skimpole

Under your favorites, there's a thread where people give their best performances since 1930. Right now it's the last day for 1973. I nominated Douglas for best supporting actor for Out of the Past and A Letter to three Wives and for best actor for Ace in the Hole. You'd think I'd nominate him for best actor in 1957 for Paths of Glory but the competition that year was simply too strong.

So there were two A Doll's house that year. Now that I know that i realize it was the Jane Fonda version i saw three decades or so ago, and I've changed my list for this year accordingly.

The movies are full of romances. Of all the romances which one are you least sympathetic to? Which successful suitor least deserves his (or more rarely, her) success?

Last night I noticed that in The Trip to Bountiful the son and daughter in law have separate marital beds. The movie was made in 1985, was based on a teleplay made in the fifties, and the movie refers in passing to President Truman. I though the separate beds was odd. I though they existed as a Code convention, so there was no reason to have them in a 1985 movie. (On the other hand the daughter in law is portrayed as a horrible shrew, so maybe she avoids sex just out of spite.) Are there other examples of separate marital beds surviving past the end of the Code?

Does anybody have a strong opinion of A Touch of Class? I haven't seen it, but I think that of all the best picture nominees of the decade, it shares with Nicholas and Alexandra, The Towering Inferno and The Turning Point as having the worst reputation. The fact that Melvin Frank was not nominated for best director is not a good sign. (Frank is best known for making The Court Jester.) I remember reading in the early eighties that Leonard Maltin only gave it two stars, which maybe how most people encountered it. Apparently the George Segal role was first offered to Cary Grant. If he accepted it he might have gotten an sentimental Oscar. Another question. What's the best Best Picture nominee not to get a Best Director nomination?

So Dick van Dyke and Michel Piccoli were born the same month.

I saw six movies this week. The Handmaiden was the best one. Beautifully shot and set, this story of a scheme by Korean criminals against a Japanese heiress is, if not as visceral as the same director's Oldboy, arguably as clever. It's sort of what Crimson Peak would be like if Guillermo del Toro had something intelligent to say. Kubo and the two strings is an interesting animated movie in medieval Japan. It's well shot, and it's amusing. But the contrast between the setting and the contemporary sense of humor is distracting. Nana is a silent movie by Renoir based on the Zola novel. As far as it goes, it's a competent adaptation, but frankly it shows few signs of Renoir's genius. Mammame is an interesting film by ultra-prolific Chilean director Raul Ruiz, about an interesting and strange dance. The Truth About Youth is a pre-code film and there's an interesting concept here. Loretta Young decides she prefers not the callow youth who had been groomed for her, but his distinctly older patron. Unfortunately, the story, in which this epiphany is complicated by aforementioned callow youth's rash marriage to a golddigging Myrna Loy, is dreadfully dull and with little spark and life. Loy isn't really used, and the vices that made the same director's Room Service the most boring Marx Brothers comedy I've seen are even more apparent. Finally, Stinking Heaven is an independent movie that meant little to me. It starts off with a wedding between a woman and a much older man at this sort of drug rehabilitation commune set in the early nineties. The wedding vows are devoid of real feeling, setting the stage for the nastiness that follows.

Is Aurore Clement lead or supporting for Lacombe, Lucien? I'd say supporting.

