Alternative Oscars: 1995

Best Picture

Winner: Forrest Gump
Other Nominees: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption

Best Choice: Pulp Fiction

Runners-Up: The Shawshank Redemption, Ed Wood, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Hoop Dreams, Nell, Quiz Show, Immortal Beloved

The 1995 Academy Awards were arguably the most ambitious and jam-packed awards season since 1940 when Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind conquered the prize over critically acclaimed masterpieces including The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.  Only five films were nominated in 1995 as opposed to ten in 1940, though multiple films beyond even those nominated were worthy of taking home the title of Best Picture, most notably Tim Burton's Ed Wood, an enjoyable, stylistically masterful, portrait of the world's worst director; Disney's The Lion King which reintroduced Hamlet to mass cinematic appeal; and Hoop Dreams, a game-changing documentary following the lives of two Chicago high school youths over the course of four years as they pursue a dream of success in basketball.  The nominees were likewise strong and varied: Robert Redford delivered his best directorial achievement since his Oscar-winning film Ordinary People (1980) in Quiz Show, a dramatic take on corruption in quiz shows of the late 1950s; the British comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral offered a fun and unique look at love and friendship as well as introduced heartthrob Hugh Grant to the American consciousness; The Shawshank Redemption, a two and a half hour masterpiece thriller, humanizing drama, and critique of prison bureaucracy and inmate institutionalization, blew audiences' minds with smart narration and memorable character development; Quentin Tarantino, improving from his work in Reservoir Dogs (1992), shattered the traditional narrative structure once more, this time with much greater reception, in Pulp Fiction.  Like 1940's Gone with the Wind, this year's winner, Forrest Gump, was a grand historical romance-drama with a stellar cast (Academy Award Winner Tom Hanks leading the pack as the film's simple, though likable and remarkably successful, protagonist).  It is hard to argue with the film's impressionability on audiences with its quotable lines, clever (though sometimes ridiculous and campy) historical allusions in the cinematography, powerful cast, and tender heart.  However,  like in 1940 when The Wizard of Oz and its technicolor brilliance lost to slow-burn Gone with the Wind, the Academy once more chose to take the safe road and reward tradition and likability over artistry and nuance of craft.

Pulp Fiction was hands-down the most original, structurally complex, technically savvy, and narratively nuanced film of the year, which is why it deserves the title of Best Picture more so than any of its worthy competitors.  To best examine the film's cinematic mastery, it is necessary to provide a detailed narrative synopsis (if you have not viewed the film, do not read on).  

The drama erupts in a diner where two lovers, Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer), share a moment of verbal intimacy over coffee before pulling guns in an attempt to rob the place.  A freeze frame on the violent act thrusts the viewers into the opening credits, marking a significant symbolic trend for the entirety of the film as one showcasing the filmmaker's power over character narrative as well as the overwhelming visual influence of violence.  Half-way through the credits, the music ("Misirlou" by Dick Dale and His Del-Tones) abruptly merges to static as though a station is changed on a stereo and "Jungle Boogie" by Kool and The Gang emerges.  A sudden cut brings the viewers from the credits to a car where two gangsters (Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta) discuss the legalities of "hash" in Europe, while "Jungle Boogie" plays on the radio.  The music's merge from non-diegetic to diegetic sound prepares the viewer for a film that blurs the line between what exists in the realm of narrative and what is contrived by filmmaker.  The naturalistic, non-plot-focused dialogue between these two characters further exemplifies director Quentin Tarantino's intent to dazzle the audience without relying entirely on the thickening agent of drama.  Viewers instantly have a taste for who Vincent Vega (Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Jackson) are as characters, their ticks, pleasures, and annoyances through this mostly irrelevant dialogue, providing humor and pertinent background to the many dramas soon to unfold.  After much discussion on topics ranging from "Royale with Cheese" burgers to their employer Marsellus Wallace's (Ving Rhames) beautiful wife Mia (Uma Thurman), her seductive tendencies, as well as her and Vincent's upcoming non-romantic "date," Jules and Vincent arrive at an apartment complex to retrieve unpaid dues from Wallace's former business associates.  While Vincent searches out the suitcase with the necessary cash, Jules charismatically reprimands the two men with both comedic and intimidating force on their poor business practices, finally resulting in him reciting the entirety of the bible passage Ezekiel 25:17 and gunning the men down with furious gusto.

