I will admit right up front that I was not looking forward to watching Chariots of Fire. I had never seen it before, but it looked like it would be terribly boring, and most of the people with whom I spoke about it confirmed that notion. With that said, I think I went into watching this film with such low expectations that there was at least the possibility that I could be pleasantly surprised, and that is in fact what happened. While this isn’t close to my favorite Oscar winner, it’s close to my least favorite either. The film actually tells a fairly compelling story from two different points of view, and while I do have some major problems with how the story was told, it at least held my interest and I never felt particularly bored while watching it.

Chariots of Fire is about two runners trying to prepare for the 1924 Olympics, and both have designs on becoming the fastest man on earth. The main character is Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a Jewish man who has been dealing with antisemitism his whole life, and especially now that he’s studying at Cambridge University, antisemitism is in his face all the time. This antisemitism motivates him, and in fact makes him obsessed with proving their prejudices wrong. He attacks running in a maniacal way and his desire to be the best runner completely takes over his life.

The other runner is Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a devout Christian from Scotland who believes that he’s doing the Lord’s work by running. He believes that God made him fast and that he’s showing glory to God by running. Eric has external pressures as well, but his come from his family and friends who want to see him dedicate his life solely to God. His family runs a mission in China, and he’s come back to Scotland to try and make the Olympic team as a means of proselytizing and showing God’s greatness through his running.

Chariots of Fire is based on a true story and like all instances of films based on true stories, it’s difficult to remain faithful to what really happened, and fit everything into a nice, well-structured story. Life never really happens in 3-Act structure, so it can be very challenging to fit real life events into that rigid of a system. It also can be difficult to fabricate drama where perhaps there wasn’t any. That being said, I do have some issues with the film’s story, and I think the filmmakers did themselves a disservice by not taking a little more creative license. For example, I feel that they could have done a better job of creating a rivalry between Abrahams and Liddell. There is a rivalry of sorts, and they actually race against each other with Liddell coming out as the winner, and Abrahams is nearly devastated. He uses the loss to hire running coach Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), who helps him shave time off of his 100-meter sprint, and also draws the ire of Cambridge’s Master of Trinity (Sir John Gielgud) and Master of Caius (Lindsay Anderson). Those two are among the most anti-Sematic characters in the film and are looking for any way possible to knock Abrahams down a couple of pegs, since it doesn’t sit well with them that a Jew could be representing their school in the Olympic Games, especially a Jew who is being trained by an Englishman of Italian descent.

Other than that, there is very little direct interaction between the two main characters in the film. Abrahams does seem to become obsessed with beating Liddell, but Liddell doesn’t seem to care at all about Abrahams, and then they end up competing in totally different races in the Olympics anyway. There is some drama surrounding each of their respective events, but overall I felt that the climax of the film was anything but climactic and I feel that as an audience, we’re left wanting more.

Ultimately, this is a story about being true to yourself and not having to apologize for who you are or for what you believe in. I think the most dramatic example of that is when the schedule comes out and the event that Liddell qualified for is scheduled for Sunday. Being a man of piety, Liddell refuses to compete. He tells his coach and is pressured by everyone from the head of the Olympic committee to the Prince of Wales to run. They tell him that he must run for Britain, but he tells them that he must not run because Sunday is God’s day, and he will not betray God. For Liddell, God is first and country is second. It looks for the entire world that there is an impasse until Lord Andrew Lindsay, one of Liddell’s teammates and a classmate of Abrahams at Cambridge, volunteers to give up his spot in the 400-meter race so that Liddell can compete in that race instead. Everyone agrees that that’s a good compromise and Liddell ends up winning that race over the top American runners who most people felt going in were the best runners in the world.

I think that this film is another example, Like Kramer vs. Kramer a couple of years earlier, of a film not ending on a high note. As I mentioned, the ending is rather anti-climactic and the two characters that we’ve been waiting to face off against each other never do. In a way, Chariots of Fire is really two separate stories told against the same backdrop with two different main characters that live in two separate worlds and just happen to end up in the same place. Indeed, even once they’re on the same Olympic team, we never see them interact with each other, bond with each other or hate each other. They’re both just sort of there, occupying the same place, but each with his own story that are being told concurrently.

There is one other thing that I have to mention about Chariots of Fire and that is the music. We’re all familiar with the iconic opening piano theme, and that theme has been used and parodied many times in the decades since the film came out. It’s powerful music, instantly recognizable and conjures up feelings of triumph. However, the rest of the score by Vangelis is absolutely dreadful. It’s heavy eighties synthesizer and it is completely disconnected from the images that are on screen. The year was 1981 and synthesizers were becoming as integral to pop music as the electric guitar had been to the arena rock of the seventies. Clearly the filmmakers viewed the synthesizer as the most popular way to play music at that time, and maybe they wanted to take subject matter that would not have been relatable to contemporary audiences and do something to make it modern. So at every emotional high and low moment, when you’re expecting score to come in, we were exposed to this nauseating heavy synth that would completely take us out of the moment and make us realize that we were watching a film about the 20’s that was made in the 80’s. And it would be one thing if the music was at least good, but it really wasn’t. There is no orchestration in the film and the only non-synthesizer music happens when someone happens to be playing the piano or some other instrument on screen. It would not surprise me if the entire score of the film came out of one synthesizer, and the score almost ruins what is actually little more than an average film. Just to show how out of tune (no pun intended) the Academy was that year, Chariots of Fire also won the Oscar for Best Music, Original Score. To be honest, that might be the single biggest mistake the Academy has ever made.

Did the Academy get it right?

Well, here’s the thing. It was a pretty weak year. Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture. Now, I love that film. It’s highly entertaining and actually has a story that is structured along the lines of the Hero’s Journey almost to a tee. But let’s be honest. If you didn’t already know that it was nominated for Best Picture in 1981, you’re probably pretty surprised by learning that fact. On Golden Pond starring Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda was also nominated, and that is a thoughtful film about generational clashes, but it’s a smaller film in the scope of things. It might have won the Oscar had it come out thirty years earlier, but not at the dawn of the eighties. I’ve never seen Atlantic City so I can’t really speak to that film. The film that probably should have won, and the film that I would have voted for was Reds, Warren Beatty’s epic film about John Silas “Jack” Reed, a journalist how covered the Russian Revolution. Jack Reed was a radical and a communist sympathizer and with Ronald Reagan having just moved into the White House and the country in general moving back towards a hard line against communism, it’s entirely possible that it just wasn’t politically feasible for a film like Reds to win the Oscar in that type of climate.

