In Part 7 of my journey through the Best Picture winners, I’m looking at the films I rated 4.5 stars and the first batch of those which I awarded the full 5 stars. All entries contain spoilers.
You can find the earlier parts of the list here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
30. ALL THE KING’S MEN
Watched 7 October 2022
Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men is one of the least talked-about Best Picture winners and I must admit I saw it once decades ago, was underwhelmed and just assumed it was an unworthy winner ever since. How exciting then to return to it last night and discover it’s an underrated gem. I think when I first saw All the King’s Men I had a very different idea of what it took to make a Best Picture winner, expecting a sweeping scope and intense melodrama. In reality, All the King’s Men is quite a modest production and all the better for it. Based on Robert Penn Warren‘s Pulitzer winning novel of the same name, it tells the story of the rise of Willie Stark, an honest and ambitious politician who is quickly disillusioned and then corrupted by the broken political system. In an age when the Production Code forbade overt condemnation of government, it’s a miracle that this visceral takedown ever made it to the screen, perhaps one of the reasons it stood out as exceptional to Academy voters. Unsurprisingly, writer/director/producer Rossen later found himself dragged before HUAC where, under extreme duress, he ended up naming names, an example of a well-intentioned man eventually forced into monstrous acts that is not a million miles away from the themes depicted in All the King’s Men.
It’s easy to see why, in the infancy of my love of cinema, I found All the King’s Men lacking. It is not an overly crowdpleasing film and it doesn’t hand the viewer its themes on a plate or provide a neatly tied-up ending. The cynical, fatalistic approach that Rossen takes to the material, in both the writing and directing capacities, owes a great deal more to Film Noir than to glossier Hollywood productions like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The Noir aesthetic is one I appreciated a whole lot more this time round, having fallen in love with the genre in the interim. Rossen was coming off the back of his classic Noir Body and Soul and he injects All the King’s Men with the same gritty tone and moral ambiguity. Willie Stark, played with a subtle megalomaniacal undercurrent by an Oscar-winning Broderick Crawford, should be seen as one of cinema’s most memorable monsters rather than a half-forgotten protagonist of an underrated film. The extent to which All the King’s Men chimes with the post-Trump climate is quite astonishing and if ever there were a time to revive this film’s reputation it’s now. Though forgetting All the King’s Men again would be a small price to pay to see the Trump/Stark brand of psychotic political bullying recede in the real world, it seems like a very valuable film for the time being, a long ignored voice of warning echoing eeriely down the ages.
As well as Crawford’s disturbing central performance and Rossen’s humdinger of a screenplay, All the King’s Men features a scene-stealing, Oscar-winning supporting performance from Mercedes McCambridge as a flinty campaign assistant who’s hard-bitten wit masks a fragile sense of self-worth. A scene in which she stands before a mirror and compares her smallpox-ravaged complexion with that of rival Joanne Dru is a quietly devastating highlight. Rossen’s direction captures the unvarnished intimacy of moments like this, as well as the sweaty, unsavoury nature of backroom politics. There is one big moment in which a disillusioned Stark makes a furious, improvised speech to a rapt audience, but outside of this All the King’s Men thrives on how tight in Rossen stays on the action. The cinematic potential of the campaign trail is eschewed in favour of the grubby gears that drive the machine. Although it is frequently categorised as Political Drama, this is Noir, pure and simple… or impure and complex.
I’d been quite looking forward to revisiting All the King’s Men given that I’d not seen it in many years, but honestly my expectations were low. What a delight to discover such a gritty, invigoratingly uncompromising film awaiting me.
29. WINGS
Watched 11 October 2022
There are some films that become retrospectively more famous for the wrong reasons, based solely on the stronger reputations of films they beat to major awards. Ordinary People is a good example of this, as it became known mostly for being the film that beat Raging Bull to Best Picture (We’ll get into that more when we get to Ordinary People). It’s a shame when Oscar injustices stand in the way of films being taken on their individual merits but it goes right back to the very first Best Picture winner. It’s impossible to talk about Wings without mentioning its place in history as the first ever winner of Best Picture but at this earliest of Academy Award ceremonies there were actually two top awards, the other being the award for Unique and Artistic Production which spotlighted more highbrow films and was awarded to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, widely recognised as one of the greatest silent films of the era. This was the first and last Unique and Artistic Production award and in later years the Academy decided that the award given to Wings was the top honour, ensuring the film went down in the history books as the first big Oscar victor. A good many people saw this as an injustice and Wings is often swept aside with a contemptuous shrug in the clamour to praise Sunrise.
But Sunrise’s brilliance should not colour our opinion of Wings. Wings may not be as artistically startling as Murnau’s film but, in many ways, it was every bit as groundbreaking, with its remarkable scope, diversity of tone and breathtaking action sequences which still stand as some of the greatest ever filmed. Wings was its era’s equivalent of a blockbuster and, while that term wouldn’t be coined for many decades, it has every element you’d expect from that type of film at its best. This extremely expensive and ambitious project was surprisingly entrusted to William A. Wellman, a director who had yet to prove himself commercially or artistically but whose experience as a flyer in World War One helped him land the job.
Amazingly, Wellman’s dedication to authenticity saw him insisting that his leads took flying lessons in order to secure real close-up shots of them in the cockpit. For Richard Arlen, who had also been a flyer, this was not so hard but the boyish Buddy Rogers had no experience whatsoever. He proved his mettle by spending hours in the air, fully dedicating himself to his performance as he soared through the clouds and then throwing up afterwards. It’s a mark of Wellman and his cast’s determination to make a great film that they went to such lengths, but was it worth it? I’d contend that the first Best Picture winner was also the first GREAT Best Picture winner. The tale of two love rivals who go off to war together and eventually forge a love for each other stronger than for the object of their romantic desires, Wings has a reasonably simple plot but is peppered throughout by astonishing set pieces. Even by today’s standards it’s easy to appreciate what a huge achievement Wings is. It’s a rip-roaring adventure film with laughs, romance, tears and even a smattering of animation, but above all thrills. The film’s one major weakness is a tendency to wallow a little too indulgently in sentiment. There’s a scene near the beginning when one of the leads says goodbye to his parents that seems to go on forever and the ending wavers between one of the most touching and unrestrainedly tender depictions of the love between two men ever put on screen and a tiresome desire to overstate and linger on the emotional extremes that are more likely to push most viewers to roll their eyes rather than dab them with a hankie. Had Wellman just pulled back a little from this fashionable melodrama Wings would have been all the better.
