I am a bit conflicted about West Side Story. On the one hand, you have a film that is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. AFI has it ranked #51 on its list of the 100 best movies. On the other hand we have a film that is terribly dated and doesn’t hold up as well as some other musicals. West Side Story has some of the most recognizable songs to ever appear in a film, but it also has some songs that are so bad that they’re really hard to listen to. A lot of the dancing in West Side Story is spectacular, but a lot of the dancing feels out of place to the point where it looks ridiculous.

It is this dancing that I’d like to start out talking about. The opening sequence of West Side Story is one of the most ridiculous sequences I’ve ever been exposed to. There is a duality to it that just doesn’t work for me. It’s also one of the most iconic scenes ever shot. It starts out promising enough as we see members of the Jets gang snapping their fingers in unison and looking intense. The implication is that these are tough guys who have seen some tough things and been in some tough situations. The snapping is deliberate and cool. The guys look tough and cool. Then, inexplicably, they start dancing ballet. Now, I don’t know about you but nothing says tough to me like a bunch of plies and arabesques. (sarcasm). I can’t stress enough how much I was taken out of the scene by watching them dance in a ballet style as they’re supposed to be presenting a tough exterior. There was just too much of a disconnect for me in it. There was too much of a contrast between what I was supposed to be feeling and what I was actually seeing. It was one of those unintentionally funny moments that you never want to see in a film, and it took me out of the movie completely and lowered my hopes for what was to come.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have a total appreciation for the talented dancers that performed in this scene and throughout the film. The choreography of the opening of West Side Story is a-maz-ing. On its own, the dancing is superb and splendid. However, it’s misplaced in this scene. The scene and the dancing just don’t belong together.

I had never seen West Side Story before watching it this weekend. I had seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but I had never watched it all the way through. I always knew that it was an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and that it takes place on the streets of New York rather than the streets of Verona. The role of Romeo is filled by Tony (Richard Beymer), and the role of Juliet is handled by Maria (Natalie Wood) in this contemporary version of the doomed star-crossed lovers. Obviously it isn’t a scene for scene remake of what might be Shakespeare’s best-known work, but the main story points are the same, with the exception of one major difference at the end.

I have mentioned in previous blogs when the Best Picture winner was a musical that musicals quite often feel like action films in that the story is only filler to get us from one musical number to the next. That is not the case with West Side Story. Since they had a great story to start with, it feels like this film’s songs were crafted around the story and thus they help propel the story for the most part. And there are some wonderful songs in this film. America is a particularly strong song for a lot of reasons. First, it’s a great song. It has a wonderful rhythm, melody and tempo. Unlike the opening number, the Latin dancing during the number fits perfectly and is intense and entertaining. Lyrically the song is terrific as the women sing about all of the great things that America is offering them and the men sing about all of the struggles that they face in America. It’s wonderful storytelling that all takes place within the confines of the song. This is truly one of the great examples of a song propelling the story forward while simultaneously developing the characters and it’s all in the lyrics. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on Musicals, but I’ve seen quite a few, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a musical number in a film that has as many qualities as this one. It’s entertaining, well-written, spectacularly performed and propels the story forward.

And there are plenty of other examples of iconic songs from West Side Story that come close to meeting that standard as well, like I Feel Pretty, and Tonight. But then there are some songs that are truly dreadful like the Tonight Quintet and When You’re a Jet. I’m sure many people will disagree with that opinion, but I was shocked at how terrible a song When You’re a Jet was. I understand that these songs were written for a different time and different sensibilities and that’s fine. Let’s just say that some of the songs have held up better than others.

Continuing on with the story, I think it was good. Obviously they had some of the best source material that you could think of, but there have been plenty of people how have screwed up Romeo and Juliet, and director Robert Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman did a top notch job of taking this classic piece of literature and turning it in to a contemporary story that contemporary audiences could have related to. The thing about West Side Story is that no one had ever seen anything like it before. Nowadays we see contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare all the time, but no one had done anything like West Side Story before, or at least not to that degree. Taking a 400-year old play and adding modern music to it and setting it in a modern city with modern ethnic gangs replacing the family feud that was in the original was a fairly revolutionary way to adapt that story. And yes, it is dated, but it was produced for the people of its time and it certainly served them well.

My own personal feelings for West Side Story are that, while I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it either. I have the utmost respect for the talents that went in to making it and I appreciate the spectacle that it was, especially for its time.

One pet peeve that I do have with the story is that Maria lives. I am a Shakespeare fan and somewhat of a purist, although I appreciate adaptations when they’re done well and with good faith. I disagree with the choice to have Maria survive, although I get why they made that choice. She needs to be there to condemn all of the others for their actions; however I would have liked to see her take her own life as Juliet did.