Having already been a star in Hollywood for two decades because of his acting, Robert Redford made his directorial debut in 1980 with Ordinary People (and he would win the Best Director Oscar for his efforts), an extraordinary film about redemption and coming to grips with the past so that you can embrace your future. This is an emotionally powerful story that is primarily character driven. It has some powerhouse acting performances, some from fairly surprising sources.

Most people who have seen Ordinary People will tell you that it’s a depressing movie, and it is to a certain degree, but I think that people often times confuse films that are simply tear-jerkers for movies that are depressing. Ordinary People certainly is a tear-jerker. It’s also a very emotionally powerful film and quite sad throughout. However I think that labeling it as depressing is missing the point, because it actually ends on a hopeful note. To me, any film that ends on a hopeful note is not really a depressing film. In fact, the character arc for Conrad (Timothy Hutton) is moving from depressed to happy. It’s a long and painful journey, and that’s why I think that people interpret this as being a depressing film, but I feel it does end on a high note, even as that high note is tempered somewhat.

I apologize in advance for opening up this blog with spoilers if you haven’t yet seen the film.

I say that the ending’s good feelings are tempered because Conrad’s parents, Calvin (Donald Sutherland) and Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) are splitting up, but even that is for the best if you think about it. From the very beginning of the film we see that Calvin is trying to make a connection with Conrad. Calvin just wants his son to be better and he doesn’t care what it takes to make that happen. Beth, on the other hand, remains distant from Conrad for the entire film. We don’t know if she blames Conrad for the death of their other son, Buck, or if she’s just in denial over Conrad’s condition, or if it’s some combination of the two. Whatever the reasoning, however, she is unable to allow herself to get close to Conrad at any point in the film, and the fact that she leaves, ultimately will allow Conrad and Calvin to make peace with themselves and their past. That means even the bad aspect of the ending isn’t completely bad.

I bring this up because this is terrifically deep story telling. That kind of depth comes from excellent writing (Ordinary People also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay) and excellent direction. If you’re really paying attention there is more to this story than just a blanket of depressing themes. And again, the themes aren’t really depressing because this is primarily a film about healing. In order to heal, you have to be sick, and Conrad starts out the film very sick indeed. He’s just come out of an institution that he was living in because he tried to kill himself due to the guilt that he felt over the death of his brother during a sailing accident. We first meet the family shortly after Conrad’s return and it’s breakfast time, but Conrad doesn’t want anything. He’s not in a place where he can accept kindness from anyone, including and especially his mother, who angrily throws the French toast in the trash over Calvin’s protestations. Calvin also encourages Conrad to see the psychiatrist that was recommended to him, and Conrad isn’t sure whether he wants to do that.

Instead, Conrad meets up with Karen, a former patient at the same institution, and she encourages him to be happy and to live a happy life. From there, we see Conrad struggling to be ordinary. He can’t relate to any of his old friends. He’s on the swim team, but swimming offers him no satisfaction. He just doesn’t know how to feel good again, so he ends up going to the psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). From there, Conrad tries unsuccessfully to connect with his mother and his friends before he starts seeing Jeanine (Elizabeth McGovern), a girl that he sings with in choir. There is a rocky start to their relationship, but she’s the one who ultimately draws him out. In fact, the circle is completed when he’s hanging out in front of her house waiting to apologize to her, and she invites him in for breakfast, and with a smile on his face he accepts. He can now accept kindness from others because he’s grown as a person.

I’m not going to go into much more of a synopsis of the story. In fact, there isn’t really a lot more that I have to say about this film, other than I recommend seeing it, especially if you’re an aspiring screenwriter looking for reference on character development and depth of story. This is a story with many different layers, and it’s not a typical Hollywood drama. It’s a heavy film about people dealing with heavy problems, but coming out (for the most part) stronger on the other end. This is a script that tells the audience a lot without, but not necessarily through dialogue. In fact, the example I just gave about breakfast is not only an example of storytelling and character development through subtext, it’s also a great example of planting and payoff where the plant happens practically at the beginning of the story and the payoff is just about at the end. In many ways, this is a wonderfully told story.

Visually there is also some excellent storytelling going on, as this is practically a black and white film. It was shot in color, but there is very little color in it. There are a few reds and browns and some blues, but a lot of this film is told in shades of gray. That adds a drabness and a plainness to the palette that shows how ordinary these people’s lives are. There is little excitement here. The variation comes from the differing levels of emotion and the emotional ride we go on is what this story is about. This is a story about feeling and not necessarily seeing.

Is it a perfect film? No it is not. As strong as the screenwriting is, the editing is the opposite. I found many of the cuts to be jarring and unnecessary. The cinematography isn’t particularly dynamic and more visual cues could have made this an even stronger film. But overall, it’s emotionally very powerful and serves as an interesting transition from the gritty and powerful character driven films that dominated the Oscars in the seventies to the often more polished big picture films that would come into fashion in the eighties.

There is one more thing that I would like to point out about Ordinary People and that is the casting. Donald Sutherland has always been an actor who can play a variety of roles, whether it’s the irascible Hawkeye Pierce in the original M*A*S*H or the intense John Klute in Klute or the beatnick professor Dave Jennings in Animal House or the evil dictator President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise. Donald Sutherland is a great actor and Calvin Jarrett is one of his signature roles. Timothy Hutton had already made a name for himself, but this film really put him on the map and set him up for future dramatic roles in Taps and The Falcon and the Snowman just to name a couple. But what I found really interesting about the casting in Ordinary People is that we had two veteran television sit-com actors playing very dramatic roles. Mary Tyler Moore had already been a household name for nearly 20 years due to her work in the sit coms The Dick Van Dyke Show as well as The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Those two shows are regarded as two of the great sit coms in the history of television, and the former was a pioneering force in the medium. Judd Hirsch was the star of Taxi, a gritty and funny show about New York City cab drivers. Throw in M. Emmet Walsh, who played the Swim Coach, and to that point had been in such comedies as The Jerk and Slap Shot and you have three important characters in this very heavy and most dramatic film who made their bones and their names in comedy. What’s most impressive is that they did it seamlessly. You can watch Judd Hirsch in Ordinary People and believe that he was one of the great dramatic actors of the day. The same is true for Mary Tyler Moore. Neither one of them do one funny thing in this film. Mary Tyler Moore is especially serious in this film to the point where she is really unlikable, and that is something that would have been unthinkable at that time. Mary Tyler Moore had spent the previous 20 years as one of America’s sweethearts. But here they were in Ordinary People so seamlessly integrating themselves into this drama that Mary Tyler Moore was nominated for Best Actress and Judd Hirsch was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton won).