But in an almost two-and-a-half hour film these moments are few and far between and for the rest of the runtime, aptly enough, Wings flies by. The highlights, of course, are the aerial displays courtesy of a superb group of stunt flyers. Wellman intercuts long shots of these swooping, nose-diving acrobatics with close-ups of his actors in the cockpits, creating a realistic illusion that neatly sidesteps dodgy back-projection or obvious doubles. The action is also intercut with explanatory captions the like of which Top Gun could really have used a few! This means that the viewer is never at risk of losing track of what’s going on amidst the action and, as this is a silent film, it does not seem patronising or out of place since we’ve been reading captions throughout. While the action in many old adventure films may look creaky to modern day viewers who are not willing to play along, Wings never seems anything less than real and jaw-dropping to this day.
Wings keeps pulling these great airborne scenes out whenever it would otherwise risk becoming flabby but the scenes on the ground are generally enjoyable too. The would-be romance between Buddy Rogers and Clara Bow is a light-hearted distraction that offers much enjoyment, even if Bow is only present because of a rewrite so that Paramount could throw their biggest star of the time into the mix. Despite being Wings’ only big name (other than Gary Cooper, whose pre-fame performance is much trumpeted in reviews but, though effective, lasts less than two minutes), Bow only pops up periodically to inject a touch of girl next door charm into what even she acknowledged was a man’s picture. ‘I’m just the whipped cream on top of the pie’, she memorably lamented. Bow’s biggest scene is also Wings‘ strangest. Coming after the intermission and Wings’ first major action set piece, the film takes a diversion to Paris as the heroes go on leave. Bow is sent to retrieve them when orders are sent out for all leave to be cancelled in favour of ‘the big push’. She encounters oblivious love-of-her-life Rogers in a complete drunken stupor in the Folies Bergere and must battle to drag him away. The obliterated Rogers has become obsessed with champagne bubbles and sees them everywhere, emerging from glasses, dresses and musical instruments. It’s a surreal interlude which goes on a little too long but is nonetheless a fascinating comic experiment which adds to Wings‘ allure. The Parisian bubbles interval is not the only comedic moment in Wings. There are several treasurable moments involving minor comedy relief Herman Schwimpf, a patriotic immigrant nicely portrayed by vaudeville comedian El Brendel. There’s a running gag about a Stars and Stripes tattoo which is very funny and, in a nice touch, this loveable buffoon is allowed to stick around as a mechanic when he fails as a flyer, retaining a pleasing and sparingly used vein of humour in Wings all-purpose package.
The earliest Academy Award Best Picture winners are often seen as little more than historical curios nowadays. But there are two exceptions to this rule, both war films. Wings and All Quiet on the Western Front. Both examine war but from very different perspectives; All Quiet on the Western Front is a deliberate, philosophical anti-war film while Wings is in it for the thrills, spills and romance, while never losing sight of or minimising the death and destruction so crushingly felt by everyone involved. The heroes of Wings may be keen to face the enemy at the start of the film but by the end this gung-ho attitude costs them dearly. Sadly, while All Quiet on the Western Front is an acknowledged classic, Wings still languishes in the historical curios file. These two early Oscar winners would make a great double bill and the still underseen Wings will hopefully someday be more widely rediscovered by those who would appreciate its undimmed appeal.
28. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY
Watched 29 January 2023
Though he is hardly a household name today, the cinema of Frank Lloyd was once taken very seriously indeed. In the early years of the Academy Awards, he twice won Best Director in the space of less than five years, while two of the films he helmed won Best Picture. I’ve already covered his previous winner Cavalcade, a hoary old relic that sits low in my ranking. But two years later, Lloyd was entrusted with Mutiny on the Bounty, an expensive tentpole MGM film that stormed to Oscar victory in 1935. Unlike the unbearably stuffy Cavalcade, Mutiny on the Bounty is a film that has held up extremely well. If, like me, you adore a good adventure film then it’s worth noting that Mutiny on the Bounty is only a couple of swordfights off being a Swashbuckler. With its seafaring spirit and memorable villain, we’re immediately in great shape for a reliably rousing evening’s entertainment. But there’s more complexity here than in the average good vs. evil throwdown and Mutiny on the Bounty’s eloquent screenplay, complete with its saltily authentic nautical speak, gives us a trio of leads torn between their personal morals and the sense of duty and respect for authority instilled in them by their patriotic upbringing.
Mutiny on the Bounty has always been controversial for the way it deviates so wildly from the facts of the actual case, in particular its sullying of the name of Captain Bligh, as portrayed with villainous relish by Charles Laughton. The film always purported to be an adaptation of the fictionalised novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall rather than a straight historical record, but there is a moral dimension when you’re using real names and events as the basis of your narrative, and the tendency to take major liberties with facts in the name of entertainment is something of which Hollywood is still regularly guilty to this day. It’s probably fair to say that the average viewer these days is adequately trained to take the words “Based on a true story” with a large pinch of sea salt but this doesn’t fully exonerate such manipulative filmmaking. But if you can take Mutiny on the Bounty as nothing more than a fictional adventure narrative then you’re in for a cracking ride.
Whether by virtue of a larger budget, better material or the work of his collaborators, Lloyd makes a far more convincing job of directing Mutiny on the Bounty than he did with his Oscar-winning work on Cavalcade. From the opening scenes of huge ships in the harbour preparing for lengthy voyages, everything about Mutiny on the Bounty feels stirringly big. Once we get out on the high seas, the sense of artifice that dogs so many vintage seafaring adventures is almost totally absent. There’s no sense that the actors are on a dry-land sound stage and if any of them were to walk out of frame you’d very much expect their exit to be accompanied by a loud splash. There are the odd moments when aquatic back projection makes itself apparent like a glass of cold water to the face, but they feel anomalous and, for lovers of classic cinema like myself, more charming than spell-shattering. Mutiny on the Bounty derives equal amounts of appeal by making us feel like we’re on an ocean voyage and reminding us that the trip is sponsored by Golden Age Hollywood. In this respect, the performances work a treat. Though the acting style may appear odd to those more used to modern films, Mutiny on the Bounty undoubtedly benefits from the star power of Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian and Charles Laughton as Bligh. The Academy perhaps got a little overexcited with the acting nominations, with a record three Best Actor nods for Gable, Laughton and Franchot Tone. Tone especially seems to have been nominated just for turning up, at least until his poetic courtroom speech (you could call it Tone poetry!) but the writing is still doing most of the heavy lifting there. At any rate, Mutiny on the Bounty’s three acting nominations split the vote and ensured the victory instead of Victor McLaglen in The Informer. Tone’s nomination for a smaller role directly contributed to the creation of the Supporting Actor and Actress categories the following year. Of its three nominated actors, Laughton is the most deserving. His Bligh is a classic big performance, vivid and forceful without slipping into pantomime and with an underlying complexity that keeps it from one note villainy. Gable is reliably charismatic and likeable, although the complexity of Fletcher Christian is mostly in the writing. Classic Hollywood enthusiasts will also enjoy seeing the ubiquitous Herbert Mundin in the comic relief role of Smith, an incompetent crewman who fades into the background in the film’s later stages, and Spring Byington in a dignified cameo as Tone’s mother. Eagle-eyed viewers may also spot James Cagney among the extras.
