Glenn Close as Albert Nobbs

Glenn Close got back in front of movie cameras two days ago. Albert Nobbs has just started filming. She plays a cross dressing woman in 1890's Ireland.

[photo src]

Barring the movie going to cable (these things happen) of failing to get distribution (these things happen, too) will Glenn Close finally be back in the Oscar race next year at this time? She was last nominated for 1988's Dangerous Liaisons over twenty years ago. Since that Oscar regular heyday (5 nominations all within the 1980s) she's gone on to win 3 Emmys, 1 SAG and 2 Golden Globes for television roles.

The film is directed by Rodrigo García (pictured left with Close) who specializes in the actresses, most famously in television or in films like Mother & Child, Nine Lives and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her. We hope he finds new inner fire as a writer/director this time. The talent with actors is obviously there but the energy of the filmmaking, some sort of electric spark is missing. So far. Will this project be the game changer?

The movie is based on the short story turned play The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs which the diva actress previously played on stage... before she was ever in a movie! I couldn't find a photo from the play but here's a review from 1982 (!) of Ms. Close's performance, the same year she first hit the big screen in The World According to Garp. Michael Gambon and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers co-star.

Whither Karen Silkwood?

Tim here again-

"On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there."

And 34 years later, we still don't know exactly what happened to her, though anyone who has seen 1983's Silkwood probably has their suspicions. After all, the film brings the woman back to life in the form of Meryl Streep, at her most lifeforce-tastic, while depicting the manager whose lives she was making so difficult as a pasty, puffy, shifty sort of fellow, the kind who looks like he's constantly about to break into sweat. We don't have the slightest difficulty believing that he and his cronies are just the kind of people to take out a hit on a troublesome young activist, especially since Silkwood is always so engaging and easy to like, and darn it, just plain good, despite some troubling details about her personal life that keep creeping in, adding just enough ambiguity that we can't be absolutely sure that she wasn't maybe at fault for her supposed single-vehicle car crash.

I assume that everybody visiting this site knows why they, at the very least, ought to have seen Silkwood by now (I just finally did *cough* thismorning): Streep in one of the great performances of her early career (it netted her Oscar nomination #5), Cher's breakthrough as a "serious" actress, Kurt Russell's most nuanced dramatic performance ever. Certainly, the combined talents of those three actors, feeding off of each other and giving back so much intimacy, each member of the triangle driving the others to reach their peak, is enough to make Silkwood an excellent human-sized story; personal and observant in a way to make it far more than what the concept threatens to make it, another routine "social activist" picture in the Norma Rae mold.

Less obviously, but just as importantly, the film relies heavily on the careful handling by director Mike Nichols of Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen's fine script: Nichols was on his very best behavior here, opening up the characters through unstressed details and very delicate use of the camera frame to suggest the ongoing shift between the main characters, and their environment.

And it's that ending where Nichols does some of the best work of the film- nay, of his career. With the script rightfully refusing to conjecture what happened that night, Nichols finds an uncanny way to clearly indicate what he wants us to think, while steadfastly maintaining ambiguity. The tension-raising long shot of a car following Karen on a lonely road, which in one steady take shows the lights of that car slowly appear and then draw painfully near, suggests a lot, but it shows absolutely nothing, other than Karen's panic and paranoia. Or the quick insert of Cher's Dolly, Karen's best friend and possible betrayer (foreshadowed in another directorial coup on an airplane), silently crying: it tells the viewer nothing, but creates a feeling of intense foreboding.

Does Silkwood assume, for the sake of drama, that its heroine was murdered? Absolutely, and yet there's not a frame of the film that I can use to prove it. It's that same haunting ambiguity that made the circumstances of Karen Silkwood's death so compelling in the first place; and the filmmakers' ability to honor both her memory and the known facts at the same time is one of the surest reasons that this movie is one of the great true-story thrillers of its decade.

BPFTOI: Driving Through the Best Years of Miss Daisy's Lives

"Best Pictures From the Outside In" is back. But, oh fiddle, because the series is so infrequent we have to keep explaining it. It's a joint production between Mike at Goatdog's Blog, Nick at Nick's Flick Picks and Nathaniel at The Film Experience. We began in 2008 pairing the most recent winner No Country For Old Men with the first winner Wings and we've been working our way inward ever since from both ends of the Oscar chronology. Get it? Got it? Good. We've now reached 1946 vs. 1989.

 These men have been through enough Daisy. Let Hoke take the wheel!

NATHANIEL: Just when you get used to things a certain way...

Nothing is more certain in life than change so it's something of a human mystery as to why we're always so surprised or discomforted by it. In the Oscar winners The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989), we have four protagonists who are dealing with it from the comforts and, this is a fine point, new discomforts of their own homes. When I say "dealing with it" I sometimes mean not dealing with it all. It's a testament to this double feature that there's quite a lot of truth in the coping mechanisms presented, up to and including the coping mechanism of not coping. Sometimes we all just need a little time.

(Oscar sometimes needs a lot of time, which is why he likes to reward social issues movies like Daisy that take place in the rearview mirror.)

Since I mentioned four protagonists, allow me to introduce them. I'm referring to the three World War II veterans Al (Fredric March), Fred (Dana Andrews) and Homer (Harold Russell) who are returning to the homefront in The Best Years of Our Lives and the widowed Jewess (Jessica Tandy) of Driving Miss Daisy who is holed up in her estate when she's suddenly deemed unfit to drive. I stop at four because, Morgan Freeman's Lead Actor nomination aside, I can't buy Miss Daisy's chauffeur as anything like a fifth protagonist. Though he's quite literally driving, he's incongruously but a passenger.

Miss Daisy wants Hoke to drive at the speed of walking but I want the both of you to answer the following question like you've got a lead foot and somewhere else to be. (Let's just get it out of the way and drive on). How offensive (or not) did you find Hoke and/or the movie's complete lack of interest in his story and how much of that was mitigated by the entertainments of Grumpy Old Woman?