Overall, this is an exceptional film that you should see if you haven’t. Don’t let the fact that other people say it’s depressing scare you off from it. It’s much more than that, and has the depth to prove it.

Did the Academy get it right?

I don’t think so. Coal Miner’s Daughter and The Elephant Man are both amazing films, and I could see the latter winning Best Picture in another year much more than the former, but neither film is a s strong or as deep as Ordinary People. I’ve actually never seen Tess and I don’t know much about it, so I can’t really speak on its behalf one way or the other. The year of 1980 really comes down to an argument between Ordinary People and Raging Bull. One of Martin Scorsese’s signature films, Raging Bull was ranked #24 on AFI’s original list of the Top 100 Films of all time. Ordinary People was not on the list, and to be perfectly honest, with the benefit of hindsight Raging Bull should have been the winner. I think the thing about Raging Bull was that it was actually shot in black and white and was a little more avant garde than Ordinary People. I also suspect that there was a little bit of politicking going on as the Academy probably wanted to show Robert Redford some love in his directorial debut. It wasn’t often in those days that a successful actor would change roles and step behind the camera. It happens much more often now, but Redford really busted through that door, and was probably being rewarded accordingly by the Academy for that accomplishment. And Ordinary People is a fine film, and worthy of recognition, but Raging Bull is a masterpiece that has transcended film history. I suspect that if the Academy were given a do-over, then Raging Bull would have been the choice for 1980.

Kramer vs. Kramer is a wonderful film. It’s filled with drama and emotion and superb acting by everyone, including Justin Henry, who was just seven years old when he starred as Billy Kramer and became one of the youngest people ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, which he was for Best Supporting Actor for this film. Dustin Hoffman (Ted Kramer) would win the Oscar for Best Actor and Meryl Streep (Joanna Kramer), starring in her second consecutive Best Picture winner, would win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Rounding out the evening, Writer/Director Robert Benton won Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.

There are three distinct components to this film that make is so powerful, and thus make it a great film. The first is the character arc of Ted Kramer from a disconnected, self-centered and dismissive man who puts his career ahead of his family to loving, nurturing and caring father who understands that there’s more to caring for your family than bringing home a paycheck. Any screenwriter, professional or aspiring, could learn from the character arc that Benton gave to Ted Kramer in this film. This character arc is perfectly exemplified by two iconic scenes at opposite ends of the film. The first scene takes place the morning after Joanna has left. Ted is trying to simultaneously get ready for work and get Billy ready for school, but Billy also wants French toast for breakfast. Ted kind of knows how to make it, but doesn’t really have the details down. With Billy trying to help him, he makes a mess of the whole situation, all the time telling Billy (and himself) that they’re having fun and that everything is going to be all right. Finally, Billy yells to Ted that the toast is burning in the pan, and Ted grabs it with his bare hand, burning himself and dropping the French toast all over the floor. The second scene happens at the end of the film when it looks like Billy is going to get taken away from Ted. They think that it’s their last morning together, and they make French toast again. This time, they make it in silence as Billy perfectly whips the eggs, Ted expertly douses the bread and hold the pan with a pot holder. They calmly make the breakfast in silence as they work in perfect partnership.

In between those scenes, Ted slowly learns to prioritize Billy’s needs over the needs of his job, and that ultimately causes him to be fired. Simultaneously Ted becomes closer friends with his downstairs neighbor Margaret Phelps (Jane Alexander) and that relationship helps him develop empathy for women that he never had before. Then, just as Ted seems to be getting his feet underneath him, Joanne comes back some eighteen months later and wanting custody of Billy. Now Ted is fighting with everything he has for something that just a few months prior it seemed as though he couldn’t have given a damn about.

That leads me to the second component of this film that makes it so powerful and that is the structure of the story. This is Ted’s story and he has a well-defined Hero’s Journey, which I will break down in a moment, but act structure is something that I’d like to focus on as well. This is a four-act film. There are three plot points in the film and each one sends the film in a completely different direction. We meet Ted in his Ordinary World as he’s hanging out late at the office telling his boss Jim a funny story. He’s in no rush to get home and Jim tells him that a big account in their advertising film is coming his way and if he does it right and totally commits to it, then the sky could be the limit for his career. He arrives home and is at first completely oblivious to the fact that Joanna has packed a suitcase and is trying to tell him that she’s leaving him. This is Ted’s Call to Adventure. Once he finally does come around to understanding what’s going on, all he can do is think about how what Joanna is doing is ruining his day. Ted Refuses the Call by trying to get Joanna to stay, but he lacks the tact and the compassion to understand why she’s leaving in the first place. Ted Meets several Mentors over the course of the film, but Ted’s two main mentors are Margaret and Jim, and they provide advice from the opposite side of the parenting issue. In fact, a lot of the drama in this story comes from the competing advice that Ted gets from Margaret (do what you need to do to take care of your son) and Jim (do what you need to do to take care of your job). Both of them are right in their own way, and it’s up to Ted to find the balance. Ted Crosses the First Threshold into the Special World of being a parent after he and Billy have a wicked fight over dinner, and Ted realizes that he’s all Billy has, and he has to do better. We are moving from the first act where Ted is trying to figure out his new reality and into the second act where Ted is now comfortable. There are still challenges, but Ted is now a father first and everything else is prioritized after that.

The Second Act starts with Tests, Allies and Enemies, and Ted starts to navigate the waters of his new reality. Jim becomes an archetypal shape shifter as he turns from a mentor and an ally into an enemy in this act. Margaret also moves from mentor to ally, and she becomes Ted’s confidant and friend. The nice thing about that relationship as well is that it’s 100% platonic. There is never any sexual tension or innuendo in their relationship, nor is there ever any hint of romance. They are simply good friends who happen to be of the opposite sex, and I can’t think of another film that had the confidence to build that type of platonic relationship between a man and a woman with zero expectation of romance. The test in Tests, Allies and Enemies happens for Ted when Billy falls off the jungle gym at the playground and Ted is afraid that Billy will lose his eye. The doctor assures him that his eye is safe, but he has to give Billy 10 stitches which will cause a small scar, and the scene in which Billy received the stitches is an emotionally gut wrenching one. The Approach happens when Michael hears from Joanna that she’s back in town and she wants to see him. The Ordeal is the scene in which they meet and Joanna tells Ted that she’s spent a lot of time in therapy and she’s found herself and she misses her son. She tells him that she wants custody, and Ted refuses, storming out of the restaurant after throwing his glass of wine against the wall. We are now moving from the second act where Ted started to find his comfort zone into the third act where Ted has to fight in order to maintain what he has.