The film fades to black, and a title screen characteristic of early silent films emerges and provides viewers the transition to the second full story of four in the distorted timeline: "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife."  Viewers are introduced to the infamous Marsellus mentioned in the last scene as well as the stern-faced Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a boxer who is told by Wallace to take the fall: "In the fifth, your ass goes down."  As the men talk, Jules and Vincent enter the bar in a stark outfit change, drop off the suitcase to Wallace, and go their separate ways.  From here, the narrative follows Vincent, who purchases drugs before embarking on a night of wild dancing, milkshakes, lust, and drug overdose with Mia Wallace.  The third section, titled "The Gold Watch" begins with a flashback from Butch's childhood where he receives his late father's watch from his father's military companion Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) who "stored the watch up his ass" as Butch's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had before him to safely carry the family's legacy to the next generation.  The remainder of the section follows Butch as he disobeys Wallace, winning the boxing match, and flees with his girlfriend only to discover that she had forgotten to pack his gold watch.  This mishap forces Butch to return to his apartment and face the wrath of Wallace and his gang, which leads to a rather unfortunate incident of cellar sodomy and samurai swordsmanship.  The fourth and final section, "The Bonnie Situation," returns to Jules and Vincent, who are shot upon multiple times by a man hidden in the backroom of the apartment from earlier in the film, and miraculously survive without a single gunshot wound.  After retrieving the suitcase full of cash, Vincent accidentally kills their inside man from the job and must clean the mess with the help of Jules' friend Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino) and a professional "problem-solver," The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) before Jimmie's wife Bonnie returns home from work.  Afterward, the two gangsters get breakfast, where Jules confides to Vincent that they had both witnessed a miracle from God when they were not shot dead, and he is done with the gangster life.  Vincent leaves for the bathroom, and the film returns to the scene of the introduction as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny demand everyone at the diner to pay up.  Jules, after refusing to hand over the suitcase full of cash, pulls a gun on Pumpkin and, as he is in a "transitional period," seeks to guide Pumpkin to make the right decision.

Pulp Fiction, thus, ends on redemption.  Though the disorderly nature of violence has been the film's primary focus, the film ends with a certain comradery between criminals, salvation orchestrated primarily (in Jules' eyes) through the influences of divine intervention.   Tarantino's non-chronological structure for the story, through this interpretation, provides a medium in which to examine the film through this multi-faceted lens, as well as supports the cinematic comparison of filmmaker as creator, the god-like presence that directs character actions in a film.  Through this comparison, Pulp Fiction emerges as much more than a mere experimentation in narrative style; it blossoms as both an entertainment-driven, gun-rearing gangster-flick and a violent attack on the cinematic method of narrative storytelling, a brilliant post-modern reflection on what it means to make and view film in contemporary times.

Best Actor

Winner: Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump)
Other Nominees: Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption), Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George), Paul Newman (Nobody's Fool), John Travolta (Pulp Fiction)

Best Choice: Gary Oldman (Immortal Beloved)

Runners-Up: Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption), Tommy Lee Jones (Cobb), Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption), Johnny Depp (Ed Wood), Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George)

The obvious front-runner for Best Actor was once again last year's winner Tom Hanks for his touching performance as the lovably quotable Forrest Gump.  Both the performance and the film captured the hearts of audiences and fostered the belief that one can overcome any challenge if one puts their best self forward no matter how "smart" one appears to be.  Tom Hanks definitely gives one of his finest performances, remaining realistically engrossed in the circumstances of every scene without overdoing Forrest's quirks.  His Southern drawl is engaging and his uniquely delayed reactions to various events in the film adds much needed humor and sympathy to a character easily capable of falling into stereotype.  Hanks also develops a heated agency for Forrest as he pursues his "Jenny" and dream of discovering his destiny in life.  This ambitious drive and Hanks' simple and direct actions throughout the film allow audiences to easily follow and empathize with Forrest's goals as he reacts to whatever "chocolates" life throws at him.

