After much delay and (internal) debate, my personal picks for the Best in Film, 1991. You've seen the Top Ten - now, the Retro Hollmann Awards! Beginning with:
Best Adapted Screenplay
JFK
Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar
from On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs
2. Cape Fear (Wesley Strick); 3. Rambling Rose (Calder Wallingham); 4. The Silence of the Lambs (Ted Tally); 5. Fried Green Tomatoes (Fannie Flagg and Carol Sobieski)
First of all, they're all movies I like and admire on their own, which helped me whittle things down a bit. Secondly, I looked at the actual screenplays, so this is an informed ranking. Of all of them, the Top Three were the ones I just kept scanning - I've seen the movies, I know what's happening, but I still couldn't tear myself away from the page, I was lost in the craft in the writing. And then, finally, I must return to how those words translated to the screen, and obviously, JFK impressed me most with its adaptation of two books and a bizarre, convoluted theory by Jim Garrison into a cohesive, suspenseful narrative about the end of American innocence. I was also struck, obviously, by Cape Fear's exquisite update, Rambling Rose's simplicity, The Silence of the Lambs' bold construction, and, honestly, Fried Green Tomatoes' cannibalism and cry of TOWANDA!!!
Best Actor
John Gielgud as Prospero
Prospero's Books
2. John Turturro in Barton Fink; 3. William Hurt in Until the End of the World; 4. Woody Allen in Scenes from a Mall; 5. Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob?
Oh, the #1 was a no-brainer: Gielgud's playful bathtime opener immediately followed by his regal strut over the opening credits was almost enough, but of course, it's also the fact that it's his voice we hear as every character throughout the two hours, effective as tyrant and slave, man and woman, youth and elder, imbuing all his readings with the complexity of his chief character, not forgetting in his recitations that he is playing Prospero playing them. A joy to listen to. Actually, one of the easiest lineups I've done: Turturro's impostor syndrome, Hurt's man-on-the-run, Allen's sleaze, and Dreyfuss's descent into madness have stuck with me all year.
Best Production Design
Prospero's Books
Ben Van Os / Jan Roelfs, production design
Rik Overberg / Claudia Valentijn / Wendy Valentijn / Ben Zuydwijk, set decoration
2. The Addams Family (Richard Macdonald / Margie Stone McShirley / Cheryal Kearney); 3. Barton Fink (Dennis Gassner / Robert C. Goldstein / Leslie McDonald / Nancy Haigh); 4. Nothing But Trouble (William Sandell / Michael Taylor); 5. Hook (Norman Garwood / Anthony Pratt / Andrew Precht / Thomas E. Sanders / Garrett Lewis)
There is always something to look at in Prospero’s Books: a lavish palace for the masquerade, lovers meeting in an idyll, Caliban’s swamp a bubbling muck, and that abandoned library of knowledge, not to mention the titular books themselves, of architecture and music and mirrors, stretching beyond the boundaries of their spines and covers. The films that follow are “well, duh” inclusions: who can deny The Addams Family and its haunted home, Barton Fink and its spotless Hollywood executive office contrasted with the writer’s actively decaying hovel, Hook and its genuinely imaginative pirate ship and great taxidermied crocodile, even Nothing But Trouble, for all that’s wrong with it, leans into its “ol’ dark house” aesthetic and embraces the ridiculous horror world it exists in?
Best Supporting Actor
Donald Sutherland as X
JFK
2. Ossie Davis in Jungle Fever; 3. Rip Torn in Defending Your Life; 4. Harvey Keitel in Thelma & Louise; 5. John Goodman in Barton Fink
All it takes is one scene for Donald Sutherland to completely dominate JFK, his sardonic outlining of the whole conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, hatched within the government itself, the linchpin of the whole film. It won’t work without a convincing narrator, and Sutherland’s Mr. X is that narrator: appalled, frightened, determined to help…from the wings. The closest anyone came to toppling Sutherland, for me, is Ossie Davis’s grim preacher father in Jungle Fever. Followed by Rip Torn’s movie-stealing work as the defense angel in Defending Your Life, Harvey Keitel’s understated work as a sympathetic lawman just doing his job in Thelma & Louise, and John Goodman’s folksy unhinged work in Barton Fink.
Best Visual Effects
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Stan Winston, terminator effects producer
Dennis Muren, ILM senior visual effects supervisor
Gene Warren, Jr., Fantasy II Film Effects visual effects supervisor
Robert Skotak, 4-Ward Productions visual effects supervisor
Joe Viskocil, 4-Ward Productions special effects supervisor
2. Backdraft (Brian "Pyro" Adams / Scott Farrar); 3. Naked Lunch (Chris Walas);
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze; (Nigel Booth / Peter Brooke / Vin Burnham / Jamie Courtier / Jane Gootnick / Verner Gresty / Neal Scanlan / Ray Scott); 5. The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (Waggi Klee / Derek Meddings / Robbie Scott)
It would be silly to award this to anything but Terminator 2, with its shapeshifting T-1000 and massive-scale pyrotechnics. The latter element also helped the firefighter action drama Backdraft get here. Puppeteering is still one of the most impressive visual effects - part costuming, part mechanical know-how, all impressive - and so it was only natural to save space for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tokka and Rahzar, as well as Naked Lunch’s bizarre creatures, be they typewriters or barflies. And, finally, they may not quite match the original's, but the work in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter still transports you to Fantasia without question.