It doesn’t start out well for Ted, and he’s fired by Jim because it looks like they’re going to lose the account Ted has been working because he hasn’t been able to give it the 110% that Jim is demanding. The Reward section of the film is the trial for custody of Billy. This is where we as the audience learn that Ted now has the compassion that he lacked at the beginning of the story. He now has the emotional maturity and to be the type of father to which men should aspire. We see that he and Billy have become a family unit that can’t be broken, except by court of law. That’s when we come to the Road Back section of the story when we see that the judge has stripped custody of Billy from Ted and given it to Joanna, leaving Ted with one night per week, two weekends per month and half of the holidays. We now move from act 3 where Michael has fought to maintain everything and into act 4 where we see the ramifications of the fact that he lost everything that he fought to keep.

The Resurrection shows Ted now as a sensitive man who explains to Billy without patronizing him what his life is now going to be like, and he does his best to convince Billy that it’s all for the best. The selfish Ted at the beginning of the film couldn’t help but spew his negative feelings even when it was important to listen to Joanna. That Ted is dead and has been resurrected as the compassionate Ted who will tell his son that this new reality is for the best in order to comfort him, even as he knows that nothing could be further from the truth. The Return with the Elixir happens after they’ve successfully made breakfast and Joanna arrives and they think that she’s there to pick up Billy to take him home with her. Instead, she tells Michael that she’s had an epiphany of sorts and she realizes that he already is home. She goes upstairs to tell him that he’ll be staying with his father, and as she tries to put herself together, Ted tells her that she looks great. There it is. Kramer vs. Kramer is told in four acts and each act takes the story in a new and different direction.

Finally the third component that makes this such a powerful film is the acting. Dustin Hoffman was already one of the brightest stars in Hollywood, but this performance would garner him his first Oscar. It is one of the great performances of his career because he’s playing a normal guy. He’s not playing a young man having an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner like in The Graduate or a drug addict like in Midnight Cowboy or a man masquerading as a woman like in Tootsie or an autistic savant like in Rain Man. He’s playing a guy who is just like you and me, and who is going through a situation that any number of men have had to go through. There is nothing extraordinary about Ted Kramer other than the transformation of his personality through his Hero’s Journey and Dustin Hoffman brought such power and gravitas to the role that it would become one of his signature performances. It’s funny, because I don’t know if people think about Ted Kramer as one of Hoffman’s best characters. I haven’t done the research, so I can only say that anecdotally when I hear about Hoffman, I hear about The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Tootsie, and Rain Man. Of course he’s been in dozens of other great films, but to me there is something subtle about his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer that puts this performance even a notch above those other great performances precisely because he’s playing a character without extraordinary characteristics. He’s every man, and he couldn’t have been more believable.

If there is one negative thing to say about this film it is that I’m not a huge fan of the ending. It ends somewhat abruptly and it ends with Ted being passive and good things happening to him from out of the blue. Yes, he showed Joanna over the course of the second half of the film that his home was the right place for Billy, but it just feels a little too convenient that Joanna just has this epiphany. I would have preferred it if Ted had done something specific to make her have that epiphany, or for Joanna to simply leave with Billy, leaving Ted behind to know that he’s a better person despite losing his son. The ending of Kramer vs. Kramer to me feels a little out of place.

Did the Academy get it right?

Yes they did, although it was not a slam dunk. There were four other excellent films nominated against Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979. The film that probably deserved the Oscar the most other than Kramer vs. Kramer was Apocalypse Now. This raging Vietnam epic is truly one of the great films of all time, coming in at number 28 on the original AFI Top 100 Movies list. Kramer vs. Kramer is not on the list, but this is another one of those times when AFI and I part company. I like Apocalypse Now a lot, but it meanders endlessly at times, and is a fairly episodic film. Even though it takes place primarily on a river, it has a lot of the same components as a road movie, and I’m not a huge fan of road movies. Also, with The Deer Hunter and its heavy Vietnam themes winning the previous year, it’s possible that the Academy couldn’t stomach giving its highest honor to a Vietnam picture for the second year in a row. The other films nominated, All That Jazz, Breaking Away and Norma Rae are all great films in their own right, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for voting for any of them. However, in my humble opinion, Kramer vs. Kramer was the most emotional, most dramatic, and most complete film of the year, and it deserved the Oscar for Best Picture.

I had not seen The Deer Hunter since I was about 21 or 22 years old, and I remember exactly how I felt after seeing it then. I felt like that was three hours that I would never get back. I felt like it was a film without a point, without a cohesive story, and a film that was just depressing. Well, I could not have been more wrong. After watching it this past weekend, I now see that this is a film with a very clear and explicit point, a story that is cohesive and about redemption and compassion and forgiveness, and while it does have a depressing tone, it is not as depressing as you might think, and even has a fairly uplifting finish. This is a film that has an incredible amount of depth, and while it doesn’t have the traditional story structure, it’s still a well told story with a clear Hero’s Journey. In fact, the story is a journey. It’s a long journey without a clear destination. It’s like life. And while The Deer Hunter isn’t one of my favorite Best Picture winners, it certainly is one of the most thought provoking and intense films to take home the Oscars’ top honor.

I mentioned a moment ago that The Deer Hunter doesn’t have a traditional structure. While that’s technically true, it’s still a story that’s told in three acts. The difference is that each act lasts a full hour, rather than the first two acts each coming in around 30 minutes each with Act 2 lasting an hour in between, which is the more traditional structure. However, there is still a clear Hero’s Journey for the main character, Michael (Robert De Niro).

Michael’s Ordinary World is a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania in which he lives, and we meet the cast of characters that are the friends that we assume he’s had for his entire life. His friends Nick (Christopher Walken), Steven (John Savage), Stan (John Cazale), and Axel all work with Michael at the mill, and their other friend John (George Dzundza) runs the local bar. These guys are good buddies. They work together, they drink together and they hunt together. Michael and Nick even live together.

