along with the politics. Yet another vote for Oliver Stone.

[Sabin]

Because I haven't seen Enemies: A Love Story, which I'm reasonably sure would be my choice, I've abstained from voting for Best Adapted Screenplay. In Best Original Screenplay, I voted for Do the Right Thing narrowly over Crimes and Misdemeanors. When Harry Met Sally... isn't doing well in this poll nor should it in this field, but it's a very strong romantic comedy with some very memorable dialogue and scenes. I went online and was a little surprised to see how close it got to doing much better this year. It tied Born on the Fourth of July and Glory for five Golden Globe nominations (most of the year) and got a Director's Guild of America nomination for Rob Reiner. I prefer it easily to three of the Best Picture nominees, and I'd have to see Driving Miss Daisy and My Left Foot again to decide how much more I prefer them to it. I saw Dead Poets Society when I was 14 when I had an inspirational teacher of my own. I thought it was kinda lame.

[The Original BJ]

I'm a bit split on my reaction to these categories. In both fields, I think the writers nominated a lot of the year's most deserving efforts. And yet, in each category, I think the general membership chose easily the worst option as winner.

In the Original category, I would co-sign Mister Tee's endorsement of True Believer, a pretty well-plotted legal thriller, with a splendid character for James Woods to play at its center.

I listed most of my issues with Dead Poets Society in the Best Picture thread, but to recap: I think it's a movie where the script so obviously stacks the deck in favor of Mr. Keating (he encourages the kids to read books -- HOW SCANDALOUS!) and furthermore, doesn't even do a very good job of showing that he is, in fact, a terrific teacher. When the headmaster is shown to be outrageously draconian for questioning whether or not Keating is teaching his students much English by parading them around the quad, my reaction was...isn't that a pretty valid question? It's a movie that thinks it's anti-establishment but is totally square, and then dips into gross sentimentality (complete with Jesus imagery!) in the last act. A lame choice. (Question: I hadn't thought of it until now, but doesn't the "O Captain, My Captain" ending seem like the obvious conclusion to this year's Oscar In Memoriam segment?)

I think all of the other nominees are worthy, including When Harry Met Sally... Even more so than Sleepless in Seattle, this is the kind of movie that makes one lament just how far the mainstream romantic comedy has fallen in recent years. It's not anything I'd vote for -- certainly it's not as bracing a movie as the remaining entrants on the list -- but it has a lot of charms, including some really winning characters, heartfelt and insightful storytelling, and lot of funny dialogue. And, of course, it does have that one instantly indelible "I'll have what she's having" moment. Although I'd rather reward more ambitious filmmaking overall, I'd be happy for there to be a lot more mainstream pop hits as well-executed as this today.

To this day, a lot of wildly acclaimed indies just strike me as so...small. That may seem like stating the obvious, but I don't just mean small in terms of budget/resources -- so many of the stories don't feel like they amount to much, at least not much more than "this is a compelling first effort from a filmmaker with promise." And so, I must salute Steven Soderbergh and Sex, Lies, and Videotape, for the being rare such effort that I felt deserved that genuinely high level of praise. Italiano used a good word to describe it -- unusual -- and I felt like even within a fairly limited scope, Soderbergh crafted a narrative and characters that felt fresh and engrossing, avoiding the mundanity that has plagued so many slice-of-life indie dramas. It's still, of course, a small movie -- probably too small to get my vote -- but I think it was a pretty blazing breakthrough for one of contemporary cinema's most singular filmmakers.

My vote comes down to the remaining two movies. Crimes and Misdemeanors is probably my favorite of Woody Allen's dramatic works. It's not that the movie was so atypical for Allen that made it exciting -- a lot of the director's trademark elements (the NY entertainment world milieu, the who-could-have-scripted-them-but-Allen witty one-liners, even his own neurotic character type) are present. But he incorporated these aspects into a storyline that was -- certainly by Allen's standards up to that point -- almost shockingly bleak, a dark examination of morality that bristled with cynicism and a fatalistic sense of despair. And, amazingly, it still managed to be quite funny, avoiding the kind of ponderousness that had plagued Allen a decade earlier with something like Interiors. It's structurally very compelling too, with the two narrative lines paralleling thematically and intersecting narratively in surprising ways. I definitely see why many have voted for it.