Mutiny on the Bounty takes its time in building up to the titular event, allowing tensions to mount and nerves to fray as the sadistic Bligh puts his men through hell. There’s a mid-film interlude in Tahiti in which the action undoubtedly slows down but this acts as a nice palate cleanser between voyages and a chance to simply drink in the beautiful location scenery. Though the natives of Tahiti are hardly portrayed with dignity, Mutiny on the Bounty thankfully sidesteps any monstrously offensive depictions. You can make what you will of Lloyd’s decision to very briefly overlay an image of waves on a Tahitian woman being kissed by Gable! Ultimately, the interval in paradise amplifies the simmering tensions between Bligh and Christian and the mutiny is staged with satisfying economy rather than stack-blowing showiness. The screenplay is more interested in the complex moral dilemmas of disciplined men reaching breaking point. It’s unsurprising to find the name Jules Furthman among the script’s writers. This is the man who brought a nuanced intelligence to other adventures such as Only Angels Have Wings and Rio Bravo.
If Mutiny on the Bounty is showing its age a bit now, that’s not necessarily to its detriment. The old-fashioned acting style is charming, the literate writing style a refreshing alternative to the realism that supplanted it, and the big budget production values no less breathtaking than later, much larger equivalents. For a while it was held in higher regard than it is today, even showing up on the first AFI top 100 list of greatest American films in 1998. Its subsequent removal in 2007 reflected its significant loss of prestige in a comparatively short time. Mutiny on the Bounty is no longer a film that most people have seen or that is frequently recommended by many sources. But it remains a landmark of early sound cinema and easily one of the best Best Picture winners of the Oscars’ first decade.
27. MRS. MINIVER
Watched 24 April 2023
It’s easy in retrospect to be contemptuous about propaganda films. The term is mostly used in a derogatory context now but for audience members like myself who have never lived through anything remotely close to the experience of World War II, propaganda films provide a fascinating glimpse at the concerns of the era and what was being offered to frightened, determined audiences in way of inspiration and reassurance. Though inevitably tied in with nationalism in a way that can seem distasteful to modern viewers, the importance of mobilising in the face of a fascist threat cannot be overlooked, even if in many cases it resulted in xenophobia of comparably damaging ferocity. But not every piece of propaganda was completely one-note or throwaway. William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver, for instance, still stands as a powerful, multi-layered tribute to resilience which, despite a sentimental heart, does not shy away from the horrific cost of war, while also touching on issues of class and community with enough nuance to keep it relevant as more than just a wartime morale booster.
At two hours and fifteen minutes, Mrs. Miniver isn’t a short film and while sitting through the opening twenty minutes, in which a British middle class husband and wife attempt to hide their latest extravagant purchases from each other, you’d be forgiven for wondering how that runtime is justified. But what at first feels like director William Wyler spinning his wheels, content with mild marital whimsy in place of real drama, reveals itself to be crucial to the cumulative effect he is setting up. A good deal of the first hour is spent establishing the cosy existence of the Minivers, with social functions, family disagreements and an imminent flower show all to the fore. While this time spent in quaint suburban pursuits ultimately sets up some important later events (believe it or not, that flower show pays handsome symbolic dividends), it also establishes a vivid milieu which is then thoroughly rocked by the arrival of war in the second act. This is an example of Wyler’s sturdy directorial expertise at its best. The switch in tone is so smooth that the fallout hits the audience almost as hard as it does the Minivers.
While Mrs. Miniver is often accused of excessive sentimentality, it is actually quite a sober film that refuses to allow maudlin patriotism to unseat its moving humanism. There are two key contributors who especially ensure that this is the case. One is Wyler, who’s aforementioned direction keeps things grounded at all times. The other is Greer Garson, who’s absolutely captivating central performance more that justifies her character’s titular role. Mrs. Miniver was the first film to be nominated for five acting Oscars, with reliably solid supporting players like May Whitty and Henry Travers recognised, Walter Pidgeon receiving a nomination for that kindly, robust patriarchal figure in which he specialised, and the likeable young Teresa Wright winning the Supporting Actress award. But Garson’s career defining turn towers above them all. Perhaps that’s an overstatement, given that there is nothing showy or competitive about Garson’s acting. She performs as if she’s another member of the ensemble, which is crucial in highlighting the themes of family and community, but through pitch perfect judgment she manages to assert herself as the focal point in a manner that enhances the narrative’s natural inclination. No wonder everyone from her husband to the local station master and even the curmudgeonly Lady Beldon end up low-key in love with her. This is the epitome of a perfectly judged Oscar-winning performance.
There are some exceptional scenes throughout Mrs. Miniver that strike different emotional notes, building up into an impeccable overall experience. A night spent by the family in the air raid shelter in their garden is a model of restraint in the face of catastrophe. An extremely tense face-off between Mrs. Miniver and a downed German pilot is played out with laudable economy and suspense, while the flower show gives us a moment of unashamed sentiment which ties together the film’s views on equality and communal resistance beautifully, before the climactic sermon makes them explicit. There are a couple of tonal hiccups here and there, such as a comedic coda to the German pilot sequence which results in Mrs. Miniver receiving a playful (though actually quite brutal-looking) spanking from her husband, or the scenes in which the Minivers’ son Vin returns from college filled with smugly-expressed socialist views. These scenes are terribly overplayed by Richard Ney, although he is given heavy-handed material. It’s a shame, since the left-wing rhetoric he spouts is essentially in keeping with the film’s outlook and it would’ve been powerful to see this dichotomy between righteous ideology and undermining pomposity played out with more subtlety. Also lacking subtlety is the raving speech by the German pilot, although these scenes were comprehensively rewritten as America’s involvement in the war increased during production, with a more sympathetic portrayal that recognised the enemy’s human side probably seeming untenable at the time of release. Better to have Mrs. Miniver slap the snot out of him instead, eh?!
But the small missteps in Mrs. Miniver are far outweighed by the gambits that land. It’s easy to look at an Oscar-winning Hollywood film about middle class Britain that was released during wartime and expect nothing but conservative patriotism, but Mrs. Miniver sidesteps these issues by emerging as a rousing, inspirational piece that refuses to dabble in exceptionalism. When that emotional final speech is punctuated by the image of British planes flying over a bombed-out church, the message is one of human resilience shorn of nationalistic subtext. The carefully mapped screenplay feels forward thinking in a number of ways, with Vin’s early diatribes, morally justified but insensitively delivered, seeming to preempt the Choose Kind hashtag (were that not actually the weaponised afterthought of the internet’s least kind contributors). But as the vicar in the pulpit individually recognises the contribution to the war effort of every individual life taken and every survivor helping to keep the resistance against fascism strong, it is Billy Bragg’s There is Power in a Union that echoes in my head. Mrs. Miniver may single out its heroine through title, writing and performance, but in her kindness, her gentle influence and her unerring love for her fellow humans, she is a unifying force and that, above everything else, is the source of her heroism.