We find out right away that Michael, Nick and Steven are all about to be deployed to Vietnam in a couple of days, and Steven is going to marry his pregnant girlfriend that night. They all go drinking in John’s bar before the wedding, and at one point are singing I Love You, Baby along with the jukebox. There isn’t a ton of storytelling going on here from a plot progression standpoint, but there is a ton of storytelling going on here from a character development standpoint. We see that the world these guys live in, despite the vast wilderness around them that they traverse when they hunt, is very small. They’ve likely never traveled far from their small town, and in fact, everyone in this town knows each other. It is an insular world, and the fact that they know nothing of the world outside is articulated when they meet the soldier at the bar and tell him how excited they are to join the fighting. The battle weary soldier can only look at them and say, “Fuck it.”

That scene happens during Steven’s wedding reception, which lasts a good 40 minutes of screen time. We also learn during that sequence Nick’s girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep) might have a secret crush on Michael, who might also reciprocate those feelings. We also find out that Steven may not be the father of his wife’s baby, but instead Stan possibly is.

The following day they go on their last deer hunt, and Michael’s mantra is “one shot”. If he can’t kill a deer in one shot, then he won’t kill it. We see him working in tandem with Nick, and they’re a great team. Sure enough, Michael tracks down a buck, and kills it with one shot.

Again, there isn’t a lot of story movement, but we are learning about these characters and it is creating such depth within all of them that we really feel like we know them in profound and personal ways. Seriously, the first hour of this film is 100% character development, and it’s sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but always compelling. I think it would be very difficult to get a film like this made today. I don’t think that a mass audience would be able to sit through a film like The Deer Hunter without getting restless. Much like myself when I saw this film at the age of 21 or 22, I wasn’t ready for a film like this. I was used to films having linear stories that got moving with an inciting incident that would happen no more than 5-7 minutes in to the film, and then the storyline would proceed accordingly. The Deer Hunter doesn’t follow that model. It’s very important for us to know these people so that we can care about them in a deep way when things really do start to happen. I was reminded of a modern version of this that happens on a much smaller scale. The PIXAR film The Incredibles is about a family of super heroes who have to go in to hiding after a series of events that make them fall out of favor with the government and with the public in general. Brad Bird was the director of the film and there’s a scene where the family is sitting around the dinner table talking about their day. There is no action for the most part, and for a solid 3-5 minutes, all we’re getting is character development. We learn about the family’s dynamic, economic situation and social standing. And Bird had to fight like crazy to keep it in the movie. Studio executives wanted it cut because they felt that it slowed down the story, but Bird argues rightly that the story depended on this scene because this scene was where we learned enough about the characters so that we would really care about them as human beings at the critical moments. That’s exactly what The Deer Hunter did for the first hour of the film.

That was important because Michael, Nick and Steven leave their Ordinary World behind and enter the Special World of Vietnam. The next hour of the film is spent here in varying places and degrees of intensity. The three buddies find themselves in a small Vietnamese prison camp where the prisoners are kept in a bamboo cage in the river before being forced to play Russian roulette. This is one of the most intense and gut wrenching scenes I’ve ever sat through. Steven is so overcome by the situation that he starts to scream in panic. Nick is holding it together, but us frozen with fear. Only Michael is able to keep his composure to a level that allows him to think of a plan to escape. At one point he’s even willing to leave Steven behind after they throw him in the pit. Mocking insanity to his captors, Michael somehow maintains the ability to keep a clear head. As the lead captor keeps slapping him in the face, Michael wants desperately to kill him. He demands that three bullets be put in the gun, and puts his own life and the life of Nick in much more peril, but it’s necessary to his plan. These are two small town Pennsylvania boys fighting for their lives in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle. The first act has made us care so much for these guys that when the trigger is pulled and all you hear is the click of the hammer hitting the empty chamber, you can’t help but let out with an audible gasp. Finally, Michael’s plan comes through as he’s able to use the extra bullets in the chamber to shoot his captor between the eyes, and use the chaos to grab a machine gun from another one and shoot the rest of the unsuspecting captors.

The other thing about this scene is that it takes a long time. It takes a long time to build the intensity to its ultimate crescendo. Here is where the film’s director Michael Cimino deserves a huge amount of credit. He showed in The Deer Hunter that he is a patient film maker and he will not be rushed. We sit through this scene watching prisoner after hapless prisoner blow his own brains out for the entertainment and gambling fix of these sadistic captors. They take so much pleasure in not only the deaths of these men, but also in the fearful state that they put them through first. It would be easy to just execute them. These men would rather have fun doing it. And Cimino shows that through the slow build of the scene. Another thing that really got my attention during this scene was when the trigger was pulled on an empty chamber. In an excellent example of how sound is half of your film, the sound of the click was just as loud as the sound of the shot. It was so intense that is was almost more gut wrenching to hear the click of an empty chamber than the shot of a loaded one.

Michael and the others escape, but Steven will never get over his physical wounds and Nick will never get over his mental and emotional wounds. They all get separated again and Nick is taken to a field hospital in Saigon where he suffers a complete breakdown. On leave, he happens across an arena where men are playing Russian roulette for money, and a French gambler offers Nick a way to make money doing that. Michael happens to be there and sees Nick and tries to chase him down, but it’s too late. The Frenchman has ensnared Nick in his trap.

Act 3 starts with Michael arriving home. It is the archetypal return from the strange land with new knowledge and a new perspective on life. Everything is mostly the same, but slightly different, as noted by Stan’s long hair and mustache. The town is the same, but Michael is totally different. He has no interest in attending a party celebrating his return, and he no longer fits in with these people the way he used to. These are simple people leading simple lives, and his life, by virtue of what he went through in the Special World, doesn’t fit here anymore. His life is more complicated and he’s no longer comfortable in this world. The one thing that he has here that he wants is Linda, but she’s betrothed to Nick, and Michael’s loyalty to him, even though he doesn’t know if he’s dead or alive, keeps him at first from succumbing to the desire to completely be with her. But he is distant from his friends, and when they go on a deer hunt, he has a deer in his sights, but cannot bring himself to shoot it. Michael now has a compassion that he never had before. He has experienced death, and that has given him a new value for life.

Unfortunately that value for life has one last test when he discovers that Nick has been sending Steven money. Saigon is about to fall, but Michael goes back to try and find Nick. He does finally find him getting paid to play Russian roulette, and he has to bargain with the managers of the game to take Nick with him. But Nick is so far gone mentally that he doesn’t even recognize Michael until Michael has to put the gun to his own head and pull the trigger. After it clicks, Michael begs Nick to just come home, and Nick replies, “Just one shot”. It’s one shot too many, though, as Nick pulls the trigger on a loaded chamber and kills himself.

