Winner: Schindler's List
Other Nominees: The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, The Piano, The Remains of the Day
Best Choice: Schindler's List
Runners-Up: The Piano, Naked
The 66th Academy Awards marked a dramatic close to a phenomenal year of films. Political and courtroom thrillers like The Fugitive, Philadelphia, In the Name of the Father, and In the Line of Fire rocked the box office, comedies like What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Groundhog Day, and Mrs. Doubtfire brought viewers both to tears and belly-roaring laughter, and high-brow period pieces like The Remains of the Day and The Age of Innocence once again dazzled critics with fine performances and elegant production design. The year also offered a profound rise in main-stream art films, Mike Leigh's examination of missed human experiences in Naked and most notably Jane Campion's contemplative romance The Piano, for which she become the second woman nominated for Best Director after Lina Wurtmuller for Seven Beauties (1976). The Piano went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and remains one of the most memorable romance dramas of the decade. The year was also brilliant for its biopics, most remarkably Brian Gibson's powerful examination of singer Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It and Steven Spielberg's harrowing and groundbreaking Holocaust drama Schindler's List filmed through the perspective of Nazi businessman Oskar Schindler.
Though a competitive year, no films matched the heart-wrenching horror and stomach-turning sadness of Schindler's List. The film won nine Academy Awards including Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Original Score, and rightfully so. John Williams' winning score, a sorrowful violin wailing against the overwhelming force of silence, provides a backdrop for the trauma of the Jewish genocide as it unfolds before the eyes of viewers. As the film is centered on the choices of protagonist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), viewers see the Holocaust not from the perspective of the Jewish victim, but through the eyes of a rich Nazi factory owner as he transforms from greedy businessman who uses the war and Jewish situation as a means to grow incredibly wealthy into selfless Moses-like activist for Jewish survival. Liam Neeson's performance is remarkable in its ability to garner both perspective for the role of a Nazi party-member as well as growing disgust for the injustices performed against the Jewish people. Most remarkable is the relationship between the justice-striving Schindler and the film's sinister, murder-happy Nazi work camp Commandant, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). The characters are friends in the film, offering fascinating layers of human interaction and intensity rarely seen in cinema as one would not expect such incredible good to grow so close to such vile evil. Even more fascinating is that this relationship involves an instance where the film's villain admires and continuously shows love and support for the film's hero.
Spielberg's directing is masterful and marks a true apex in his career. His choice to shoot primarily in black and white triumphs in its ability to transport viewers into the time of WWII documentaries and Nazi propaganda, while offering heavy symbolic weight painting a period of grayness and grief sans light for Jewish people. The opening shot underscores this very motif as candles are lit by a Jewish family at prayer and are slowly burned down. As the candles grow shorter, the Jewish family disappears, and the color drains from the film until only a brilliant purple blaze survives in the meager wax surrounded by gray. Finally, the flame and color are extinguished, leaving a solemn trail of smoke rising much like the smoke from the concentration camp in later scenes. From here, the film changes setting dramatically to a Nazi party where Oskar Schindler showcases his charm, intelligence, and powerful charisma as he secures his business by coming on good terms with Nazi officers. Initially, Schindler is depicted as a man strictly with money and women on the mind. He is a womanizer, seducing multiple German girls at various points throughout the film, and initially sees the war and relocation of the Jewish people as a financial opportunity. He immediately sets out to acquire the best accountant and financial adviser for his company at the least cost, scouring the ghettos for intelligent, loyal Jews. He employs Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) who becomes his personal assistant and then close friend as the Nazis further restrict Jewish rights.
Halfway through the film, Oskar Schindler witnesses a girl wearing a brilliant red dress (the only instance of color since the opening shot) in the ghetto, possibly suggesting the innocence and hopeful rejuvenation of youth among the depressed state of Jewish affairs. Later, Schindler sees the same dress lying in a pile of clothing beside a burning pier of Jewish bodies, and all hope and innocence, along with color, are finally extinguished. After this event and a slew of others including a scene where he listens to a story of Amon's brutal murder of multiple Jews, Schindler realizes the evils in Jewish persecution and does everything in his power to employ as many work camp Jews as possible. This act, though at first a means of saving money by employing Jews for a fraction of the cost, soon becomes a personal mission of salvation for Schindler, and he creates a list of Jews to save with help from Itzhak. In one of the film's most haunting scenes, his handpicked workers are accidentally sent by train to Auschwitz for extermination. Devastated, Schindler goes to great lengths to save them, finally selling all his valuables and illegally bargaining with Nazi officers for their lives. At the end of the film the war has ended, and Schindler breaks down in tears for all the lives he failed to save. His Jewish workers praise him for his supreme goodness and offer him a ring of gratitude and a list of signatures pardoning him from potential war crimes. Schindler flees, as he is still a member of the Nazi party, and the Jewish workers march toward any land that will take them. Color is restored to the film as the living Schindler Jews offer tribute to Schindler's grave in the present day.
