The Academy closed out the 20^th Century by awarding its highest honor to American Beauty, a film that can be interpreted in many ways. It’s not that American Beauty lacks a clear meaning, but it is about so many things, and that makes it one of the most deeply thematic films I’ve ever seen. Indeed, this film could be about finding your own voice in your life or feeling trapped in the gilded cage that is suburbia. Some films scholars have interpreted the film to be about the pressure to conform to a certain lifestyle or look. Others say the film is merely about beauty.

As I was watching it last night, I was racking my own brain to try and determine what Director Sam Mendes and Screenwriter Alan Ball (both of whom also won Oscars for their work on this film) were trying to say. As I mentioned, this is a film that is about a lot of things, but I never got the feeling that the film loses focus. I remember being a big, big fan of this film when it was first released, and I saw it multiple times, although before yesterday I hadn’t seen it for several years. What I remember most about watching it back then was how depressing I found it to be. It’s a brilliantly made film, which is all the more impressive when you remember that it was Mendes’ feature film directorial debut. What I interpreted this film to be about is the fact that nothing is as it seems, which its tagline of “…look closer” suggests.

To expand on that idea I’ll mention the two main families in the film. First, there is the Burnham family. The husband, Lester (Kevin Spacey in the role that would garner him the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role) and wife, Carolyn (Annette Benning in an Oscar nominated performance) are trapped in a largely loveless marriage and are struggling to connect with their teenage daughter, Jane (Thora Birch). Lester is stuck in a dead-end job and Carolyn is struggling to succeed as a real estate agent. However Carolyn is excellent at presenting a façade of stability, and her rosebushes are stunning, her house is immaculate. Anyone looking at this family from the outside would see a stable, well-put together family in which all of the family members seem happily engaged with each other.

The other family is the Fitts family, who moves next door to the Burnham’s at the opening of the film. Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) the only son in the family seems to be mentally unstable and is also a successful drug dealer. His father, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper) is a retired Marine Corps officer who is as bigoted as he is strict and he demands his son adhere to the rules of his house and of society, but he has no idea how to communicate with him and no appreciation for who he is. The wife, Barbara Fitts (Allison Janney) seems to have checked out emotionally and looks to be living at least part time in a reality that is alternate from our own.

Living in suburbia these two families project certain images. They look to the outside world as solid American nuclear families that have it all together when the realities of each situation are darker and much more nefarious. There is beauty to each of these families on the outside that belies the ugly reality of what is happening behind closed doors. These are both families that are on the verge of breaking up, and in fact, each family will become broken by the end of the film. As the tagline is suggesting, we are given a closer look at each family and are shown that things are not what they seem to be.

The same thing can be said about the individual characters as well. Whether it’s Col. Fitts’ homophobia masking his repressed homosexual desires, or Ricky’s distant and aloof personality masking a vulnerability that his father would never permit and his image could never sustain, or Carolyn’s type-A personality masking a deep-seeded insecurity that she’ll never measure up, there are many characters in American Beauty who are trying desperately to hide the very aspects of their respective personalities that make them human. To me the character that represents that aspect the most is Jane’s best friend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). Angela is the leader of the cheerleading squad and an aspiring model. She portrays herself as a sexually free individual who can use her sexuality to get what she wants out of any man she wants, even men who are older and successful. The crack in this veneer shows up relatively early when she tries to hit on Lester who was smitten with her from the first moment he saw her, and would act uncomfortably awkward whenever she was around. When he shows himself to be open to her advances, she awkwardly leaves to go find Jane. Then, at Lester’s moment of truth she has laid herself bare for him and confesses that this would be her first time. The girl that we’ve been shown to be almost sexually predatory has now been revealed to be what she really is; a vulnerable, insecure girl who has been trying to make herself appear to be more than she is. Even that attitude is ironic, since that insecurity and purity actually make her more attractive and a better person.

That leads me to Lester Burnham. One of the reasons I always found American Beauty to be so depressing is that finally at the end Lester achieves the happiness that has been eluding him, and he doesn’t even get a chance to enjoy it. He doesn’t get to live the life that he’s attained because (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!!) he’s murdered by Col. Fitts after rejecting his sexual advances. Lester attains this happiness when it appears that he’s going to have sex with Angela until she confesses to him that she’s never had sex before. He realizes how terrible a thing it would be to take advantage of this young girl, and he helps her feel better in a deeper and more compassionate way. In doing that Lester has the epiphany that he can be a nurturing father and that he can be a good husband. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone else. He’s his own man, and that’s good enough. And no sooner does he reach this realization than his brains are blown all over the wall.

Now, the reason I didn’t feel depressed when I watched the film last night is because Lester reached that level of redemption in the first place. The fact that Lester achieved this redemption is the reward for following this story, and he doesn’t need to continue to live this life because the people surrounding him no longer deserve him. Lester has moved on from their petty grievances in almost a spiritual way and in this metaphorical instance, Lester moves on from this life with a redeemed soul. Personally I find that very uplifting.

There are a couple of other aspects of this film that combine to form one very impressive component to the overall production, and I’m sure that they assisted in American Beauty winning Best Picture. The Cinematography, Art Direction and Production Design on this film are thoughtfully conceived and meticulously executed in a manner that helps to progress the story and set the overall tone of the film. I’m sure you’d be happy to tell me that that’s what they’re supposed to do, and I would whole-hardheartedly agree with you. Unfortunately that’s not always what happens.

I was always impressed with the art direction, specifically Art Director David Lazan’s complete control over the color, or should I say lack thereof. Look closely at this film, and you will see that it’s essentially black and white, other than the very obvious injections of very pure red at strategic points of the film. When I watched it last night, I was watching very closely and I was particularly impressed with how little color there is throughout the film. The interiors are drab and the exteriors are as well. This is a film that goes out of its way to show that these people live in a world that is unremarkable. The world that they live in is as monotonous as their lives. Part of the credit for pulling that off also goes to Naomi Shohan and her outstanding Production Design. Neither Lazan nor Shohan were recognized by the Academy even with nominations, which is really too bad. It might sound funny to say this, and it certainly is ironic, but American Beauty and its message would not be nearly as powerful without the muted and subtle look of the film.

One person who was recognized was Cinematographer Conrad Hall. Already a well-known commodity in Hollywood, having already won an Oscar for his cinematography on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hall also shot such memorable films as The Professionals, In Cold Blood, and The Day of the Locust among many others. He would posthumously win another Oscar three years later for Road to Perdition. It was his work on American Beauty, though, that I find particularly wonderful, as the lack of color was enhanced by Hall’s use of both shadow and space. If Lazan created a look that was primarily black and white, Hall created a film that was largely flat. Again, look at the film closely, and it takes place primarily in flat space. There is very little depth anywhere in the film, unless we’re specifically looking from Ricky’s point of view. Since his mind appears to be the deepest of the other characters, it makes sense that his POV would be where most of the depth lies. There are a few other strategically placed shots with deep space, and those come when there perspective is changing, like when Carolyn enters the house to confront Lester about buying the old muscle car, and he stands up to her in a way that he hasn’t before. Otherwise, this film shows a world that is flat in a way that compliments the art direction and production design, and shows a world that is drab, unexciting and difficult to live in.