MIKE: It's not just uninterested in Hoke's story, it's uninterested in the entire story of the black freedom movement in the three decades after World War II. The only mention we get of anything approaching the Civil Rights Movement is a 1966 speech by Martin Luther King, more than an hour into the film. The only racist violence we hear about is the bombing of a Jewish synagogue. The only racist encounter we see occurs on a trip to Alabama --so I guess Atlanta in the 1960s was a little model of cooperation, as long as the help stayed in the kitchen and didn't grumble under their breaths too much. But there was a TV in that kitchen--surely SOMEONE saw SOMETHING going on that poked a teensy hole in the "slow and steady evens the races" model this film is pushing. And that ending--"You're my best friend, Hoke"--is one of the few times you'll ever see me moved to praise the recent Best Picture winner Crash, because I sort of think Crash knew how ridiculous it was when Sandra Bullock says the same thing to her beleaguered housekeeper. But here in Miss Daisyland, there's no such thing as self-examination. Meanwhile, out in the world, while the Academy was praising carefully crafted, Old Left films about gradual social change, Spike Lee was tossing garbage cans through windows trying to get people's attention. The Academy noticed, of course--the white dude in Do the Right Thing got a Supporting Actor nomination. This film, and this window into the Academy's soul, both make me sick.

 Hollywood Race Relations: Sincere or Ridiculous?

NICK: That's a tough act to follow, so my only option is to surprise even myself by at least playing devil's advocate for Driving Miss Daisy. Just to be clear, I don't think it's a good movie, and along with Field of Dreams and Dead Poets Society, it serves as proof that AMPAS somehow Rip Van Winkle'd its way through one of the stronger years for commercial film in the 1980s. (Then again, the directors and the actors and the writers and the nominators in almost every single category had better ideas than the high-fructose consensus that emerged in Best Picture, so maybe 1989 just proves the liabilities of how the Best Picture slate is determined.) Daisy's images are almost unrelievedly similar and boring. The editor often falls asleep. The score gets hilariously bombastic and misused after that pleasingly shuffle-along title melody. The biggest problem for me is that the script and the direction seem so damned tentative about pressing further into almost any of the story ideas or thematic issues it raises.

But I have to say, on that score, the script doesn't seem inclined to poke around Miss Daisy's backstory or the dilemmas of being Jewish in mid-century Atlanta any more than it wants to poke around Hoke's past or his private life. I don't think she's any more of a "protagonist" than he is, really. When the movie clicks at all - and it does for me, just a little bit, in its closing scenes - it's because I actually do think it hints at the thinness of the bond between these characters, who never know each other very fully even as they gradually feel warmer to each other or get more involved in each other's lives. Daisy's "You're my best friend" is, after all, uttered amid a bout of dementia, and Freeman doesn't imply that Hoke agrees here at all. The golden close-up on their clasped hands is a bit much. But almost immediately Daisy cuts to a very dark long-shot unlike almost anything else in the movie, which makes Daisy herself and this plaintive exchange both look awfully feeble and cold.

NATHANIEL: Well, when your only other option for Best Friendship is your obtuse son with the wandering suthehn accent and your silent housekeeper, isn't chatty Hoke a good option? At least he'll laugh at your jokes.

NICK:  That generous sense of humor helps this movie a lot. It's one of the hundred or so ways in which Freeman manages to bat back at the cloying and insulting potentials in this script and make Hoke (for me) an intriguing, legitimate character. In terms of what Mike pointed out, I do also appreciate that quick, earlier moment when he rebuked Daisy's idea that race relations were "totally changing" in the era of King.

MIKE:  I totally agree that there should be more to this discussion than just DMD's racial politics, but I keep getting dragged back--Hoke's sense of humor reminds me of the skit in the middle of Public Enemy's "Burn Hollywood Burn" about the casting director looking for a black actor willing to play a "controversial" character (a butler who chuckles under his breath). But you were saying.

NICK: I do agree it's demented to vote this Best Picture, and a particular slap in the face in the year of Do the Right Thing (or Crimes and Misdemeanors, or When Harry Met Sally..., or Roger & Me). But I think the movie finally shows at least some sobriety and tact about exactly what kind of relationship these two have. I don't think Daisy does a very good job even at being the basically safe movie it is, but I don't know that it's fair to ask it to be Do the Right Thing, either. I'm much more annoyed by movies of this era like Mississippi Burning, which styles itself as exactly the kind of bold, historically minded, race-focused protest picture you want Daisy to be and actually distorts the record and omits black perspectives even more than Daisy does.

 "Well, I'll be. We got 9 nominations and 4 Oscars! Do The Right Thing went 0 for 2"
That Hoke... such a kidder. Wait, that was a joke, right? That didn't actu ---oh god.

NATHANIEL: I'd actually love to excuse the Academy's love of this whole mini genre of minority struggle narratives coopted to tell stories of tolerant white people (see also the previous Best Picture's episode!) as dementia. At least then, they'd have an excuse. But it's a wider problem than just Oscar taste level. Critics, media and audiences tend to embrace these films in large numbers, too.

MIKE:  OK, off the topic of racial politics, there are some things I like about this film. That snappy little jingle that pops up in the score when it's not being bombastic is tops for me. I think I like Hoke, mostly because of the gravitas Freeman brings to the character, which keeps him from drowning in the script. The glowing cinematography got old, but there's some darkness that verges on the wildly experimental, given the film's overall conservativeness: that weird "oh my god look at all our reflections in the mirror" bit during Tandy's first "spell" seems like it's dropped in from a different film, but the long, dark shot at the end that Nick mentioned is a sobering way to close things. And I sort of like Dan Aykroyd, despite the wandering accent, for his genial longsufferingness. As for Jessica Tandy, I couldn't really separate her performance from the film: it seemed like one of those "oh no this old lady's gonna die soon" awards that happened a few times (some deserved, some not) in the 1980s.

NATHANIEL: You know how difficult it is for me to praise Jessica Tandy here (given the Oscar tragedy that played out... that unspeakable tragedy that I'm always speaking about) but I do think she does fairly good work with the innocuous material. Not Oscar nomination worthy good but good all the same. I like that you can see cracks growing in her "I'm not prejudice" mantra. She's not exactly self aware but she's not exactly not either and you can see that this annoys her more than it moves her towards actual change or self examination. That feels, to me, like a cool acknowledgement of the way people often process their own failings.