When you look closely at this film, it has all of the elements that you need to be great. It had Jerome Robbins choreographing it at his absolute best. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music, which is some of the most recognizable cinematic music ever produced. It had social commentary about the state of race relations as well as immigration, two hot-button issues that are still dealt with and debated today. It had a message that ultimately implores us to live peacefully together and shows the consequences when we don’t. The cast was led by Natalie Wood, who was probably never more beautiful than she was in this film. And while it’s somewhat awkward that she played a Puerto Rican, she pulled it off with emotion and style. She didn’t do her own singing, but that didn’t really bother me. Most of the rest of the cast performed their roles at equally high levels, and their singing and dancing was second to none.

Ultimately this is a film that, to me, somehow equals less than the sum of its parts. All of the individual components of the film are expertly crafted and taken alone work very well. However, like the opening sequence, when you put all of the components together, they just don’t quite fit right. I think the main reason for me feeling that way is that they film is dated. Now I love plenty of films that are dated and clearly are etched in the time in which they were produced. For some reason, the dated quality of West Side Story bothers me, and while I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, I don’t enjoy it as much as I should.

Did the Academy get it right?

Even with all of that said, I think the Academy got it right in 1961. The Guns of Navarone is a spectacular film that certainly worthy of Oscar consideration. The Hustler is an iconic film and was one of Paul Newman’s signature performances. However it’s a dark film that was shot in black and white, and the previous year’s winner notwithstanding, the Academy was moving away from presenting its award to black and white films. It’s interesting because one thinks of The Hustler as a downer and depressing sort of film, but it ends in a much more upbeat way than does West Side Story. Finally, Judgment at Nuremberg is a seminal courtroom drama, but (all together now) courtroom dramas with the Academy are always bridesmaids and never brides. Overall West Side Story was a powerful film with a great story and entertaining musical productions. It was a spectacle and certainly worthy of winning Best Motion Picture.

For the first time in 5 years, the Academy awarded its highest honor to a black and white, non-cinemascope film. In The Apartment Billy Wilder directed his second Best Picture winner (The Lost Weekend) after also coming close with Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd and Witness for the Prosecution, proving that he was one of the great directors of the 20^th Century. For The Apartment he would reunite with two stars from two of his most recognized films. Jack Lemon (Some Like it Hot) plays the lovable C. C. Baxter, who lets executives from his company use his apartment for romantic trysts that they would surely rather their wives not find out about. Fred MacMurray (Double Indemnity) played the personnel directory Mr. Sheldrake who uses Baxter’s apartment to have an affair with one of the building’s elevator operators, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), with whom Baxter has also fallen in love.

There are a lot of things that make this movie special, but in particular the story is wonderful and deep, and even though it was in black and white and not cinemascope, The Apartment is a textbook lesson on how to effectively tell a story with visual cues. I have two examples that show terrific storytelling where information is supplied without the use of dialogue. The first example is a subtle one. It’s Christmas Eve and Baxter has agreed to let Sheldrake take Ms. Kubelik to the apartment. Depressed and lonely, Baxter goes to a bar and we see the bartender hand him a martini. Baxter removes the olive and puts it on the bar where six other olives, still on their toothpicks, sit in a circle. Baxter carefully arranges them and places the newest olive and toothpick with the rest. Wilder is showing us that Baxter has been there for a long time and has had a lot of drinks. To me that is a much more effective mode of storytelling than to have the bartender tell him he’s had enough or to show him acting in a drunken way.

The second example occurs when Baxter returns a broken compact mirror to Mr. Sheldrake that was left behind in his apartment. At this point, Baxter does not know that Ms. Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress. Sheldrake admits that they had a fight and that his girl and she threw the compact at him, and that sometimes women can’t be reasoned with. Then a little while later, Baxter needs a mirror to see how he looks with his new bowler hat, and when Ms. Kubelik lets him borrow her compact mirror, Baxter notices that it was the same one that he found back in the apartment. It’s a perfect way for Baxter to find out that Ms. Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress without anyone having to come out and say it. It’s also a lot cleverer than simply having Baxter walk in on them. It’s smart filmmaking that relies on the fact that the audience is paying attention, and thus respects the audience’s intelligence by revealing important information this way. Then, when there is some dialogue, it’s loaded with subtext. Baxter reacts to realizing that it’s the same mirror from his apartment and Ms. Kubelik asks him what the matter is. He points out to her that her mirror is broken. Now, Ms. Kubelik, who has just found out from Sheldrake’s secretary that she’s merely the latest in a long line of flings, responds to Baxter pointing out that her mirror is broken by saying, “Yes, I know. I like it that way. It makes me look the way I feel.” That is terrific dialogue. Her heart is broken, and as we’ll find out a few scenes later, she’s so broken on the inside that she’s ready to attempt suicide.