Unfortunately time has not been kind to American Beauty. I’ve read some critics’ and historians’ takes over the last couple of days, and it does seem at the very least divisive. People either love it or hate it, and many people who used to love it have decided over time that it really wasn’t that great of a film. I will admit after watching it last night, and not having seen it for several years, that it does feel dated. It feels like the 90’s in that it was a film that was self-aware of how cool and subversive it was attempting to be, and how it was trying to take stereotypes and sacred cows to force us to “look closer” at ourselves. It seems hard to imagine, just sixteen years later, this film finding an audience in today’s movie-going culture. It isn’t exciting, and it forces the audience to pay attention not only to what’s happening in the foreground, but also what’s happening in the background and just below the surface. This is another one of those films that requires effort on the part of the viewer, and you will not care for this film if you’re not willing to put forth that effort.

Did the Academy get it right?

I believe that they did. I’m not a huge fan of The Cider House Rules, and in fact, I feel that’s a film that is far more depressing than American Beauty, but without any of the subtext. I do quite like The Green Mile, and that film evokes in me many of the same types of emotions that American Beauty did, and thematically had some of the same things going on. It was a sad, yet uplifting film that still left me feeling somewhat empty when it was over. I loved The Insider. This is the film in which Russell Crowe started to show his versatility and I thought Al Pacino’s character was an inspiration. This film also did a great job in showing the point where the news was no longer the news. Then there was The Sixth Sense. This film was more of a sensation than anything else, and the twist at the end had everyone talking. It also marked the beginning of the career of M. Night Shyamalan, and unfortunately he hasn’t been able to replicate the quality of this film since then. The Sixth Sense is actually a fine film through and through, but its Best Picture nomination was more a result of the sensation that it caused rather than the film’s quality. In looking at all of these films, I could see someone making a case for The Insider and possibly even for The Green Mile. Both of those films were well-made and had compelling stories with rich and deep characters. Those films have also held up better over the long run in my opinion. Even with that said, however, I’m still inclined to look at American Beauty as a complete package. It’s a film that is well-crafted and still very entertaining. For 1999, it was the correct choice for Best Picture.

One of the biggest surprises in Oscar history occurred the night of March 21, 1999 when Shakespeare in Love beat out the heavily favored Saving Private Ryan to win Best Picture. It was an interesting year in that two Elizabethan films (Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, both incidentally starring both Geoffrey Rush and Joseph Fiennes) went up against three World War II dramas (Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line & Life is Beautiful). Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan boasted what was considered at the time to be one of the most intense opening sequences ever put on film as it depicted the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach. It was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year, and was a certified WWII epic. Shakespeare in Love, on the other hand was a romantic comedy, and more of a feel-good movie. Under normal circumstances in Oscar history it seems hard to imagine that Shakespeare in Love would have stood a chance against Saving Private Ryan, but alas at the end of the night the producers of the former were holding the statues and Spielberg was once again left out in the cold.

Personally, I love Shakespeare in Love, and I am an unabashed Shakespeare fan. I mentioned that several months ago when I wrote about the year that Hamlet won Best Picture. The thing that’s interesting about Shakespeare in Love is that it’s obviously not an historically accurate representation of Shakespeare’s writing of Romeo and Juliet, but it’s also obvious that it isn’t trying to be. The filmmakers weren’t setting out to make a classical Shakespearean masterpiece, but they were trying to make an entertaining film and they accomplished that with gusto. I applaud Shakespeare in Love because it does what most adaptations of Shakespeare fail to do, and that is make Shakespeare accessible to a mass audience. What this film did that was so effective was that not only did they just bring the material to a mass audience, but director John Madden and screenwriters Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard also showed Shakespeare’s greatness and made that dynamic one of the emotional pillars of the film.

Even people who don’t read Shakespeare are at least generally aware of not only his existence, but also of his greatness even if they fail to recognize it. There isn’t a ton of information available about Shakespeare’s actual life, so creating a fictional account of him really offers up a blank page and Madden used his full palette to fill that page. When we first meet Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) he is a second-rate writer who is struggling to come up with new material. He is a womanizer and a drinker who has claimed to have lost his muse. The words no longer come to him, and he’s at a loss for how to find them. Then he happens to meet the noble Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow in an Oscar-winning performance), and her beauty inspires him. He falls in love with her and the words she inspires him to write become the poetry that would stand the test of time by staying relevant into its sixth century.

As the story progresses we see how Shakespeare’s greatness is recognized by his contemporaries. There is some truly great film making going on in this film because, other than Viola, no one ever says to Will, “Boy, you’re great!” We are shown how great everyone thinks he is by seeing their reactions to witnessing the material. We hear the eloquent lines being recited and we see the other actors and later the audience just riveted to what they’re seeing and hearing. We see the expressions of total immersion on their faces and we can see that Shakespeare’s greatness is being recognized.

Not only is that great film making technique, but it is also subtle film making in a film that was largely over the top and boisterous in its tone and style. It had wonderful art direction and production design, as well as superb costume design. In fact, Costume Design and Set Decoration were two of the seven awards that Shakespeare in Love would take home on Oscar night. There was little that was subtle about this film, which is what makes the subtle techniques that they use throughout the story so effective.

Shakespeare in Love also had an amazing cast. As mentioned above, Paltrow won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Viola, and Judi Dench won Best Supporting Actress as well for her performance as Queen Elizabeth. Geoffrey Rush was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Joseph Fiennes gave a very good performance as well. Beyond that, this film had a cast of actors who would go on to become stars, superstars, or at the very least recognizable. From people like Geoffrey Rush and Ben Affleck and Colin Firth and Tom Wilkinson to Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter series) and Jim Carter (Downton Abbey) and Mark Williams (Harry Potter series), there are actors and actresses sprinkled throughout this film whose faces you will recognize. However, it isn’t just that these actors were famous, or at least nearly famous. The entire ensemble gave a wonderful performance. In fact, the cast of this film was set up much in the same manner that the cast would have been set up in one of Shakespeare’s plays. That is to say that there are a couple of main characters and then an ensemble of incredibly talented actors who develop chemistry by sharing the stage, or in this case the screen, and becoming a tight-knit group of players who not only perform well, but look like they’re genuinely enjoying the performance they’re giving.

