Extremely close. I would guess that the critics went for Kramer against Breaking Away in film because they wanted a prestige/"serious" (issue) movie to win.
Film: Kramer vs. Kramer 30, Breaking Away 29, Manhattan 26
Screenplay: Breaking Away 41, Manhattan 38
Mister Tee wrote:The writers really botched the slate here, especially under adaptation, where my vote for the year’s finest adapted script would clearly have gone to Being There. Even beyond that, if the scribes were determined to honor a sitcom veteran from the MTM stable, James L. Brooks’ Starting Over screenplay was far superior to former partner Burns’ A Little Romance (Brooks of course later received plenty of payback for the omission). And I’d even advocate for North Dallas Forty over several of the group here cited.
The nomination for A Little Romance was one of the more baffling I’ve ever come across. The film wasn’t a critical favorite, nor even a financial success. If not for the fact it introduced Diane Lane, it might be totally forgotten. Well, amend that: it would also stand as one of the “where did that come from?” winners for musical score. Though it’s hard to begrudge a prize to Georges Delerue.
I’m quite surprised to see Italiano single out La Cage, though I guess national provenance is an excuse. I found the film so staggeringly broad I could barely muster a laugh (though evidently I did once, because the friend I went with used the fact I had as proof I’d liked the film more than he). The success of the film mystified me – by then, people were speaking of Boys in the Band as hopelessly dated, but Crowley’s play was Shakespearean by comparison to this. I’ve of course since had to endure La Cage in many versions, all of which were at least better than this original dreck.
As noted here many times, Apocalypse Now’s reputation has appreciated substantially in the decades since it appeared. It made no real showing in the year-end critics’ derbies, finishing behind about half a dozen films (Kramer, Manhattan, Breaking Away, All That Jazz, 10, for openers). I actually liked the film more than many critics, finding it an exciting, bracing trip downriver. But I never considered it more than a pedestrian work on the script level; what excitement there was (even before the narrative collapse in the final reel) seemed strictly Coppola-generated. I was honestly surprised the film was nominated in this category.
The other two nominees are the only ones I seriously consider for my vote. Norma Rae isn’t so much a political film as a human story that revolves around a political act. What makes the movie work – apart from the breakthrough Sally Field performance – is the film’s tiny observational details: the sense of the slow life in a small Southern town, and what a jolting change it was to bring a 20th century labor conflict into such an atmosphere. The film also nicely manages the working relationship between Field and Ron Leibman – defying the Hollywood stereotype that such a relationship would inevitably turn romantic (in fact, demonstrating Field could have a contemporaneous blossoming romance quite aside from Leibman). Norma Rae isn’t, in the end, a big enough movie, but what distinguishes it is the quality of the writing within its limited scale.
Kramer vs. Kramer was indeed based on a somewhat lesser novel, the sort of issue-based soap opera that turned up on the best seller lists with some regularity back then. What Robert Benton did to make the film a finer work was largely to use ellipsis: the novel was far more plodding, spelling out various steps in the plotline. In Benton’s film, there don’t seem to be wasted moments: we glide through transitions and it’s assumed we can fill in the blanks. It helped, of course, to have exceptional actors to carry the scenes, but Benton’s narrative decisions kept what might have been a considerably soggier film from ever bogging down in excess sentiment. None of this makes Kramer vs. Kramer the great movie some argued for at the time – it’s if anything an exceptional version of a routine film – but, given the absence of Being There, I have really no choice but to vote for it.
Voters for the most part selected a better representative original slate – though I’d have chosen the near-forgotten Rich Kids or the extremely popular 10. And even Alan Alda’sThe Seduction of Joe Tynan, an out-of-the-blue surprise summer hit, might have made the cut.
Because the writers did make one inexcusable choice, putting the dreadful …and Justice for All on the list. Bad enough they rote-nominated Pacino for the film; how they could have judged this collection of bad 70s movies clichés one of the year’s top scripts is beyond me.
Is this the last time we have to deal with the Magilla/BJ face-off over All That Jazz? In case you haven’t heard: Magilla HATES the movie, and BJ loves it. And I, yet again, will chime in with “I liked it till the last reel”. The writing during the earlier, backstage scenes crackle with Fosse seen-it-all observation, and make the film worth a mention here, but, for me, the total crash (and lack of dialogue) in that last half-hour make a vote impossible.
The China Syndrome was part of the series of slowly-radicalized-female movies Jane Fonda made during the period, but it stood out (from Coming Home, anyway) because the Fonda character wasn’t a total naif when the film started: she was already a wised-up chick, just one waiting for a chance to break free from her stultifying job-niche. The writers also worked variations on the Jack Lemmon character of the era, giving Lemmon one of his most multi-dimensional roles of later years. In the end, the film wasn’t exactly profound – it was anti-nuclear power in about the same way The Towering Inferno was anti-bad building codes. But it was intelligent, and a solid nominee.
Breaking Away was just a lovely little movie: an uncondescending look at middle American life from the unique point of view of townies living in the shadow of a university. Steve Tesich, it turned out, didn’t have all that much of a career, but this one time he caught lightning in a bottle, creating believably funny characters and a plot that, while it turned on nice kids winning a big race, never felt like it exploited the tropes of the sports movie for artificial thrills. Nearly everyone I knew liked the film immensely.
This included the critics – the National Society went for Breaking Away for best picture, and both NY and National voted it best screenplay. (LA voted Kramer both picture and screenplay, with Breaking Away second in the latter category) And, much as I liked the film, I couldn’t understand critics going for the film in such a big way – not with Manhattan also in competition. I think Manhattan is the last great movie of the 70s, the pinnacle of Woody Allen’s career, and, to echo Italiano, one of the great film comedies of all time. Annie Hall two years earlier had represented a giant leap forward from Woody’s “early, funny movies”, but Manhattan for me represented just as potent a leap, in maturity and writing prowess, from Annie Hall. Annie, while hilarious and endearing, was still a bit ragtag: the work of a gag writer moving over into more serious work. In Manhattan, that transition is complete: no one would mistake it for a work in progress. The film gives a vivid overview of romantic life in NY near the end of the 20th century – a world where people make bad choices for good or bad reasons, and maybe manage to screw themselves out of their best shot at happiness. The film is hilarious, and, in the end, heartbreaking. Why did the critics, along with the Academy, pass on such transcendent work? My take is, they’d succeeded all too well in promoting Annie Hall two years earlier: they not only got Woody nominated by the Academy for the first time, they turned him and his film into unlikely Oscar winners. So, by the time Manhattan rolled around (in a generally exciting film year), Woody felt a bit like yesterday’s news; why not promote this new kid Tesich instead? There was probably also some feeling Woody would be returning on a regular basis – something that was wildly true under screenplay, and even true for best picture 7 years on. Still, I’d argue the critics, promoting Kramer ad Breaking Away, missed their chance to honor Woody at his absolute peak. I’m pleased to see most here are not letting that happen. I happily join their number by giving Manhattan my vote.