Speaking of Ms. Kubelik’s attempted suicide, it uses a very effective example of planting and payoff, another technique of which there are several examples throughout this extraordinary film. This particular example starts with what appears to be a throw-away line in the first act. Having been stuck out of his apartment the previous night, Baxter has come down with a cold and is trying to sleep it off when he gets a phone call from Mr. Dobisch, one of the executives at the company, and he has met a girl at a bar and he thinks he’s going to get lucky. Baxter tells Dobisch that he’s sick and that he’s taken a sleeping pill and that he needs to sleep. However, Dobisch pulls rank on him and holds a promotion over his head in order to get Baxter to relent, which of course he does. This plant is paid off in the second act when Sheldrake and Ms. Kubelik are having a rendezvous in Baxter’s apartment. Sheldrake had formerly told Ms. Kubelik that he intends to leave his wife, but now he’s telling her that now isn’t a good time because it’s the holidays, and she needs to be more patient. She gives him a record album of their song as a Christmas gift, and Sheldrake, having not gotten her a gift, gives her a $100 bill and then leaves. She tells him that she wants to stay to clean her face since she’s been crying and in Baxter’s medicine cabinet she finds a half-full bottle of sleeping pills, which we are not surprised to see because Baxter had mentioned taking one earlier. Ms. Kubelik takes them all and is discovered later by Baxter, which sets the second half of the film in motion.

Another great moment of planting and payoff involves the key. Baxter gets locked out of his apartment because Mr. Kirkeby gave him back the wrong key. The key he gave him was to the executive wash room. Over the course of the entire film, Baxter is acquiescing to these guys because he wants to move up the company ladder. He never is able to stand up for himself, but he has climbed all the way to being Sheldrake’s second in command, which gets him an office with a window and a key to the executive washroom. Then Sheldrake wants to use his apartment on New Year’s Eve with Ms. Kubelik, even after everything that’s happened. Finally, Baxter stands up for himself and tells him no, especially not with Ms. Kubelik. Sheldrake then tells him that everything will be taken away unless he hands over the key. Appearing to acquiesce yet again, Baxter hands over a key and goes to his office. Sheldrake follows him in there and tells him he gave him the wrong key. Baxter tells him that he didn’t. That’s the key to the executive washroom, and he’s quitting. Finally, Baxter has stood up for himself and Wilder as both writer and director used the technique of planting and payoff brilliantly. The best use of planting and payoff is when you can put the most time possible between the plant and the payoff. This particular plant happens in the first act. As a matter of fact, it’s within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Then the payoff doesn’t happen until the third act, and it’s within 15 minutes of the end of the movie. It is an absolutely terrific use of that technique, and this is certainly a screenplay that any aspiring writer could find instructive for the reasons I’ve already laid out and there are many other examples of great writing throughout the film.

I had seen this film before, but what struck me so much while I was watching this time was how visual of a story it is. The previous four winners of Best Motion Picture were all shot in Cinemascope wide screen format, but none of them told their stories as effectively from a visual standpoint as The Apartment. The Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben-Hur were both amazing films that used the new technology much more effectively from a storytelling point of view than did either Gigi or Around the World in 80 Days, however, The Apartment with its black and white film and its standard format, told a story that was not only written well, but shown just as well as any of those films. Was it eye candy? No. Was it stunning to look at? No. But it didn’t need to be. Wonder of wonders, the storytelling was enough. As mentioned in previous examples. Wilder used visual keys and cues to propel the story forward. He didn’t need cinemascope to do it because he trusted his audience to pick up on the keys and cues that he was leaving. He trusted his own talent as a filmmaker to craft a film that was emotionally powerful, humorous at times and so riveting that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. Not because of the spectacle, but because the story was so engaging.

There’s one more point I’d like to make about this film as well, and that has to do with the powerhouse performances of the actors. It is my contention that Jack Lemon is one of the more underrated actors of the 20^th Century. That guy could do it all and he could do it all well. He didn’t have the gravitas of Charlton Heston or the presence of James Stewart or the depth of Gregory Peck or the pure methodology of Marlon Brando or Paul Newman. But he had that “everyman” quality that none of them had. All of those actors played rolls that Lemon could never have pulled off, but could you see Brando or Newman or Heston playing Baxter? Or Felix Unger from The Odd Couple? Or Jerry from Some Like it Hot? I don’t think so. And in The Apartment, Jack Lemon gave what might have been his signature performance. This was an incredibly difficult role to play because he’s the straight man in a world of odd balls. He’s the moral compass in a world of debauchery. He’s the one who needs to get the girl even though he’s the least likely to do so. He is you. He is me. Any one of us could be Baxter, and Lemon played him perfectly. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the fine acting job done by Shirley MacLaine. She is absolutely wonderful in this film as a vulnerable, emotionally fragile, yet quirky and fun-loving elevator operator. MacLaine gave Ms. Kubelik just enough vulnerability without making her weak. She gave her just enough sass to keep her from coming off as cocky. She’s the perfect girl for Baxter, and we as the audience root the whole time for them to end up together.

Did the Academy get it right?