The storyline itself is not a particularly complex or complicated one, but it’s very well-written and very entertaining. From a structural standpoint, the story is a typical romantic comedy and it hits all of the necessary beats for that genre. There is forbidden love mixed with a love triangle and we fear that the lovers will not end up together. What makes Shakespeare in Love rise above most other romantic comedies is the fact that they added particular sophistication to it with the Shakespearean themes and language. I’ve mentioned before that romantic comedies rarely do well at the Oscars, with only It Happened One Night and Annie Hall being previous winners that really fit hat genre. I would say that Annie Hall is the most similar to Shakespeare in Love in that in Annie Hall Woody Allen added a different type of sophistication that was a more post-modern intellectualism. Romantic comedies are generally escapism films that are highly entertaining, but shallow thematically. Annie Hall and Shakespeare in Love demonstrated that romantic comedies can cross over into more a more respected and respectable class of film making. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not dissing romantic-comedies. In fact, a little over a year ago I wrote a blog espousing the virtue of the romantic comedy and how there is generally more to it than people think. But there is a perception that romantic comedies are shallow, star-driven vehicles that have a one size fits all formula and are all essentially the same story that is just painted a slightly different color. A film like Shakespeare in Love resonates because it takes the romantic comedy model and adds the sophistication that many people feel is missing from the genre. Another way of putting it is that it has depth in the story that many people feel is lacking from the genre as well.

Another thing that I loved about this film was the references to Romeo and Juliet that pop up throughout the film. For example, near the beginning of the movie when we’ve just been introduced to Will and learned of his writer’s block, he passes a preacher who is speaking out against the immorality of the two rival theaters in the film, yelling, “A curse on both their houses!” As he walks by, Will seems to take a mental note of the line, and then he continues to move on. Then there is the relationship that grows between Will and Viola, and it parallels the relationship that grows between Romeo and Juliet, complete with balcony scene, but with a slightly different payoff. Although it doesn’t end nearly as tragically, it still ends with a sort of bitter sweetness that sets Will off on the path to his future greatness. This dual narrative is just one more example of how the filmmakers were expertly opening up the genius of Shakespeare for mainstream audiences whom otherwise would not have been interested.

          

The dual narrative also helped Shakespeare in Love succeed where in my opinion Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet did not. Luhrmann attempted to modernize Shakespeare by taking the play and setting it in a modern day city with modern-day settings while still using Shakespeare’s original dialogue. I always applauded the effort, but the result was too disjointed and the problem still remained that the average viewer still had a hard time processing the dialogue. Shakespeare in Love works because Madden embraced and romanticized the 16^th Century and gave us a similar love story without the tragic ending. The dialogue was stylized to fit the times, but still rendered in an understandable way. Even the excerpts that were shown from the play highlighted the poetry in the dialogue so that even if you didn’t understand what they were saying you could still appreciate the beauty in the language. Truly, Shakespeare in Love is a deep and well-crafted film that uses modern storytelling techniques to effectively update a classic and tell us that classic in a new and entertaining way.

Did the Academy get it right?

Well, there’s the rub. Many people vehemently disagree with the Academy’s decision for this year. Most people like Shakespeare in Love for many of the reasons I mention above, but look at a film like Saving Private Ryan is an epochal cinematic masterpiece. And you know what? It is. Should Saving Private Ryan have won Best Picture? I don’t think there’s any doubt that it should have won. Steven Spielberg did win Best Director or the film, and he created a brutal, no holds barred look at the ugliness of a war that has been largely glorified since it ended. Now, there’s no fault in glorifying World War II. It was a seminal time in our history and catapulted the United States into being in the position of the greatest country on earth. But many movies about that war glamorized it to the point where it looked more like an adventure than a war. Saving Private Ryan took a hard look at WWII and showed the real violence, the real devastation and the real emotional toll that the war took on the men who fought in it. It did this in a way that brought the audience in to an emotional meat grinder where the tension was non-stop, because that’s how it is in a war. People left the theater emotionally exhausted and beaten down after seeing Saving Private Ryan. To put it in context, there have been many instances where a feel-good film has beaten a superior film for Best Picture that had more depressing overtones. It happened in 1944 when Going My Way beat Double Indemnity. It happened in 1951 when An American in Paris beat A Place in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire. It happened in 1958 when Gigi beat Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Then it happened again in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan. Sometimes the Academy just gets it wrong. But to be perfectly honest with you, my favorite movie of 1998 was Life is Beautiful.

One of the true juggernauts in cinema history closed the deal by being named the year’s best picture after it had already been crowned the all-time box office champion. In late 1997 and early 1998, Titanic became a cultural phenomenon, the likes of which had rarely been seen. Not only did the movie make more money at the box office than any film before it, it also made household names out of its stars and director, spawned an Oscar winning and Grammy winning number one hit song, and claimed a large wedge in the vernacular of popular culture.

The actual story of the R.M.S. Titanic is one that piqued people’s interest for decades. Deemed to be unsinkable, she struck an iceberg and sunk on her maiden voyage, taking more than 1,500 people with her to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. For the next 74 years, no one knew the final resting place of the ship. The water was deep and cold and the legend of the ship often found its way into popular culture, be it in books, television or cinema. The sinking of the Titanic was one of the stories that those of us of a certain age grew up with, and the legend behind the ship and her sinking haunted dreams for decades.

A few years after the wreck was found, Writer/Director/Producer James Cameron embarked on the, ahem, titanic task of bringing the story to the screen. Instead of doing a strict historical story, he wrote in a love story between well-to-do and betrothed 19-year old socialite Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young man of a more meager upbringing and background who is a struggling artists currently living as a drifter. With that in mind, the actual story of the Titanic serves as a backdrop to this love story, particularly over the first half of the film.

James Cameron had made a name for himself in the late 80’s and early 90’s by directing such science-fiction and adventure classics like Aliens, The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, and True Lies. Through these films, Cameron established himself as one of the top directors of action films however he hadn’t done much to spread his wings into more dramatic material. Titanic would present him with that opportunity, and he would fight two studios and suffer a ton of bad press over the increasing budgets and expanding schedules in order to complete the film and see this opportunity through to the end.