Back in Pennsylvania they have Nick’s funeral, and everyone gets together at John’s bar for a remembrance. After some emotional struggles, John starts humming God Bless America, and then Linda starts singing it. Finally everyone joins in and they end by raising their glasses in a toast to Nick. To me, this is a very powerful ending that is telling us as a country that it’s time to move on from Vietnam. It’s time to let those wounds heal, let the dead rest in peace, and get on with our lives as a society. In that moment we also realize that this film is far greater than the sum of its parts. This is a film that is about redemption and forgiveness and loyalty. Thematically it may be one of the strongest films that I’ve ever seen, but you have to be willing to put in some effort as a viewer in order to fully appreciate it. It’s a thinking person’s film that requires patience to follow the film where it’s going. If you can do that, you will be rewarded by enjoying this very fine film.

I need to say one more thing as an aside and that is to write a small tribute to John Cazale. He was sick with cancer when this film was shooting and he died shortly after filming wrapped. It was a tragic loss. Think about where he could have gone as an actor. He was a supporting actor in five films: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Three of those films won Best Picture and the other two were nominated for Best Picture. Yes, he was a supporting actor in all of them, but he gave some powerful performance, particularly in The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon. The scene in The Godfather Part II in which he breaks down to Michael about how no one ever believed in him and how he’s smarter than people think he is, is a heartbreakingly powerful scene. His overall performance as Sal in Dog Day Afternoon is amazing, as he is constantly on the edge, just about to lose control and kill all of the hostages. He played it perfectly, so you believed that he could go crazy without ever showing that he would. It was an amazing performance by an amazing actor who was taken from us far too soon.

Did the Academy get it right?

I believe they did. While there were some excellent films nominated in 1978, like Heaven Can Wait and Midnight Express, The Deer Hunter is just one of those films that is on a different level. It has classic elements of mythic structure that speak to very deep levels of our psyche and the filmmakers used those elements to tell an effective story that, while it wasn’t told in a traditional way, was no less effective at evoking raw emotions and feelings that made this a very powerful film. It was truly deserving of being named the Best Picture of 1978.

I need to start this out with full disclosure here. I am not a huge fan of Woody Allen’s films. I like some of his films, and don’t like others. I have always respected Woody Allen as a writer, as a film maker and as a comedian. However I find his humor to be very hit or miss. When it hits, it’s very funny, and when it misses it’s quite often uncomfortable. Annie Hall is probably Woody Allen’s signature film, and I think it very much encapsulates Woody Allen as a film maker. The scenes that are funny are very funny. The scenes that are not are not at all, and in this film more than some of his others, he really brings attention to himself as a film maker through the varying techniques that he used throughout the film.

Before I get too far into this, I want to preface it with one other point. Humor is very, very subjective. I suspect that the reason more comedies haven’t won Best Picture is that one man’s comedy is another man’s discomfort. I love the humor of Monty Python. Many people do not. If you’re a fan of that type of humor, you’re going to love films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Monty Python’s Life of Brian or A Fish Called Wanda. If you’re not a fan of that type of humor, you’re probably not going to like those films. That’s the case with any style of comedy. It’s so subjective, that even within the genre there are many different styles of comedy that may appeal to some and not to others. Other genres may have that issue, but not nearly to the degree that comedy does. You might like Ben Stiller comedies, but hate Hugh Grant comedies. You might hate Wes Anderson, but like Judd Apatow. And the thing of it is that if you don’t like those styles of comedy then you’re probably not going to like the films as a whole.

That is my issue with Woody Allen. I’m not a huge fan of his brand of comedy, so I have a hard time enjoying his films. I loved Midnight in Paris. I didn’t like Blue Jasmine. I liked Bullets Over Broadway. I was not a huge fan of Mighty Aphrodite. He has directed more than 50 films, and it’s entirely possible that I just haven’t seen enough of them, but the films of Woody Allen that I’ve seen (outside of Midnight in Paris) haven’t blown me away.

That leads me to Annie Hall, a film that did not blow me away. In fact, there are stretches of Annie Hall that I found to be almost unwatchable because it was so boring. I understand that I am in the minority here, but this film isn’t even close to being one of my favorites. Is it a bad movie? Of course not. It actually has some amazing writing in it and there are some very cool film making techniques that were used in a way that helped progress the story and make the story more entertaining. But pound for pound and scene for scene, it is not a great film to me.

I will say that there are several strong component in the film and the strongest of those is Annie Hall, herself. Starring in her third Best Picture Winner of the seventies, Diane Keaton had a much larger role than in either of the Godfather films, and her character in Annie Hall was obviously a much more integral role to the story. Even though I am not a huge fan of the film, I am a huge fan of her character, and anyone who is an aspiring screenwriter and is trying to get better at their craft, can learn a lot from this screenplay, penned by Allen and Marshall Brickman, which also won Best Screenplay on Oscar night. Annie starts out the film as a free-spirited air head but grows into a confident and educated woman who is in touch with who she is and has grown beyond what she starts out needing. In fact, I dare say that Annie learns and grows much more than Alvy does, and Alvy is the true main character of the film. That isn’t to say that Alvy doesn’t learn anything, because he does, although it’s too late to save the relationship.

What I also enjoyed about Annie’s growth is that it was motivated by Alvy. They meet playing tennis with mutual friends, and then she drives him home. The next thing you know they’re dating. Alvy is a comic and an intellectual, and Annie is trying to become a singer, but what she has in talent, she lacks in confidence. Alvy encourages her to start taking adult education classes and he encourages her to start going to therapy, and he provides things for her that wake her up from emotional and intellectual standpoints. Then, in one of the great bits of cinematic irony, Annie realizes that she no longer needs Alvy, and that he is, in fact, holding her back.

But really with the character of Annie Hall, everything comes back to Diane Keaton, and how she turned this film into one of her signature roles. Keaton is one of the most admired women in Hollywood, and has earned that distinction for the work that she has done over the past 45 years. Annie Hall is her signature film, however, because it’s the role that we think of when we think of her as an actress, which is somewhat stunning to me considering her role as Kay in The Godfather films. What makes the role of Annie Hall more of a staple for Diane Keaton is the previously mentioned growth of the character and how well Keaton acted that out. She’s just as believable as the flaky, free-spirited artist as she is as the confident, mature singer. What’s more is that even though she reaches those different extremes, you never feel like she’s a different person. The character growth is natural and organic and Diane Keaton played that role as well as any actor has played any role. Do you think that’s hyperbole? The Academy didn’t, as Keaton won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Annie Hall.