But since I swear I'll make good on my promise to eventually vote for Woody, I'll take my one chance to give an award to Spike Lee. I don't think Lee has entirely fulfilled on the early promise of Do the Right Thing -- for me, none of his later movies approach the level of greatness he achieved here. But, he's been a compelling voice in the cinema since then, in both features and documentaries, and I'm happy to honor his career for the one time he merited this prize. Even seen today, Do the Right Thing feels like a blast of fresh air -- it's full of energy, scenes that simmer with anger, and even a lot of sharp humor. His script juggles a lot of characters, who spout politically incendiary dialogue, but who never feel like schematic puppets for Lee's ideology. Sure, Lee's language is stylized -- I don't think anyone would argue that Do the Right Thing is neorealism -- but all of his players' complex racial and cultural arguments feel fully grounded in their characters, and brutally representative of tensions in this neighborhood at this moment in time. Do the Right Thing is certainly a more raw piece of writing than the more elegant Crimes and Misdemeanors, but then again, it's set in a grittier and more tumultuous New York than Allen's film is, and this reckless, unhinged energy feels like the perfect approach for a story that ends in such a powder keg. Do the Right Thing was famously under-rewarded by the Academy overall, but luckily, one at least has the option to vote for it here.

[Big Magilla]

I may be misremembering but I seem to recall Stone being involved with Born on the Fourth of July in some capacity when Pacino was all but set to make the film. Stone may not have been the choice for director in 1979, but he may well have been Kovic's assigned screenplay partner at the time.

He may have been a nobody when the book was published in 1976 but by the Spring of 1979 he was already an Oscar winner for his screenplay for Midnight Express. He later wrote the screenplay for De Palma's 1983 Scarface with Pacino. He would have been a good fit as Kovic's co-writer when Pacino and DePalma were involved. Stone's first film as a director was a 1971 student film about Vietnam so his affinity for Vietnam based projects were certainly known within the industry before Platoon.

[Mister Tee]

Born on the Fourth of July was originally set to be filmed ten years earlier with Al Pacino as Kovic. I don't recall who the director was going to be, whether it was Stone or someone else.

Stone was a nobody at the time the book came out, and though, as Greg points out, he had writing credits by the late 70s, the filmography he established as a writer (Midnight Express, Conan the Barbarian, Scarface) showed no sign of the lefty provocateur he suddenly became in 1986 (which made him a natural fit for Kovic). Most assumed, from the early kind of films he wrote, that he was more in the Milius right-leaning tradition.

The strongest rumored package for Born on the 4th had been Pacino/dePalma, though I believe there was a set of rumors about Lumet, as well.

[Big Magilla]

Born on the Fourth of July was originally set to be filmed ten years earlier with Al Pacino as Kovic. I don't recall who the director was going to be, whether it was Stone or someone else.

[Greg]

I know Ron Kovic’s book predated Oliver Stone’s career (by nearly decades). . .

Well, Wikipedia lists Born On The Fourth Of July as being published on 1976. Stone's first notable movie as a writer is 1978's Midnight Express, and, as a director are 1986's Platoon and Salvador.

[Mister Tee]

Start by saying the writers’ branch did a pretty good job this year, especially on the adaptation side. There are almost no substitutes I can think of that would markedly improve the slate on offer (the main film that comes to mind, Casualties of War, is largely a case of sterling direction prevailing over a decent but unexceptional script). Under original, there is one truly bum choice, but no alternatives that would spring to most minds. I’d push for two solid thrillers, Sea of Love and, especially, True Believer, but I know that’s a genre not automatically thought prize-worthy by many.

The bum choice that should have been 86-ed was, of course, the winner, Dead Poets Society, but here I don’t really blame the writers so much as the Academy as a whole. When a movie becomes a surprise box-office hit, enough to make the best picture list, and the writing in it isn’t clearly a low priority (as in an epic or a musical), it pretty much gets the writing nod by rote. I don’t like Dead Poets Society in any way, but once the film and director nods came on, the writing citation was unavoidable.

Back in the 80s, I was pretty regularly disappointed by the indie breakouts, and sex, lies and videotape was no exception. I didn’t find the story all that compelling or intriguing, and some of the dialogue felt flat to me. To be honest, I’ve always found Soderbergh’s work to be over-praised – even the things of his I’ve liked, I’ve liked to a lesser level than his loudest fans (right up unto recent times, with Behind the Candelabra). So, I pass.