To me Titanic is two separate films, each roughly an hour and a half long. Each film also demonstrates James Cameron’s strengths and weaknesses as a director. The first film is a romantic drama between these somewhat star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the socio-economic tracks. There are some moments of wit and charm during this segment of the film, but I have always found it to be border line unwatchable. There are two things that frustrate me the most about the first half of Titanic. The first is the performances of both DiCaprio and Winslet. They were both in their early 20’s when this film came out, and were two of the most promising young actors at that time. Indeed, time has borne that promise out as they’ve each enjoyed stellar careers in the ensuing 18 years since Titanic’s release. What’s more is that the films they had starred in previous to Titanic like Sense and Sensibility for Winslet and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Romeo + Juliet and The Basketball Diaries for DiCaprio showed each to be fine actors. However, those acting skills are not apparent in Titanic. I’ve seen a lot of films with each of these actors, and I can’t think of a film for either of them in which their performances are as weak as they are in this film. I put that on Cameron, because as great as he is at directing action, he’s not nearly as strong at directing drama, and he was not able to pull even marginally convincing performances out of DiCaprio or Winslet.

The other frustrating thing about the first half of Titanic is the script, penned by Cameron. Structurally the script is sound. It hits all of the right beats and the drama builds well as the story progresses. The script loses me with its dialogue and in its details. For instance, the love story that drives the entire narrative feels very contrived. I understand that Rose has a free spirit that is being repressed by her mother (Frances Fisher) and her fiancé, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), and that Jack allows for that free spirit to be released, so in that regard the love story works. The problem is that the drama is just vanilla and superficial. Even my teenage daughter referred to the first half of Titanic as “fluff”, and she’s right. The script really goes after lowest common denominator themes like class envy and the fun-loving rogue (Jack) vs. the uptight socialite (Cal). There is no depth to this story in the least. All of the characters are paint-by-number caricatures.

In a past blog I mentioned a screenwriting instructor who said that when you’re developing your characters make sure that you give your hero at least one fault, or negative character trait and that you give your villain at least one positive character trait. This is how you add depth. For if your hero is infallible and your villain is completely inhuman, your audience won’t be able to relate to them at all and they’ll just be flat characters. That’s what we have in Titanic, as Jack is a hero with no visible faults, no weaknesses that he has to overcome, other than his lack of money, but Cameron portrays that as a positive anyway. In Cal, we have the same problem on the opposite side of the coin. He’s just a jerk through and through and has no good qualities whatsoever. Cameron does make a point of showing us that Rose is essentially being forced to marry him by her mother because her father left them in debt, and with only their good name to essentially sell. That leaves Rose feeling trapped and gives us the ensuing incident of Jack preventing her from jumping off of the back of the ship on the first night of the voyage. But again, the main problem is that both Jack and Cal are flat characters. Jack is completely heroic and Cal is completely villainous. Neither one works as a character.

I mentioned this briefly a moment ago, but I would also like to expand on it with a little more detail because I believe that the lack of a strong theme adds to the shallowness of the film and shows the need for having characters with depth. The theme of a film is quite often the lesson or message of the story. What is Titanic trying to say? There is a certain element of man vs. nature, and man’s arrogance coming back to bite him in the end, but it’s thinly veiled through the guise of class envy and class warfare in the film. As a writer and a director Cameron was going for out basest emotional responses, and he didn’t only do that with the theme of the story. He made a point of showing children suffering and crying. One of the most famous shots is of the mother telling her young children a bedtime story as the boat is sinking, and another mother telling her young child that it will all be over soon as the ship is about to make its final plunge. We see other scenes with crying children, but it doesn’t work. I hate to say this, but simply showing scared children is lazy storytelling. Yes, it gets a visceral emotional reaction, but it that’s the easy way out. When you rely on that, it means that you haven’t taken the time to allow the audience to get to know the characters and to get to care about them. You’re just figuring that everyone hates seeing harmful things happen to children, and that’s where you get your drama.

However, once the ship hits the iceberg and starts to sink, we begin the second version of Titanic, and her Cameron is in his element, and the film jumps several notches on the entertainment value scale. The second half of the film does suffer slightly due to the incomplete characters and story development of the first half, but Cameron did an excellent job of pacing the action in a way that it the tension and action built slowly as the ship starts to sink and the characters slowly learn the gravity of their collective predicament. As the ship slips more and more beneath the surface of the ocean the pacing of the action, editing and storytelling gets more intense and frenetic as water steadily fills the ship. Finally, as the ship violently breaks apart during its last moments above the surface, the action reaches its crescendo before we have the denouement of Rose, having been rescued, avoids being seen by Cal and discovering the priceless diamond that he had given her.

All of the above action is happening parallel to Rose and Jack attempting to find some way to escape what looks like certain death. Despite the lack of character development, we do root for them to survive, even though we already know that only Rose does due to circumstances from earlier in the film, and it is exciting to watch them escape every precarious situation they’re in until at last the ship sinks, and Rose is able to climb on to a floating piece of wood as Jack tries to keep her confidence up that life boats will soon be arriving. In his last moments, he implores Rose to live a great life and a long life, and to not let anyone else tell her how to live it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that all of the action on the Titanic takes place through flashback. The film starts with a team of grave robbers, er, salvagers led by Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) who are using submarines to search the wreckage of the Titanic for the Heart of the Ocean diamond. Thinking that they’ve found the safe that contains it, they haul it up and open it on board their vessel, but the diamond is not there. What they do find, however, is a sketch of Rose that we will later see Jack draw, and Rose is nude except for the diamond necklace. Now 100 years old, Rose sees the story on the TV news, and she and her grand-daughter fly to the Lovett’s vessel where she regales him and his crew of the fateful voyage. Gloria Stuart played Old Rose, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work on this film, and she did steal a couple of scenes that turned out to be some of the most memorable scenes in the film.

One other thing that should be discussed regarding this film is its use of visual effects and how Art Directors Martin Laing and Charles Dwight Lee along with Production Designer Peter Lamont meticulously recreated the interiors and exteriors of the ship whether through reconstruction or CG. Titanic actually took computer generated visual effects to another level and the look of the film undoubtedly assisted in its popularity. Watching it the other night, I must say that the visuals do not hold up to today’s standards. It still looks good, but it doesn’t look nearly as realistic as it did in 1997.

Overall, Titanic was a cultural phenomenon. I used the word juggernaut earlier, and that’s really what it was. It was a juggernaut that rolled over box office records and rolled through the Oscars. In many ways, it was a once-in-a-lifetime cinematic phenomenon that brought more people to the movie theater than had been there in years. For that, Titanic should be applauded.

Did the Academy get it right?

