Ah, Cinematography - painting with light, they say. And certainly the artists nominated in 1983 found new ways to paint with tried-and-true subjects.
Sven Nykvist makes a dream out of the domestic drama. Don Peterman brings heat and sex to the dance-ical/musical. Caleb Deschanel gives the American epic an almost sacred feel. William A. Fraker's teen adventure is haunted by the glow of technology. And Gordon Willis, on his first nomination (you think the DP of The Godfather would have more under his belt), brings verisimilitude to the mockumentary.
Nykvist won his second Oscar here - let's talk about that and more, after the jump.
It's rare enough that a single film takes up two nominations in an acting category -- but in three of them?! Thus was the case in 1983, and while The Dresser is to thank for that occurring in Best Actor, Terms of Endearment had that on lock - two nominations in Best Actress, and another two here in Best Supporting Actor.
Jack Nicholson, who won the Oscar, plays former astronaut Garrett, who we glimpse throughout before he finally starts courting Shirley MacLaine's Aurora about halfway through (maybe more?) into the film. John Lithgow, nominated the previous year for playing a transsexual in The World According to Garp, here plays a lovestruck banker in a handful of scenes. One is coarse, the other more refined; one is single, the other married; both are lovers of the leads, but there's little hope for commitment there.
Another previous nominee: Charles Durning, here playing a Nazi officer in To Be Or Not To Be. The Mel Brooks comedy actually makes some poignant observations about Nazi-occupied Poland - but one of the film's great strengths is Durning's comic doofus, a man reveling in his authority, whose indulgences are a symbol of the excesses of the party. He's also quite funny.
But there was also new blood this year! Sam Shepard was an early front-runner thanks to his quiet performance in The Right Stuff, the epic about the beginning of the American space program. Shepard plays Chuck Yeager, the first to break the sound barrier. Much of his narrative encompasses the first 30 minutes of the more than 3-hour film, though we do check back in on him from time to time.
Also among the newbies: Rip Torn, nominated for Cross Creek, in which he plays a resident of the Florida swamps, a neighbor of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...who would base the character of the father in The Yearling on him. He has a handful of children and a wife who used to entertain in town, before he wed her and took her to the swamp. Hard living, that is.
Nicholson won, as I said, and for many it was a no-brainer. But is it a no-brainer for me? Check after the jump...
I love this category - it's always a great mixture of Best Picture nominees, Best Picture also-rans, period pieces, and sci-fi.
Fanny and Alexander and Yentl fill the period piece slots, and given the number of nominations they accumulated, plus the buzz at the time, I think it's safe to say each came this close to a Best Picture nomination. Return of the Jedi is the obvious sci-fi/fantasy set -- spaceships, mythical setting specific to a weird creature, the usual-usual. The Right Stuff combines the fascination with space tech -- something that would also benefit Gravity, The Martian, and Inception -- with the period trappings of the 60s.
And then there's Terms of Endearment, the extremely rare contemporary entry that I can't imagine being anything other than a coattails nod, especially since it means ignoring the specificity of The Dresser or the wonder of Krull.
Fanny and Alexander won -- let's see if it should have. After the jump.
If you wanted a nomination in 1983, all you had to do was open a bottle. Of the five nominees for Best Actor, four of them are hard drinkers, whether active or reformed.
In Educating Rita, Michael Caine plays Frank Bryant, a literature professor who begins private tutoring sessions with a working-class woman. His failure as a poet has brought him to the bottle - he keeps a stash behind a copy of alcohol epic The Lost Weekend. The drink has driven his girlfriend right into the arms of one of his colleagues. Did I mention it's a comedy?
In Reuben, Reuben, Tom Conti plays another poet, Gowan McGland of Scotland, based largely on poet/womanizer/alcoholic Dylan Thomas. He comes to a small town in New England to give talks and lectures, and seduce the local bored wives. The Reuben of the title is a dog Gowan befriends; his owner is the grandfather of a much younger woman Gowan falls in love with. This is Conti's first and only nomination.
Tom Courtenay is the title character of The Dresser, whose entire life is devoted to serving a Great Shakespearean Actor - and in between breakdowns, comforts, truth-tellings, bitching, and gossip, he nips from a bottle, and is quick to replenish the supply when he runs out. Albert Finney, as the Great Shakespearean Actor, does not need to imbibe, for he is already losing his mind, and surely that's just one bit of madness too many.
In Tender Mercies, Robert Duvall plays former country music star Mac Sledge - he has hit rock bottom at the film's beginning, and is more or less forced to sober up by the widow he eventually falls in love with. It's distinct from the rest for a number of reasons: the other performances are from films based on plays (Reuben, Reuben is based on a play and a novel), whereas Tender Mercies is an original screenplay. Not only that: of the five, Duvall's the only American!
Small wonder, then, that he won.
Hollywood toasting a native son? Or was he truly deserving? My thoughts, after the jump.
