Part 92: 1993
MOVIES:
Unforgiven (winner)
A Few Good Men
Scent of a Woman (hidden gem)
The Crying Game
Howards End
Unforgiven
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Anna Thompson, David Mucci, Rob Campbell, Anthony James, Tara Dawn Frederick, Beverley Elliott, Liisa Repo-Martell, Josie Smith, Cherrilene Cardinal, Shane Meier, Aline Levasseur, Ron White, Jeremy Ratchford, John Pyper-Ferguson, Jefferson Mappin, Mina E. Mina, Henry Kope, Larry Joshua, Ben Cardinal, Frank C. Turner, Lochlyn Munro, Philip Hayes
Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Film Editing, Best Director, Best Picture
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Clint Eastwood), Best Art Direction, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Sound
The majority of Clint Eastwood’s roles, both past and present, pay tribute to his Dirty Harry moniker…a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kinda guy. His character of “Dirty” Harry Callahan seemed the very embodiment of violence without consequences, racking up a body count that grew with each new movie.
These types of action-packed thrillers and Westerns rarely even acknowledge what killing a man does to someone, emotionally or mentally. After all, the law must be followed…and if a few people get shot or ran over along the way, well, ain’t that just the stuff of legends?
Unforgiven, however, approaches gunfights and death from a different perspective, showing that there are real and permanent consequences to violence – consequences that become etched into the very core of our being.
The town of Big Whiskey is your typical frontier place. There’s a saloon, a barbershop, and – of course – a brothel. It’s under the reign of Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), a man very much in love with the law he’s been tasked to uphold. Though he is sadistic, he’s also incorruptible. In another Western, Little Bill might be a hero – but things aren’t that simple here.
When a drunk and irate customer repeatedly slashes a prostitute named Delilah (Anna Tomson) across the face, Little Bill deals out a punishment: the attacker must pay the prostitute’s handler a certain number of horses. No jail time, no whipping, no apology to the injured woman. Now that just won’t do for this band of sisters. Delilah’s coworkers pool their money together and send out the word that they’ll pay $1,000 to any assassin who eliminates the offender.
Hundreds of miles away, the former infamous killer William Munny (Eastwood) is struggling to raise a family with farming wages. When “The Schofield Kid” (Jaimz Woolvett), a boy obsessed with Munny’s legend, arrives looking for someone to accompany him to Big Whiskey to earn the reward, Munny agrees, recruiting his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), to join him.
Meanwhile, gunslinger English Bob (Richard Harris) arrives in Big Whiskey with his biographer, W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek). He regales Beauchamp with impressive (and tall) tales of his amazing exploits, which Beauchamp naturally eats up with a spoon.
One of the unique things about Unforgiven is the way it overturns conventions, taking the man who is typically the hero and making him the villain, while transforming the bad guy into a more sympathetic protagonist. William Munny is naturally the most sympathetic character, mostly because he’s our viewpoint throughout the story. But he’s also a seasoned killer who, in his day, murdered women and children in cold blood. Similarly, Little Bill may have a streak of cruelty in him, but he’s a man of justice – one who is dedicated to upholding the law.
And that leads to the main point of Unforgiven: the price we pay for death and violence. Munny’s soul has been so broken that you can’t help but wonder whether or not he’s past the point of redemption. Initially, he fights against being drawn back to his old ways, claiming, “I’m not the same person”…but a tiger never changes his stripes. Since Munny is our viewpoint, we want to believe he can change, but we also know there’s little hope. The climactic gunfight which, in any other Western would be a moment of triumph, plays out here with sadness and resignation.
