THE 2005 ACADEMY AWARDS - Best Picture Nominees

Oscar season has come and gone, the dust has settled, and Million Dollar Baby has emerged victorious, proving once again that Martin Scorsese and the Academy do not mix.  Jokes were fruitful at the awards, courtesy of Chris Rock, on how few of the nominated films he - or anyone - had actually seen, a fact that wound up lending a rather nice degree of legitimacy to the proceeedings in spite of Paul Giamatti's snubbing.  Sideways walked away with Best Adapted Screenplay, and Charlie Kaufman finally was recognized for his phenomenal talent by winning the Original Screenplay award for the best and most wildly inventive movie of the year, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The Aviator ruled early with five awards for technical mastery, including Editing and Cinematography, but Baby ruled the night with Best Picture, Director, Actress, and Supporting Actor.

So what of the five nominees for Best Picture?  Since no one saw them, and since this was the first year I had the pleasure of viewing all five, here's a brief rundown:

Ray (**1/2) felt like a well-shot documentary and a running cliche, made legitimate by a performance that was nothing short of astonishing.  Beautiful cinematography and great music aside, the movie was about getting Jamie Foxx that well-deserved Oscar for his portrayal of Ray Charles, and it doesn't hold water as a film on its own.

Finding Neverland (***1/2) took a few days after seeing it to really get to me, because I found that images and words and events from it stuck with me days, even weeks, after the viewing.  In a nice change of biopic pace, the story of J. M. Barrie's inspiration for Peter Pan was fun, understated, and surprisingly touching, and it lingers thanks to brilliant low-key performances from everyone involved.

Sideways (****) is a minor masterpiece, a heartfelt and brutally honest tribute to the buddy flick, mid-life crises, wine, love lost and found, and the life of a depressed writer.  Its episodic feel and general quirkiness drive many away, but it shouldn't; because of two terrific lead performances (one of whom, Paul Giamatti, was royally snubbed by the Academy whether you like it or not), you follow the generally unlikable, whiny characters through the most life-changing experience of their lives. 

Now, the contest: Million Dollar Baby versus The Aviator.  Both are wholly different movies: one a simplistic would-be boxing movie, the other a dazzling bio-epic.  They accomplish the same feats in opposite directions: stunning cinematography, unabashedly honest writing and acting, and a flair for taking the realm of the inspiring to a new, darker level.  Where they differ is in their emotional resonance. 

Baby (***1/2) hits your heart with all the force of a tidal wave, mostly because you don't see it coming and partially because the third act tries to grapple with such a controversial topic.  It distances you by connecting your soul to every soul in the film and then trampling on it twice over.  It is a film about the little details in the lives of little people struggling to achieve greatness by being themselves, and in the end it is about what those characters would do in that situation; nothing more, nothing less, and it is it heart-stopping in its simplicity and audacity.

The Aviator (****) distances you from the very beginning, as the larger-than-life aspirations of Howard Hughes come up against the strongest form of self-destruction: insanity.  Set against the backdrop of Hollywood's golden age, the film pulls no punches in describing the self-centered, egotistical playboy he was, and also holds nothing back in showcasing his substantial quirks and oddities.  Technically, the film is flawless, but the reason it did not win Best Picture is because, at the end, there is no emotional involvement.  Scorsese's intention was not to glorify and emoticize Hughes, but rather to shed light on a simple fact: most geniuses are a little crazy.  It is gut-wrenching, captivating, never boring, epic, hugely entertaining, and a brilliant portrait of a man that defies all conventions of the biopic and should have catapulted Scorsese to the microphone to accept his statuette. Eternal Sunshine notwithstanding, The Aviator is the best, most beautiful movie I have seen this year.

Thoughts?  Disagreements?  Anything else worth ranting about?  Films that were snubbed?  Worst movies of the year?  So many topics, so little time...

Critic’s Corner: Before Sunrise (***1/2) and Before Sunset (***1/2)

            In all movies, dialogue seems to serve the plot of the story.  It baffles me.  People normally don’t just talk about one event going on in their lives ALL THE TIME – they go off on tangents and diversions from everything.  However, with the exception of a one-liner or two, in films you never really hear much outside of what is necessary to drive the story – imagine cutting the visuals out and listening to Speed’s dialogue apart from the film.  I don’t know about you, but I would grind my teeth trying to get through it.  We never learn more than what is needed about the characters in a high-concept film, and the beauty of great screenwriters like Alexander Payne or Charlie Kaufman is that their dialogue is grounded in the characters and their attitudes towards life and each other, not in the plot.

            Add Richard Linklater to that list as well.  His two films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, which he wrote and directed himself in 1994 and 2003 respectively, are not about complex plots or flashy cinematography (though that at times is also beautiful) but about real, normal, complex people who speak in interruptions and laughter and sometimes don’t even really know what to say.  Indeed, all of Before Sunset takes place in one afternoon, an uncut 80-minute conversation between a man and a woman walking around Paris.  Boring?  A little.  But it works because the dialogue is nothing short of astoundingly perfect, and whether you credit it to good acting or good screenwriting or both, it draws you in because you remember having conversations like that.