I was talking to a friend of mine who made a good point about this. He said that Best Picture is essentially a production award, and when you look at it in that context then yes, the Academy did get it right in 1997. Getting Titanic produced required a Herculean effort on the part of James Cameron and the other people who produced the film. They raised the standard of visual effects and created a production the size and scope of which hadn’t been seen before. On top of all of that, they produced what has to at least be considered a film which is a very fine one indeed. However, it was not the best film of the year, so I am going to say that no, the Academy did not get it right for 1997. Of the four other films that were nominated that year, I would have voted for three of them ahead of Titanic. As Good As It Gets, Good Will Hunting and L.A. Confidential were all better films than Titanic. They all had much more compelling stories, better written screenplays, more developed characters, and better acting. I could spend another 2,000 words espousing the virtues of those other films, but the fact of the matter is that the times quite often dictate the national mood, and the national mood in 1997 was extremely pro-Titanic. It’s easy for me to sit here 18 years later and say that the Academy got this one wrong when I can actually remember how monumental of an event this film’s release was. Although even back then, I was rooting for Good Will Hunting, and now I consider L.A. Confidential to be the film that should have won. Either way, I can’t blame the Academy for selecting Titanic as Best Picture of 1997, but I will never believe that it was the year’s best film.

I hadn’t seen The English Patient since it came out in 1996, but I do remember feeling underwhelmed by it at the time, with the exception that Ralph Fiennes gave an exceptional performance as Count Laszlo de Almasy, the film’s main character and protagonist. Almasy was a brooding, seemingly unhappy man in his youth and a wounded and tormented man on his deathbed. I kind of had the same feeling after watching it this weekend. This is a fine film, but far from a perfect one. Along with Feinnes there are some extraordinary actors in it like Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Willem Defoe, and Juliette Binoche, who incidentally won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in this film, and indeed all of the actors in this film were at the top of their respective games. The English Patient harkens back to Lawrence of Arabia with its stunning desert cinematography in a way that we see how small the people are in a great big pre-World War II world that is on the verge of exploding.

But for me the story of this film is very disjointed due to the manner in which it was told, and it’s difficult, especially in the first half of the film, to really engage in the story or with the characters in a meaningful way. The meat of the story is told primarily through flashbacks as the dying Almasy relates his story to his nurse Hana (Binoche) as well as David Caravaggio (Dafoe), who believes that Almasy is responsible for his interrogation and torture at the hands of the Nazis. Meanwhile, there is the parallel story of Hana dealing with the deaths of those close to her in the waning days of the war as she cares for Almasy in an abandoned Italian villa and tries to ease his passing as much as possible. Meanwhile, she falls in love with Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh munitions expert who makes his living disarming bombs and land mines.

The film was based on a novel and adapting novels into screenplays is always tricky, especially if the source material follows a different story structure than the traditional 3-act structure of filmmaking. However the biggest challenge in adapting a novel in to a film is, knowing what to leave in and what to take out. It’s a rare and particularly short novel that allows for a straight and complete adaptation. For the vast majority of novels, they would be made into films of seven or eight hours if the entire story were to be told, so much of the material needs to be condensed or even omitted in order to get it to an acceptable screen time, and The English Patient is even pushing the boundaries of that, coming in at two hours and forty minutes.

For example, as great as Defoe’s performance is, his character wasn’t terribly necessary to the story that they were trying to tell. Yes, the consequence of Almasy’s actions led to his torture and mutilation, and he shows up at the villa looking for revenge, and instead finds redemption. There is also a point where his prodding eventually gets Almasy to recall what happened to Katherine and why he’s in his present situation, but it wasn’t necessary for Caravaggio to be the one to do that. In fact, in watching the film this past weekend, I kept asking myself what the purpose of Caravaggio’s character was in the narrative. Did he want to get revenge on Almasy by killing him? If so, why didn’t he? He certainly had ample opportunity to do so. Did he want to know why Almasy gave that information to the Germans? If so, to what end? It seems to me that there are a lot of loose ends to Caravaggio’s character that either needed to be sewn up, or they should have tried to make the movie without his storyline because it just feels tacked on as it is, and not an integral component of the narrative.

The love story between Almasy and Katherine Clifton (Thomas) is obviously the storyline that drives the action of the film. Almasy has already been in the North African desert for some time working with others for the Royal Geographical Society to try and design reliable maps for the area, when Katherine arrives with her husband Geoffrey (Firth). Almasy is at first resentful over these intruders, feeling they’ll get in the way more than anything, but he is infatuated with Katherine almost from the first moment that he sees her. She tries to repress her own attraction to Almasy, but that only intensifies the passion once they finally do consummate their feelings for each other. This is clearly a story about forbidden love and the lengths to which one will go to attain that love and to preserve it as well.

That is one thing that writer/director Anthony Minghella very well. He drove home the thematic element of what people will do for love as well as what sometimes has to be sacrificed for love. In the parallel story involving Hana’s caring for the badly burned and dying Almasy, Hana believes that everyone whom she loves dies. She’s afraid to love anyone because of that until she finds Kip and he survives a near-death experience on the last day of the war. She achieves that redemption, and that allows her to end Almasy’s suffering at his request, despite the sadness that it causes her.

I will also say that the film’s storytelling really picks up and becomes far more effective in the second half of the film than it had been in the first half. That leads to the film having a very strong and emotionally powerful ending, and I think that may have helped this film in the minds of some Oscar voters, and as I’ve written before, a strong ending can really elevate the perceived quality of a film. That’s the great conundrum for me in evaluating and thinking about The English Patient. I like the film, but didn’t love it. However, I did like the characters very much, and that is what makes the ending of this film so absolutely heartbreaking. I wasn’t prepared to be as emotionally impacted as I was at the end, but the performances of Feinnes and Binoche brought that emotion out.

It’s interesting to me that Minghella seemingly attempted to create tension throughout the film, whether it was with the threatening appearance of Caravaggio, or the fear of Almasy and Katherine being discovered in their affair, or even with Kit being killed doing his duty. None of those aspects of the film reach the level of tension that Minghella was going for, but the sequence in which Almasy is trying to get back to Katherine as she lies wounded in the cave after Geoffrey tried to kill them all by crashing his plane into them, is the sequence of the film in which there is the most tension. It’s almost like a film within a film, and that more so than the love scenes between them, is where you see what Almasy will put himself through for Katherine’s love. Then when he doesn’t get to her in time, and we watch him lie next to her body in the cave and ultimately carry her outside as he wails in anguish, combined with Hana “reading him to sleep” after she’s given him the fatal dose of morphine by reading the last words that Katherine wrote to him, all create this cathartic moment in the climax of the film that is just emotionally overwhelming. Ultimately this film is a slow boil that finally builds up to its emotional peak, and even thought the vast majority of the film is less than remarkable, it has perhaps one of the most satisfying endings of any film that I can remember.

Did the Academy get it right?