Even though the humor isn’t really working for me in Annie Hall, I think that the story is working very well. Again, one of the difficult things to do in a comedy is separate the story from the jokes. Even if you’re not a fan of the style of humor, the challenge is always still trying to relate to the story, and Annie Hall does have a very strong story.

I say that, even though the story is told in a very unconventional way. It is not a linear story, and the timeline jumps around quite a bit. That’s just one of the unique techniques that Allen used to tell this story. He also did some other interesting things, like using subtitles during one scene to show that Annie and Alvy are actually meaning something completely different from what they’re saying. He’s showing us the subtext in this way, and it actually is quite funny. There are also some scenes where the characters step outside of themselves and give a different perspective on what’s happening. My favorite of these scenes is when Alvy wants to have sex with Annie, but she needs to smoke weed first, and he’d rather she not. She becomes completely disinterested and we see her become two people as one version of her leaves the bed and the version of her still in bed tells Alvy that he can have her body but her mind is elsewhere. There are also a few examples of breaking the fourth wall and Alvy will speak directly to the audience. There is even an animated scene where Annie is represented by the evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Alvy is one of the dwarfs. What’s remarkable about that is that this film came out in the late seventies when animation was at a nadir in terms of popularity and appeal.

One other thing that I think should be mentioned that I’ve never heard talked about in Annie Hall is the cinematography. This is a very well shot film and the use of deep space as opposed to flat space is very effective. They also used color very effectively whether it was everyone wearing white in Los Angeles or all of the gray tones in New York, this is a film that also has a visual story to tell, and it’s told quite well.

Even though I’m probably in the minority in terms of how I feel about the level of greatness of this film, I do think it’s actually a very fine piece of film making. Part my issues with Allen’s films could also be Allen himself, as I don’t particularly care for his shtick. Yes, he has made a long and distinguished career for himself with that shtick, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure that his intention is to set himself up as an underdog, but it always comes off as annoyingly self-deprecating. He has also made a career about being neurotic and even points out his neuroses several times during this film. It can be funny at times, but a little goes a long way.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. There was one film that should have won Best Picture in 1977, and that film was Star Wars. Think I’m out of my mind? Star Wars was ranked #15 on the original AFI Top 100 movies of all time and Annie Hall was ranked #31. The 10-year anniversary of the list bumped Star Wars up to #13 while it dropped Annie Hall to #35. The only component in which Annie Hall is superior to Star Wars is the acting, but Star Wars is superior to Annie Hall in every other way. It has a better story with a more complete Hero’s Journey. It’s more entertaining and it’s visually stunning for its time. Star Wars also changed cinema in a profound way. Just as Jaws helped to usher in the summer blockbuster a couple of years earlier, Star Wars took it to the next level, but it was more than just a blockbuster. There is actually quite a bit of depth and structure to the story in Star Wars. George Lucas was able to use mythic structure to create characters with whom the audience could relate even though they were living in a universe of science fiction mixed with fantasy the likes of which no one had ever seen before. It became and iconic brand that would become ingrained in our popular culture in a way that no film had before or since. Star Wars was on the cutting edge that would eventually become the norm, and by almost any measure it was the Best Picture of 1977.

While it might be easy to dismiss Rocky as a great film when you think about the long line of mediocre sequels that came in its wake, that would be a mistake. The second film in the series approaches the greatness of the first, but from the third film on, they turned the character and the franchise into more of a caricature than anything else. The second film managed to hold on to the grit and edge of the first film, and it still had the thematic element of the underdog over coming long odds to succeed. The later films in the series would usually be missing one of those key elements. As the series moved from the 70’s into the 80’s and 90’s, it lost a lot of the grit and rawness that made the original feel so edgy. Rocky III and Rocky IV felt especially polished and lacked the heart of the first two films. To me, that is unfortunate because Rocky is one of the greatest films of the second half of the 20^th Century. It’s arguably the greatest boxing movie of all time, and it’s one of the seminal underdog stories.

There are a lot of things that make Rocky such a great film, but first and foremost is its heart. This is an emotional story about a guy who couldn’t be more down on his luck at the start of the film and shows by the end that he has the heart of a champion. Screenwriter Sylvester Stallone (who also famously starred in the title role) crafted a character that is both flawed and likable. He’s a meathead and an average fighter who has to work as hired muscle for a local loan shark to make his living. He has a good heart, though, as evidenced by his treatment of Adrian (Talia Shire), as well as when he tries to give advice to a local neighborhood girl about not hanging out with the wrong crowd. The girl throws his advice back in his face, but Adrian eventually sees him for the kind man that he is, and she opens up to him and becomes his girlfriend. “Yo Adrian” has become a cliché in the pop culture lexicon, but the relationship that Stallone and director John G. Avildsen built between the two of them is anything but cliché. This relationship was meticulously developed over the course of the first half of the film, so that by the time Rocky opens up to Adrian about knowing that he can’t beat Apollo, but only hopes that he can go the distance, we know that these are two people that love each other and are there for each other. This is important because the film starts with Rocky having no one and not really caring about anyone as well.

Meticulous is actually an appropriate word when it comes describing this film and the story. To be perfectly honest, the script (which was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) isn’t written with the classic Hollywood three-act structure. There is a clear Hero’s Journey, and all of the stages are there, but Rocky is the perfect example of how all of those stages don’t have to happen in the traditional places in order for the screenplay to be successful. For example, Rocky doesn’t receive his Call to Adventure until half way through the film. Usually the Call to Adventure happens within the first few minutes. Rocky’s Call to Adventure is the offer to fight Apollo Creed for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Rocky sees himself as a bum of a fighter because that’s all anyone has ever told him he is, so he Refuses the call right away, but the refusal lasts less than one scene. We’re more than half way through the film when the Meeting of the Mentor happens. We’ve already met Mickey earlier in the film, but he doesn’t become Rocky’s actual Mentor until Rocky accepts the Call to fight Creed, and Rocky also initially refuses Mickey’s offer to manage him, citing the fact that no one believed in him until this opportunity landed in his lap.