Even “The Schofield Kid”, who claims he killed five men to impress Munny, really hasn’t killed anyone at all. He constantly talks tough because he thinks that’s how to be a man. He’s inspired by tall tales of other outlaws and romanticized versions of crimes, but he’s literally blind to the way the world really is. When he finally does kill one of the cowboys, he has an existential crisis and completely disavows the “gunslinger lifestyle”. Munny even shows a bit of humanity when he comforts “The Kid”: “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man,” he says. “You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
Unforgiven functions as a deconstruction of the Western we’ve been told to believe by people like W.W. Beauchamp, English Bob, and even Clint Eastwood himself. It grounds these characters in realistic situations. Gone are the hip shots, fast dueling, and “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” crap. Gone is the handsome hero, fighting against undeniable evil. These heroes are flawed and ridden with guilt. They’re remorseful killers fueled by whiskey and the legendary stories that have preceded them (but that aren’t necessarily true).
While Unforgiven wasn’t the last Western ever made, nor the best, it eulogized a genre forever changed…leading the way for films like No Country for Old Men and Hell or High Water…movies that showed the legend in all his brutal, whiskey-filled honesty, flaws and all.
A Few Good Men
Director: Rob Reiner
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak, Wolfgang Bodison, James Marshall, J.T. Walsh, J.A. Preston, Michael DeLorenzo, Noah Wyle, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Xander Berkeley, Matt Craven, John M. Jackson, Christopher Guest, David Bowe, Joshua Malina, Harry Caesar, Arthur Senzy
Oscar Wins: No wins.
Other Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Picture
Even if you’ve never seen A Few Good Men (HOW?) you know the image of Jack Nicholson, wearing his Marines uniform, screaming about not being able to handle the truth.
The truth in question has to do with an order – specifically a “Code Red” – which gives military men permission to punish fellow recruits off the record. Was the order given? And, if so, by whom? That is the truth we’re after.
A Few Good Men opens on Guantanamo Bay military base, bathed in that Michael Bay-esque orange hue that’s usually saved for such locations. Two Marines, Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) and Downey (James Marshall), tape a rag into the mouth of a young Private and hogtie him in his room, resulting in his death.
Charged with murder, Dawson and Downey are granted representation through Navy lawyer and recent Harvard grad, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), a hot head who prefers taking swings on the baseball field, not in the courtroom. He has an unblemished record of settling cases through plea bargains, which is intriguing to a military outfit looking to keep this story out of the press.
Kaffee’s defense team, which also includes Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak) and Lt. Commander Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore), is given quite the task: show, against heavy odds, that Dawson and Downey were illegally ordered to inflict a “Code Red” on their victim and find out who told them to do it.
They decide to make a brief trip to Cuba, where they interview the base’s commanding officer, Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson). They have been briefed that he’s an important officer, currently in consideration for Director of Operations at the National Security Council. It’s also immediately apparent that he’s a self-righteous zealot who believes his interpretation of the Marine Corps motto (“Code. Corps. God. Country.”) is the only right one. He’s almost always surrounded by hostile officers, including Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) and Lt. Col. Markinson (J.T. Walsh), who both probably know more than they led on.
The majority of A Few Good Men is comedic set-up for the courtroom drama at the end. Kaffee and his team pour through paperwork, swing baseball bats around, and shove Chinese food in their faces as they work tirelessly to build a case against the US Marines. But if anyone can do it, it’s America’s favorite cocky-everyman-with-a-plan!
Once we get into the courtroom, A Few Good Men takes off. Action ping-pongs back and forth between the defense team and the prosecution, led by attorney Capt. Ross (Kevin Bacon). Never having tried a case before a judge (and intimidated by his father’s stellar reputation), Kaffee is putting himself, and his clients, at risk when he finally takes the floor – always a good dramatic gambit for a movie.
And, by the time we get to the famous “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” moment, Kaffee is in a hole so deep that it’s hard to see how he’s going to work his way out of it. It’s made even more stressful when Col. Jessup takes the stand, bringing all of Nicholson’s trademarks (vocal sneer, bared teeth, arched eyebrows) front and center and delivering a performance that’s just as powerful as it is terrifying. Easily one of his best.