            Before Sunrise begins on a train in Vienna.  We meet Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), two twenty-somethings who meet on the train and begin a rather deep conversation about each other’s lives.  They hit it off so well that they already seem like lovers from the moment they start to speak, and yet they also sound just as nervous as any normal person would in a conversation with someone they just met.  Hawke and Delpy are both revelations here and in Before Sunset – they channel their characters to perfection in every scene, and the chemistry is undeniable. The train stops, and in a moment of spontaneity Jesse asks Celine to walk around the city of Vienna with him until his train departs for the airport the next day – he is American, she is French, and they may never see each other again.

            She agrees.

            What follows is one night of absolute melodrama-free bliss for Jesse and Celine as they take in the sights and sounds of nighttime Vienna.  After seeing this movie, there is no doubt in my mind that I want to go back to Europe someday.  Over the course of their conversations – done in very long and patterned tracking shots, almost like a theater production at times rather than a film – we learn about both of their love woes and about their parents and their feelings on politics and…well, in one night we almost feel as if we learn everything about them.  We feel, like they do, as if we have known them our whole lives.  When the fateful moment comes when Jesse has to leave, it is positively heartbreaking and yet strangely optimistic.

            It does drag at times because the whole movie really is nothing but conversation, and as said before it is all conversation that does not move a story.  It moves characters.  And it moves the audience.  Before Sunset definitely follows suit in this regard, so if you don’t like this film, you won’t like Before Sunset either.  I suppose that’s how it is with most sequels, but we’ll talk about that in a second.  Just know that everyone who has ever been in love or believed in love at first sight should see Before Sunrise, and then decide for themselves whether or not to see Before Sunset.  In my eyes, both are brilliant.

            Before I go on, WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS.  IF YOU WISH TO SEE BEFORE SUNRISE AND BE SURPRISED BY BEFORE SUNSET, DO NOT READ THE SECOND HALF OF THIS REVIEW.

            Before Sunset takes place nine years after the events of Before Sunrise.  Jesse has written a best-selling novel about the night that takes place between he and Celine, and he is stunned when she appears at his final book signing in Paris.  At the end of Before Sunrise, Jesse and Celine had agreed to meet in six months on the same train station from which he left, so immediately you wonder whether or not they did; after all, it is now nine years later.  We learn very early on that Jesse did go and stayed for two days putting up signs and wondering where she was; Celine’s grandmother had died that week and the funeral was the day they were going to meet, so she never showed up, leaving Jesse shattered and broken.  His book spawned from the heartbreak and despair he felt after that December.

            What follows the book signing is an incredible feat: an unbroken 80-minute conversation between two people who were obviously destined to meet but who are unsure now about whether or not they are still supposed to be together.  Jesse is now married, with a beautiful son, and Celine has been a shell of her former romantic self since that night.  Both of them have lost the capacity to love, as if they poured all of it into that one perfect night, and right away the same question is posed.  Jesse has to leave for the airport in one hour.  Will he leave her again?  Will he go home to his troubled marriage or will he stay with Celine and find happiness?  Strangely enough, the movie almost doesn’t answer it.  It ends as it should: with a song and the promise of eventual happiness.  Nothing could be more realistic or beautiful.

            Like Before Sunrise, it drags at times, but the fluidity of the dialogue once again compensates for that.  Hawke and Delpy have aged well and display the same brilliant chemistry and penchant for difficult dialogue they had in Sunrise.  The same cinematographic techniques shine through, so much so that when you first notice it you feel a glorious sense of nostalgia.  You remember that night as vividly as they do.  Both of these films have such subtle ways of drawing the audience into the world of the characters, and Paris is as beautifully shot as Vienna.

            You do get the feeling at times that Linklater decided to film this almost on a whim – some of the film is rather sloppy with camera work, and stylistically the film is an odd mix.  But what a whim Before Sunset is.  It is phenomenal, a testament to lost love and to finding happiness on your own and sharing it with others.  On its own, the sequel does that.  Taken with Before Sunrise, it is a masterful work of art, a feast for the emotions, and an optimistic yet realistic look at love, honesty, and aging.  See them both – they aren’t for everyone, but everyone should give them a try.

~ John Klein

Links:

Roger Ebert's review of Before Sunrise

The IMDb link to Before Sunrise

RottenTomatoes.com reviews

Roger Ebert's review of Before Sunset

The IMDb link to Before Sunset

RottenTomatoes.com reviews

A Richard Linklater filmography

The official site

Tomorrow or Monday, an analysis of the techniques used in both films - I almost see them as one film precisely for that reason - will be posted.  Stay tuned, and go see these movies!  They're not widely known, but they're wonderful!