And this movie can take any tiny cold snap anyone can gift it with. The cinematography was so golden soft that I felt it was constantly trying to tuck me in for bed with a very warm blanket or roll me right up into a papoose so that I'd never have to feel anything uncomfortable or chilly ever again.

But I like the chill since it helps me appreciate the warmth.

War heroes in the round: The Airman, The Soldier and The Sailor return home.

Speaking of which, how about the versatile cinematography and shot composition in The Best Years of Our Lives? I swear to god... it was like entire miniature movies in every scene. Warmth and chill and other glorious complements everywhere I looked.

NICK:  Totally! The approach to lensing, shot structure, and editing in The Best Years of Our Lives is just so inspiring. I remember being not prepared at all when I first saw the movie, because I wasn't used to looking for technical virtuosity or intense formal variety in projects that look on the surface like unpretentious domestic soapers. This is the kind of movie that Hollywood so often shoots so boringly--relying entirely on actors to drive home all the emotional beats in the script, as though trying to convey feeling through focus, camera movement, lighting contrasts, or whatever would somehow undercut those emotions. Which is funny, because just within this series, William Wyler's own Mrs. Miniver seems like a good example (as, frankly, does Driving Miss Daisy) of exactly that sort of punch-pulling movie. Still within this series, though it's nothing like The Best Years of Our Lives, American Beauty was another example that if you explore middle-class domesticity with formal flair and visual invention, the ticket-buying populace really can get excited about it.

 William Wyler in the 1940s. Did any director ever have a decade this good?
6 Features | 2 Best Pic & Dir. Winners | 3 Best Pic & Dir. Nominees |
1940s Haul for Wyler Features: 47 nominations | 18 wins | 1 Honorary

I don't absolutely adore Best Years the way I did on first pass, but if you compare it to the chilly, self-conscious formalism of Wyler's Little Foxes in '41 or the unambitious warmth of Mrs. Miniver in '42, it's just amazing that he's able to rifle through his entire bag of technical gambits and still make the Derrys and the Stephensons and the Camerons and the Parrishes at least as dear to us as the Minivers were. More so, really.

MIKE:  I'm with you guys 100%, except the part where Nick doesn't absolutely adore Best Years like he did on first pass, because I think I love it even more this time around. It vaults into my handful of best Best Picture winners ever (which might seem like damning with faint praise). What jumped out to me most this time around was Gregg Toland's use of deep focus, which he had knocked out of the park a few years earlier in Citizen Kane. He uses it with such versatility here, and it's amazing how many different things it can do depending on the context of the scene. My two favorites were (1) the barroom scene where Harold Russell and Hoagy Carmichael were playing the piano in the foreground, Fredric March was nervously in the middle ground, turning from the piano to the far, far distant background where Dana Andrews is giving Teresa Wright the heave-ho via telephone. It's like there's a million miles between them! And (2) the wedding scene (which still makes me cry) with Andrews's face in the foreground, the happy couple in the middle, and an angelic-looking Wright in the background. Here, the focus pulls everyone together, emphasizing their closeness.

One filmmaking technique = Two entirely different feelings.

And I love your "unpretentious domestic soaper" line, Nick, because the film does feel episodic. You could "tune in" for a couple of scenes and then go do your laundry, then come back and watch a different section of the movie. Not many films feel like they can work as a whole or as bite-sized, but still self-contained, chunks. And even though it's following more than a half-dozen characters, it manages to make them more fully formed than Daisy did with three. (And the extended running time only partly explains that.) Who's your favorite? Mine is Dana Andrews's Fred, who uses Andrews's unique bruised masculinity better than any of his other performances.

NATHANIEL: Hear hear on Dana Andrews. His performance felt like a marvel of internal distress signals to me... which made his inappropriate romance with Teresa Wright so relatable; she was tuned to his frequency. Her erotic attachment to him is not as simple as "I can save him" but that element is definitely there. Fortunately, despite all the potential cliches this team is working with I feel like they just nail down the core truths of certain familiar tropes with such precision and force. One scene that really knocked me over with its expressiveness in both performance and direction -- all the filmmaking tools Nick mentioned -- was Dana's solo moment in the cockpit where he lets himself access the war memories he's been keeping at bay. I found it to be such a beautifully judged emotional climax but used as transition into the last sequences where the storylines thread back together for the wedding.

 This cockpit has seen heavy fire; this pilot is all burned out.

You know, I think today's audiences (and I'd include myself here) are missing out whenever they dismiss earlier entertainments as "simpler times". Just because the movies didn't have body counts, profanity or sex scenes, doesn't mean they weren't extremely adult in tone. In fact, it's tough for me to even imagine a modern war drama delving this deep into both interpersonal connections and abcesses. You mentioned the movie's episodic nature and maybe that's why it plays out with such modernity to me. I felt like I was watching a lost Emmy-winning series from HBO or AMC had either been around in 1946. There are just so many through lines and longform dramatic beats in the screenplay.

My least favorite of the film's three threads is Harold Russell's. It wasn't because his scenes weren't moving so much as they didn't transcend their romantic drama / war film templates as well as the other two stories did. Aside from Dana Andrews, my favorite star turn belonged to Myrna Loy. She works absolute magic in her wifely duties both to Fredric March and to the picture itself, keeping so many scenes grounded with pragmatism, patience and a lived-in resiliency. Loy gives you a real sense of both what her character was like as a wife before the war and how the war changed her even from the peaceful homefront. But despite her realistically portrayed wariness and annoyance at some of the life changes on the way, she's such a comforting grounded presence that you know her husband (and the larger movie) will be able to work through his post-traumatic stress issues and readjust as best he possibly can to civilian life.

NICK:  Agreed on Andrews: so great at charting implosive feelings, right before that became the sole province of neurotic Method tics. Agreed on Loy, whose taking-in-stride of her husband's embarrassing bender is played so simply, but is so modulated and complex. I like Wright slightly less than these two, but I like her for all the reasons Nathaniel cites. That none of these three got Oscar noms despite the juggernaut status of the film is too bad. I'm sure Andrews is too "quiet" for AMPAS tastes, and I wonder if the studio deferred to March's star power by putting all their push behind him. There could well have been category confusion about the women, but honestly. They nominated Jennifer Jones for playing a tempestuous Tex-Mex and Flora Robson for glowering in blackface. Blackface!