I believe they did. It wasn’t a terribly strong year, at least when considering what was nominated against it. John Wayne’s The Alamo is certainly an iconic film, and Elmer Gantry is also very well respected. However, The Apartment with its complex simplicity and its carefully crafted story was in a league of its in in 1960. Psycho was a film that was released that year but was not even nominated, and has become one of the most iconic films ever. It’s also rated #18 on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all time. The Apartment is not on the list, but this is one of those times where AFI and I part company. The Apartment was the best film of 1960, and a deserving winner of Best Motion Picture.

This is what I have to say about Ben-Hur: it is one of the finest films that I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. Over the past 50 years, it’s probably become something of a parody, with the chariot race being parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to Star Wars. That chariot race, by the way, is among the most intense ten minutes ever committed to celluloid. Aside from the chariot race, however, this is a deep and entertaining film that is about finding peace in your heart when you’re thirsting for revenge. It’s about the triumph of the human spirit over what should be insurmountable odds. It’s about a man who has everything and then loses it all, but gains it back again by staying true to himself and what he believes in.

Ben-Hur is an epic film on the level Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. At number 72 it doesn’t rank as high on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all time, but in my humble opinion, it certainly is in their class. This is a film that has it all. Shot in Cinemascope, it has amazing cinematography. It also uses the widescreen format to help tell the story, and not just during the epic chariot race, but at other key points of the film as well. This is also a film that has great moments of action. Of course there is the chariot race, and everyone knows that scene, but there are also some lesser known scenes that have great action and great intensity. The scene when Judah is first taken into custody by the Romans, and he escapes his cell and frantically searches the prison for his mother and sister is a riveting scene that you can’t take your eyes off of. The naval battle where Judah is a slave on the galley ship and escapes and rescues Quintus Arias is a scene that was ahead of its time for complexity and special effects and is not only entertaining, but has an important story turn as well. Any film that stars Charlton Heston will have terrific acting, at least from the main character, but the acting in Ben-Hur is very solid throughout, and that helps the audience get engaged even further with the characters in the film.

I will say this, however. Even with all of its grandiose action and cinematography, even with its epic scale and vision, even with its biblical overtones and Christian themes, this is ultimately a film about betrayal and redemption. From these simple thematic elements has grown a film of enduring power and presence. That is what ends up making this film so iconic. The only reason we remember the chariot race is because we’re so emotionally involved with Judah and we know his motivation for wanting so badly to win it.

I’m going to do something a little different here than I’ve been doing with the past Best Picture blogs, because it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider Bun-Hur an action movie. In fact, if you were to look it up on IMDB, they classify its genre as Adventure/Drama. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to say that Ben-Hur is the grandfather of the modern action/adventure film. I’m thinking about his because there is a remake of Ben-Hur in the works and I’m wondering if modern film makers have the ability to craft as fine a piece of film as William Wyler did 55 years ago. Or to be more precise, will the modern-day studio allow director Timur Bekmambetov the latitude to somehow improve on Wyler’s classic. I’m not optimistic.

Let’s take it in the context of another modern-day adventure film where betrayal and redemption are also thematic elements, and that film is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s been one of 2014’s biggest films so far, amassing nearly $260 million at the domestic box office and more than $700 million worldwide. It was also rated 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, so by every measure, this is a successful film.

Even with all of that, it isn’t half the film that Ben-Hur is. The latter has characters that are more compelling and with whom you sympathize more, even though they lived 2,000 years ago. The compelling nature of the characters leads to a story that is a lot more interesting. That is what films like Captain America and many of the other contemporary action/adventure films are missing. These films are little more than visual effects spectacles, and yet Ben-Hur was at least as stunning to look at as anything that is being enhanced with CG today.

Let’s take a look at the main characters for an example. Steve Rogers is the hero whose alter ego is Captain America. He is righteous and virtuous, and he never does the wrong thing, except for when it’s for the right reasons. As a character, he is about as vanilla as his name, and when his mentor Nick Fury shows him a new weapon system that will allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to locate and kill terrorists before they commit acts of terror, Steve immediately sees the moral conflict in it. His great act of defiance is to stand up to an organization that is doing something that any rational human being would think is bad. There is not internal conflict within him, and it doesn’t come through even when the filmmakers tried to manufacture an internal conflict by having his enemy, the Winter Soldier, appear as the genetically modified Bucky Barnes, Steve’ s best friend before the war. So ultimately there is no internal conflict for Steve. He’s a good guy who always does the right thing. Not only that, but they start to scratch the surface of a potential romance with Natasha Romanoff that‘s never paid off, and Alexander Pierce, the villain played by none other than Robert Redford, is a caricature. In fact, all of these characters are caricatures. They have no depth and they have no way or nowhere to grow. That results in a total lack of drama that leaves Captain America: The Winter Soldier as nothing more than eye candy.