A Few Good Men also touches on a few hot-button issues that almost always surround military films – namely undereducated behavior. The men on Guantanamo Bay, in the most dangerous locations in the world, know little outside the military. The Marine Corps is their life…and the Code determines their behavior. “The Marines at Gitmo are fanatical about being Marines,” Kaffee is told. At times, it’s not too far off from Full Metal Jacket in drawing those conclusions between military drilling and brainwashing. Yes, what they did was wrong, but they were “just following orders”. I shouldn’t need to remind you that this phrase was also thrown around during the Nuremberg trials, but I digress.
Even though A Few Good Men was written by Aaron Sorkin and even though it’s misogynistic in the sheer fact that it references just “men” in the title, yet one of the main characters is a woman, and even though Kaffee doesn’t get nearly the character development he deserves, there’s no denying this film is just plain fun to watch. Like Legally Blonde (yes, I’m making that comparison), this movie gives an underdog the chance to have his day – and those stories will almost always be entertaining, no matter the context.
Scent of a Woman
Director: Martin Brest
Starring: Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, James Rebhorn, Gabrielle Anwar, Richard Venture, Bradley Whitford, Ron Eldard, Philip Seamour Hoffman, Nicholas Sadler, Todd Louiso, Matt Smith, Gene Canfield, Frances Conroy
Oscar Wins: Best Actor (Al Pacino)
Other Nominations: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Director, Best Picture
Hollywood is full of movies about unlikely friendships: Up, As Good As It Gets, Lost in Translation, Philomena. Usually involving an old curmudgeon who gets a new lease on life after hanging out with someone younger than them, these films are almost always heartwarming, regardless of how “good” they are.
Scent of a Woman is another one to add to that list. It discusses the fragility of life, the exuberance of youth, the loss of age, and the ability to smell a woman’s perfume in an expensive New York restaurant. All in all, not your typical Al Pacino movie.
Watching this movie today – again, like As Good As It Gets – is weird. The fact that women are reduced to their scent isn’t something that would fly in today’s world, but 90’s audiences loved it. Of course, this is the decade that also brought us Melvin Udahl and all his homophobic and racist quips, so I guess that’s not really surprising. Still, Scent of a Woman showcases a different side of Pacino – one that’s funny and sarcastic and perhaps even a little scared. It’s far from Serpico. Far from Michael Corleone. Far from Tony Montana and even farther from Ricky Roma. Yet it’s the performance that would earn Pacino his first Oscar…and his only one, so far.
Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnel), a young student at a prestigious New England prep school, is in a bit of a predicament. First off, he’s strapped for cash and probably won’t be able to make it home for the holidays. Secondly, he and his friend George (a very young Philip Seymour Hoffman) are the sole witnesses to a comical prank-gone-wrong on the Headmaster and are being pestered by him to confess who did it.
Hoping to solve both problems at once, Charlie takes on a part-time job acting as an aide to a retired Lieutenant Colonel named Frank Slade (Pacino). This keeps him away from the school and puts money in his bank account...but it's no easy job. Frank is…challenging. He’s loud, aggressive, and a raging alcoholic. Oh, and he’s blind.
Frank’s niece, who he lives with, ensures Charlie that this will be easy money – just one weekend watching her uncle when she and her family go out of town. He can watch TV, read, hang out with his girlfriend – just so long as Frank doesn’t get into trouble.
However, once Frank’s niece leaves, Charlie finds out that the old man has planned a trip to New York and intends to take Charlie with him. Refusal only makes him angrier, so Charlie finally agrees.
Upon arriving in New York, they book a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. They dine at the Oak Room. Charlie continues to ask Frank what they’re doing in New York, then finally breaks him at dinner: Frank reveals that the goal of his trip is to stay at a luxurious hotel, eat amazing food and wine, visit his older brother, have sex with a “terrific” woman, then kill himself.