Fredric March is one of my favorite actors, and I have plenty of glowing things to say about him, too. I'll leave myself to one, since it overlaps with Wyler's staging idea: the famous moment when he returns home and each family member discovers his presence, one by one. Everyone's great in this scene, which uses depth of field so conspicuously you can feel the "staginess" despite the marvelous emotion that still pours out of this reunion. And I think March brilliantly accounts for some of the "staged" quality of the filmmaking into his psychological profile of the character. Al clearly likes the idea of a Heartwarming Reunion, and it's not as though he's at all insincere. But as poignant as the moment is, you see how quickly he realizes he's not ready for all this, and kind of wants to be left alone. Tearful embraces are great, but they don't tell the whole truth.

 We've got choreography! A beautifully "staged" family reunion.

I don't think all of Wyler's ideas work so perfectly or integrate themselves so well. If there's anything to be said against the movie for me, it's that you almost hear Wyler and his team figuring out what nifty lensing or staging conceit they want to try out now. It's like the directing version of Kael's notorious anti-Streep comment: click, click, click... And, way too many times, the "big idea" they bring to Harold Russell's scenes is, "Let's make the audience patiently watch while he does something in real time that you'd imagine a man with no hands could not do."

Still, the film is so obviously humane and, in ways that count, emotionally restrained enough that it never feels exploitative of Russell, or of anyone else. And I totally agree that the whole movie is a remarkably rangy, sobering, and novelistic experience. I second (or third?) every lovely thing you guys have said about it.

NATHANIEL: Novelistic is right which is why this movie could easily provoke a week's worth of conversation... but we have to draw the line somewhere.

Am I correct in assuming we all think the Homer (Harold Russell) third is the film's least effective? As someone who generally distrusts sentiment in movies (I often feel like it amounts to emotional pornography, all mechanics with manufactured emotions) I was surprised how well these scenes did work for me. And I think it's for the reasons you've stated. Yes, it's a little obvious but I admire that Wyler is willing to put us in an uncomfortable place as an audience on his way to more traditional movie warmth. More than once the audience awkwardly shares the wary emotional POV of Homer's fiance's parents. We're forced to gawk and even though our hearts are telling us this is an incompassionate place to be, you do have to wonder if you'd want that caretaker life for your daughter.

Just discussing this movie makes me want to dive back in right now. It totally earns its sentiment and that's a rare achievement.

MIKE:  Looking back over fifty years, Harold Russell’s story is the least effective, for the reasons Nick mentioned—the goal here was to have a heart-to-heart with American audiences who were going to have to get used to seeing that kind of thing, and to remind them of the sacrifices people made in the war. It’s certainly part of the overall message of the film, that war is not necessarily glorious, it messes people up both physically and emotionally, and it might make your husband/boyfriend/son seem like a stranger. But we don’t need that patient semi-lecture today; we’ve seen Platoon and Saving Private Ryan and countless other films that take that as a given. So Russell’s story is where the film seems too message-y (although I absolutely LOVE how Toland shoots his house), and it lacks the acting firepower of the other storylines, and it is too occupied with that “this is how you take off your pants if you don’t have hands” pseudo-documentary feel. But Russell’s story gave us those wonderful scenes in Hoagy Carmichael’s bar, which rank among my favorites in the movie. So there you go.

 You hardly recognize them. They hardly recognize themselves.

The absence of that “we have some tough things to tell you” attitude was what irked me the most about Driving Miss Daisy, which wanted it both ways—it’s a loving paean to a way of life that’s long since disappeared, but it’s also a (spineless) criticism of that way of life. Best Years shows us that you can demonstrate your love for small-town America while still taking it firmly to task for being bigoted, or unthinking, or unappreciative. To do it mostly without preaching is a little miracle.

Of course, next time around we’ll have preaching up to our armpits, as Elia Kazan and company grab us by the scruffs of our neck and teach us a lesson about anti-Semitism in Gentleman’s Agreement; it will
be paired with one of the weirdest Best Picture choices of all time, Rain Man, and I can only imagine how we’ll pine for the warmth and complexity of Best Years of Our Lives as we give each other those baffled but affectionate looks that Morgan Freeman kept giving Jessica Tandy. Oscars. There’s lots of them.

 Miss Daisy stubbornly insists on walking to the video store to rent Rain
Man and Gentleman's Agreement. She doesn't know from Netflix.

NATHANIEL: Readers, back to you. Chime in!

for a complete index of this series thus far, click here.

*

Big is Good.

Jose here.



Money may not sleep but apparently our creativity does. Watching Wall Street the other day I couldn't help but ask myself how is it that technology took a turn on us at some point and now cell phones are going big again?

I know nothing will ever be as big as that brick Gordon Gekko checks out of jail in the sequel...



...but in theory the things we saw back in '87 are still going on today...sorta. It seems that for a while technology was driven towards making everything so tiny. Remember those cell phones that were supposed to be implanted in our molars? With the advent of the i Phone it seems that now all they want is to go back to a reasonable size that makes your hand feel like you are carrying something (have you noticed how hot those things can get sometimes?).

Can this be some sort of cautionary tale about how the excess of the 80's fooled the 90's into downsizing and then the 00's reminded us again about how weak we really are? OK someone stop me before I start sounding like Oliver Stone.

Speaking of which, have you seen it yet? Were you as baffled as I was? Are you more in love than ever with Carey Mulligan? Tell us!

Take Three: Dianne Wiest

Craig here. It's Wiest week on Take Three.

Today: Dianne Wiest

Take One: Avon calling!