On the other hand, Judah Ben-Hur starts off the film as a prince of Judea. He is wealthy but still maintains close ties to his roots and ancestry, so that when his childhood friend Messala returns from Rome as Tribune and asks Judah to betray his own people, Judah refuses. Judah is a pacifist and has no interest in war, but he tells Messala that he can’t and won’t betray his own people just to keep the peace. Furious with Judah, Messala pounces on an opportunity to get revenge when Judah’s sister causes an accident that almost injures the new governor, and has Judah, his sister and mother sold into slavery. As Judah is being led in chains through the deserts of Judea, the soldiers stop in the village of Nazareth for water, but they tell the villagers not to give any to Judah. One man, however, does give him water. We never see His face, but it’s clearly Jesus Christ who is giving Judah the water, and Judah cannot take his eyes off of Him, and the soldiers can only relent to the air of peace that surrounds Him. Judah spends the next three years as an oarsman in a Roman galley and the hate in him is palpable. The only thing keeping him alive is his desire for revenge. This attitude catches the eye of General Quintus Arias, who makes Judah an offer to race chariots in Rome. Judah, single focused, refuses, but later rescues Quintus Arias during a battle, and Quintus adopts him as his own son. With a new found freedom, Judah returns to Judea with his heart still full of hatred for the man who betrayed him. Then, even after Judah achieves his revenge, he still isn’t able to find peace in his heart until he sees Christ again, this time going through His crucifixion. He later relates to his sister that even as Christ was on the cross, He asked God to forgive them, fore they know not what they do. Even in the throes of death and pain, Christ was able to forgive and find peace, and that gave Judah something higher to which to aspire.

The point here is that Judah Ben-Hur was a character who had depth. He also went through a complete character arc of a man who was searching for revenge, but instead found peace. And not only does the character of Judah have depth, but so do most of the supporting characters. Many of them grow and change during their time in the story. Arias, for example, starts out his time in the story as a brutal and tough soldier and ends it as a loving father-figure. There is no shortage of action in Ben-Hur, but they also took the time to craft a dramatic story with engaging characters, and that is something that is largely lacking from contemporary action/adventure films.

Now, is this a perfect film? No, it is not. If there is a problem with it, it’s that it’s a too long, coming in at two three hours and forty minutes. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure if there’s an hour’s worth of material in there for them to cut out. Also, Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, was subject to bouts of over-acting during quite a bit of his screen time. But for the most part, this is an exceptionally made film, and even at nearly four hours long, was a pleasure to sit through.

Did the Academy get it right?

You’ve probably surmised by now that I believe they did. That’s not to say that Ben-Hur didn’t have any stiff competition. Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder starting James Stewart was a brilliant courtroom drama, but as I’ve mentioned before and will mention again, courtroom dramas are often bridesmaids and rarely brides with the Academy. The Diary of Anne Frank was a powerful film as well and certainly worthy of Oscar consideration. However, as a sheer filmmaking accomplishment, Ben-Hur was clearly the most deserving film of 1959 and among the most deserving ever to win the award.

The Academy’s infatuation with Cinemascope continued as a film using that technology won for the third straight year, even though in this particular year there were at least two and possibly three films that were more deserving. More on that later, but Gigi with all of its color and spectacle and music came away with the statue in 1958 due in large part, I’m sure, to its use of this new widescreen format that made movies even bigger than they were before and were now so much larger than life. What I will say about Gigi is that it’s one of those winners that kind of ticks me off. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it. It’s entertaining enough. It produced two iconic songs in Thank Heaven for Little Girls and I Remember it Well. But even with the fine songs, the grandiosity and the beautiful cinematography, I was left wanting more. That’s because the story is a disorganized mess. In fact, as the movie was meandering towards its climax, the word that kept coming into my mind in regards to how this story was being told was clumsy. This film has a clumsy story.

I will get to the story in further detail in a moment, but the first thing I need to talk about it my main beef with this film and that is with its misuse of Leslie Caron. This was her second starring role in a Best Picture winner and she was the headlining talent for the film, but she was not the film’s main character. That role instead was handled by Gaston, played with debonair sophistication by Louis Jourdan, who you might remember from such classics as Octopussy and Swamp Thing. Gaston is an upper class playboy who has a different woman in his life seemingly every week. Leslie Caron played the title role, who is much younger than Gaston, but their families have been friendly for years and the two of them have been friends forever and often play cards, with Gigi always winning. With Gigi being more of a love interest than a main character, she does little to drive the action and is, in fact, often reacting to what’s going on around her and ultimately has to be rescued at the end. She does nothing to end up with Gaston. In fact, he is the one who makes it happen.

But that isn’t even why I feel that Leslie Caron was under-utilized in Gigi. In her first Best Picture winner, An American in Paris, we saw Caron as the amazing dancer that she was. You can read that blog post to see that I wasn’t particularly impressed with that film either, but one thing that no one can deny is Leslie Caron’s ability as a dancer. She was an amazing ballerina, but also could dance incredibly well in other more modern styles as well. It was Leslie Caron’s dancing, along with the dancing of Gene Kelly that made An American in Paris even worth watching. But she didn’t dance at all in Gigi. She sang a little bit, although Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier sang a lot more. I wasn’t really looking forward too much to seeing this film, but I figured I’d at least see some good dancing from Leslie Caron, and I saw no dancing from her at all, which made Gigi even more disappointing.