Though criticized for its overemphasis on the power of the ruling class to make change, Schindler's List offers a powerful salute to a man who had every reason to do evil but chose goodness. What makes the film worthy of Best Picture is its ability to paint a picture of the Holocaust through the eyes of a Nazi party-member, while simultaneously revealing in graphic detail the atrocities committed against the Jewish people by the Nazis. The film remains one of the greatest films about the Holocaust ever made, with the exception of Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985), and will undoubtedly move audiences to tears for many years to come.
Best Actor
Winner: Tom Hanks (Philadelphia)
Other Nominees: Daniel Day-Lewis (In the Name of the Father), Lawrence Fishbourne (What's Love Got to Do With It), Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day), Liam Neeson (Schindler's List)
Best Choice: David Thewlis (Naked)
Runners-Up: Robin Williams (Mrs. Doubtfire), Jeff Bridges (Fearless), Liam Neeson (Schindler's List), Lawrence Fishburne (What's Love Got to Do With It), Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day), Daniel Day-Lewis (In the Name of the Father)
Tom Hanks' win for playing a gay lawyer with AIDS in Philadelphia was more a political stance against the injustices of contemporary American culture than a performance-informed award. Undoubtedly, Hanks worked hard in the role, losing weight and performing with strained, sickly body stances and facial expressions to appear realistic to his character Andrew Beckett's condition. Most effective was the famously known "opera scene" where Beckett describes to his lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) the musicality of a beautiful opera song as it plays in the background. In the scene, Hanks is absorbed in thought, purely in tune with the music. As he describes the scene, he grows aware of how his observations in the song match his current condition as he struggles with his disease and with his battle for rights as a lawyer with AIDS. Though initially mesmerizing, the performance is a little too forceful, too self-conscious, and too rigid for the desired realism of the scene. Denzel Washington, though not nominated, offers a far superior performance simply sitting and listening, taking the act into his thoughts and naturally becoming affected by it. Whereas Washington dominates the scene with near-nonchalance, Hanks is trying too hard; thus, his performance is reduced to an act rather than a living, breathing experience.
One of the year's greatest overlooked performances was David Thewlis in Mike Leigh's philosophically-charged commentary on human interaction, Naked. Thewlis plays Johnny, a thoughtful, energetic, and neurotic drifter who flees to the flat of his ex-girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp) in London after raping a woman. Johnny is cynical, dirty, vulgar, yet somehow incredibly funny and charming as he flirts shamelessly with every woman he meets, seducing Louise's housemate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge) while stirring up emotions from his own past with Louise. Unable to deal with the love he and Louise once shared, Johnny flees the apartment to the city, beating the dark, dirty streets seeking comfort, connection, and meaning in life through people he meets along the way. Throughout the film, he falls passionately into dialogue with an array of characters including street dwellers, a night watchman, a depressed woman, a cafe girl, and an ad painter on subjects ranging from religion, the end of the world, human biology, psychology, sex, the mundane, the absurd, and most of all his cynical belief that life is nothing but dirt and pestilence. Eventually, Johnny returns to Louise's flat, beat-up and psychologically disturbed. Sophie has been raped by a sadistic upper-class man, Jeremy (Gregg Crutwell), who refuses to leave the flat, and Johnny, in an uncontrollable fit of near-psychosis, reaches out to him as though he has finally found his long-lost brother. The man finally leaves, and Johnny is nursed tenderly back to health by Louise and her second house-mate, Sandra (Claire Skinner), who is also a nurse. Sophie, unable to bare the weight of her recent rape and final rejection from Johnny, whom she has come to love, flees the apartment. A moment of love is shared between Johnny and Louise, where the two agree once more to travel together to Manchester to start a new life. Louise kisses Johnny goodbye as she leaves for work, telling him they will leave when she returns. Once she leaves, Johnny gathers what money he can and limps out of the flat and down the road, choosing a life of nomadic solitude.