26. THE GODFATHER PART II
Watched 4 July 2022
There’s a long-standing claim amongst certain film fans that The Godfather Part II is better than the first film. Having seen Part II many years ago, I remembered being far less impressed than most and have ultimately always scoffed at these claims. But revisiting Francis Ford Coppola’s heroically ambitious sequel/prequel hybrid last night, I found myself almost becoming a convert to this way of thinking. Running to an admittedly exhausting 202 minutes, The Godfather Part II has plenty of time to make its case and while I initially felt that I was correct in my assessment, the deeper I got into the film, the more the contest heated up. While it was still the original film that ultimately emerged victorious for me, it was a very close call and there are definitely moments in The Godfather Part II that top anything in its predecessor.
The idea of having two stories running concurrently, set in different time periods, with one showing the rise of Vito Corleone and the other the fall of Michael Corleone, sounds too ambitious by half but Coppola not only pulls it off, he weaves the two tales together with an incredibly deft hand that means the film never feels episodic and the two timelines compliment each other rather than treading on each other’s toes. While precedence is given to Michael’s story, Vito’s interjections often feel like a welcome palate cleanser and ultimately provide us with a fuller picture of this world, back before origin stories had seemingly become a tedious necessity. While Coppola fits the puzzle pieces together beautifully, the two strands have a completely different feel, with the sepia-toned cinematography of the earlier timeline bringing a rich, classic feel compared with the colder hues of the more modern tale. Perhaps controversially, I also think Robert De Niro gives us a much better Vito than Marlon Brando did. Though Brando’s performance was cartoonishly iconic, De Niro’s is energetic and real, brooding when it needs to be but laced with youthful vitality in place of the older Vito’s practiced poise. When the Oscar nominees for the first film were announced, Al Pacino took umbridge that his performance had been relegated to a Best Supporting Actor nomination while Brando’s Vito was up for, and ultimately won, Best Actor. This time round the nominations were switched, with Michael up for Best Actor and Vito for Best Supporting. Amusingly, it was Vito who won again, with De Niro bagging his first Oscar, while Pacino famously lost out to Art Carney.
When comparing The Godfather Part II with its predecessor, I initially found the script to be less taut. While the original was able to impart a huge amount of information without a sense of artificiality, the sequel sometimes feels a bit more clunkily expositional. There are also stretches in the early stages of The Godfather Part II which are, not to mince words, boring. While Coppola recaptures the stately pacing of his first film, the added complexities of the sequel’s plot can make for some plodding sequences as the table is laid. There are also a couple of issues here that affect many sequels. There isn’t always a convincing place in the new narrative for all the old characters, resulting in Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen being marginalised and the continued inability to find convincing roles for the female characters (despite a rather puzzling Oscar nomination for Talia Shire, who has little to do as Connie Corleone). Most conspicuously, audiences will find it hard to ignore the omission of some characters from the previous film. Richard S. Castellano was meant to return as Clemenza but, when terms could not be reached, his part in the story was ultimately rewritten as the Frank Pentangeli character. Though it would’ve been interesting to see Clemenza return, Michael V. Gazzo’s Oscar-nominated turn as Pentangeli is a joy and brings some much-needed humour to the film. Harder to cover up is Brando’s absence in a climactic flashback sequence that seems entirely designed for the purpose of bringing him back. Brando was apparently set to return but failed to turn up for the shoot, leaving Coppola to quickly rewrite the scene on the day of shooting. With James Caan returning on the condition he receive the same fee as he did for a full film’s work first time round, Coppola was hardly going to not use the footage, but Brando’s absence is ridiculously conspicuous and, given that this is presented as a manifestation of Michael’s memories at a crucial psychological moment, it seems inconceivable that he would edit Vito out of his mind. I can’t help but feel, despite the difficulty of putting it together, that The Godfather Part II would’ve been a stronger film had it lost this compromised sequence.
But The Godfather Part II more than makes up for these shortcomings in many ways. Coppola’s direction, while excellent first time round, is even better here, making the juggling of multiple storylines across different time periods seem effortless. There is a moment when he cuts from Michael hearing about his wife’s miscarriage to the sound of a baby crying. Michael’s pained expression fades into the young Vito’s similarly distant stare and we realise the baby we can hear crying is Michael himself. There’s an essay’s worth of content in this one moment. It then leads into the sequence detailing Vito’s first kill, which completely trumps everything in the first film. It’s a visually sumptuous, emotionally gripping vignette which leads exceptionally into the film’s intermission. By this stage, The Godfather Part II’s early problems have faded from memory and the film has fully taken hold of the viewer. Having lost out first time round, Coppola bagged the Best Director Oscar for The Godfather Part II and, despite being up against some very tough competition, it was thoroughly deserved.
While The Godfather Part II can’t find convincing roles for all the first film’s characters, it makes up for this with a handful of new ones, including Gazzo’s Pentangeli and Lee Strasberg’s ominously insincere Hyman Roth, as well as a much extended role for John Cazale’s Fredo Corleone. Fredo is a fascinating, tragi-comic character and Cazale’s childlike vulnerability completely brings him to life. The story between Fredo and Michael is perhaps The Godfather Part II’s most talked-about plot and culminates in a devastating finale that seals the deal on Michael’s soul, if that deal were not already well and truly done. The biggest problem The Godfather Part II overcomes is one of redundancy. By the end of The Godfather, Michael’s narrative arc was complete and his ultimate downfall sufficiently implied. That’s what made that final shot of the door closing so chilling. What we see in The Godfather Part II doesn’t contradict any of this and Michael, a character who went through significant transformations first time round, is less varied this time. But Pacino’s mesmerising performance gets to the heart of Michael’s emotionally damaged state in a way that makes it at least as fascinating, perhaps more so, than his transition had been. The details of Vito’s rise add extra context to Michael’s story too, giving it a greater psychological and thematic resonance which would only have been enhanced had we actually got that final scene of the two characters together. Damn you, Brando! Ultimately, The Godfather Part II’s main case for existence is that it entertains, even as the things it tells us have an inevitability from the start. It is fitting that Coppola didn’t artificially alter this thoroughly cemented trajectory for the sake of cheap twists or surprises. The events of The Godfather Part II can be comprehensively inferred from the end of The Godfather. But they aren’t half thrilling to watch anyway.