Actor Jean-Pierre Leaud, La Maman et la Putain Robert Redford, The Sting Malcolm McDowell, O Lucky Man! Al Pacino, Serpico Paul Newman, The Sting Runner-ups: Martin Sheen (Badlands), Donald Sutherland (Don't Look Now), Elliot Gould (The Long Goodbye), Robert Mitchum (The Friends of Eddie Coyle), Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets), Marlon Brando (Last Tango in Paris), Gene Hackman (Scarecrow), Al Pacino (Scarecrow), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man), Yves Montand (State of Siege), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), Richard Dreyfus (American Graffiti), James Coburn (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Woody Allen (Sleeper), Rutger Hauer (Turkish Delight), Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon), Jack Nicholson (The Last Detail), Helmut Berger (Ludwig) Actress Ana Torrent, The Spirit of the Beehive Bernadine Laflont, La Maman et la Putain Sissy Spacek, Badlands Francoise Lebrun, La Maman et la Putain Rosy Samad, A River Called Titas Runner-ups: Julie Christie (Don't Look Now), Barbra Streisand (The Way we Were), Diane Keaton (Sleeper), Jane Fonda (A Doll's House), Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), Maria Schneider (Last Tango in Paris), Monique van de Ven (Turkish Delight) Supporting Actor: Robert Shaw, The Sting Robert De Niro, Mean Streets Ralph Richardson, O Lucky Man! Michael Lonsdale, The Day of the Jackal Max von Sydow, The Exorcist Runner-ups: Peter Boyle (The Friends of Eddie Coyle), Joe Don Baker (Charley Varrick), James Mason (The Last of Sheila), Prabir Mitra (A River Called Titas), Sterling Hayden (The Long Goodbye), Warren Oates (Badlands), Carl Anderson (Jesus Christ Superstar), James Coburn (The Last of Sheila), Edward G. Robinson (Soylent Green), Charles Durning (The Sting), Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man), Harold Gould (The Sting), Jean-Pierre Leaud (Last Tango in Paris), Barry Dennen (Jesus Christ Superstar), Fernando Fernan Gomez (The Spirit of the Beehive) Supporting Actress Kabori Sarwar, A River Called Titas Isabel Telleria, The Spirit of the Beehive Delphine Seyrig, The Day of the Jackal Romy Schneider, Ludwig Rachel Roberts, O Lucky Man! Runner-ups: Candy Clark (American Graffiti), Teresa Gimpera (The Spirit of the Beehive), Raquel Welch (The Three Musketeers), Nina van Pallandt (The Long Goodbye), Helen Mirren (O Lucky Man!), Eileen Brennan (The Sting), Dyan Cannon (The Last of Sheila), Dimitra Arliss (The Sting) Not seen: A Touch of Class, Save the Tiger, Cinderella Liberty, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, The Paper Chase, Bang the Drum Slowly, Paper Moon --------As it happens, I haven't seen all four acting award winners. That's the only time, with the exception of 1928-29, when there were only two winners, that has happened. --------I actually consider Cries and Whispers a 1973 film, and Andersson would have been a best actress nominee, Ullmann a supporting actress nominee and Thulin the best supporting actress winner. --------And we've passed the halfway mark in years. 44 years down, 43 to go.

I'm testing whether I can publish the name of one of my award winners for 1973: Update: Clearly there is only one way for me to do it, so that will be the way I do it when I post my list tomorrow.

Where was it released theatrically before 1974? And according to Wikipedia it was declared ineligible for the 1974 oscars because it had appeared on television more than a year before its theatrical release.

-----I want to say more about my choice for Best Supporting Actor, Robert Duvall. It's a subtle, restrained performance. On the one hand we get to see Hagen's human side, his smile overhearing Sonny have a quickie, being confronted by Solozzo after the attempt on Vito's life while buying Christmas presents for his children, his grief when Sonny is killed. But he's fundamentally corrupt, an unquestioning supporter of the family's criminal activities. It's not just that he thinks that going into narcotics is a good idea. It's the way he uses a procedural objection to shut down Fredo's disagreement with Michael in Las Vegas. It's in the way he doesn't really try to save Tessio. It's in the way once he returns from his encounter with John Marley, Vito asks him if he's all right, and Hagen said he slept on the plane. He probably didn't, but the point was for Vito to show his politeness while not actually having to do anything about it. -----I think there's a general consensus that Keaton is the weak point on the acting front, and this in two movies with remarkably strong casts. Indeed, when one compares her with her Woody Allen films, I sometimes find it hard to believe they're the same actress. -----Contra Swithin and CoraSmith, this is the key line of The Godfather: "Get him a drink. C'mon, don't be afraid, Carlo. Come on, you think I'd make my sister a widow? I'm Godfather to your son, Carlo. [Gives Carlo a drink, he shakily takes it] Go ahead, drink. Drink. No, Carlo, you're out of the family business, that's your punishment. We're finished. I'm putting you on a plane to Vegas. Tom? [Hagen gives a ticket to Michael, who passes it to Carlo] I want you to stay there, understand? [Carlo shakes his head] Only, don't tell me you're innocent, because it insults my intelligence."

What about Tarzan and His Mate?