I don’t think that they got it wrong, but I do have a feeling that if the Academy had a do-over for 1996, they may have given the award to Fargo. The Cohen Brothers were already a well-known commodity in Hollywood, but this film of a kidnapping-for-hire gone horribly wrong solidified them has two of the top filmmakers in the business. It helped make dark, macabre humor mainstream, and was one of the most influential and most quoted movies of the decade. I don’t know if it’s a better movie than The English Patient (apples and oranges again), but it certainly has had more staying power within pop culture as well as the vernacular. So has Jerry Maguire , another oft-quoted film from that year that made a star of Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Show me the money!), and his acceptance speech for winning Best Supporting Actor is one of the great moments in the history of the ceremony. Secrets and Lies was a British film about a black woman who was adopted and traces her family roots to discover that her birth mother is white. It’s a fascinating character-driven piece that I highly recommend and am glad received the recognition of a nomination, but it’s a much smaller film than those others, and not on the same scale of your typical Oscar winner. Shine was the final nominee of the year, and is about the life of piano prodigy David Helfgott. It, too is a wonderful film, and Geoffrey Rush’s performance of the talented and troubled genius won him the Oscar for Best Actor.

This is actually where I take issue with the Academy for this particular year. I don’t want to take anything away from Geoffrey Rush. His performance in Shine was superb, and it fit with the Oscar’s trend at that time to award Best Actor to artists who were portraying characters with varying mental issues, whether it was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man or Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot or Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs or Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, the Academy generally played special notice to those types of roles. Geoffrey Rush did a marvelous job of playing David Helfgot in his days after his nervous breakdown and channeled Helfgot’s frenetic and disorganized thinking perfectly. However Rush was only in half of the film. The other half of the film had younger actors playing the role as we watch Helfgot grow up in Australia. On the other hand, Ralph Feinnes absolutely carries The English Patient. It’s a two hour and forty minute film, and he’s in almost every scene. Without the caliber of Feinnes’ performance this film does not win Best Picture. He played the role of Count Laszlo de Almasy with a brooding intensity that prevented you from being able to look away from it. And yet, he made that character so likable that your heart bleeds for him just as his heart is broken. We as the audience feel his emotions, and that’s what any good actor is supposed to accomplish. That’s why for me, Ralph Feinnes not winning Best Actor for 1996 is one of the biggest mistakes in Oscar history.

Braveheart is a film that I love and it truly is a film that has something for everyone. Yes, it is a violent film with some pretty graphic battle scenes, so on its surface this looks like nothing more than an action/adventure movie. However at its core it’s essentially a love story and it shows how far people can go for the love of their soul mate as well as for the love of an ideal. This is in actuality a deep film with rich and compelling characters, a well-structured hero’s journey and many story and character-driven archetypes. There is also a wide range of emotions, as we have romance, sadness and wit to go along with the tension of the action and adventure.

This is a story about William Wallace, a historical figure who led a Scottish revolt against the English in the late 13th and early 14th Centuries. Not a lot is known about Wallace’s actual life outside of a couple of historical events, so the film can’t be considered to be historically accurate. The film is based on his exploits even though much creative license was taken by director Mel Gibson and screenwriter Randall Wallace (no relation to William). The film starts out showing Wallace as a precocious young boy trying to keep up with his father as he gets involved with trying to negotiate a peace with England’s king Richard the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). His father and brother are killed however, and at their funeral, a distraught William is given a wild flower by a young girl named Muron. Then William’s Uncle Argyle arrives, promising to teach him to use a sword after he teaches him to use his head. The next day he takes him away from the only home he’s ever known. Several years later, educated after traveling to places like France and Rome, a now grown Wallace (Gibson) returns to his home and reacquaints himself with his old friends.

The previous sequence having served primarily as prologue, the story really begins here as we see William in his Ordinary World and he sees the now grown Muron (Catherine McCormack) at a wedding in the village. He recognizes her immediately and we’re also re-introduced to Wallace’s childhood friend Hamish (Brendon Gleeson), who challenges Wallace to a test of strength. Hamish wins, but then Wallace wins over the crowd by winning a game of wits. A few moments later, Wallace courts Muron by telling her in French that Rome could not match her in beauty. This is a great introduction to this character, because we see him as a likable person with normal emotions who tenderly confesses his love to the woman of his dreams.

Wallace then receives the Call to Adventure from Hamish’s father Campbell (James Cosmo), who tells him that his father was a fighter. Wallace Refuses the Call by telling Campbell, along with Muron’s father that he came back to raise crops and a family, but he has no intention of fighting a war. That all changes after Wallace secretly weds Muron. Longshanks has initiated the practice of Prima Noctum, allowing the local Lord the privilege and right to take a new bride to bed with him on the night of her wedding. Not wanting to share her with an English lord, Wallace secretly marries Muron, and Gibson and Randall Wallace did an excellent job of showing their love as it grew. We care about their relationship and want to see it flourish. However, there would be no story if that were to happen, so when Muron is attacked by an English soldier who tries to rape her, Wallace saves her and sends her away on horseback. He then distracts the soldiers until he can get away, but unbeknownst to him, Muron has been captured and brought to the center of the village and tied to a post. Stating that an attack on the king’s soldiers is an attack on the king himself, the town sheriff cuts Muron’s throat. Wallace returns to the village, appearing ready to surrender, and then he Crosses the First Threshold by attacking the soldiers. Seeing this, the other men in the town join in, and Wallace gets to the fort and cuts the throat of the sheriff.

The Test, Allies and Enemies portion of the film show Wallace growing in stature and strength. Other local villages join with him, and he has now vowed to set Scotland free of Longshanks’ tyranny. We also get to know Robert the Bruce, the lord with the strongest claim to Scotland’s throne, as well as Princess Isabelle (Sophie Mareau), who is married to Longshanks’ son Prince Edward, who is introduced as a weak bodied and weak minded man who is likely gay. The Approach shows Wallace discussing with his men the fact that their victories will only entice the English to send their best troops with armored cavalry and they have little chance to beat such an army. But when the others suggest the old ways of running and hiding when that happens, Wallace looks at the trees around them and suggests they build spears.

The Supreme Ordeal is the Battle of Stirling Bridge where Wallace arrives with his army, and Lords Lochlan and Mornay are hoping that negotiating will bring them more land and title, but their armies are ready to flee. Wallace gives an impassioned speech about fighting for their freedom, and insults the English general. Outnumbered, William uses the tactics that he learned from his Mentor Argyle, and the Scots gain an unlikely victory. Wallace is given a knighthood and then avoids the political squabbling of the Lords by pressing his advantage and invading Northern England, taking over the city of York and beheading the king’s nephew, who was the lord of that town and used it as the staging point for all of the invasions of Scotland. Unwilling to send his weakling of a son to negotiate with Wallace, Longshanks sends Isabelle, figuring that if she’s killed, he could get France to fight on his side. This leads to the Reward, where Wallace meets Isabelle, and his education and passion impress her to the point where Wallace gains her has an ally, and she sends multiple messages to him that save his life and his cause. This ultimately leads them into bed.