The brilliance of Thewlis' performance is his ability to both blend into the dark, depressing atmosphere of London and dominate every scene with his supreme naturalistic presence. Every twitch, flick of cigarette, and scrunch of face breathes meaning, and every long-winded expression of existential despair or sex-craved depravity is delivered with acute understanding of Johnny's thoughts and history. Thewlis' performance is so engrossing that viewers are able to sympathize with Johnny even with knowledge of his sometimes violent tendencies and rape of a woman at the start of the film. His careless demeanor and clever, subtle mocking of characters throughout the film, forces viewers to laughter, while his emotional complexity in scenes such as when he is lost in psychological turmoil after returning to Louise's flat bring tears to the eyes. No other performance this year so masterfully envelops space and language as naturally as Thewlis' Johnny, who almost seems to embody the very beating heart and depraved mind of the city of London itself.
Best Actress
Winner: Holly Hunter (The Piano)
Other Nominees: Angela Bassett (What's Love Got to Do With It), Stockard Channing (Six Degrees of Separation), Emma Thompson (The Remains of the Day), Debra Winger (Shadowlands)
Best Choice: Angela Bassett (What's Love Got to Do With It)
Runners-Up: Holly Hunter (The Piano), Michelle Pfieffer (The Age of Innocence), Emma Thompson (The Remains of the Day)
A year of powerful lead female performances concluded with Holly Hunter winning the Oscar for her stern and silent, yet incredibly passionate, performance as a mute piano player, Ada, in the midst of a love triangle. Subtle, specific, and terrifyingly poignant, Hunter's performance blew critics away. It was refreshing to finally witness acting that used the body to translate vast depths of meaning to viewers, especially within the context of a film that ponders and pushes the boundaries of the roles women have played throughout the history of Western civilization. Even more compelling was Hunter's behind-the-scenes work, which involved inventing a unique form of sign language (formal sign language was not yet put to practice at the period in the film) and learning to play the piano.
There is not much to criticize in Hunter's performance, and she was deserving of the Oscar; however, Angela Bassett's portrayal of singer Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It is equally mesmerizing and, arguably, a more challenging role to perform for reasons pertaining to emotional and aesthetic accuracy as well as physical demands. For this reason, she is my choice for Best Actress. The difficulty in this decision stems mostly from the similarities of both the characters of Ada in The Piano and Anna Mae (Tina Turner) in What's Love Got to Do With It. Both are musicians, one a piano player, one a singer who love music and find spiritual sanctuary in it. Both deal with abusive, controlling men. Both seek enlightenment of some kind: Ada in true love from George (Harvey Keitel), Tina in Buddhism and finally musical stardom independent from her controlling husband Ike (Lawrence Fishburne). Even minute details of production are similar: in the film Ada's fingers are chopped off by her husband Alisdair (Sam Neill) and Angela Bassett's hand is literally broken when filming a fight scene with Lawrence Fishburne. It is here, in the minute details, where Bassett's superior power in her performance are illuminated. To acquire Tina Turner's muscular physique, Bassett performed intense daily workouts prior to filming. She also worked steadily to reach Tina's vocal range in singing; though many scenes in the film are set to actual recordings by Tina Turner, Bassett still attempted to sing her vocal range as a means to fit aesthetically into the raw, overwhelming power of her voice. The effect of this technique are scenes where Bassett dissolves entirely into the rhythm of Tina Turner's awesome stage presence, displaying the complex emotions of a singer both in love with the spirit of music as well as broken by physical and verbal abuse. In no part of the film do viewers suspect lip-syncing has occurred, nor do viewers question the pain and tenderness behind Bassett's performance of Tina offstage as she is repeatedly knocked down physically and emotionally by her husband. Her fragility at one moment and strong-bodied power at another push Bassett's performance over the competition as the year's best.
Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive)
Other Nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape), Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List), John Malkovich (In the Line of Fire), Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father)
Best Choice: Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List)
Runners-up: Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape), Denzel Washington (Philadelphia), Sean Penn (Carlito's Way), John Malkovich (In the Line of Fire), Gary Oldman (True Romance)
Tommy Lee Jones' win for essentially playing himself in The Fugitive has remained one of the largest outrages in Academy history. Though entertaining and likable as the curt, no-nonsense U.S. marshal, Jones was most definitely the least worthy actor this year and should not have won the Oscar (or have been nominated) on any grounds (unless of course the Academy took place on a dam, and spouting "I don't care" became an instant requirement for good acting). In a year full of promising supporting actor performances, it was a sin to grant Jones the top honor. Leonardo DiCaprio's touchingly genuine role as a mentally disabled child in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Denzel Washington's sympathetic lawyer in Philadelphia, Sean Penn's goofy, yet terrifying, gangster lawyer in Carlito's Way, John Malkovich's disturbing assassin in In the Line of Fire, and even Gary Oldman's ten minutes of screen time for playing a drug-induced pimp in True Romance were all more deserving of the honor.