Best Original Screenplay, Barbara Benedek/Lawrence Kasdan - Nominated
Some time before eighth grade -- we were still living in the duplex, so I know it wasn't later -- The Big Chill came on AMC. Who can forget "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" playing while a sleeve was pulled over the stitches of a slashed wrist? My father identified it as a personal favorite, but was hesitant to have me watch it. I was too young, not for the sex and drugs, but for the experience of loss, regret, reunion. As my cousin Kathy would say, I had no patina. And after about ten minutes...I realized he was right.
The film takes place over one weekend. Alex (wrists and ankle played by Kevin Costner) has committed suicide, and his seven college friends reunite to mourn him, joined by his much-younger girlfriend. They look back on the past, pick it apart; they look on their present, some favorably, most with disappointment. These were college radicals, kids who protested and demonstrated and believed they were going to change things for the greater good. Only Harold, who owns the house they're staying in, seems content with his life, but his music selection is exclusively hits from the late 60s-early 70s. They're all stuck on the past, in one way or another.
I eventually watched it in college, and have revisited it once or twice in the years since. Each time I do, I pick up on something else. My feelings change, my perception shifts, and I think, "Oh, I must not have really understood it last time." Like my realization that the title was not, in fact, referring to Alex's death, but to the steady cool that comes when you're no longer young and idealistic. But I see it -- I have friends that I've known for years, friends who seem to be coasting, friends who are disappointed with where they are, friends who are doing well but want more, friends who think they were their best selves ten years ago. You're never too young for disillusionment.
Now, after all that, here's what I love about The Big Chill: it offers that introspection, but it's not so damn glum about it! Ultimately, it's about bonds and friendship, and when you get a close knit group of people together, whether it's the family God gave you or the one you formed yourself, shit gets fun. They know each other, they became themselves around each other -- they dance and get stoned and push each other's buttons and argue and make up and, yes, fuck. As Harold says, "How much sex, fun, and friendship can one man take?" It's a timeless story.
Which is why it's perfect for a Casting Coup!
Of course, the difficult thing about casting The Big Chill with today's actors is the idea of putting that story in a modern context. Timeless though the experience may be, it is a movie that's tied to the experiences of the 60s and 70s. Frankly, the 90s and 00s were neither idealistic nor radical in the same way. But, you know...it's fun. So we're doing it.
The Cold War entered its 38th year (unofficially, though, for how does one keep track of an undeclared event?). Ronald Reagan was still in his first term, and while 1982 had witnessed an unemployment high unseen since the Depression, it began it's decline this year -- slowly, but surely. People were pensive about nuclear war, nuclear waste, nuclear meltdowns, with apocalyptic visions of the future taking over the airwaves. M*A*S*H ended, The Thorn Birds was our new obsession, and the end of the year brought the greatest gift we could ever receive: the music video for Thriller.
It's been too quiet for too long (not counting my And Then There Were None casting which you should take a peek at). Fret not -- we're back in business starting in May!
Throughout the month, we're traveling back to the 80s for a retrospective of the 1983 Oscars! Followed, of course, by own picks of the year, at the Retro Hollmann Awards.
The fun begins May 2nd.
Casting Coup Tuesdays will also return that month, as I re-cast all five 1983 Best Picture nominees! Join me, won't you?
But there was also new blood this year! Sam Shepard was an early front-runner thanks to his quiet performance in The Right Stuff, the epic about the beginning of the American space program. Shepard plays Chuck Yeager, the first to break the sound barrier. Much of his narrative encompasses the first 30 minutes of the more than 3-hour film, though we do check back in on him from time to time.
Also among the newbies: Rip Torn, nominated for Cross Creek, in which he plays a resident of the Florida swamps, a neighbor of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...who would base the character of the father in The Yearling on him. He has a handful of children and a wife who used to entertain in town, before he wed her and took her to the swamp. Hard living, that is.
In Reuben, Reuben, Tom Conti plays another poet, Gowan McGland of Scotland, based largely on poet/womanizer/alcoholic Dylan Thomas. He comes to a small town in New England to give talks and lectures, and seduce the local bored wives. The Reuben of the title is a dog Gowan befriends; his owner is the grandfather of a much younger woman Gowan falls in love with. This is Conti's first and only nomination.
Tom Courtenay is the title character of The Dresser, whose entire life is devoted to serving a Great Shakespearean Actor - and in between breakdowns, comforts, truth-tellings, bitching, and gossip, he nips from a bottle, and is quick to replenish the supply when he runs out. Albert Finney, as the Great Shakespearean Actor, does not need to imbibe, for he is already losing his mind, and surely that's just one bit of madness too many.
In Tender Mercies, Robert Duvall plays former country music star Mac Sledge - he has hit rock bottom at the film's beginning, and is more or less forced to sober up by the widow he eventually falls in love with. It's distinct from the rest for a number of reasons: the other performances are from films based on plays (Reuben, Reuben is based on a play and a novel), whereas Tender Mercies is an original screenplay. Not only that: of the five, Duvall's the only American!