Indeed, most of the Hero’s Journey happens over the second half of the film. The reason for that is because the first half of the film is meticulously showing Rocky’s Ordinary World and what an awful place it is for him. The film actually opens with the Tests, Allies and Enemies stage, which normally is the start of the second act. No one, and I mean no one, believes in this guy, and he gives people very little reason to believe in him. Every time Rocky turns around, someone else is calling him a bum or some other bad thing is happening to him. Once again, Stallone and Avidsen did an outstanding job of showing Rocky as, not only an underdog in the ring, but as an underdog in life. There’s not future for this guy if he keeps going on his current track, and he sees no way to get off if this track. His life is drab and without color and without any one who cares about him. One rather poignant scene shows Rocky looking at a picture of himself from when he was a boy as it hangs on the mirror. He says nothing but his expression speaks volumes of how ashamed he is on behalf of that kid for what he sees that his life has become. He basically fails every test, has many enemies, and his only allies are the loan shark, Adrian and Paulie.

And then, forty five minutes into the film, we finally get our inciting incident, and that is when Apollo Creed randomly selects Rocky to fight him in a match celebrating America’s bicentennial. That’s when things start going Rocky’s way, but it happens in a very organic way. Again, Stallone and Avidsen worked this perfectly because they avoided everything going right for Rocky all at once. He still had people that didn’t believe in him and he still had a mix of good and bad things happening to him. Things started going well for him in a way that was organic and realistic. They didn’t just pull a switch, and everything for Rocky was better. Things gradually started to go his way, and the mood of the film started to become markedly more uplifting.

So what really is working with the screenplay for Rocky is the overall story arc. This starts out as a largely character-driven piece, with a storyline that doesn’t really move very much over the entire first half of the film. It shows a down-on-his-luck boxer living a life that seemingly will never get better. But we like this guy, because he seems like a good person who has just been dealt a lot of bad luck. Then his luck suddenly changes for the better and the story starts to move at a much quicker pace. All along, we’re learning what Rocky needs. He needs to be respected. He needs people to see value in him and he needs to be able to see that value in himself as well. All that said, we really don’t know what Rocky wants, however, until just before the climax of the film. He confesses to Adrian that he knows he can’t beat Creed, but if he can just go the distance, then he can prove to everyone that he’s not a bum. No one has ever gone the distance with Creed, so he figures that if he can do that, then he’ll gain the respect that he’s never had.

That quiet and tender moment juxtaposes one of the great climaxes in the history of cinema. That might sound somewhat hyperbolic, but the climax of Rocky is truly one of the most emotional, tense and riveting climaxes I’ve ever seen. Even though it’s shown mostly through a montage, when they get back into real time, we feel like we’ve been in the ring with Rocky and Apollo. What a great moment it is when Apollo knocks Rocky down in the 14^th round of the fight, and Mickey is telling Rocky to stay down because he’s taken enough of a beating, but Rocky refuses to be denied and to the disbelief of Creed, Rocky not only gets up, but continues to fight, and lays some hard punches on Creed that cause internal bleeding and nearly make him have to give up the fight. All of that leads us to the epic 15^th round, and the hope that Rocky can fulfil his dream and go the distance against the champ. This is great storytelling. This is a story that is well-told.

One other thing I would like to mention is Talia Shire. She has perhaps the second most important role in this film, and in fact, in the entire series. She did a wonderful job in Rocky as the shy and mousy Adrian, who steals Rocky’s heart and helps us see him as a human being with a heart and with feelings rather than just a knucklehead boxer. Adding a love interest to a story is often a good idea because it gives the hero more to lose. In the case of Rocky, however, it was a little different. We never are afraid that Rocky will lose Adrian because it’s never an issue. The main purpose of Adrian in this film is to humanize Rocky. She’s there as a conduit for his emotions so that we as the audience can relate to Rocky on an emotional level. Without Adrian in this film, we wouldn’t be able to connect with Rocky on as deep a level, so in that case, Adrian is a very important character indeed. Again, we always her “Yo Adrian” as some sort of joke or punchline, but Adrian’s character was a very important device in this film and critical to its success.

Also, this would be the third film of the decade that Talia Shire starred in that would win Best Picture. She was a much more minor character, playing Connie Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), but she joined Clark Gable (It Happened One Night in 1934, Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935and Gone With the Wind in 1939) as the only actors (so far, Diane Keaton will join them the following year) to have starring roles in three Best Picture winners in the same decade.

The last thing I want to say before I discuss whether the Academy was correct was that much of this film is so iconic that it’s become cliché. I’ve discussed the “Yo Adrian” line, but the score is one of the most recognizable scores ever. Almost anyone could hear that score and immediately recognize where it came from. The character of Mickey is one of the great mentors in cinema history and his line about Ricky eating lightning and crapping thunder is one of the great lines in the film. The film is also dated. Whether it’s the score or the look of the film, it feels like the 70’s. And as I mentioned at the top, the mediocrity of some of the later entries into this franchise have, I believe, diminished the legacy of the original. That is too bad because Rocky is an exceptional film that is worthy of praise, and shouldn’t be judged on clichés.

Did the Academy get it right?

It would be very easy to look at the list of other nominees in 1976 and say that Rocky had no business winning Best Picture. All the President’s Men was a powerful film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the reporters who broke the Watergate story, which as we all know led to the downfall and resignation of President Richard Nixon. Network was an equally powerful film with one of the most iconic movie lines of all time (“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”). It starred Faye Dunaway, Robert Duval, William Holden, and Peter Finch, and it was a very dramatic film about the television industry, specifically the news industry. If you haven’t seen that film, or if you haven’t seen it recently, take a look at it. You will be stunned by how many things that film predicted that came true. Perhaps the most deserving film of 1976, however, was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Ranked #47 on AFI’s original list of the top 100 films of all time (Rocky is #78 and Network is #66), this was the film that made a name for Scorsese’s and pushed Robert DeNiro closer to superstardom. Taxi Driver is really the antithesis of Rocky. It shows the darkest recesses of people’s psyches and shows the terrible things they’re capable of when they let those negative impulses take control. Where Rocky showed the best of what people can accomplish, Taxi Driver showed the worst, and I think that’s why Rocky won. Even the other two films that I mentioned end on pessimistic notes, and show the results of people acting, if not at their worst, then certainly close to it. I think that in 1976, on the heels of Watergate and the Nixon resignation, and still smarting from Vietnam, Academy members must have been looking for something more uplifting, or something that showed how great people can be when we had been confronted for so long by people being at their worst. Rocky, with its underdog overcoming adversity, and its themes of gaining respect and finding your inner champion, was actually the perfect film for the perfect time. I would not blame anyone for voting for All the President’s Men or Network (one of my 10 favorite films) or Taxi Driver. Any one of those films would have been a worthy winner for 1976. Rocky, however was the champ and it was just as worthy as any of those other films might have been.