Tom Hanks was not the only actor to give one of the best performances of his career.  Tommy Lee Jones masterfully revealed the ugliness, pride, and fiery tongue of the infamous baseball player Ty Cobb.  Both Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins were also breathtaking in The Shawshank Redemption; however, most impressive is Freeman's Ellis Boyd Redding, or simply "Red," who acted as both the film's omniscient narrator and moral conscious.  His characteristically reflective and impassioned voice-over would have been enough to merit a nomination, but even more astounding is how effectively Freeman plays the cool nonchalance and pleasant friendliness of a man confined to life in prison for murder.  Given that "Red" was originally written in the novel by Stephen King as Irish, Freeman's take on the character is especially remarkable.  Despite these powerful performances, however, the year's most ponderous and complex acting was given by Gary Oldman for his brilliantly mad and romantically tortured take on the legendary composer Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved.   

This year marked an important moment for Oldman, who made two of his arguably greatest performances (neither of which were nominated) since his role as the psychopathic Irish gangster Jackie Flannery in State of Grace (1990).   In Léon: The Professional, Oldman is terrifying as a murderous, corrupt police chief determined to exterminate the assassin who outsmarts him at every turn (oddly and coincidentally enough, his character is obsessed with Beethoven).  It is Immortal Beloved, however, where Oldman demonstrates his true talents as an actor through his poignant depth and furiously passionate depiction of one of the world's most intense composers who is crippled by deafness, the challenge of constant musical artistry, and unobtainable love.  Often, it is difficult for an actor to transport themself into the mind of a genius with the mastery of performative choice exemplified by Oldman in this role, which required him to practice playing the piano for six weeks, six hours per day, in order to appear to have mastered the instrument.  Though the final cut of the film includes music played by professional musicians, Oldman plays the same songs depicted in every scene to near-mirror visual likeness.  Most remarkable, though perhaps unnoticed by the typical viewer, is Oldman's unique take on Beethoven's crippling deafness, which often provides the crux of the drama in the film.  Rather than over-accentuating vowels and other hard-to-pronounce words to make obvious his audio affliction, Oldman offers a distinct non-aloof approach to dialogue, often choosing to simply ignore actions around him except for those created by his character.  This direct approach to deafness is a brilliant move on Oldman's part as it seeks to conceal his character's condition rather than accentuating it, adding a level of pride to Beethoven's already complex personality.  This move is especially relevant to Beethoven's situation at the start of the film when he refuses to play in front of audiences due to his fear of ridicule, which ultimately results in the rejection of his wife-to-be for spying on him.

In addition to these performative nuances, Oldman is most impressive in his conceptualization of love and desire as more than just long glances and embraces.  Love is beautiful as it is terrible.  Oldman exhibits Beethoven's love in many forms throughout the film: his insane, tortured love for music (which originated with his father's brutal, physically abusive, direction), his over-protective and jealous love for his younger brothers' attention, his tenderhearted though often hard love for his "nephew" Karl, compulsive love for various women in his life, and finally his rage-fueled love/hate for his "immortal beloved" for whom the film is named.  One notable love-related scene occurs after Karl attempts suicide after Beethoven's unrelenting pressure for him to be a masterful musician, and, surviving the ordeal, writes "I never want to see your face again."  Instead of resorting to sadness, Oldman performs this loss as one of total defeat, his eyes clouded and directionless in their stare, face drooping, shoulders slumped, feet and knees drawn up into his person like a vagabond accepting finally his plunge into eternal ostracization.  This is an acting master at work, an artist who infuses his every motion and body position with the mind's losses, dreams, and shattered desires to conjure a living, feeling human being from the bones of long-dead history.

