The nominees for the Best Picture of 1991:
Beauty and the Beast
Bugsy
JFK
The Prince of Tides
The Silence of the Lambs
As we've seen, The Silence of the Lambs was unbeatable:
I've posted the little trivia and histories of the nominees already, their paths to this moment. So let's get right to it - my rankings from fifth to first:
5. The Prince of Tides
produced by Barbra Streisand and Andrew S. Karsch
their only Best Picture nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Drama, PGA Awards nominee for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
If you ask me, this would be a perfect movie to be nominated for Best Director and not Best Picture, for while it is well made, I don't rate it as a film experience. The therapy stuff is great, the slow-burn romance genuinely sexy, but once we're getting into the tensions of class and culture between shanty-raised Southern boy and high-rise New York intellectuals? I just don't find that compelling, nor indeed do I really buy the whole "Sometimes you need to have an affair to strengthen your marriage" of it all. There are a lot of pieces that seem to get lost in favor of less interesting elements (come back, Melinda Dillon; get out of here, Jeroen Krabbe). It's a long movie, not a bad one, but it's...a bit much.
4. Bugsy
produced by Mark Johnson, Barry Levinson and Warren Beatty
second of three nominations for past winner Johnson, Levinson's only Best Picture nomination, Beatty's fourth and final Best Picture nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Picture - Drama, LAFCA Awards winner for Best Picture; National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1991, NSFC Awards second runner-up for Best Film
Feels like a second viewing will move this up a slot, but for now, this is where it is. Emblematic of what I love about gangster movies, they're American Dream narratives, true rags-to-riches success stories, except they also reveal how superficial the idea of success in a capitalist society is, the path from rags to riches one of violence and betrayal. The man finds the great love of his life and has to ignore his wife and children to pursue her, his great legacy is gambling on a massive scale, a disease that destroyed generations of families and is currently sinking its fangs into our national culture, the meeting of those two passions a casino named for his great love’s LEGS. And he does this while utilizing the glamour of Hollywood, a town of tinsel - and tinsel, as we know, is cheap, its glittering facade usually masking a dying plant. Great movie, man.
3. Beauty and the Beast
produced by Don Hahn
only Best Picture nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Picture - Musical/Comedy
It can’t get better than the 1946 Cocteau version, but this one comes awfully close. The pastoral beauty that opens the film, the use of shadow and light to create visual parallels between the titular Beast and the film’s real monster Gaston, the Satie-inflected score, the cleverness in the designs of the talking furniture and their human parallels (and how their jobs are interpreted as accessories), the voice performances… There’s a real feeling of epic Magic happening that just works.
2. The Silence of the Lambs
produced by Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt and Ron Bozman
their only nominations; National Board of Review's Best Film of 1991, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Film, PGA Awards winner for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures; BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film, Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Drama
The kind of movie that you cannot believe is as good as its reputation but dammit, it is! Well, sure, a good thriller, but Best Pict—YES! Visual artistry, genuine terror, and a wicked sense of humor when you least expect it; unforgettable performances from the whole cast; and the unsettling knowledge that, fiction though this story may be, there are real people as evil as Lecter and Buffalo Bill, the latter of whom uses tactics recognized from the profiles of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Gid, even the subtle (Scott Glenn) and unsubtle (Dr. Chilton) characters it uses to show how men use their positions of power to sublimate women and ensure their own success first, the good of the world second.
1. JFK
produced by A. Kitman Ho and Oliver Stone
their second of two Best Picture nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture- Drama, PGA Awards nominee for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
It feels like one of the reasons Stone’s reputation and output dropped off after the 90s is that this was everything his career was leading towards - how can you possibly top, or even match, a movie that’s this angry not just about the specifics of the supposed conspiracy, but about how Americans are deceived and misled by their own government? Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, attack on civil rights - the Kennedy assassination represents all, the end of American innocence, the end of prosperity at home, the end of believing that we could be a righteous people. What government became is just another means for the powerful to wield it, just another bankroll, just another stooge factory. The guilty go unpunished, protected by the institutions created to protect the innocent. And so it goes.
That’s it for the 1991 Oscars, we’re about to wrap things up - my next post will reveal my Top Ten Films of 1991!
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