Best Original Screenplay
Barton Fink
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
2. Thelma & Louise (Callie Khouri); 3. Impromptu (Sarah Kernochan); 4. Boyz N the Hood (John Singleton); 5. Scenes from a Mall (Roger L. Simon & Paul Mazursky)
Once again, I wanted the combination of a movie I loved also being a joy to read - something that demands to be read, its cinematic qualities inherent on the page - but I also wanted to be struck by the “I could never write this, how do people do it?” sense of awe. So, yes, my number one pick is Barton Fink, with its gradual raising of stakes and chaos coming across straightforwardly, somehow inevitably, when written, and effectively brought to life on film. Then come Thelma & Louise, perfect from the first two scenes where the titular heroines mirror each other; Impromptu, which I tell myself is the kind of movie I’d write but whose tricky tone I could never pull off; and Boyz N the Hood, which doesn’t offer surprise so much as it offers empathy and humanity. Finally, I did not get to read Scenes from a Mall, so I can’t speak to how it presents on the page, but I loved how it played out on film.
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Best Actress
Judy Davis as George Sand
Impromptu
2/3. Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise; 4. Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day; 5. Theresa Russell in Whore
I would say 3/4 of my love for Impromptu is Judy Davis's performance. Like, I started this post fully intending to make it a tie between Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon for Thelma & Louise, but Davis so beautifully inhabits the life of the controversial writer George Sand that she fasincates and frustrates in equal measure - you want to attend a dinner where she's present, but you don't necessarily want to spend more time than necessary with her, but within the film, she's compelling. Undeniably. Davis and Sarandon will have to settle for the next two slots. Followed by Linda Hamilton's physical, imposing performance in Terminator 2 and Theresa Russell's unsanded edges in Whore.
Best Supporting Actress
Juliette Lewis as Danielle Bowden
Cape Fear
2. Tyra Ferrell in Boyz N the Hood; 3. Bernadette Peters in Impromptu; 4. Emma Thompson in Impromptu; 5. Jeanne Moreau in Until the End of the World
Juliette Lewis, I’ll say it again, is magnificent. Tyra Ferrell is my favorite performer in Boyz N the Hood, not afraid to embody all her character’s worst traits…yet we are with her when she screams and sobs. Bernadette Peters may be Queen Bitch in Impromptu, but she never loses sight of her character’s own tragedy in following her heart; in the same film is silly flibbertigibbet Emma Thompson, almost stealing the show. And Jeanne Moreau? She’s the soul of Until the End of the World.
Best Sound
Terimator 2: Judgment Day
Gloria S. Borders, sound supervisor
Gary Rydstrom, re-recording mixer / sound designer / supervising sound editor
Lee Orloff, sound mixer
Tom Johnson / Gary Summers, re-recording mixer
2. Backdraft (Richard Hymns / Tom Johnson / Gary Rydstrom / Gary Summers / Randy Thom); 3. Barton Fink (Allan Byer / Lee Dichter / Harry Higgins / Kerry Kelley / Skip Lievsay); 4. JFK (Gregg Landaker / Tod A. Maitland / Michael Minkler / Wylie Stateman / Michael D. Wilhoit); 5. The Doors (Gregg Landaker / Td A/ Maitland / Michael Minkler / Wylie Stateman)
Terminator 2, well, who can deny this when you consider the robotic whirs, the liquid slurp of the T-1000, the explosions, the buzz of the motorbike, the staccato breaths of Joe Morton? Also worthy are: Backdraft’s screaming fires, JFK’s squealing conspirators and haunting gunfire, Barton Fink’s wet wallpaper peeling, and The Doors’ blending of live and studio music.
Best Costume Design
Prospero's Books
Ellen Lens
2. Vegas in Space (Doris Fish); 3. New Jack City (Bernard Johnson); 4. Soapdish (Nolan Miller); 5. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (Carol Ramsey)
Let me take it from the fifth first.. fashion, uniforms, how we present ourselves, are the entire plot of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, even culminating in a fashion show. Soapdish had my heart the moment Norma Desmond turbans came into play, but their Opalocka dinner theatre Death of a Salesman is perfect, too. New Jack City’s villains are bold and colorful, its cops dark and drab. And then we have two films that embody Ballin’ On A Budget: the sci-fi drag creations of Vegas in Space (including those pajama-set astronaut uniforms) and the art museum references of Prospero’s Books (Dutch collars and Renaissance robes and flesh-colored tights and and and…).