As Peg Boggs, the perkiest, friendliest Avon lady you’ll ever meet at the cinema, Wiest introduced Edward Scissorhands (1990) to the curious inhabitants of pastel-perfect suburbia with the kindliest demeanour seen in a Tim Burton film; she’s the most good-natured character he’s conjured yet. She trots from house to house in matching mauve, enthusiastically spouting her cosmetic spiel, but getting no joy from the idle ladies of Burton’s uniformly stylised Fantasyville, America. So off to the dank, dark castle on the hill she goes - and finds a guy with mangled scissors for hands. Edward needs love, acceptance and Peg offers it; she’ll be the mother he never had. But she thinks he needs a makeover too - it’s his scarred and pallid complexion which brightly troubles her: “at the very least let me give you a good astringent - and this will help you to prevent infection,” she offers with a nod and a smile.

Mother courage: Wiest, as Peg, wanders Ed's castle
for cosmetic custom in Edward Scissorhands

Peg’s the motherly vanguard: a polite, one-woman call to arms for the housewives of Burton’s sickly-sweet suburbia to embrace the change and accept the strange. They get their hedges, pooches and bonces trimmed and fulfil their gossip quota for a year, but when it’s open season for exploiting the scissor-handed one - due to a series of unfortunate incidents unattributable to Depp’s Ed - Peg’s the one who sticks by him. A character like her stands for what Burton’s really getting at, what he’s always getting at: embedding the otherworldly into the everyday. She takes the sharp-fingered weirdo in and oh-so-nicely dismisses the mediocrity of middle-America with pleasant tilt of the head to top it off. She’s spearheading Burton’s cutesy damning of selfish small-town mores like a lightly-rouged trooper.

Wiest 'making up' for Edward's lost time in Edward Scissorhands

Wiest’s scenes with Depp were a joy to watch again (it’s been roughly ten years since I saw the film). Looking at it now I can see why Burton cast her. No one does homely eccentricity quite like Wiest. Whether she’s slapping Depp with make-up, dressing him up in ill-fitting clothes or proudly parading him around town, their shared screen time is one of the most becoming components of the film. In fact, they have just as much of a central relationship as do Edward and Kim (Winona Ryder). And the bit where Peg talks about him leaving for everyone’s good? Well, that bit just cuts me up.

Take Two: Quiet on set: Dianne Wiest, synecdochally, is acting

Despite two viewings I’m still rather baffled by the fiction vs. reality conundrums in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (2008). I’m sure there’s some definable logic to the repetitious characterisations and psychological brain boggling of his directing debut, but I’m happy to remain blissfully none-the-wiser for now. Like David Lynch’s and, of course, Michel Gondry’s cine-universes, what’s real, dream, movie (in this instance, play... performance art) or merely imagined is somewhat beside the point; the journey through Kaufman’s monumentally dissociative deathly fugue-movie is the crux of the matter. The goods lay in how Caden’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) slippery grip on existence comes unstuck, and the women who accompany him along the way - especially cleaning lady Ellen Bascomb.

What is apparent is that Kaufman’s a one-man female-talent magnet. He fruitfully snagged Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Emily Watson for his first directing gig; years of screenwriting respect are splendidly rewarded with some of filmdom’s finest female thesps. But of all of them, the one Synecdoche lady who bested all the above six - and quietly, elegantly walked off with the film - was Wiest as Millicent Weems, the woman Caden casts as the aforementioned Ellen Bascomb, who then (as either Ellen or Millicent) plays the final, “weirdly close” version of Caden.

Wiest as Ellen, as depicted via the stunning paintings of artist Alex
Kanevsky, who provided Synecdoche, New York with his talents

Things get tricky, but it’s in the film’s almost unbearably elegiac last 15 minutes where - despite the eternally-burning house, endless enactments within re-enactments of Caden’s life/play and the musings on the inscrutability of life - the film hits a perplexing and gut-punching emotional stride. Amid a rolling, constantly-dissolving sequence of Caden’s last actions, a peek into what the film may be really about is hinted at.

A brief shot of a lonely Wiest - bookended by past and present snippets from her (real?) life - staring out of an open window, her face crumpled into teary despair, suggests we may have been watching Ellen’s life, not Caden’s, all along. This shot, accompanied by the static-faltering audio cues that she feeds Caden through an earpiece, as he strolls through the body-strewn devastation of his Synecdoche set, ushers in the end of the film. As he sits with the woman who played Ellen’s mother in a re-enactment (dream?), she disconnectedly delivers Synecdoche, New York’s final three-letter word that stops the film dead.

Mrs. Mop: Wiest cleans up for Caden in Synecdoche, New York

Wiest is the key component of Kaufman’s film: it’s all her (in the way that Inland Empire could actually be about Grace Zabriskie’s visitor - due to one telling late shot in that film - more than it's about Laura Dern’s Nikki/Susan.) Wiest plays her triple role with subtly affecting shifts in tone. The beauty of her performance(s) is how she underplays each mournful angle of the women she’s portraying; there’s an uncanny sadness, hinting at something more, right from her first scene. Despite her fragmentary moments, Wiest makes each one matter for the brief amount of time she’s on screen. Things get very blurry and indistinct indeed, but she guides us through Kaufman’s head-scratcher casually but regretfully, gently evoking all the feeling that the earlier parts of the film lay in place for her. Now, I don't know about Caden, but if Kaufman and Lynch could just hook up and make a mind-warping movie with Wiest and Zabriskie as a pair of bizarre, neighbourly cleaning ladies I’d die a happy man.

Take Three: Holly-Woody

Of the five films Wiest made with Woody Allen, her role as recovering coke-head and flaky actress, Holly, in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) was perhaps her best. It was also one of the most deserving Supporting Actress Oscar wins of the last 30 years). Of course she won a second for Bullets over Broadway, but Holly’s the Woody gal getting the Take Three treatment.

A disastrous date in progress

Holly is the more forceful, wayward and insouciant sibling - the black sheep of Hannah’s clan. Where Hannah herself (Mia Farrow) and Lee (Barbara Hershey) were passively thoughtful and fretfully adulterous respectively, Holly was the sloppy interloper, still very much in the process of shaking off the remnants of her former self; still asking her sister for money or favours. (The scene where Holly sheepishly asks Hannah if she can borrow $2000 shows off Holly’s blithe dependency to a tee.)