It took time for Married with Children's sensibility to become more mainstream. One couple I would like to see get together on TV is Ben Wheeler and Riley Perrin on Baby Daddy, an otherwise inconsequential sitcom. Three times they tried to date but something went wrong. Losing repeatedly due to bad luck so that your nitwit brother can finally get her with barely any effort on his part strikes me as incredibly unromantic as well as grotesquely unfair. But some people think tallness makes one morally superior.

Just worth remembering, the National Board of Review hasn't actually picked a best picture winner since 2008. Only five nominees were on its 2015 list, and only four on 2014.

I want to make a digression about sitcoms. I remember in the nineties when the consummation became distinctly more explicit. To take an example of the more discreet standard, in Wings JoeHackett and Helen Chapel become a couple in the 1990-1991 season. But it's not made clear that they are sleeping together. They break up in the season finale and for the next three years are just friends. Then in the 1993-1994 finale Helen's current boyfriend (a millionaire who ironically Joe introduced to Helen while hoping to get funding for his airplane business), proposed to her. She accepted, and later Joe came to her house and congratulated her. Then he left and when the episode finally ended, they were clearly in bed together. (They married at the end of the 1994-95). By contrast, when Ross and Rachel finally get together (for the first time) in Friends there's a joke about premature **** (actually a spilled juice box), and they're found in the morning at the museum Ross works at by a class of schoolchildren.

I saw four movies this week. Miss Hokusai is an anime film about the daughter of the most famous of all Japanese painters. (Hokusai is best known for a painting of a giant wave, the most famous of all Japanese paintings.) It's interesting, and parts of it are very attractive. But ultimately this intelligent woman doesn't become a great painter in her own right, nor does she have a love affair or any other intense emotional relationship. Moonlight is certainly worth watching, though I must confess that I didn't realize that the protagonist's friend was in all three parts of the movie, or quite realize what happened at the very end. The Courtship of Eddie's Father asks the question, would it be worth watching five episodes of a sitcom if they were done by one of the great Hollywood directors. And my answer is "Meh." Digging for Fire is the first movie by Joe Swanberg that I've seen. Count me unimpressed. The couple are uninteresting, leave a bland self-satisfied life, face no major challenges, and have and feel nothing particularly profound.

Actor Al Pacino, The Godfather Klaus Kinski, Aguirre: the Wrath of God Fernando Rey, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Jack Lemmon, Avanti! Jack Nicholson, The King of Marvin Gardens Runner-ups: Donatas Banionis (Solaris), Steve McQueen (The Getaway), Bruce Dern (The King of Marvin Gardens), Jon Finch (Frenzy), Divine (Pink Flamingos), Bernard Verley (Chloe in the Afternoon), Gian Maria Volonte (The Mattei Affair), Max von Sydow (The Emigrants), Woody Allen (Play it Again, Sam), Yves Montand (Tout va Bien), Jimmy Cliff (The Harder They Come), Woody Allen (Everything you Always Wanted to Know about Sex* [*But Were Afraid to Ask]), Michael York (Cabaret), Joszef Madaras, (Red Psalm), Peter O'Toole (The Ruling Class), Laurence Olivier (Sleuth), Burt Lancaster (Ulzana's Raid) Actress Liza Minnelli, Cabaret Harriet Andersson, Cries and Whispers Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants Ellen Burstyn, The King of Marvin Gardens Stephane Audran, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Ali MacGraw, The Getaway Runner-ups: Margit Carstensen (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), Hanna Shygulla (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant), Zouzou (Chloe in the Afternoon), Jane Fonda (Tout va Bien), Juliet Mills (Avanti!), Cicily Tyson (Sounder), Barbra Streisand (What's Up Doc), Meena Kumari (Pakeezah) Supporting Actor: Robert Duvall, The Godfather Joel Grey, Cabaret Marlon Brando, The Godfather Anatoly Solonitsyn, Solaris James Caan, The Godfather Runner-ups: Julien Bertheau (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), Nikolai Grinko (Solaris), Burt Reynolds (Deliverance), Juri Jarvet (Solaris), Richard Castellano (The Godfather), Helmut Griem (Cabaret), Barry Foster (Frenzy), Alec McCowen (Frenzy), Jean-Pierre Cassel (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), Erland Josephson (Cries and Whispers), John Cazale (The Godfather), Paul Frankeur (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), Abe Vigoda (The Godfather), Al Lettieri (The Godfather), Sterling Hayden (The Godfather), Richard Conte (The Godfather), Alex Rocco (The Godfather), John Marley (The Godfather), Peter Berling (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Gene Wilder (Everything you Always Wanted to Know about Sex* [*But Were Afraid to Ask]) Supporting Actress Ingrid Thulin, Cries and Whispers Liv Ullmann, Cries and Whispers Natalya Bondarchuk, Solaris Julia Ann Robinson, The King of Marvin Gardens Delphine Seyrig, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Anna Massey, Frenzy Vivien Merchant, Frenzy Runner-ups: Kari Sylwan (Cries and Whispers), Madeline Kahn (What's Up Doc?), Francoise Verley (Chloe in the Afternoon), Jeannie Berlin (The Heartbreak Kid), Bulle Ogier (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), Carolyn Seymour (The Ruling Class), Cecilla Rivera (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Not seen: Lady sings the Blues, Travels with my Aunt, Butterflies are Free, Pete 'n' Tillie --------You may have noticed that there are six nominations for best actress and seven for best supporting actress. This is not because the fields were so outstanding that I just had to have more nominations. It's because the thread argues that Cries and Whispers is a 1972 film, when in my own alternate oscar universe it's a 1973 film. In my own thread, Thulin is the best supporting actress of 1973, and Natalya Bondarchuk is the best supporting actress of 1972, and Andersson and Ullmann would have gotten 1973 nominations. I haven't decided yet who would will be this thread's 1973 best supporting actress winner. --------I have never seen Butterflies are Free, but looking it up on Wikipedia I find the title comes from a line that my moniker, Harold Skimpole, says in Bleak House. Since it is the Goldie Hawn character who says this, and she's supposed to be the heroine, does anybody point out to her that Skimpole is not an admirable person. I'm also reminded of a Peanuts cartoon, that came out sometime in the first half of the seventies, where Sally Brown is writing an essay for school. "Butterflies are free. What does that mean? It means you can have all of them you want."