25. SPOTLIGHT
Watched 14 December 2022
Since 1976, any film about investigative journalism is immediately going to evoke the memory of Alan J. Pakula’s masterpiece All the President’s Men. That sober, completely unmelodramatic film established a model which, when done poorly, can be as dry as a picked-clean bone. Spotlight is not unaware of its similarities to Pakula’s film but neither does it attempt to emulate it completely. Rather, it takes lessons from it and builds a notably different film around it, leaning more into an ensemble approach which ironically refuses to spotlight any individual player. Spotlight’s co-writer Josh Singer also co-wrote Steven Spielberg’s The Post two years later which, while not as widely acclaimed as Spotlight, told a similar story with a stronger focus on character and, in keeping with its director’s proclivities, a touch more sentiment. The Post also owed a debt to All the President’s Men, which it acknowledged in a closing scene at The Watergate which brought this instructive triptych of films full circle. This unofficial trilogy makes for a fine mini-festival and shows how influences need not overwhelm that which they inspire.
Of the three films I mentioned, Spotlight arguably has the most emotive subject matter in that it follows The Boston Globe’s investigation into systemic child sex abuse in the Catholic church and the decades-long cover up that followed. While this kind of material could easily be played for the sort of manipulative melodrama that the Academy normally laps up, director Tom McCarthy refuses to go this way. He avoids pretty much every trap, from melodramatic speechifying to faceless lionisation of the victims or reductive demonisation of the perpetrators. While Spotlight makes no apologies for the abusers, it also takes care to examine the psychological context and the greater culpability of a system that creates and perpetuates such evils. Another important pitfall Spotlight navigates its way around is religious prejudice, with the corruption at the heart of the institution never confused with the religion itself. While there is doubtless a whole other debate to be had about how these things may intertwine, this is not the story Spotlight is telling and by generally sticking to the facts, McCarthy created a film to which the Catholic church could not, and largely did not, object.
Spotlight features an ensemble cast of big names including Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and, fresh from his Birdman resurgence, Michael Keaton. Though Ruffalo and McAdams both received Oscar nominations, the main cast’s roles are very subtly written and played. Character beats ensure they never become mere ciphers but the forward motion of the story they are pursuing is rarely overshadowed by their personalities. There’s no grafted-on romance and only one major clash which is quickly moved past. The emotional fallout of such work is not ignored but never overemphasised. The story is the thing. There are more overtly colourful roles on the sidelines, such as Stanley Tucci’s lawyer Garabedian or Michael Cyril Creighton’s deeply moving and abundantly human portrayal of abuse victim Joe Crowley, but they are used sparingly, highlighting how the interest lies more in the story being pieced together than in those who are assembling the puzzle. The role of psychotherapist Richard Sipe epitomises this approach, in that it is played by the wonderful Richard Jenkins who appears only in uncredited voiceover.
Of course, none of this is to say that the main cast isn’t superb too. They do an amazing job of getting out of the way when necessary while still quietly shaping recognisable human beings in miniature for whom we can root. It’s encouraging that the Academy recognised the delicate work of Ruffalo and McAdams, who’s nominations in the supporting categories is testament to Spotlight’s dedication to the ensemble. Ruffalo is boyish and scrappy, always hungry but rarely eating, and keeping his emotions in check with a sometimes apparent level of effort. McAdams, meanwhile, plays her role with even quieter nuance, her probing eyes darting to her subjects as she scratches away on her notepad. Breakthroughs inspire the merest flicker of excitement behind her professional façade, and when she tells one of her sources “I am here because I care” it’s a deeply felt truth. Keaton gives one of his most finely honed performances as Spotlight editor Walter “Robby” Robinson and his Boston accent has been praised as flawless. While I’m not in a position to recognise this as true or not, I will say that Keaton never once seemed to be putting on a voice, unlike Rob Morrow who’s famously awful attempt at the same accent in Quiz Show still rings in my head decades after I last watched the film.
Spotlight is often called its generation’s All the President’s Men but it is, in fact, just its generation’s Spotlight, already exerting its own influence with its far-reaching beam. Its Oscar win was a triumph for intelligent and considered filmmaking and it quietly entered the roster of great Best Picture winners.
24. PARASITE
Watched 3 March 2023
As the first film not in the English language to win the Best Picture Oscar, Parasite ensured its legacy from the moment its victory was announced. But it quickly became just as widely known as the film that pissed off Donald Trump, who’s obviously racist objections were highlighted further by his call for the return of Gone with the Wind. Trump’s grumbling had the effect of enhancing Parasite’s already timely themes of social injustice, to the point that watching it now feels even more like an invigorating act of insurrection. But even without all this context, Parasite is just a fantastic examination of the sort of socio-economic inequality that tragically never stops being topical. Talk of class divisions and wealth disparity in relation to cinema often sends those looking for an escapist viewing experience running for the hills or reaching for the Loach repellent but writer-director Bong Joon-ho displays a canny understanding that exploration of germane contemporary political themes need not be undertaken to the total exclusion of entertainment. So Parasite takes elements from numerous genres and subgenres to construct a constantly shifting, unpredictable viewing experience that delights, amuses and surprises as much as it horrifies and satirises.
Parasite begins as a fiendishly amoral black comedy in which the struggling Kim family take advantage of an opportunity that falls into the lap of son Ki-woo to become an English language tutor to the daughter of the wealthy Park family. With Ki-woo installed as a fixture in the Parks’ opulent home, the Kims work together to perpetrate a long-con aiming to insinuate the entire family into the household, no matter who they have to take out in the process. This early stretch of the film is slyly funny, sometimes in a grimly unpleasant way (especially in the drastic method deployed to dispense with the existing housekeeper) and it is followed by tonal shifts into Family Drama, Horror and even elements of Farce which are blended with a smoothness that ensures their narrative viability without downplaying their thrilling audacity. Bong’s work here is terrific all round, winning him Oscars for Best Original Screenplay (along with co-writer Han Jin-won) and Best Director. The majority of the film takes place inside the Park household and Bong, along with cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo and art directors Se-jin Lim and So-ra Mo, makes this space into an intricate puzzle box, shifting from a hermetically sealed fortress designed to keep out the stench of the lower classes to a sinister castle of hidden secrets. Sometimes the impression of these changes is communicated through Bong’s choice of camera angles, like the striking shots from outside the house looking in. But just as much of the success of this partly-illusory transformation is in the writing, which, as it develops characters and changes tones, seems to take the building along with it. Equally impressive, though not as heavily utilised, is the Kims’ run-down semi-basement flat. Bustling with life in a way the sterile Park household is not, it is nevertheless deeply undesirable in a way that feels appropriate for the loving but underhanded Kims.