The best performance, however, was given by Ralph Fiennes for playing the psychopathic Nazi Commandant Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. What marks the brilliance of Fiennes' performance is not so much the brutality of how he executes the various Jewish victims throughout the film, but his calm, almost serene every-day-way of attending to the task of murder. In one scene, Fiennes rises from bed after just recently sleeping with a woman and strolls to his balcony. There, he causally lifts a rifle, aims and shoots dead a random Jewish worker in the camp. He then, just as simply, places the rifle down and goes to the bathroom. Simple routine. Fiennes' performance of Amon is one equally conscious of the power dynamic that exists between his character and Oscar Schindler. Schindler is Amon's idol, and Fiennes brilliantly portrays his simultaneous admiration and fascination with Schindler through subtleties in dialogue inflections throughout the film. In one crucial scene, Amon is drunk and stammering on to Schindler about how he watches him, that he knows he isn't a "drunk," and that that is power. Schindler uses this to his advantage, and persuades Amon to consider that power comes most of all through a leader's ability "to pardon" those who have offended him. Fiennes' responds with a "I think you are drunk," then a thoughtful glance off-camera and a fully-bodied laugh. Though subtle, the acting in this scene paints Amon's thought-process as reflective, though susceptible to the overwhelming attraction of power. Fiennes' steady dedication to this specific character goal throughout the film marks a truly invigorating performance, one that delves deeper than mere imitation by accent or aesthetics into the very human psyche.
Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Anna Paquin (The Piano)
Other Nominees: Holly Hunter (The Firm), Rosie Perez (Fearless), Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence), Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father)
Best Choice: Rosie Perez (Fearless)
Runners-up: Darlene Cates (What's Eating Gilbert Grape), Leslie Sharp (Naked), Katrin Cartlidge (Naked), Gong Li (Farewell My Concubine)
By far the year's weakest category of nominations, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress was awarded to the young Anna Paquin for her work as Ada's unruly, high-strung daughter in The Piano. Her performance was good, with an intensity and dedication rare for children (she was the second youngest to win the honor), and her nominated competition was slim, the only deserving performance given by Rosie Perez, which contributed to her win. Regardless of Paquin's spunk and wonderful collaboration with Holly Hunter, it is hard to give the award to an actress who was not allowed to see over half of the film due to its R-rated content. And even if this wasn't the case, there were much stronger performances given by non-nominated actresses including Leslie Sharp and Katrin Cartlidge's raw naturalistic acting in Naked, Darlene Cates' emotional tour de force as a caring, obese mother to a boy with mental disabilities in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and Gong Li's intensity in Farewell My Concubine, which earned her a New York Film Critics Circle prize for Best Supporting Actress.
Rosie Perez is fearless in Peter Weir's Fearless, where she plays a once-mother, Carla Roderigo, who is grieving the death of her two-year-old son after a plane crash takes him from her. From the start of the film, Perez demonstrates her mastery of the fear, sadness, and hysteria of a mother who has just watched her child die in her arms. Her exasperated screams and tears instantly strike the hearts of viewers and linger in the mind for many scenes afterward. Her acting then transitions to one of a dull, emotionless stupor as her character Carla lays comatosed in bed waiting for God to take her life. It is only with the help of her guardian angel, the "hero" Max (Jeff Bridges), that she slowly emerges from her grief and accepts death as a natural part of life. Perez and Bridges' chemistry is electric, and Perez further demonstrates her ability to change from sad to angry to laughing out loud in mere moments. Arguably her best scene involves Carla and Max driving back from the mall after shopping for their dead loved ones where Carla reveals her fault in her baby's death. In this scene, Perez effectively demonstrates the guilt and shame behind Carla's grief, the overwhelming sadness of her baby's death, and her fear of going to Hell for lying about what occurred during the crash. Where a lesser actor would easily fall into sappy melodrama, Perez allows the intensity of her character's feelings to emerge realistically through reaction to Bridges' comments and reassurances. Her deliverance of lines and movements of body interact perfectly to create a unique and impressionable portrait of grief.
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