One of Wiest’s – and indeed Hannah’s - best moments is when Sam Waterston gives Holly and April (Carrie Fisher) a tour of his favourite New York architecture. Wiest’s resigned interior monologue in the car afterwards, when, much to her chagrin, she gets dropped off first, is one of the most concisely delivered in an Allen film, and unreservedly sums up Holly’s regretful and self-depreciating attitude to love:

"Naturally I get taken home first. Well, obviously he prefers April. Of course I was so tongue-tied all night. I can't believe I said that about the Guggenheim - my stupid little roller-skating joke. I should never tell jokes. Mom can tell 'em and Hannah, but I kill 'em... I hate April -- she's pushy...

Now they’ll dump me and she’ll invite him up. I blew it – and I really like him a lot. Oh screw it, I’m not gonna get all upset. I’ve got reading to do tonight. Maybe I’ll get into bed early. I’ll turn on a movie and take an extra Seconol.”

Wiest’s facial expressions are perfectly in sync with her voice-over monologue. Her face adds to what’s said; her eyes aptly convey Holly’s agitated acquiescence. Undoubtedly it was moments like this that went toward her nabbing that first Oscar. Holly’s unlucky, can’t get the breaks, and Wiest ensures we give a shit every step of the way. Her impatient and jumpy neediness to be liked translates wonderfully.

Wiest is a perfect fit for Woody’s world; it’s no wonder he used her five times (and let’s hope for a sixth in future). Her often mile-a-minute line delivery never misses a beat. Her natural, unaffected interactions with Farrow and Hershey are faultless. (With that title it’s vital they click, even when they don’t). A late moment, when all three meet up at a restaurant, showcases her flawless timing and comfort in the role: the camera roves around the table, catching every one of her well-placed lines and gestures. And with similar ingenuity she conveys two character extremes on the two very different dates she has with Allen’s Mickey, which speak volumes about Holly: one a punk gig (lively, involved), the other at a jazz club (fidgety, despondent).

Everything about Hannah is solid; it’s the perfectly-balanced study of Allen’s core, ongoing obsession with the lives of likeable, entertaining folk - folk we may rarely meet, but take pleasure in spending time with onscreen. Whenever I come back to Hannah it’s as deliciously, surprisingly funny as it was the first time. And Wiest’s scenes are always the ones I look forward to watching the most: they’re relaxed, agreeable and full of character.

I like Holly. She’s not pushy.

Julia's Men: Broken Billy and Brother Eric

A steep box office drop off for Eat Pray Love (which opened well thanks to Julia Roberts and the memoir's popularity) or its generally blah reviews could easily kill it, but Richard Jenkins has a slam dunk Best Supporting Actor Type part, don't you think? Yeah, you know that category has its types.

For me though, the character I keep thinking about is Stephen (Billy Crudup). Crudup made a vivid impression in just a couple of scenes so I wrote him up for my "Best in Show" column at Tribeca Film. He's like a little boy whose heart Julia stomped on till it broke. So sad.

I have to start my spreadsheets for the 2010 Film Bitch Awards now lest I forget something (I've usually started them by now. Eeep). Are than any cameos or limited roles this year that wowed you that you want everyone else to love? If so, share them in the comments. (Here's who I went with last year in those "limited" categories.)

Speaking of men Julia Roberts may or may not have clobbered emotionally, apparently Eric (her older brother) and she have mended their previously tense relationship. The Daily Beast has an interview with Eric Roberts about his career and their relationship. Like his friend Mickey Rourke he isn't one to mince words and I love that in celebrities even if their handlers do not. He just flat out admits that he gave up chasing a certain kind of career after his Oscar loss.

When you hand in great performances in Star 80 and Runaway Train and the Oscar goes to Don Ameche, it kind of bums you out.

Brutal honesty plus shameless self regard. Love it! (To be fair he is just fantastic in Star 80 and should be proud of himself.) I also get bummed out about the Cocoon love. But if anyone but Ameche was going to win that particular Oscar, it would have been Klaus Maria Brandauer in Out of Africa.
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Posterized Sissies

Let's talk Sissy Spacek. My friend Matt has been highlighting her something fierce over at Pop Matters, but why should he have the Sissy all to himself?


The great actress, everyone's favorite telekinetic murderess, is finally in a buzzy film again (Get Low opens today). And though I don't much care for the new movie, it's always nice when a frequently absent major actress wins Oscar buzz and praise again.

She's a big name but what does that name mean to today's moviegoers? For people born in the late 80s or 1990s, maybe her stint on TV's Big Love comes immediately to mind (Emmy nominated this year). But I'm guessing if it's not the cross-generational popular Carrie, it's mainly In the Bedroom that takes over the imagination: Sissy breaking plates, Sissy slapping Marisa Tomei, Sissy taking weird drags on her cigarette that manage to be both furious and catatonic simultaneously. How can they be both at once? She's a mysterious but vivid actress in her best work.

For those who lived through the 70s or 80s, the name will probably conjure multiple associations. Her filmography has a smattering of daring side dish classics but the main course is an oversize portion of middlebrow Oscar bait. To extend the food metaphor, that stuff can often taste healthy but afterwards... where is the nutritional value? In the long run aren't so many "prestige films" filled with empty calories? Her filmography also has intermittent weird gaps. And, unless I've got my dates wrong those gaps don't really even coincide with the births of her daughters (which is when many actresses take their long breaks). What happens in these gaps? It's almost as if Sissy gets an enigmatic closeup and then bolts from the cinema as enigmatically as teenage "Holly" abandons home in Badlands.

Oscar nominations are in bold.

Prime Cut (72) | Badlands (73) | Ginger in the Morning (74)

Note: Sissy worked with the brilliant art director / production designer Jack Fisk on Badlands and they married the following year when they were both still in their 20s. She's one of those rare actresses, like Meryl Streep, who has been married for almost the entirety of her fame to the same man. Another association. The two actresses are but six months apart in age and both became essential screen icons in the 1970s and won their first Oscars just one year apart.

Carrie (76) | Welcome to LA (76) | Three Women (77)

The underseen Three Women is one of Robert Altman's very best films. It's completely mandatory viewing for fans of Ingmar Bergman's Persona (an influential before) and Mulholland Dr (an influenced after). It's the middle link in that brilliant women-fused-together dream chain. Sissy disappears for a few years right after. And then...