When Harry Met Sally… is obviously nothing very important – just a pleasurable, intelligent, light romantic comedy with two (then) likable stars. But in the midst of the Batman summer, when it felt like movies for grown-ups, even minor ones, were a dwindling resource, this was plenty to get most people I knew to applaud. The script doesn’t go very deep – in fact, its prime thesis, that friends are just waiting to turn into lovers, has proven the opposite of true in my experience. But there were a lot of clever lines and it all went by breezily, so I had no problem with its being cited.

I articulated my issues with Do the Right Thing when we discussed best picture/director. I think it’s a mostly very good, freshly imagined film, but for me the climax is jacked up beyond what the preceding two hours have set up. So, though I’d like to acknowledge the scope and ambition of the film, and the significant amount of strong dialogue, this big narrative problem for me makes it impossible.

So, I go for Woody Allen, for the first in our reckoning, though chronologically it will be the last of several. Crimes and Misdemeanors is a fascinating thesis film – Woody clearly groping with big issues in two parallel stories (much the way he did later, less successfully, with Melinda and Melinda). I’ve always found the Woody/Mia part of the film more convincing, if only because it lacks the overly-literal dialogue Landau is forced to intone…but I also find much of the Landau section so compelling I’m willing to overlook the dialogue deficiencies. And the way the two stories blend is really pretty remarkable. Not as perfect a movie as Manhattan – or as lovable as Annie Hall or Hannah – but plenty good enough to win this contest.

As for adapted: I don’t dislike any of the films, though I think some are clearly more minor efforts.

Born on the Fourth of July probably shouldn’t be labelled minor – it’s reaching too far for that classification – yet I feel like it’s the easiest for me to dismiss, because it achieves the least. I know Ron Kovic’s book predated Oliver Stone’s career (by nearly decades), but somehow it seems a compilation of all the ideas Stone had already explored in previous films (not to mention other 60s films I saw in real time). I just don’t feel the film is anything especially fresh, and I don’t feel it needs to be noted here, for sure.

I’ve spoken about Driving Miss Daisy so many times in earlier threads that I fear I’m reduced to repeating myself. My wife and I saw the play in previews at Playwrights Horizons, sometime in 1987, and found it thoroughly pleasant and likable, not least for its modest performances (by Freeman and Dana Ivey). It was something we recommended to lots of people. Over the next years, though, I watched in some horror as it enacted a sort of theatrical Peter Principle, first winning the Pulitzer Prize, then becoming a best picture champion. The play/film is clearly not all that. So, while I hold to my initial positive reaction, I certainly have no intention of voting it prizes here.

Field of Dreams is a film that’s often disparaged for being a pure male weepie. It certainly IS a tear-jerker – I can’t get through the last scene dry-eyed – but there’s a lot of funny stuff along the way, much of it delivered by James Earl Jones and Amy Madigan. And whatever you think of the storyline, it’s clearly not the same old thing; it keeps going in unexpected directions. None of this makes it something I’m apt to vote for – but it is something that has my affection and some respect.

My Left Foot is something of a film of negative virtues: given what it is (inspirational overcoming-handicap story), it’s never cloying and often pleasingly rambunctious. Christy Brown is a wonderful, at the time newly-minted sort of screen character: the seriously handicapped person who’s a bit of an asshole and not shy about showing it. (We’ve seen similar characters since, but this was the first I ever encountered.) The film is very enjoyable for what it is (I think it’s the best of the five best picture nominees that year). The problem, though, is that, in the end,it is what it is: down at the roots, it’s still a variation on The Miracle Worker, no matter how superior a version.

And there’s a better, fuller, richer work on the ballot, thanks to the writers, who singled out my favorite film of 1989, Mazursky’s Enemies: a Love Story. Isaac Bashevis Singer comes from that small group of Jewish-American writers who dominated American fiction in the decades post World War II (Bellow, Roth, Malamud and Friedman notable others). Like much of his work, it’s a wry, comic-plus-serious look at displaced people struggling to get by in unfamiliar territory (this may be an especially personal opus, since Singer himself left behind a common-law wife in Poland). And Mazursky captured the flavor as no other film adaptation has: the feel of New York in the late 40s is palpable, and the characters’ situations are both comic and heart-wrenching throughout. The Academy didn’t do especially well by the film as a whole, but I’m pleased they nominated it here, and our little game gives me a chance to vote for it.