Best Actress

Winner: Jessica Lange (Blue Sky)
Other Nominees: Jodie Foster (Nell), Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv), Winona Ryder (Little Women), Susan Sarandon (The Client)

Best Choice: Jodie Foster (Nell)

Runners-Up: Jaime Lee Curtis (True Lies), Meg Ryan (When a Man Loves a Woman), Jessica Lange (Blue Sky), Meryl Streep (The River Wild)

 

Jessica Lange has been on the Academy's radar for Best Actress since her Best Supporting Actress win in Tootsie (1982) over a decade previously.  Having offered strong performances in past films including Frances (1982), Country (1985), Sweet Dreams (1986), and Music Box (1990), all of which were nominated, Lange was finally due for her Oscar win.  Her performance in Blue Sky of a free-spirited wife with a mental illness, though accented beautifully in the Southern drawl, flamboyantly free-spirited, sexy, and piercingly raw at times, failed to stand out significantly from previous roles of stereotypical housewives reeling against an unjust patriarchal system.  Her most notable moment is driving recklessly through a parade and erratically demanding justice for her husband (Tommy Lee Jones), who has been imprisoned and psychologically tormented for his rejection of the Blue Sky atmospheric nuclear testing decision.  Other strong moments involve her sometimes volatile, sometimes heartwarming relationship with her husband in the film, which underscore the effects of mental illness on career, child-rearing, and common pressures between sexes in the contract of marriage.  Regardless of a relatively strong performance, her acting was dramatically overshadowed by another seasoned actress.

Long-time Oscar juggernaut Jodie Foster, best known for her two previous Best Actress wins for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Accused (1988) once more gave the year's best performance for her role as a hermit woman who has never before made contact with contemporary American society.  Foster, who won her first Screen Actors Guild Award for Nell and claims it as her personal favorite performance to date, brilliantly paints the mind and spiritual soul of a woman who has lived a lifetime without societal expectation in the woods of North Carolina.  The role required Foster to invent body expressions and words to accommodate a language born more or less from Nell's late mother, the sounds of the natural world, and childhood interactions with her twin sister.

The ordinary becomes extraordinary in Nell's eyes as her life following her mother's death is infiltrated by anthropologists, cruel men from town, and media outlets hungry for an original story at any cost.  Initially, Nell is deemed mentally handicapped by the people of North Carolina early in the film as they are unable to understand her seemingly incoherent jumble of meaningless phrases.  Besides her inability to communicate in English, she is shocked into hysterical screaming when flash-photographed by a news photographer, terrified of the image of men, and bathes naked and unashamed in plain sight.  Only when Jerome Lovell (Liam Neeson) and Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson), two anthropologists from the city, are called to investigate the situation are Nell's mental capabilities determined sane and her seemingly incoherent jargon understood as a whole logical language in itself.  Foster is most successful in performing a complex mental state of social naivete and hidden intelligence through beautifully contrived naturalism in her body movements, facial expressions, and incredible ability to suggest meaning to viewers through an otherwise meaningless sequence of noises.  Her chemistry with Liam Neeson's character in the film matches the initial fear, curiosity, and slow-building friendship expected of two individuals from vastly different languages, cultures, life perspectives, and social upbringings, providing a solid foundation for viewers to believe the incredible circumstances of Nell's secluded existence.  Most awe-inspiring is Foster's genuine warmth and passion in every phrase and movement she employs.  In one early scene, Neeson's anthropologist, Jerome, having grown closer to Nell, speaks to her in her cabin in an attempt to better understand and communicate in her language.  While he speaks, Foster walks around the cabin, arm outstretched, fingers flexed, head-tilted and eyes closed in a trance-like state.  In a change of tactics, Jerome reenacts a scene from his childhood where he watches a marching band, showing how his heart was beating "bumbum bumbum... the marching band: Bam Bam Bambam Bambam Bam Bam."  With tears in her eyes and mouth open in awe, Foster and Nell become one person reacting to the given circumstances of the scene, communicating without words her joy at Jerome's ability to connect with her through sound.  She embraces him then, tearfully, all smiles and joy bursting from her lips with the words "Reckon" and "Gah handts!"  Through Foster's impressionable reactionary realism and passionate, mindful action, the viewer is swept up with the realization that Nell is much more than an aimless, thoughtless wild woman.  Her humanizing performance is mesmerizing and communicates brilliantly to viewers that acting is meant to be more a thought-provoking experience than an easily understood salute to the norm.