Coal Miner's Daughter (80) | Heartbeat (80) | Raggedy Man (81)

Missing (82) | The River (84) | Marie (85)

Note: Such a star in the 80s she gets top billing over... Mel Gibson.

Violets Are Blue (86) | 'night Mother (86) | Crimes of the Heart (86)

The pinkish tone of the last two posters. They're screaming "GIRL MOVIES!" Not that we don't love girl movies, mind you.

It's too depressing to continue from there. Sissy's last two characters in 1986 were suicidal. Maybe the actress saw the 90s coming? After Crimes of the Heart, for which she was Oscar nominated, she disappears for four years until a series of movies crop up in the early 90s like The Long Walk Home (1990) that are well intentioned but don't go anywhere or did go places (JFK, '91) but didn't need her to get there. By the late 90s she'd been shoved into the supporting classes, from which she never really returns as headliner, but for her last classic, In the Bedroom. She collected a few trophies that year until the late surging Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) trumped her on Oscar night.

Here's three must-sees from the last twenty years of her filmography (though not always for her presence).

JFK (91) | The Straight Story (99) | In the Bedroom (01)

That's the first 15 films of her career (excluding extra work in a Warhol picture) and 3 more still. How many of those 18 have you seen?

And what would you like to see Sissy do next? Some of you have suggested in comment threads that she'd make a great Violent in August: Osage County whenever that becomes a film. She wouldn't be a bad choice for it at all, though one assumes Hollywood will want Meryl Streep to do it since they want her to do everything. As should be painfully obvious The Film Experience loves Meryl Streep, but some of her contemporaries sure could use her the big break of Streep passing on a choice role.

Exit music: Remember when we mentioned Streep's son being a fine musician? That's another thing the two actresses have in common. Here's Sissy & Jack's singer songwriter daughter Schuyler Fisk doing "From Where I'm Standing". Pretty voice, right? You can totally see Sissy in her. It's that lank sunkissed hair and those awesome cheekbones.

Woody Allen's Best Work?

I'm a week late chiming in here but I can't let the topic pass me by as a major fan of Woody Allen's filmography. Before Woody's quality started to dip and I found Pedro Almodovar, he was my favorite living director.

I can't find a suitable link to the original text that won't charge me money (dagnabbit) but apparently The Times of London asked Woody Allen to name his best films last month and his answers have had the internet all atwitter if not a twitter (I have yet to see Woody Allen "trend" even if he's contributed far more to society than, say, Justin Beiber).

Anyway, in case you didn't hear or would still like to discuss (Always up for a Woody!), the legendary writer/director/comic chose these six films as the cream of his crop. I've listed them in chronological order.

Woody's favorites

• Zelig (1983)
  
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
  
• Husbands and Wives (1992)
  
• Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
  
• Match Point (2005)
  
• Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

I find the list completely fascinating. I think how artists view their own work is always of interest even though I think, by and large, artists are not the best judges of their own work. Creation and criticism being two completely different skill sets (which is also what you can blame so many dumb Oscar honors on), especially about one's one work since there's no way to see it from a suitable distance

The obvious talking point is that Allen shunned what history has arguably favored as his holy trinity: Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters. I was aware even as far back as 1987 that Woody didn't think as highly of Hannah and Her Sisters as the public and Oscar voters did -- he was all about David Lynch's Blue Velvet in 1986 if I recall -- and thought he'd done something wrong with Hannah when it became popular. But that he wouldn't list his late 70s giants as his best does surprise me.

Oscar's favorite Woody Allen pictures
Hall (5 noms/4 wins) Bullets (7 noms/ 1 win) Hannah (7 noms/ 3wins)

But then, no one seems to agree on these things. If you look around the web (Cinematical, Vanity Fair, Ken Levine, Awards Daily) everyone claims a different "best". To my mind that's a healthy argument that the man has made a lot of fine films, even if he himself doesn't think so stating

I've squandered an opportunity that people would kill for. I have had complete artistic freedom... There are a few better than others, half a dozen, but it's a surprising paucity of worthwhile celluloid.

It surely wouldn't kill him to slow down a little bit and fine tune his screenplays these days -- the concept is often better than the execution, now -- but I think he underestimates his early work.

The Best of Woody according to Nathaniel? This is how I'd personally rank them.

Nathaniel's favorites

1. Manhattan (1979)
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
3. Annie Hall (1977)
   (all three are perfection)
   
4. Husbands and Wives (1992)
   (disgustingly underappreciated due to the scandalous climate in which it premiered)
   
5. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
   (also terrific)
6. Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
   (give or take a few others depending on my mood. But this one is just so rewatchable/funny.)
   

A lot of critics swear by Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) but I seem to have totally forgotten it. I cannot recall one single thing about it (???) A revisit is definitely in order.

You know what you have to do in the comments, don't you?

Further Archived Reading
Woody's Muses, Ranked By Number of Films ~ Mia Farrow reigns. Scarlett Johansson is still such a newbie, all told.

Gloria Stuart Centennial (And The 25 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees!)

One hundred years ago on this very day 30s actress Gloria Stuart was born in Santa Monica. Happy birthday Gloria! Stuart made her name on James Whale's pictures like The Old Dark House (fun movie) and The Invisible Man before her screen career petered out in the 1940s. Then, über famously, James Cameron resurrected her to play the 100 year old survivor of Titanic. And the best part... she's still with us today!


Were you confused like Britney Spears when she tossed the Heart of the Ocean back into it in Titanic? Do you think Kate Winslet hopes to grow up to look just like her?

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen

Since Gloria is not the oldest living Oscar nominee, it's list time. Who's still with us? (If I forgot anyone, do let me know in the comments.)

The Oldest Living Oscar Nominees

1. Robert F Boyle (Honorary Winner and 4 time nominee as Art Director Fiddler on the Roof) is nearing 101.
   Update: August 1st, 2010 (RIP). What a career he had.
   