I'm going to argue that Truffaut is the lead in Day for Night and everybody else is supporting.

One of my favorite romantic movies is Tess, and it helps that it's based on one of my all time favorite novels. The failure of Angel and Tess' marriage is especially poignant and tragic to me. Many people dislike, or strongly despise, Angel Clare, but this strikes me as unfair. He is after all growing up in a society which is so ideologically hostile to dealing with women's sexuality that it has no problem executing her. That Angel should try to make things right, and through bad luck and fail is not only moving, but reminds us of a very important point. There is a theme throughout literature of epiphanies, of redemption, of grace. It's a theme of some of the greatest directors in film history. But the emphasis of grace, we forget its reliance on damnation, on the people who aren't saved. So that at the very end, however briefly, they are able to show their love for each other, is something special. Sentimentality, according to James Joyce, is unearned emotion. Here is one time, when the emotion is clearly earned.

Cries and Whispers can be broken down into six stages, which can be described roughly as follows: 0-18: The film introduces the characters, concentrating on Andersson's suffering 18-31 This is Ullmann's big scene, a flashback which deals with her relationship with her lover and husband. 31-51 We are back in the present, again concentrating on Andersson, until she ultimately dies. 51-61 This is Thulin's big scene, a flashback about her relationship with her husband 61-74 Ullmann and Thulin try, and fail, to deal with their issues after their sister's death. 74-84 Andersson's nurse has a dream, where Andersson confronts both her sisters, who reject her, while the nurse helps her 84-91 Thulin and Ullmann prepare to leave, give short shift to the nurse. The film ends with the nurse remembering an incident from Andersson's journal about one happy she had with her sisters.

I can't wait to hear what your leading choices are.

I vote for BartonKeyes.

I believe the opposite is the case. Andersson is the core of the film, and Thulin and Ullmann are supporting. Andersson's dying is the core of the film, for the other two actresses, the film is about their lovelessness and refusal to change. Ullmann is clearly supporting anyway. She may have won the New York Film Critics award, but that was a combined award that included The Emigrants. And they nominated Andersson for Actress that year as well. Anderssoon also won the Swedish Film Best Actress.

Ice is a movie directed by Robert Kramer about a revolution against a fascist government in the United States. Jonathan Rosenbaum gives it a 1969 date, imdb gives it a 1970 one. The version available on youtube.com also gives a 1969 date, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJC4usGd-XE As an independent movie, actual release dates would be a bit hazy.