[ITALIANO]

In Original, as it so often happens, the least "original" nominee won - they chose a typically uplifting movie which was also the only Best Picture nominee (back then that counted in these categories). Dead Poets Society isn't exactly "badly written", it's certainly very professional and well-meaning, with I'd say a genuine feeling especially for the teenage characters and their problems - but it's also VERY predictable. The other four are better - yes, even When Harry Met Sally, which was frequently badly imitated in the following years, was at the time a new, and very pleasant, romantic comedy (with some justly famous individual scenes). But for me it's between Crimes and Misdemeanors and Sex, Lies and Videotape. The Soderbergh movie was, back then, a real event - this small, independent movie which went to Cannes and won the Golden Palm! It was the movie everyone talked about for a while, and for once the talk wasn't undeserved. No, it wasn't a masterpiece - but it was an unusual movie, with unusual, unpredictable characters, and it showed a refreshingly original look at relatioships between human beings. The script was intelligent, probably not exactly "profound", but definitely "personal", and new.
Still, I've voted another time for Woody Allen - because Crimes and Misdemeanors is the most "mature", the least elusive of these five, and it deals with issues which are, let's face it, more complex, more relevant. I didn't really want to pick another Allen movie, especially as I know that I will do it again - but if I have to be objective, this is the best of the five scripts.

In the other category, the winner was the adaptation of a play which, while successful, probably wasn't a work of Eugene-O'Neill-caliber to start with. Pleasant, ok, and maybe there were some good ideas about "opening out" some parts of the play - but the material simply isn't that exciting to me. There are, of course, two good roles for two very good actors - but that's more or less it. No, I think it's between My Left Foot and Enemies: A Love Story. I love Isaac B. Singer - a writer who isn't as easy as it seems to translate into "film". I had read, of course, the book - not his best maybe (that is probably Shosha) - but VERY good, with characters which feel so... real, so painfully real - lives devastated by enormous, traumatic events, yet so desperately trying, each in its own way, to cope with that, to survive - though not always successfully. And of course the writer deals with them with a very touching mix of humour and compassion. I didn't expect to - but I found all this in Paul Mazursky's movie, and that's why it's impossible for me not to vote for it.

[mlrg]

Crimes and Misdemenors and My Left Foot

[Big Magilla]

The WGA this year agreed with four out of five in both original and adapted, having nominated Steve Kloves' nicely turned script for the romantic drama The Fabulous Baker Boys in lieu of Spike Lee's controversial script for Do the right Thing and Kevin Jarre's adaptation of the Civil War drama Glory over Roger L. Simon and Paul Mazursky's adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies, a Love Story. I agree with their first decision, but I think the Academy made the slightly better one in the second.

Spike Lee creates some interesting characters and situations in Do the Right Thing but spoils it with a violent, incomprehensible ending. The story behind The Fabulous Baker Boys is a simple one, but well executed from beginning to end and I would have chosen it over Nora Ephron's clever but exhausting script for When Harry Met Sally... as well. No argument with the other three nominees, though. sex, lies, and videotape was an audacious debut for Steven Soderbergh both as a writer and director although it's been so long since I've seen it I don't recall its details very well. The Oscar winning Dead Poets Society is well written but quite manipulative. I prefer the WGA winner, Woody Allen's complex script for Crimes and Misdemeanors, quite possibly his best work as a writer.

Ron Kovic's gung-ho soldier turned anti-war activist made a compelling story co-credited to Kovic and white-hot recent Oscar winner Oliver Stone (Platoon). It was the film I was most looking forward to seeing all year. As it happened, I saw it on the same day as My Left Foot which ended up being my favorite film of the year with Born on the Fourth of July a close second. I split my Best Picture/Director vote this year between the two films with Stone winning for July. Jim Sheridan, however, gets my vote here. His co-writer, Shane Connaughton, who is also an actor, is a terrific writer in his own right. You might want to check out The Run of the Country his 1995 adaptation of his own novel or his 2004 adaptation of The Blackwater Lightship, the latter for TV.

The other nominated adaptations including the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy as well as Field of Dreams and Enemies, a Love Story are worthy also-rans. The WGA's pick of Glory would be my sixth choice in a year of very good writing overall.