Over the course of the weekend, these two misfits endeavor to do tackle Frank's bucket list. Charlie accompanies Frank to his brother’s house for Thanksgiving. Frank tangos with a beautiful woman at an expensive restaurant (one of the film’s more beautiful scenes!). Charlie waits outside a hotel where Frank sleeps with an escort. As Charlie and Frank become closer friends, Charlie even lets Frank drive a Ferrari, which is another thing he’s always wanted to do. And remember, he’s blind. Driving a Ferrari. On the streets of New York. FISTS. CLUTCHED.
Eventually, maybe inevitably, these two men convince each other that there’s a lot more out there to life for, circumstances be damned. The ending of Scent of a Woman is expected, but cute nonetheless. As both men return to the lives they once had before New York, there’s an understanding that they’ve both been changed, hopefully for the better, by the other one.
What is it about these unlikely friendship movies that we all love so much? Maybe it’s the relatability – that we all have someone like Frank Slade in our lives. Maybe it’s the humor of seeing two opposites clash in so many different ways. Maybe it’s the lessons we get from seeing the world from an older or younger perspective. Regardless of the reason, movies like Scent of a Woman always hit with audiences. Maybe that’s because a small part of us knows they’ll be different by the end, that experiences and circumstances will change how they see the world. How very Hollywood.
The Crying Game
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring: Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Forest Whitaker, Jaye Davidson, Adrian Dunbar, Tony Slattery, Jim Broadbent, Birdy Sweeney, Ralph Brown, Andree Bernard, Joe Savino, Breffni McKenna, Jack Carr
Oscar Wins: Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Stephen Rae), Best Supporting Actor (Jaye Davidson), Best Film Editing, Best Director, Best Picture
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for The Crying Game. I’ve marked them in the review in case you want to skip over it!
Fergus (Stephen Rae) is a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The details of his involvement isn’t important – it’s mainly just a vehicle that brings Fergus into contact with Jody (Forrest Whitaker), a young British soldier who is captured in Ireland and held for ransom. If the British will release a member of the IRA they are holding prisoner, then Fergus and his fellow IRA members will release Jody.
But the British do not negotiate with the IRA. They aim to eliminate the IRA. Chances of an equal trade are slim to none, and Jody knows the only glimmer of hope he has is to convince Fergus to let him go. Thus begins a series of intimate conversations between the two men, starting on the day Jody is kidnapped and ending three days later, when Jody inevitably dies, though not necessarily in the way that was planned.
During their time together, Jody gives Fergus his wallet and a photo of the woman Jody loves. Her name is Dil (Jaye Davidson) and she’s a hairdresser back in Jody’s hometown. Jody begs Fergus to go and look in on her if Jody dies.
And with that, the remainder of The Crying Game is laid out for us. Jody dies and Fergus is forced into hiding, traveling to London where he goes undercover as a day laborer named Jimmy. While there, he also tracks down Dil, only to discover that she isn’t anything like he expected her to be.
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OKAY, SPOILERS BELOW!
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HERE WE GO!
Dil, it turns out, is a pre-operative trans woman. While Fergus doesn’t seem to realize that, the movie isn’t trying to hide it. The two meet in a bar that’s full of LGBTQIA people. Dil’s looks, while beautiful, aren’t hard to clock. She’s not trying to hide from anyone and it’s very clear she’s somewhere on the surgical transition spectrum.
For those, including Fergus, who don’t pick up on it, the real shock comes during a rather passionate moment between the two, when Fergus is met face to face with Dil’s penis. Fergus’s initial reaction is a bit over the top but, to the film’s credit, it makes sense. Though it’s never directly said, it can be assumed that Fergus himself is struggling – on some level – with his sexuality. While he may not be gay, there’s a chance he might be bisexual – showing feelings in one way or another for several people throughout the film, including his partner Jude (Miranda Richardson), Jody and Dil. Understanding that this person he's been forming deep feelings for is biologically a man awakens something in Fergus that forever changes how he views the world and himself.