The family unity of the Kims is crucial to the complexity of Parasite’s satire. It would’ve been easy to make them detestable individuals who would knife each other in the back for the sake of self-preservation, or else make them basically lovable rogues symbolic of a whitewashed working class. Parasite does neither. The Kims are a unit who’s happiness depends on the symbiotic success of the whole family but their worldview is too narrow. Their methods obtain a better quality of life for themselves but at the expense of others as desperate as they are. Meanwhile, while they deceive the Parks, the Kims’ plot does not undermine their way of life. Though they may use their facilities, they are still in service to the Parks in the jobs they take, while meanwhile condemning other members of their own social class to the poverty they are trying to escape. The failure of the working class to pull together in solidarity against the system is criticised by Bong even more powerfully than the condescension and obliviousness of the privileged. This becomes a clearer theme the more secrets Parasite reveals, making the film feel like an effective call to arms rather than the smug, simplified finger-wag it could’ve otherwise been.
Parasite is one of the rare Best Picture winners that received no acting nominations at all. This is not because the film is short on good performances but because, rather aptly given its themes of the importance of pulling together, it is an ensemble piece with no real lead roles. There are standout performances from Cho Yeo-jeong as the naive mother of the Park family, Jang Hye-jin as the Kim family matriarch and Lee Jung-eun as the immaculate housekeeper who the Kims transform into a frazzled, desperate woman. But the actors rely on each other to enhance their own performances. The Kim family are believable because of the convincing closeness the four actors project. There’s a great scene in which each of the family members in turn secretly communicate their affection through touches and signs as they go about their jobs in the Park house. If pushed, I’d say the crucial role is Song Kang-ho’s Kim patriarch, since it is he who makes a decisive move towards the end of the film that upends the family’s complicity in the system but proves that change isn’t something that can be affected overnight. This leads to an epilogue which, though interestingly ambiguous, I found to be a slightly unconvincing ending to the film, which played a significant part in Parasite ending up slightly lower in my ranking than many would place it. But this is ultimately a minor quibble about an excellent film that feels thoroughly connected to its time of release while also remaining universal and timeless in its themes. This is a neat trick but typical of Parasite’s impressive adaptability, evidenced in a title who’s meaning changes as fluidly and often as the film’s ever-shifting tone.
23. OLIVER!
Watched 13 April 2023
While 1967 is nostalgically remembered for the Summer of Love, it was also a time when the causes of the following year’s explosive events were reaching a head. 1968 began with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and went on to be characterised by events including the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Sorbonne student riots in Paris and the Tlatelolco massacre ten days before the Mexico City Olympic Games. Against this historical backdrop, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seemed to be pushing for a regression to cosier times. While the previous year’s Oscars were dominated by the visceral subversions of Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and In the Heat of the Night and the following year would see the top honours given to the X-Rated Midnight Cowboy, 1968 found the Best Picture title awarded to Carol Reed’s Musical Dickens adaptation Oliver!, while the other nominees included a Costume Drama, a Shakespeare adaptation and the Biopic of a Music Hall star. This was hardly representative of the dominant mood of the year and was quite possibly a reaction against it, with boundary-pushing classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and If… overlooked for contention in the top category. There’s a legitimate argument to be made that great cinema should examine, evaluate, react to and against the contemporary backdrop against which it emerges. There is, however, an equally valid argument to be made that great cinema should comfort, entertain and transport. Cinema that manages to do so amidst the most challenging of circumstances could even be said to be reacting to and against contemporary circumstances as much as films that address them directly. In 1969 OK, there was war across the USA, and the Academy were handing the Best Picture Oscar to Carol Reed’s musical. It would take years for people to start properly wrapping their heads around Kubrick’s Sci-fi masterpiece but Oliver! had helped them temporarily drown out the sounds of political corruption and insurrection with whistling. And while some were snorting with snobbish derision at the Academy’s choice, the notoriously hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael was astutely citing Rene Clair as a forerunner to Reed’s instantly accessible gem. There were those who complained that Oliver! sanded down the rough edges of Dickens’ source text in favour of creating a fairy tale. But let’s face it, Dickens’ story is that of a runaway orphan who, having fallen in with a crowd of pickpockets, manages to get apprehended attempting to rob a man who turns out to be his long-lost relative. That’s a man selected from the vast crowds of London, and this is his first time out as a pickpocket. If we’re going to take that plot at all seriously, some fanciful, fatalistic fairy dust feels like the only plausible way to go.
Of course, Oliver! isn’t a direct adaptation of Dickens. It comes by way of Lionel Bart’s 1960 Stage Musical version of the story, which means it brings with it a haul of terrific tunes. Though they have the grandiosity associated with Musical Theatre, as well as an authentic Cockney Music Hall edge, Bart’s roots as a writer of Pop songs (his most famous being Living Doll) also informs the production, making for some of the most across-the-board appealing compositions any Musical had yet boasted. By my reckoning, there is only one dud, the mercifully short Where is Love?, which suffers considerably from the choice to dub Mark Lester, the young actor playing Oliver Twist, with the strangled falsetto of the adult Kathe Green, a choice that blights the thankfully small handful of vocal contributions the character of Oliver makes to the songs in the film. But just as Oliver! quickly becomes more about its colourful supporting characters than the titular boy himself, so the musical numbers begin to highlight the greater talents of the rest of the ensemble. There are songs here that virtually everyone of a certain age knows: Food, Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, Who Will Buy?, You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two. There are also equally catchy, underrated tunes like It’s a Fine Life, Be Back Soon, Oom-Pah Pah and my absolute favourite, Reviewing the Situation. The choreography that goes along with these bangers is uniformly excellent, eschewing the sort of beat-perfect routines associated with Gene Kelly for something more akin to the loose-footed spontaneity of James Cagney. Although choreographed by a former ballerina (Onna White, who won a special Oscar for her efforts), the routines are as deeply engaged with the characters as the dialogue. White retains a rough-edged joie de vivre which makes it much easier to swallow the notion of all of London’s market traders suddenly launching into a big production number. If such a thing were possible, this is how these people would dance. That’s the sort of invaluably astute approach that mere prowess as a dancer alone cannot bring and White should be at least equally credited with bringing these characters to life as the writers and performers.
When it comes to the actors, poor Mark Lester often comes in for a lot of stick for being a particularly bland Oliver. Certainly neither the character nor the performance justifies that titular exclamation mark, but then Oliver himself is not really intended to be the most interesting character. Rather he is a symbol, passed from person to person and changing lives and perspectives, even as he remains comparatively unreactive. In this respect, Lester does a decent job of looking cherubic and vulnerable. Given the deliberate air of artificiality that Oliver! retains from its stage origins, that feels like enough. Certainly, Jack Wild’s delightful turn as The Artful Dodger plays into the school play dynamic of the child actors, and while his Oscar nomination would seem like an overreaction in most other contexts, it feels almost justified amongst the atmosphere Reed and his team create. Shani Wallis remains underrated as Nancy, perhaps because so many people felt the role should have gone to Georgia Brown who portrayed Nancy in the West End. But Wallis strikes the perfect balance between sweet and bawdy, strong and vulnerable. Certainly she gets the darkest material in her abusive relationship with boyfriend Bill Sykes, which is examined in the song As Long As He Needs Me. Though some cringe at the notion of a love ballad to an abuser, it is a necessary character trait and the song only really becomes problematic when it is taken out of context, as in Shirley Bassey’s hit version, where it sounds like a justification of patriarchal control. Still, it’s worth noting that it has also been performed as a gender flipped version, with Sammy Davis Jr. making it a US hit. As Sykes, the abuser himself, an up-and-coming Oliver Reed is effectively menacing and aptly kept out of the musical numbers.