Best Cinematography
1. JFK
Robert Richardson
2. Cool As Ice
Janusz Kaminski
3. Prospero's Books
Sacha Vierny
4. Thelma & Louise
Adrian Biddle
5. Poison
Maryse Alberti
Best Editing
JFK
Joe Hutshing / Pietro Scalia
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Conrad Buff IV / Mark Goldblatt / Richard A. Harris); 3. The Silence of the Lambs (Craig McKay); 4. Paris is Burning (Jonathan Oppenheim); 5. Prospero’s Books (Marina Bodbijl)
It’s breathtaking - not to mention stressful - watching JFK make sense of its various film stocks, archival footage, recreations, inserts, and endless dialogue to make, not just a case for conspiracy, but an emotional journey for Jim Garrison and, implicitly, the soul of America. It’s a beast of an undertaking, executed nimbly. Terminator 2 continues the tradition of beautifully-cut James Cameron films, while The Silence of the Lambs’ editing tricks us a few times, most effectively in the climax with Buffalo Bill. Paris is Burning, like JFK, makes a coherent narrative out of hours of footage, and Prospero’s Books remixes Shakespeare visually as well as narratively, using editing effects to recontextualize images upon images.
Best Score
1. JFK
John Williams
2. Beauty and the Beast
Alan Menken
3. Life is Sweet
Rachel Portman
4. At Play in the Fields of the Lord
Zbigniew Preisner
5. The Addams Family
Marc Shaiman
Best Ensemble
Soapdish
Lora Kennedy, casting director
2. Vegas in Space; 3. Impromptu (Joyce Gallie / John S. Lyons / Françoise Menidrey / Trisha Twomey); 4. Beauty and the Beast (Albert Tavares); 5. Boyz N the Hood (Jaki Brown)
Consider this my apology for not finding room for Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg, Cathy Moriarty, Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, or any of the other pitch-perfect mad performers of Soapdish. Their drag is only matched, honestly, by the actual drag played straight (ha) in Vegas in Space. Impromptu becomes a literate ensemble romp in the middle 40 minutes, Beauty and the Beast boasts a vocal ensemble delivering performances as memorable as love-action ones, and Boyz N the Hood feels like a real neighborhood that's grown up together.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Vegas in Space
Doris Fish, hair & makeup designer
2. The Addams Family (Fern Buchner / Tony Gardner / Christopher Shihar / Paul Huntley); 3. Nothing But Trouble (Mike Elizalde / David B. Miller / Lisa Rocco / Shawn McKay / Gail Rowell-Ryan / Cheri Ruff / Dione Taylor); 4. The Silence of the Lambs (Alan D'Angerio / Carl Fullerton / Neal Martz / Allen Weisinger); 5. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (Michael Mills / Carol A. O'Connell / Kevin Yagher)
Vegas in Space isn’t meant to be seamless, but one is still agog at the transformations that take place, not just with primary color-skinned space divas, but with intrepid all-male space agents becoming an all-girl singing group. The Addams Family makes its mark with its interpretations of Morticia, Fester, and Gomez. Dan Aykroyd becomes an ancient judge and some sort of dumb baby monstrosity in Nothing But Trouble. The Silence of the Lambs pulls off horrors grounded in reality, whether it’s a skinned face, a desperate hostage, or a homemade glamor look. Finally, while this year's Oscars honored Terminator 2 for getting us to believe that Schwarzenegger was a skin suit increasingly damaged to reveal the robot underneath, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey gives us that same effect with the Evil Bill and Ted, plus a pale Death, a monstrous Devil, a very Bill-esque Granny Preston, and dead Bill and Ted.
Best Director
Oliver Stone
JFK
2. Peter Greenaway for Prospero's Books; 3. Simon Callow for The Ballad of the Sad Cafe; 4. James Cameron for Terminator 2: Judgment Day; 5. Ridley Scott for Thelma & Louise
I said what I needed to say regarding Oliver Stone, he’s the only win that makes sense, to me. Peter Greenaway comes close, and for similar reasons: how do you think of all that and keep it coherent enough to deliver a final WOW of a finale? Simon Callow’s work with The Ballad of the Sade Cafe made me sad he never directed again, James Cameron’s balance of action and emotion makes Terminator 2 the masterpiece it is, and Ridley Scott’s excitement for Thelma & Louise is palpable.
Best Original Song
1. Beauty and the Beast - "Beauty and the Beast"
music by Alan Menken
lyrics by Howard Ashman
2. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West - "Dreams to Dream"
music by James Horner
lyrics by Will Jennings
3. Until the End of the World - "Calling All Angels"
music and lyrics by Jane Siberry
4. Beauty and the Beast - "Gaston"
music by Alan Menken
lyrics by Howard Ashman
5. Beauty and the Beast - "Be Our Guest"
music by Alan Menken
lyrics by Howard Ashman
Best Motion Picture of the Year
JFK
produced by A. Kitman Ho / Oliver Stone
2. Paris is Burning (produced by Jennie Livingston); 3. Prospero's Books (produced by Kees Kasander); 4. Barton Fink (produced by Ethan Coen); 5. Impromptu (produced by Stuart Oken / Daniel A. Sherkow)
6. Thelma & Louise; 7. The Ballad of the Sade Cafe; 8. The Silence of the Lambs; 9. Scenes from a Mall; 10. Whore
38 films were nominated, 8 films won; JFK's the big champion, winning seven of its eight nominations.
When next I post, it will be about 1996. But let's give 1991 more room to breathe before then, eh?
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