Meanwhile, there’s also a thriller plot unfolding involving the murder of a judge. This seems kind of thrown in towards the end and, while important, isn’t really given the same development as the other storylines. The film could easily exist without it and be just fine.
Ultimately, The Crying Game is both ahead of, and a product of, its time. The film does get the credit it deserves for how it handles sexuality and sexual identity – though I would like to think that, were this film made today, it might star an actual transgender actress instead. While it may have felt revolutionary at the time, it hasn’t aged all too well – and feels more like a time capsule of the ignorance of the past, despite, I think, having the best of intentions.
Howard’s End
Director: James Ivory
Starring: Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, Joseph Bennett, Prunella Scales, Adrian Ross Magenty, Jo Kendall, Anthony Hopkins, James Wilby, Jemma Redgrave, Samuel West, Susie Lindeman, Nicola Duffett, Mark Payton, Barbara Hicks
Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Emma Thompson), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Art Direction
Other Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Vanessa Redgrave), Best Director, Best Costume Design, Best Music (Original Score), Best Cinematography, Best Picture
There’s a scene in Howards End where a guy gets killed by a falling bookshelf…I think that’s pretty much the perfect metaphor for watching this movie.
Howards End is part of the “Merchant-Ivory” collection of films, which also includes A Room with a View and The Remains of the Day (the best of the lot, IMO). These were high-end films with low-end budgets, based on novels that were already in the public domain. Actors would often reduce their fees to work on them, knowing that Oscar nominations were likely. In fact, Emma Thomson did indeed win an Oscar for Howards End. Her and her co-star in both films, Anthony Hopkins, were also nominated for Oscars in The Remains of the Day a couple years later.
The difference between The Remains of the Day and Howards End is that The Remains of the Day is actually a good film. Howards End is Jane Austen without the romance…Downton Abbey without the drama. The production values are great, but almost 3 hours of overly privileged white people finding things to complain about does grow tiresome.
Set in Edwardian-era England, Howards End mostly follows two families: the prosperous and conservative Wilcox family and the less affluent and liberal Schlegal family.
The families are first acquainted when Helen Schlegal (Helena Bonham Carter) impulsively gets engaged to – and then breaks up from – Paul Wilcox (Joseph Bennett). Both families are eager to put the whole thing behind them, but then Margaret Schlegal (Emma Thompson), Helen’s older sister, winds up marrying Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins), the patriarch of the family, after his sick wife Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave) dies.
The rest of the film is just a series of communication breakdowns, as well as a large-scale criticism of the wealthy and the normalization of the gap between the haves and the have-nots. So much of the movie is spent speculating whether Margaret and Henry will stay together. Their marriage certainly makes sense…Margaret was friends with Ruth and, in Edwardian England, is already considered an “old maid”, so her marriage to Henry should benefit both parties. However, Margaret is also very liberal in her beliefs, essentially a Socialist, and Henry is unwaveringly conservative. His most firmly held belief is that “the poor are poor – one is sorry for them, but there it is.” Throughout the movie, Henry can always run away from his problems – due to his wealth and social power – while he himself believes that poorer people should have to fend for themselves and suffer the consequences.
Margaret’s beliefs also tear at her relationship with her sister, Helen. Helen, for instance, thinks it’s ridiculous that the Wilcox family can host a one-night party with a budget that could very well fund the needs of a family for a few days. Margaret, meanwhile, wants to keep the peace. She’s compassionate to Helen’s views, and the views of the poor families that work for her but also doesn’t want to cause discomfort in her marriage or upset her husband.
Like most films of this era, Howards End is beautiful to look at. The old brick country house surrounded by exquisite lawns…big shiny cars and elegant gowns. But this is not a story of what’s simply on the surface.
What enrages Helen, and the audience, is that to be male and wealthy is to have privileges. To be poor and to be female is to be denied those privileges. Henry is allowed to behave horribly because he’s rich…yet if one of his staff behaved the way he did, he’d be punished because, well, he’s poor…and there it is.
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