But few would fail to concede that Oliver! really belongs to Ron Moody, who’s Fagin is one for the ages. Though retaining a visceral edge, this version of Fagin is significantly softened when compared to Dickens’ vicious creation, emerging as a conflicted, lovable rogue who’s abortive redemption is actually framed as a cause for celebration because he’s such a pleasure to watch as a villain. Dickens’ Fagin is executed for complicity in murder. Moody’s Fagin gets to dance off into the sunset, a merry existence of continued thievery ahead of him. Though his manipulation of a gang of street urchins in order to mould them into pickpockets is essentially grooming, the storybook sensibilities of Oliver! allow Fagin to be a whimsically wicked creation, in the same way Harry Secombe’s Mr. Bumble can be abominably abusive and neglectful of the orphans in his care and still emerge as a pompous figure of fun. Moody, aptly enough, completely steals the film from the moment he first appears. Even in moments when he is sidelined, his looming presence can be felt in the wings. Witness the ingenious way in which he inserts himself into the romantic fantasy of I’d Do Anything, bringing everyone back to earth with a bump. Fagin gets a lot of the best songs and the best lines, and often he turns pedestrian lines into great ones. Listen to how hilarious he makes the words “I’ll bank it for you.” Moody was initially reluctant to play Fagin because of what an antisemitic stereotype he is in Dickens’ novel, something that the David Lean adaptation of twenty years earlier leaned into heavily. But in accepting the part, Moody wrestled the character back from these ugly origins, refusing to play to any derogatory ethnic expectations and creating what many see as the definitive Fagin in the process.
Many people still doubt that Oliver! should’ve won, or even been considered for Best Picture, but it has proved itself over the years as a film that endures. Still popular to this day, it is a film that reminds many of their childhood. Though I have vague memories of seeing at least parts of it when I was about five years old (my main recollection being some complex feelings about Nancy which I’m still not sure I understand to this day), Oliver! isn’t a film I grew up watching. It wasn’t until I was well into my twenties that I finally watched it again, yet its beautifully realised universality made me feel like it was a classic from my childhood. That’s a rare trick for a film to pull off and something that our current penchant for aggressively oversold nostalgia repeatedly tries and fails to achieve. Oliver! makes me feel like a kid again. To paraphrase Mr. Bumble’s incredulous response to Oliver as he clasped his empty bowl, what more could you ask for?
22. ORDINARY PEOPLE
Watched 2 February 2023
You don’t hear Ordinary People mentioned much these days. When you do, it’s almost always as the film that beat Raging Bull to Best Picture, a context that usually minimises its individual achievements in a maelstrom of wounded, prescriptive and invariably male pride. In comparing it to Raging Bull’s hard-edged lyricism, devotees of Scorsese’s film often characterise Ordinary People as a bland, soapy family drama, a product of the growing touchy-feely aesthetic of the 80s, and a film that used emotional manipulation to wheedle its way onto the winner’s podium. Whether these accusations are made through half-hearted misremembrance or malicious mischaracterisation, they are completely erroneous. Ordinary People may seem less original in light of its numerous, less incisive imitators but Robert Redford’s directorial debut is a raw, unsentimental examination of grief, guilt, depression and love amongst a well-to-do Illinois family in the aftermath of the tragic death of one son and the attempted suicide of the other. This may sound like an unpalatable viewing experience but the screenplay by the eclectic Alvin Sargent (who’s other scripts include Paper Moon, What About Bob? and four Spider-Man films) is less depressing that it is fascinatingly and invigoratingly real. It sidesteps the opportunity for obvious satire about upper class repression or the dehumanising effects of suburbia in favour of an astute psychological basis in which the emotional responses come from the individual personalities rather than smug class-based reductivism. If the milieu undoubtedly plays a part here, it is not that of enabling patronising generalisations. One of the reasons Ordinary People works so well is because those people are so real, rather than empty representations of an ideological point.
Based on the 1976 novel by Judith Guest, Ordinary People begins about a year after the death of the Jarrett family’s oldest son Buck in a sailing accident and shortly after the return of younger son Conrad from a psychiatric hospital following his attempted suicide. Although they are desperate to return to some kind of normality, neither mother Beth’s cold detachment nor father Calvin’s over-compensatory exuberance have a positive effect on Conrad and, though sceptical, out of desperation he begins seeing the psychiatrist Dr. Berger. Though stepping outside of the influence of his immediate family to get some new perspective helps, there are no easy answers for Conrad or his parents and Ordinary People highlights emotional progression without ever offering glibly gift-wrapped solutions. In its examination of the mindsets of all three Jarretts, the film is chronologically linear but emotionally labyrinthine, something on which Redford keeps an admirably steady grip without resorting to showy flourishes. In acknowledging the complexity of life’s continuation following tragedy, he is able to include moments of humour without creating a tonal clash.
Ordinary People is boosted even more by its central performances. The film’s history with acting Oscar nominations is odd, with Timothy Hutton winning Best Supporting Actor despite Conrad being the clear protagonist, while Mary Tyler Moore was nominated for Leading Actress. The failure of the Academy to nominate Donald Sutherland remains one of the most astonishing snubs in Oscar history, and a crying shame given that Sutherland remains unnominated to this day. I’d be interested to know whether he would’ve been in the Leading or Supporting Actor category, given that Ordinary People was already dominating the latter with nominations for Hutton and Judd Hirsch as the psychiatrist. Sutherland’s screen wife’s nomination in the Leading Actress category suggests he would’ve been in the Leading Actor category, employing a sort of Daddy Bear/Mummy Bear/ Baby Bear model! Nominations aside, the cast are uniformly excellent. Hutton is perhaps the least subtle but he brings a frazzled authenticity to Conrad even in the handful of scenes that border on melodrama. Judd Hirsch is agreeably understated as the rumpled psychiatrist, but it is the parents who really shine here. Sutherland’s performance is delightful, bringing a warmth and energy to the film even when it is clearly underscored with deep pain. Tyler Moore, meanwhile, is a revelation. A beloved comic actress for much of the preceding two decades, here she seems to effortlessly shed her lovable persona for a much more austere turn. She manages to completely put across her character’s narcissism and inability to show genuine affection without ever making these attributes seem like something of which she is remotely aware. Crucially, she also makes her character sympathetic, operating under the weight of a broken heart and struggling vainly against the impulses of her nature. True, Tyler Moore has been gifted the most interesting character but she increases that fascination tenfold with what she brings to the role. Tragically, just months after Ordinary People was released, she lost her own 24 year old son to an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Following immediately after Kramer vs. Kramer’s Best Picture win and with Terms of Endearment not far round the corner, Ordinary People seemed to cement a brief tendency towards tragedy-tinged family dramas winning the big Oscar. But the clothes-rending reactions of those who felt Apocalypse Now and Raging Bull should’ve won instead would often wilfully devalue these films, lumping them together in a way that refused to acknowledge their obvious differences and embarrassingly sought to cast emotional content as being in opposition to masculinity or quality. Ordinary People is, in its own way, every bit as raw as Raging Bull and, though my review may be counterproductive in this respect, the sooner we can mention the former without having to bring up the latter, the sooner we can start giving Ordinary People its proper dues as the classic it was briefly deemed to be.