The music was actually used as a vehicle for Chevalier’s singing, and there’s no denying that there are some memorable songs in this film, a couple of which have already been mentioned.  Much like in an action movie where the story is only intended to be filler between action sequences, Gigi followed in the footsteps of An American in Paris with a story that largely is just filler to take up the space between songs. There are a lot of times in musicals where that’s not a problem, and the very best musicals often use songs to help propel the story or develop the characters. Gigi does that in certain places, but there are so many songs in it that the story often gets muddled, and as I mentioned before, comes off as clumsy.

I’d rather not get into a full synopsis of the plot, as it is essentially a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-in-the-end story. It’s fairly predictable, but due to the number of songs, it takes forever for the story to get moving. We’re literally halfway through the movie before Gaston even gets an inkling that he’d like to pursue a romantic relationship with Gigi. They’ve clearly known each other a long time and consider each other to be friends. We as the audience know right away that they’re destined for a more romantic relationship, but it takes forever for it to get started and that’s frustrating. It’s also not very good storytelling. If you’re a screenwriter looking for good examples of how not to structure your story, then Gigi is the film for you.

In fact, one of the causes of the story being so clumsy is that it takes so long to get going. The first act of the film doesn’t end until we’re half way through it, and that detail wreaks havoc on the rest of the story, but especially with the third act. As in any romantic/comedy/musical, the second act ends with the two lovers hopelessly broken apart from each other with no apparent path towards reconciliation. Gigi is no different, but because they took so much time with singing and exposition in the first act, there’s no time to build the drama in the second act, and even less time to pay it off in the third act. What we are left with, again, is clumsy storytelling.

Let me finally say what I mean when I say that the storytelling is clumsy. That word really came to me in full force as the film was reaching its climax, which involved a lot of Gaston going to Gigi’s apartment, then leaving without her, thinking that she’s not the one for him, and then inexplicably going back to try again. Then he gets her to go out with him, and they seem to be having a good time, but he again inexplicably feels the need to drag her out of the club they’re in and take her home. Then, and only then, does Gaston realize what he truly wants, and he goes back to Gigi’s apartment again, only this time he asks her to marry him. The whole thing just feels rushed and clumsy. Again, with too many songs in the first and second acts, and not enough storytelling, the last act really suffered to the point where it was hard to care whether these two ended up together or not.

The other problem, and the other reason we don’t particularly care if they get together in the end, is that Gaston is not a particularly likable character. He’s charming and sophisticated, but he’s bored by everything and comes off as being pretentious. He takes advice from Honore Lachaille (Chevalier) and it’s clearly not the type of advice he should be taking. In one scene that is in particularly poor taste, Lachaille boasts to Gaston about the number of girls who have committed suicide over him, and congratulates Gaston on his first girl to attempt suicide. I suppose it could have been funny in the fifties, but for a modern viewer, that whole bit just feels like, as mentioned, something that is in very poor taste. In fact, one must wonder why the carefree, modern thinking Gigi would even give Gaston a second look.

Was it all bad? No, it was not all bad. The musical numbers, while excessive, were still charming and entertaining. In fact I think my favorite scene in the film is when Chavelier sings I Remember it Well, as it’s perhaps the most emotional and melancholy moment of the film as this lifelong gigilo tries to remember the details of what should have been the best night of his life, but he can’t. Shot in Cinemascope, this is a beautiful film to look at, although they didn’t really take as much advantage of the Cinemascope as they could have due to the aforementioned lack of dancing. Widescreen formats are ideal for shooting big dance numbers, and with all of the singing that went on in this film, there should have been more dancing, if for no other reason than to take advantage of the widescreen format. Even without more dancing, however, this is a beautiful film to look at, and similarly to The Bridge on the River Kwai, the filmmakers didn’t reduce themselves to gratuitous widescreen shots that did nothing other than show off the new technology. Now some of you might be thinking that I’m contradicting myself by applauding the film for its lack of gratuity while also criticizing the film for not taking advantage of the technology by shooting lots of dance numbers. But that is exactly the point. Where Around the World in 80 Days wasted lots of time and lots of film by showing a ton of what was basically B-roll that was nonetheless beautiful to look at, those shots did little to advance the story and mainly served as self-serving shots that told the audience, “Look at me! I’m widescreen!” However using the widescreen format to your advantage, like showing a huge dancing number or an intricate action scene is what that format is made for.

Did the Academy get it right?