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Martin Landau (Ed Wood)

Other Nominees: Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Chazz Palminteri (Bullets Over Broadway), Paul Scofield (Quiz Show), Gary Sinese (Forrest Gump)

Best Choice: Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction)

Runners-Up: Gary Oldman (Léon: The Professional), John Travolta (Pulp Fiction), Martin Landau (Ed Wood), Gary Sinese (Forrest Gump), Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption), Vincent D'Onofrio (Ed Wood)

As in previous categories, the candidates for Best Supporting Actor this year were drawn from strong and varied characters.  Leading the pack of spiritual and creative gangsters, war-ravaged veteran, and intellectual New England patriarch, was Bela Lugosi, the legendary Dracula acting star, whose portrayal by Martin Landau was as near historical perfection as any supporting performance of the decade.  Most impressive was Landau's accent, which, he admitted in an interview, was created with an emphasis to mask the Hungarian origin rather than accentuate it (apparently the accent placed major casting restrictions on Lugosi's acting career, thus was something that filled him with pride as well as contention later in life).  Though Landau's performance is inspiring, offering viewers incredible depth into the late horror icon as well as belly-roaring one-liners sure to crack a smile on the face of even the sternest critic, the portrayal falls a bit into the realm of imitation.  Lugosi was already an over-accentuated character actor and entertaining personality in his own life, so much of the Landau's mental work for the role was in many ways already presented to him.  For this reason, Landau deserved a nomination, but his win was too generous especially for such a competitive selection of performances.

Other worthy non-nominated performances included Gary Oldman's previously discussed role in Léon: The Professional, Bob Gunton as the harsh warden in The Shawshank Redemption, and Vincent D'Onofrio's brief mirror-image portrayal of Orson Welles in Ed Wood.  John Travolta was nominated for Best Actor for his work in Pulp Fiction, but his role is more fitting in the Supporting category as the film is not focused on any one character's narrative.  Regardless, Travolta's performance is mostly overshadowed by his co-star, my choice for Best Supporting Actor, Samuel L. Jackson.

In Pulp Fiction, Jackson gives the performance of a lifetime, one that will continue to mold all of his performances to date as well as secure his status as one of America's greatest acting personalities.  What is so great about Jules Winnfield's character is not that he is funny, cruel, deep, or that he pushes viewers to think outside the box (though he is all of these and does just this to audiences), but that his lines are delivered with such memorable and powerful gusto that they are ingrained eternally into the viewer's psyche.  Who can forget Jackson's intensity in the first full scene of the film where he verbally barrages a man with wit, humor, cursing, and lengthy religious reiteration?  With vulgar lines like "English, Motherf**ker, do you speak it?!" and entire bible passages under his belt, Jackson may well have given the most verbally active supporting performance in recent memory.  His intense facial expressions in the first section of the film are equally mesmerizing, adding intimidation to his already terrifying bombardment of words.  Jackson is also successful in showing Jules' tender side through his spirituality and tough guidance of two thugs attempting to rob him in the film's final scene.  Such a character arch from ruthless gangster at the start to sympathetic "shepherd" by the end is difficult to pull off, and Jackson achieves this seamlessly through genuine dialogue with co-star John Travolta and supreme attention to diction.  Every word, swear or part of psalm, of his hundreds are perfectly placed, perfectly accentuated to paint a gangster at the end of his career.  It is no wonder that Jackson's performance stands as one of cinema's most memorable and marks a true apex in character acting on film.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway)
Other Nominees: Rosemary Harris (Tom & Viv), Helen Mirren (The Madness of King George), Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction), Jennifer Tilly (Bullets Over Broadway)