The Road Back is the Battle of Falkirk where Wallace is betrayed by not only Lochlan and Moray, but also by Robert the Bruce, whom Wallace had come to trust and admire. This betrayal causes the death of Campbell and it looks like it causes the death of Wallace’s ideals. But he takes his revenge on Lochlan and Moray before waging war on his own. The Road Back has Wallace approaching the Bruce, who has seen the errors of his ways and now wants to help Wallace. However, with the help of Lord Craig, the Bruce’s father betrays them both and Wallace is captured and taken to London. After his execution is ordered. Isabelle approaches an ailing Longshanks, who has not lost the ability to speak, and begs for Wallace’s life. When he refuses to yield, she tells him that she’s pregnant with Wallace’s baby, and his bloodline will soon be over, and his son will not sit long on the throne. The Return with the Elixir shows Wallace tortured as the Magistrate tries to get him to beg for mercy and pledge allegiance to the king. Even after being disemboweled, Wallace refuses, yelling “Freedom!” with the last of the strength he can muster. After seeing Muron walking in the crowd and smiling at her, Wallace knows he’s dying a free man and he’s beheaded.

So we have a deep and compelling Hero’s Journey with many archetypal components. One of the mythic archetypes is the idea of death and rebirth. Braveheart has this idea with the notion that even though Wallace dies, his bloodline will be carried on and he’ll essentially be reborn in Isabelle’s baby. When Isabelle tells the dying Longshanks that his son will not sit long on the throne, it tells us again that even though Wallace will not see it, he will ultimately win. That’s a new thought that occurred to me as I watched Braveheart over the weekend. I’ve seen this film many times, but I hadn’t thought about it this way until now. I had never really thought of Wallace as the winner in this. In fact, since Longshanks dies also, I always felt like this film was a sort of a tragedy with no real winners. That opinion has changed, as Wallace, despite his death is the clear winner of this story, and he’s a winner on a number of levels. His bloodline will be carried on and Longshanks’ will not. That’s clear enough. But Wallace even beats the magistrate, who is trying to get him to confess and declare loyalty to the king. When Wallace calls out freedom after everything that the Magistrate and his agents of torture had inflicted on Wallace, he looks defeated. He knows there is nothing he can do to get Wallace to bend to his will and finally can only nod to the executioner to do his job. With that in mind, Wallace has gained the freedom that he sought. Yes, he dies, but he dies a free man.

This is also a highly entertaining film with a lot of wit and charm. The Irishman who joins Wallace’s army, claiming that Ireland is his island, and always seeming to walk the line between sanity and madness brings a good amount of comic relief to what otherwise would be a very serious story. The action in this film is very well-choreographed and staged. CG had not yet become so pervasive in movie making, so this is a film with a lot of stuntmen performing a lot of amazing stunts. This is also a beautiful film. Almost any film that uses the Scottish Highlands as a backdrop is going to be beautiful, but the production design of the dirty and muddy British villages and the costumes all combine with the cinematography to create a cinematic film that needs to be seen in a theater to be fully appreciated. Braveheart is a movie in the best sense of the word.

Did the Academy get it right?

I believe they did. Apollo 13 actually won the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama, so there was a bit of controversy. Also, in the ensuing years, Gibson’s personal issues have derailed what was once one of the top careers in Hollywood. I will also say that I am a huge fan of Apollo 13, and I wouldn’t think it a tragedy had that film won. However, I still give the edge to Braveheart because I believe it to be a more complete film, and it harkens back to many of the epics that won in earlier years like Ben-Hur, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Dances With Wolves. This was a grandiose film that was on a scale that Apollo 13 was just not on. Braveheart is also a much stronger film thematically than Apollo 13, and the way it depicts Wallace’s victory that appears to be a defeat is a much deeper and more sophisticated way to tell a story. That level of sophistication in the storytelling is what ultimately puts Braveheart over the top. I have not seen The Postman, so I cannot speak to that film. To this day, I’m not sure why Babe was nominated, other than the fact this it did some things technically that had not been done before. It’s a nice film, but not in the same league as the others. In fact, I would say that Babe should not have been even nominated because The Usual Suspects, which was not nominated, is a far superior film. Sense and Sensibility is a wonderfully written adaptation of the Jane Austin novel, and is a very well-made and emotional film. Like Apollo 13, it might have had better luck had it come out in a different year, but Braveheart was clearly the right choice for 1995.

Forrest Gump became a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1990’s. There are so many catch phrase lines like, “Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get”, and “Stupid is as stupid does”, among many others. Tom Hanks, coming off a Best Actor win from the previous year’s Philadelphia would win Best Actor for the second year in a row and even though he was already a big star, he would use Forrest Gump to catapult himself to the upper echelon of the Hollywood A-list and superstardom. To be sure, Hanks’ performance as the dim-witted savant is one of the great performances of the decade and along with his role in Philadelphia, helped turn him from a likable actor in comedies and romantic comedies to one of the most respected actors in the industry, and a man who could play any role.

As for the film itself, I am slightly divided on it. Seventy-five percent of me loves this film. I’ve seen it over a dozen times and every time I see it, it hits all of my emotional buttons and tugs at all of my heartstrings. I fully admit that sometimes I can be a sentimental old fool and this movie hits that sentimental side of me with ease. I am always especially affected by the bookends of Forrest’s relationship with Jenny. It always felt so real and genuine to me like it was crafted out of true emotions and I never felt like that relationship was anything but true to life. We’ve all felt unrequited love, and I believe that Forrest’s feelings for Jenny hit home in a way that made people able to relate to this film on a human level in a way that few films accomplish, and that is one of the reasons for its sustained success. I also love the humor in the film, the irony that is sprinkled throughout the film, as well as the symbolism and all of the planting and payoff.

Then there is the twenty-five percent of me that understands that this is not a particularly well-structured story and that it’s told in much the same way as a road movie, and I am not a fan of that style of storytelling. This is an episodic film, but it does have a decent spine, and that spine is Forrest’s love for Jenny and that no matter what he does or what he accomplishes, his thoughts and feelings always come back to her. As I watched the film this weekend, I tried to look for the structure in the story it’s difficult to find it, but it is there mainly in the story of Forrest and Jenny.

In fact, it is my opinion that the very strong themes in Forrest Gump make up for the relatively weak story structure and storyline. This is a film about destiny and about spirituality. This is a film about making the best of what you have despite the disadvantages you have been given. Forrest was born with a below average IQ and a crooked spine. Despite those problems, and partially because he didn’t know any better and because his mother wouldn’t let him use them as an excuse, Forrest makes his way through life successfully. Yes, he stumbles through life and a lot of his success comes through luck, but he creates his own luck by allowing himself to do things that other people wouldn’t allow themselves to do. Possibly it was because he’s too stupid to understand the risks, but he still takes the chances and his life turns out to be much better than anyone could have reasonably hoped that it would.