You’ve probably guessed that the answer is no. For the third year in a row, the Academy chose a film that was shot in Cinemascope. For the second time in those three years, it was clearly not the best film of the year. There were two black and white films that were nominated against it that were clearly better films in that they had more dynamic storylines and more engaging characters. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starred Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, both in their prime sexiness and the sexual tension in that film is palpable. They were also both extraordinary actors and they were each at the tops of their respective games in that film. The other thing going against Cat on a Hot Tin roof was that it all takes place in the same house on the same day, so it clearly lacked the grandiosity of Gigi, but it was a far superior film, as it dealt with heavy themes about family, honesty and what’s to be expected of the next generation. The Defiant Ones is another black and white film that was far superior to Gigi. This one starred Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as members of a chain gang who are chained together and hate each other. When the truck carrying them crashes, giving them a chance to escape, they have to work together and form a bond of mutual respect and understanding. That film also dealt with very serious thematic issues, like race relations and proper methods for the penal system. I would have voted for either of these films over Gigi had I had a vote in 1958. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that I would have voted for Auntie Mame over Gigi as well, as that movie was much funnier, more entertaining and had characters who were way more engaging. So all in all, I feel that Gigi is one of the weaker winners of Best Picture, and the Academy likely favored the politics of the new technology over the quality of what the Best Picture winner should have been.

I am somewhat embarrassed to say that this was the first time that I ever watched The Bridge on the River Kwai. It always seemed to me to be one of those films that you should see on a big screen the first time that you experience it, so I think I was always waiting for a screening of it to pop up somewhere, but it never happened. And while I wasn’t able to see it projected, I was still able to see it big enough to enjoy the amazing piece of work that it was. I enjoyed this film very much, and there are a lot of elements within the film that made it so enjoyable, so successful and so memorable.

It has action that builds in tension and intensity. It has amazing cinematography and art direction, as it is a beautiful film to look at. This film has it all. It has a deep and riveting story that takes several twists and turns throughout. And most importantly and most strikingly, it is filled with deep, complex and flawed characters. No one is entirely good in this film. No one is entirely bad. Even the Japanese colonel who commands the prison camp comes off as sympathetic, as the story reveals the consequences that will befall him if he doesn’t come through on his orders. In fact, this might be the one film that I can think of that successfully changes both the protagonist and antagonist.

The first thing I’d like to discuss in detail is the story and how well it was crafted, constructed and paid off. The first main character that we meet is Commander Shears (William Holden). He’s the only American in a Japanese prison camp in present day Thailand, and we meet him as he’s digging a grave that is next to several other graves. The prison is in the middle of a jungle, and we see right away that the prisoners lead a hard life. Also of note is that there is no fence surrounding the camp and no watch tower. Trying to escape in to the jungle is its own death sentence. We then meet Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) as he and his men whistle that famous tune as they march into camp. Colonel Saito, the camp commander addresses the men and tells them that they’re being charged with building a bridge over the River Kwai and that they’ll be treated well as long as they work hard. He also tells them that the officers will be working alongside them as there is a tight deadline to complete the bridge. Nicholson tells Saito that forcing officers to work is against the Geneva Convention and Saito threatens to shoot all of the officers in cold blood unless they agree to work. Nicholson and his officers are unmoved, however, so Saito forces them into sweatboxes where they will remain until they change their minds.

While Nicholson cooks in the oven, Shears and two others try and escape. His two accomplices are shot, and Shears is shot as well, but manages to escape by leaping off of a cliff into the river and floating downstream until he comes upon a village. Fortunately or him they hate the Japanese as well, and they nurse him back to health and put him on a boat down river where he’s eventually found by the English and taken to a war hospital. Meanwhile Nicholson resolutely refuses to give in until Saito is able to concoct a face-saving reason to let him and his officers out so that their men will work faster. From there Nicholson discovers that the work his men have done so far is shoddy, and even though they were captured with the intent of not building the bridge in time, Nicholson’s English pride takes over. He wants his men to complete the bridge and to build a monument that will stand for centuries to come. This is where the complexity of Nicholson’s character comes in. At first, his motivation is to show Saito that British men and British methods are superior to those of the Japanese. He also wants the men to take pride in what they’re doing in order to keep morale high. He feels that by giving the men the mission of building the best bridge that they’re capable of will do that and he ends up being right. But then an interesting thing happens. He starts to take a little too much pride in the accomplishment. Even though this bridge will aid and assist the enemy, Nicholson is so proud of the accomplishment that he can’t see the folly in what he’s doing. I’ll get the tragic results of that pride in a little bit.