Best Choice: Natalie Portman (Léon: The Professional)
Runners-Up: Sally Field (Forrest Gump), Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway), Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction), Helen Mirren (The Madness of King George), Robin Wright (Forrest Gump)



Dianne Wiest's performance of the overly dramatic stage star, Helen Sinclair, in Woody Allen's hilarious contemplation on the art of screenwriting won the Academy with its classic alluring flamboyancy and precise mastery of diction.  The performance was definitely worthy of praise, with memorably executed lines: "Don't talk!  Don't talk!" and overall simple and specific execution without distracting viewers too drastically from the narrative.  Wiest's chemistry with star John Cusak is effectively intriguing, especially given the large age difference between the actors; their romantic moments in the film are tender, oddly and hysterically so, but satisfying nonetheless.  Still, given the large array of strong supporting performances, Wiest stands out more for her classical approach to the craft than for the value of her performance alone.  While she succeeded in entertaining audiences and contributed to the backstage comedic tones of the film as a whole, Wiest's performance lacks depth and urgency in comparison to other memorable acts this year.

Two performances in particular stand out as likely candidates for an alternative Best Supporting Actress win.  The first is Sally Field's tender and tear-invoking role as Forrest's aging mother in Forrest Gump.  With minimal screen time, Field still plays a crucial part in the viewer's opinion of the film through her caring and influential relationship with her developmentally challenged son.  Second, and my choice for the award, is Natalie Portman as she rises to stardom in her first widely-recognized performance as Lolita-like Mathilda in Léon: The Professional.  Strongly reminiscent of Jodie Foster's controversial role as a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), Portman's involvement in the film at all is highly contested due to its unrelenting violence and lewd content; however, from an acting standpoint, one would have never guessed that Portman's quick-witted, embarrassingly intimate, and overwhelmingly heart-wrenching performance was given by a girl no older than thirteen years.  Most impressive, and highly uncomfortable, is perhaps the dress-up scene where Portman dances provocatively in front of her savior, the assassin Léon (Jean Reno), suggesting a possible romantic inclining between she and the man three times her age.  Where Portman secures her win over her more experienced and renowned competition is her ability as a young actress to forge, from a mostly inexperienced and innocent perspective, an urgent sense of fear, determined anger, and incredible resilience in the face of sorrow and violence.  She learns how to dismantle and clean a pistol, practices aiming with a sniper rifle, reacts with brilliant and brutal honesty to the murder of her family, and showcases acute sense of self-preservation while psychologically tormented at the ruthless hands of a psychopathic police chief (Oldman).  Her genuine reaction to Gary Oldman's terrifying presence in the one scene she shares with him alone in a bathroom is on par with a tenured actress.  In this scene, Portman's face reveals the terror and dread of one hopelessly trapped, yet her voice is calm as it carefully resumes an air of attempted confidence.  Such a moment of acting within acting is challenging to achieve so gracefully, especially when a child is thrust into a scene of such psychological trauma.  One could argue that this is merely a child reacting to the circumstances of the scene, yet Portman's poise and adaptability in each of her scenes projects her performance beyond such a simple categorization.  Portman inspires the viewer to feel her reactions, to cry with her unfortunate circumstances, and, most importantly, to reflect on the very meaning and method of effective acting.  For these reasons, Portman, though least known to critics at the time, was most worthy of the prize.