2. Luise Rainer (2 time winner The Good Earth & The Great Ziegfield) is 100½.
3. Gloria Stuart (nominee Titanic) is 100 exactly.Update Sept 26, 2010: (RIP). a long life well -travelled.
   
4. Douglas Slocombe (3 time nominee) cinematographer of Raiders of the Lost Ark among other classics.
5. Kevin McCarthy (nominee Death of a Salesman) is 96.
   Update: Sept 11, 2010: RIP
6. Olivia de Havilland (2 time winner The Heiress & To Each His Own) is 94. Yes, she still hopes to publish memoirs and no, she's not the only surviving Gone With the Wind cast member.
   
7. Kirk Douglas (Honorary Oscar and 3 time nominee), Spartacus himself, is 93.

8. Ernest Borgnine (winner Marty) is 93.
9. Celeste Holm (winner Gentleman's Agreement) is 93.
10. Joan Fontaine (winner Suspicion) is 92. Yes, it's true. She and sister Olivia de Havilland are still not speaking.
11. Tom Daly (5 time nominee) this Canadian producer nominated in short film and documentary categories just turned 92.
    
12. Joyce Redman (2 time nominee Tom Jones) is 91. [Trivia note: Tom Jones is the only film to have ever won three nominations in Supporting Actress. Pity that Robert Altman's Nashville didn't repeat the trick.]
    
13. Dino de Laurentiis (Thalberg winner and a producing winner for La Strada) is almost 91.
14. Michael Anderson (nominee, directed Around the World in 80 Days) is 90.
    
15. Ravi Shankar (nominee, the co-composer for Gandhi) is 90.
16. Ray Harryhausen (Gordon Sawyer Award recipient), the f/x legend, just turned 90.
17. Mickey Rooney (Honorary Oscar and 4 time nominee) is 89.
18. Joe Mantell (nominee Marty) is 89.
    
19. Carol Channing (nominee Thoroughly Modern Millie) is 89. "Razzzzzbbberrries!"
    

20. Hal David (winner "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is 89.
21. Deanna Durbin (Juvenile Award winner) is 88. She was only 18 when she won her Juvenile statue (shared with Mickey Rooney) but she retired from the screen just nine years later.
    
22. Doris Day (nominee Pillow Talk) is 88. There's a few Facebook groups trying to get her an honorary Oscar. Filmmaker Douglas McGrath pushed for it, too. [Trivia note: There is some controversy about Doris Day's exact age. But most sources now claim she was born in 1922 so she would have turned 88 this past April.
    
23. Mihalis Kakogiannis (3 time nominee, all nominations from Zorba the Greek) just turned 88.
    
24. Eleanor Parker (3 time nominee Caged) just turned 88. She's best remembered today as the (not totally) wicked would be stepmother in The Sound of Music but that doesn't paint the whole picture at all. Isn't it time for renewed interest in her career? Smart cinephiles think so.
    
25. Blake Edwards (Honorary Oscar and nominee for Victor/Victoria), aka Mr Julie Andrews, is almost 88.
26. Norman Lear (television giant who was Oscar nominated for writing Divorce, American Style), one day younger than Blake Edwards, is also almost 88
27. Jackie Cooper (nominee Skippy) is 87. Trivia note: He is the youngest Best Actor nominee of all time, having been up for the prize when he was but 9 years old. He's likely to keep that Oscar record. The closest anyone ever got was Mickey Rooney -- also on this list -- at the age of 19.
    
    but I couldn't stop there. Partially because I missed a handful of people. Partially because I definitely have undiagnosed untreated OCD. Carpal tunnel syndrome here I come. It's a top 40!
    
    
28. Arthur Penn (3 time nominee, directed Bonnie & Clyde) is 87. I know I've given this book a million plugs but you must read "Pictures at a Revolution" for a detailed fascinating account of how that landmark movie was constructed. Choosing a director wasn't the least bit simple. And directing Warren Beatty isn't so simple either. Penn did it twice.
    
29. Juanita Moore (nominee Imitation of Life *see it* It's a beauty) is 87.
30. Valentina Cortese (nominee Day for Night) is 87. She holds the extremely rare honor of a supporting acting nomination from a foreign language film. Those are so very infrequent.
    
31. Franco Zeffirelli (2 time nominee, director of Romeo and Juliet), another Italian (!), is 87.
    
32. Charles Durning (2 time nominee, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) is 87.
33. Richard Attenborough (2 time winner, director of Gandhi) is 86.
34. Cliff Robertson (winner Charly) is 86.
35. Glynis Johns (nominee The Sundowners) is 86
    We're glad she got that one last burst of mid 90s comedy gold in While You Were Sleeping and especially The Ref. Well done, Sister Suffragrette ♪ ! Unfortunately, she's been little seen since.
36. Arthur Hiller (Hersholt Huminatarian winner, nominee for Love Story) is 86.
37. Ron Moody (nominee Oliver!) is 86. For a recent article on this underappreciated sixties musical, click here.
38. Stanley Donen (Honorary Oscar) is 86. He's one of the best musicals director, most famous for that thrilling barn sequence in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the entirety of Singin' in the Rain.
39. Sidney Lumet (Honorary Oscar, plus 5 time nominee) just turned 86 last week. His classics include 12 Angry Men, Network, The Verdict and Dog Day Afternoon and he's also the man behind the extremely undervalued Running on Empty (1988). The best part is that he's still active. He recently made Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
    
40. Eva Marie Saint (winner On the Waterfront) turned 86 today, so we'll bookend with this other birthday girl. Happy birthday, Eva! Don't forget your gloves when you leave the party tonight.
    

Big screen actress icons I had to pass up for this list included Jane Russell, Maureen O'Hara, and Esther Williams. All are still among the living but none were ever Oscar nominated and haven't been given Honorary Awards. What a world, what a world. Christopher Lee, is another biggie that's never been nominated. He still works so consistently at 88 that it's possible they'll yet find a way to nominate him. Next up for Lee is Martin Scorsese's The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Carol Channing for Exit Music!

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Further Reading? Try this substantial Gloria Stuart tribute at Ehrensteinland and if you're in LA, please note that AMPAS will be honoring Stuart's centennial at the Samuel Goldwyn theater on July 22nd.
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