21. SCHINDLER’S LIST
Watched 1 April 2023
When Steven Spielberg made Schindler’s List, many commentators showed a degree of scepticism that he could pull it off, not least Spielberg himself. Having originally established himself as a director of blockbusters, there had been much critical resistance to Spielberg’s earlier attempts to branch out into weightier material like The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun (both films, incidentally, that I love) and Spielberg had obvious personal misgivings about not doing justice to the subject matter. But the idea of passing off direction duties to someone else, as he had initially attempted to do, also weighed heavily on him as he felt he owed it to his family to make the film. And so, on the understanding with Universal that he make Jurassic Park first, Spielberg signed on as director of Schindler’s List, with a budget about a third that of his dinosaur classic. The set of Schindler’s List was reportedly solemn and harrowing, with a frazzled Spielberg then spending hours in the evenings editing Jurassic Park. The results were worth it. In an incredible showing, Spielberg put out two of the best films of 1993, one the biggest commercial hit of the year and the other the most critically lauded film of the year. Any lingering snobbery surrounding Spielberg’s ability to make thematically weightier films pretty much evaporated with the release of Schindler’s List.
One of Spielberg’s key achievements in making Schindler’s List was not losing his directorial identity. Although the content is often grim and disturbing, Spielberg’s fingerprints are everywhere in just how entertaining he manages to make the film across its surprisingly fast-moving three-hour-plus runtime. I recalled from previous viewings how much I had enjoyed Schindler’s List and I questioned when going in this time whether that should really be the case. Should a film about the Holocaust, with images as uncompromising as some shown here, be referred to as “entertaining”? Having now rewatched the film, my conclusion is that it is not only absolutely fine for that to be the case but it is beneficial in getting an important story to as wide an audience as possible. The one caveat is that the subject matter is not cheapened in the pursuit of watchability. This is something Spielberg manages admirably for most of the runtime, only dropping the ball with an unnecessarily sentimentalised finale in which Schindler breaks down as he wonders how many more lives he could’ve potentially saved. Spielberg responded to these criticisms by saying that the scene was needed to emphasise the sense of loss and give viewers the opportunity to mourn alongside the characters, but this feels to me like the one moment when Spielberg lets his instincts as a storyteller overwhelm his duty to respect the subject matter. His reasoning seems to underestimate the audience’s ability to experience feelings without being taken by the hand and lead towards them. The present day epilogue, in which the film switches to colour, makes matters worse and Schindler’s List really feels like a film that would’ve benefited from a less insistently demonstrative ending.
I’ve started at the end because that is one of the only significant negatives about Schindler’s List. While ending on a misjudged sequence obviously has an unfortunate impact greater than a bum note in the middle might’ve, it’s not enough to undermine the excellent three hours that come before it. The casting of Schindler’s List is superb, with the lead roles going to actors who were then comparatively little-known. Liam Neeson is fantastic as Schindler, essaying a complex transformation convincingly across the course of the entire film. There is no single Road to Damascus moment and Neeson feels authentically human as both the Nazi war profiteer he starts out as and the covert humanitarian he ends up as. The subtlety is such that it magnifies that final misstep considerably. Schindler’s tearful breakdown seems to belong in a different film completely. But Schindler’s List is stolen by an absolutely breathtaking performance by Ralph Fiennes as concentration camp commandant Amon Göth, one of the most chillingly evil characters ever put on screen. The fact that Göth was a real person makes this a potentially thorny role to take on but Fiennes’ nuanced performance is perfectly judged, showing the vulnerability in the monster without making the mistake of making him anything close to sympathetic. Fiennes loss of the Supporting Actor Oscar to Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive remains one of the most controversial decisions in Oscar history.
Completing the main cast is Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, Schindler’s deadpan Jewish assistant. While the role exists in the shadows of Neeson and Fiennes’ spectacular turns, it gives the sometimes hammy Kingsley the rare opportunity to underplay, which he does admirably. While its lead performances are excellent, Schindler’s List crucially focuses just as squarely on the Jewish community itself. Often the film goes for long stretches without any of its leads on screen, instead immersing the viewer in the unimaginable horrors and endless tension of the ghetto and the camps. One of the film’s most famous sequences, and one of the best Spielberg ever shot, is the liquidation of Kraków in which we see the interwoven stories of the ghetto’s inhabitants as they try to survive the atrocities. It is tense and moving but never feels exploitative. The superb screenplay by Steven Zaillian delivers episodes that are compelling but not artificially neat. We don’t find out what happened to everyone in who’s stories we’ve momentarily shared and that agonising ambiguity is partially the point, as driven home by the symbolism of the little girl in red, one of Schindler’s List’s smartest and most famous images. The vibrancy of the red is brought out by Janusz Kamiński’s beautifully judged black and white cinematography, which forsakes the crisp beauty of most modern day black and white films for a more tonally appropriate graininess that makes the images feel archival.
Holocaust films are often riveting experiences that you never want to return to after the first viewing but Schindler’s List is a film I’ve seen several times and which I will doubtless revisit again in future. Despite its daunting runtime and subject matter, Spielberg has managed to transfer his instantly recognisable skills as a director of mass entertainment to source material that would seemingly render such powers crassly inappropriate. There’s a long-running joke about how Holocaust films are practically guaranteed Oscars but a glance at the Best Picture winners list clearly shows that this is a cynical overstatement. Since the release of Schindler’s List, the victory of such a film in the Best Picture category has become even more unlikely, not because Schindler’s List is anything as crassly reductive as “the definitive Holocaust film” but because Spielberg found a way to make the subject matter palatable to a wide audience without trivialising it in the process.