Then there’s Jenny, who is smart, talented and beautiful, but she was sexually abused as a child by her father, and that has created a lack of direction within her. She can’t trust herself and she moves from one abusive relationship to another. In fact, the one man who has her best interests at heart and the one man who treats her well is Forrest, but she spends the bulk of the story pushing him away because she doesn’t know how to handle being treated well. Not only does she allow herself to be mistreated by other men, but she continually mistreats herself by abusing drugs and living an unhealthy lifestyle. It isn’t until she becomes sick at the end (presumably with HIV, although it’s never stated what she has), and has Forrest’s baby, does she attain the ability to love herself. Once she’s able to love herself she has the ability to love Forrest. Ultimately that’s Jenny’s character arc. She cannot love Forrest until she’s able to love herself.

Then there’s Lt. Dan Taylor, who is Forrest’s commanding officer in Vietnam. Lt. Dan believes that it is his destiny to die in that war since he’s had ancestors who have died in every previous U.S. war. However, not only does Forrest inadvertently keep that from happening by saving his life, he’s left without any legs. As a consequence Lt. Dan sees himself as a legless cripple who’s been robbed of his destiny. He resents Forrest for that for a long time, and he turns his back on God. Then after joining Forrest as his first mate on the shrimp boat, they survive being at storm during Hurricane Camille and then their shrimping business begins to thrive. In peaceful moment Dan is finally able to thank Forrest for saving his life. He then dives off the boat and contentedly swims the Gulf at sunset as Forrest remarks that he believes Dan made his peace with God. Once again, we have an example of someone finding peace within himself and then finding the ability to move past their inner turmoil and find happiness in his life.

It’s good that these other characters go through the major changes in the story because Forrest himself changes very little. He seems to learn that life is a combination of destiny and making your own way, but he is largely an unchanged character from the beginning to the end. He does affect change in other characters, however and that growth and change helps heighten the emotional impact of the overall story.

Speaking of that overall story, this is a story about a man who lives through thirty years of the second half of the twentieth century and happens to meet several of that period’s iconic historical figures like Elvis Pressley, Bear Bryant, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Dick Cavette, John Lennon, and others, and through his very objective perspective we witness the major events of the late 50’s through the early 80’s. Forrest Gump doesn’t really offer any editorial on those events. The character and the film merely show us and tell us what happened and how, and leave it up to the audience to decide how to feel about them.

I mentioned earlier that this is an episodic film and that it has the feel of a road movie. I would say what separates it from entirely falling into that trap is the fact that the episodes themselves aren’t self-contained. That is to say that there is a nice flow and each sequence of the story flows naturally into the next. My problem with many road movies is that they don’t build. You could take out sequences or switch their order around and it wouldn’t affect the story as a whole. Since we’re following Forrest on an historical journey, that’s not the case in Forrest Gump. Each section of the film leads Forrest into the next section and the people that he meets and the issues that come up in each section of the story continue to drive the action throughout the rest of the film. One of the aspects of the film that helps do that is the story between Forrest and Jenny. He falls in love with her the minute he sees her and he loves her for the rest of his life, and with each adventure he goes on, he thinks about her and what she’s doing.

From a structural standpoint, Forrest Gump isn’t a terribly well-told story, but from a device standpoint, it’s brilliantly told. I mentioned earlier that I am a fan of the planting and payoff in Forrest Gump. I am especially a fan that some of the planting and payoff is right on the nose and other examples of it are far more subtle. An obvious example is when Forrest and Jenny are little kids and they’re running away from Jenny’s abusive father. They hide in the corn field where Jenny prays to God to make her a bird so that she can fly far, far away. Then at the end of the film as Forrest is walking away from her grave, a small flock of birds flies off to the heavens, presumably carrying Jenny’s spirit with them. Then there is another example that you have to be paying closer attention to in order to catch it. After Forrest tells Lt. Dan (after he’s lost both of his legs in Vietnam) that he’s going to keep his promise to Bubba and become a shrimp boat captain, Lt. Dan responds by telling him that if he does, he’ll be his first mate. Then chuckling, Lt. Dan goes on to tell Forrest that if he’s a shrimp boat captain, then Lt. Dan will be an astronaut. Then when Forrest and Jenny get married, Lt. Dan arrives with his fiancé and two brand new legs made out of the same titanium alloy that they use on the space shuttle. So in an indirect way, Lt. Dan kept his promise to be an astronaut.

Irony is another device that’s used very effectively, especially when Forrest joins the army. He excels at the mundane and in so doing sails through basic training where his Drill Sergeant predicts that he’ll be a general some day.

Even with their varying levels of subtlety, those are all outstanding storytelling techniques that evoke real emotion, so that even though this isn’t your classic 3-Act film, we’re still given a dramatic story with characters that we care about. Director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth did an outstanding job of using many storytelling devices to take this story and make it emotional without being overly sentimental. Any screenwriter looking for ways to deepen their characters and learn how to use devices like planting and payoff would be wise to view this film again through that prism or to read the screenplay.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. I realize I just spent over 1700 words describing the virtues of this film, and I am a fan of it. I’ve seen it many times and I love this film very much. However, it had no business winning Best Picture in 1994. The Shawshank Redemption was a superior film. It had a better and more compelling story and it was a much more dramatic film than Forrest Gump was. Thematically, it was just as strong as Forrest Gump and the acting and character development hang right with it as well. I would have definitely voted for The Shawshank Redemption over Forrest Gump. Also there was a film called Pulp Fiction that was released that year, and happens to be one of my personal top 5 favorite films. Pulp Fiction was an absolute sensation when it came out for the way it deconstructed film making as a medium and used insane amounts of violence to tell a compelling story. Again, with its thematic elements of honor among thieves, it was innovative in its storytelling techniques and it resuscitated the careers of John Travolta and Bruce Willis while it sent the careers of Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurmon and director Quentin Tarantino into the stratosphere, much like Forrest Gump did with Tom Hanks. It had a profound effect on the industry as a whole and is the film that would have had my vote in 1994. Of the other two films nominated that year, Quiz Show was also a very good film, but probably not on the level of the other three. Four Weddings and a Funeral was the small, indie-type picture, of which the Academy seemed to like to give token nominees to throughout the 90’s, but were never serious contenders. I think what ultimately won the Oscar for Forrest Gump was the amount of emotion that it evoked from audiences. As great as The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction were, they were largely emotion-less films that relied on great story telling to create drama and get the audience involved. Forrest Gump did exactly the opposite in creating a ton of emotion with a storyline that wasn’t as strong. As much as I disagree with it, that’s what the Academy was looking for in 1994.