For as Nicholson is getting the bridge completed, Shears has found himself in with a crowd that wants to blow it up. At the hospital, Shears meets Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), a demolitions expert who has been assigned to blow up the bridge so that it will not connect Singapore with Rangoon, as is the Japanese intention. Warden wants Shears to accompany him because he as such good knowledge of the terrain and the camp. Shears follows up this archetypal call to adventure with an equally archetypal refusal of the call. He’s hoping for a medical discharge from the army and has already started having an affair with one of the nurses, even going so far as to plan their lives together after the war. This is where Shears’ character complexity comes in. He tells Warden that not only is he not Shears, but he’s not an officer either. He’s in the Navy and when his ship sunk, he made it ashore with an officer, who died on the beach. Aware that officers are treated better in prison camps than enlisted personnel, he copped Shears’ uniform and identity. He kept up the charade after being rescued because he was being treated so well. Now he’s afraid that he’s going to go from hero who escaped a Japanese prison camp to a dishonorable discharge for impersonating an officer. Warden tells him that he can make up for that by accompanying him on the mission and that he’ll keep his officer status upon their return. They select two other men to go with them, including the green Lt. Joyce, whom they’re not even sure is ready to kill if he needs to, and they parachute in to the jungle. The 4^th member of the mission lands in the trees, and is killed so they bury him and reach their contact in a Burmese village. The chief Yai agrees to take them to the bridge, bit they have to go a different way since the Japanese are patrolling the local area much more frequently. After a run in with some Japanese soldiers in which Warden is wounded, they make it to the bridge. They’ve found out that a train is scheduled to cross it soon, so they want to time the explosion for when the train is on the bridge. Under cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce set the explosives and guide the wire to a clear beach a hundred yards downstream.

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

They wake up the next morning and to their horror, the river has drained and the explosives and wires are exposed. The enlisted personnel march across the bridge, whistling on their way to the next camp. As he patrols the bridge, Nicholson notices the wire and goes down to investigate, summoning Saito to go with him. As they get close to Joyce’s position he jumps out and stabs Saito. The train is about to cross the bridge, but Nicholson won’t let Joyce blow it up. As Japanese gunfire rains down on them, hitting Joyce, Shears runs from the trees to try and help, but he is shot as well. Nicholson sees Shears and comes to his senses, but Warden starts firing a mortar and a shell lands close enough to Nicholson to morally wound him. He falls on the detonator plunger and the bridge explodes just as the train is passing over it, and everything collapses in to the riverbed.

I apologize for the spoiler but it was necessary to continue to illustrate the earlier point about Nicholson and his fatal flaw, which was his pride. Nicholson allowed himself to put his pride ahead of his duty, and it proved tragic and nearly proved disastrous. That he was able to overcome the flaw at the very end, speaks to his character depth and to the expertise that was used to develop that character.

I mentioned earlier that this film switches protagonists and antagonists. During the first half of the film it is Nicholson who is the clear protagonist and hero of the story with Saito being the clear antagonist and villain. Nicholson heroically stands up for what’s right and Saito, on the verge of becoming a monster does everything in his power short of killing Nicholson and his men to get them to bend to his will. When he ultimately fails, Nicholson wins the day and Saito becomes an archetypal shapeshifter and goes from being an enemy to an ally as he does everything that Nicholson needs from that point on to assist in the building of the bridge. We then switch over to Shears, who is also an archetypal shapeshifter and trickster, as he’s disguised himself as someone else. During the second half of the movie he becomes the hero trying to blow up the bridge and acting as the glue that holds his small band together so that they can accomplish that mission, while Nicholson is now the antagonist and actively tries to stop Shears from accomplishing his goal. That kind of character and story complexity doesn’t come around very often, and is one of the reasons that The Bridge on the River Kwai is such a unique film.

Taken in its totality, this is an amazingly crafted film. From a storytelling standpoint, it delivers a rich and complex story that isn’t hard to follow and keeps the audience engaged through characters that are heroic and flawed all at the same time. If you’re a screenwriter who is having a difficult time developing a character, this is an instructive film for you. This is a film that seamlessly and effortlessly shows characters growing, changing and achieving a level of redemption. From a technical standpoint, this film soars above the previous year’s Around the World in 80 Days by using Cinemascope to help enhance the storytelling rather than distracting us from it. Not to mention the superb performances by William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. The Bridge on the River Kwai is truly a film for the ages.

Did the Academy get it right?

The easy answer is yes, but it was up against some pretty stiff competition. 12 Angry Men is a well-known and respected film that had an all-star cast that was led by Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and Jack Warden. It was another courtroom drama that proved the rule that courtroom dramas are often bridesmaids but never brides. While not as big in scope or as epic as The Bridge on the River Kwai, 12 Angry Men nevertheless is a powerful and engaging film that makes us feel trapped in a place that we can’t get out of until the problem is resolved. Director Sidney Lumet used several impressive filmmaking motifs that go on in that film as well, as the shots start out the film wide and with long takes, and as the film gets more intense, the shots get tighter and tighter and the takes shorter and shorter. It’s an intense film that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Another courtroom drama was nominated that year in Witness for the Prosecution starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. Directed by Billy Wilder, this is an engaging who-done-it that will leave you guessing until the very end, and has no fewer than 3 story-altering twists in the last 5 minutes. It too is a complex story with rich, deep and engaging characters that could have won, had it come out the following year instead. But even with all of that said, there was no beating The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957. This was a film that had it all and was as deserving as any film to win Best Picture.