Oscar History Part 5: 1963-1975

Well, we have an Oscar race.  Critics are backing "The Social Network"; the guilds are loving "The King's Speech." We'll see in a few weeks who Oscar chooses (Hint: critics don't belong to the Academy).  My thoughts will come when I reach 2010.

Something to note again: I place foreign releases in the year of their U.S. release, though this rule has changed.  The Charlie Chaplin film Limelight (1952) did not receive a wide American release until 1972.  It won the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score.  Because of this, the Academy subsequently changed the rules to prevent films more than 2 years old from being nominated, though I am not exactly sure when this change took effect.

1963

Winner: Tom Jones

My pick: The Great Escape

Other notable films: 8 ½, High and Low, Winter Light, Hud, Knife in the Water

Tom Jones has a good sense of humor about itself and a charismatic lead in Albert Finney, but John Sturges' The Great Escape has an all-star cast built around Steve McQueen and an epic scope; in many ways, the POW story is a spirtual successor to Grand Illusion, though the approach is very different.  Federico Fellini's direction reached its zenith in 8 1/2; his excessive style served the material well. Akira Kurosawa creates a modern-day crime drama in High and Low, Ingmar Bergman continues his "absence of God" trilogy with Winter Light, Paul Newman charms and repulses audiences as an embittered rancher in Hud, and Roman Polanski makes his directorial debut with the 3-person character-drama Knife in the Water.  

1964

Winner: My Fair Lady

My pick: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Other notable films: Mary Poppins, A Hard Day’s Night

My Fair Lady, a musical version of Pygmalion, is entertaining, but I would rather watch Julie Andrews in Disney's Mary Poppins or The Beatles having fun with their image in A Hard Day's Night.  But the best film is Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, walking the tightrope between humor and horror in dealing with a subject matter that loomed large: nuclear war.  Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, George C. Scott, and Peter Sellers (playing 3 roles) all have great instincts for comedy and it all plays very well.

1965

Winner: The Sound of Music

My pick: Doctor Zhivago

Other notable films: The Pawnbroker, Repulsion

Julie Andrews singing "the hills are alive" with The Sound of Music is an iconic image, but David Lean has my vote for Doctor Zhivago; high production values, great cast, epic setting.  Oscar-bait?  If it is, it works in this instance.  Rod Steiger gave a credible performance in The Pawnbroker and Roman Polanski made a great psychological thriller in Repulsion.

1966

Winner: A Man for all Seasons

My pick: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Other notable films: The Professionals, A Man and a Woman, Blow-Up, Red Beard (Japan, 1965)

The conflict between Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII is brought to vivid life in A Man for all Seasons.  The best film is an adaptation of the stage play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a dramatic showcase that actors dream of playing; here, Mike Nichols directing Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal and Sandy Dennis.  Also of note: Richard Brooks' mature Western The Professionals, Claude Lelouch dramatic romance A Man and a Woman, Michelangelo Antonioni's murder(maybe?) mystery Blow-Up, and Akira Kurosawa's tale of two doctors and their humanity Red Beard.

1967

Winner: In the Heat of the Night

My pick: The Graduate

Other notable films: Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, In Cold Blood, Persona (Sweden, 1966)

In the Heat of the Night said a lot about race relations, though its impact may seem muted now.  It's basically a coin flip between Mike Nichols' The Graduate, a timeless story of generational angst, and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, with its antiheroes and unrestrained violence.  Paul Newman gives the system hell in Cool Hand Luke, Truman Capote's dark tale of murder is realized in Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood, and Ingmar Bergman unites with his most famous muse Liv Ullmann in Persona, a minimalist film not easily understood.

1968

Winner: Oliver!

My pick: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Other notable films: The Lion in Winter, Rosemary’s Baby, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Battle of Algiers (Italy, 1966)

The choice of Oliver! is just embarassing when considering the wealth of choices the Academy had.  Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey frustrated some audience members (and critics), but this "ultimate trip" is still influencing filmmakers.  The great combination of Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn make the The Lion in Winter work.  Roman Polanski directs another thriller, the devilish Rosemary's Baby.  Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy concludes with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with Clint Eastwood angling for Confederate gold.   The Battle of Aligers dramatizes the efforts of guerrilas to overthrow French colonial rule in North Africa; warfare in all its unglorified reality.

1969

Winner: Midnight Cowboy

My pick: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Other notable films: The Wild Bunch, Z, Easy Rider, Once Upon a Time in the West, Andrei Rublev (USSR, 1966)

Westerns of all sorts.  Midnight Cowboy was a daring choice for its day, but the timeless quality of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wins my approval.  Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch builds off of Bonnie and Clyde with its graphic violence.  Easy Rider captures the counter-culture movement and gives us a star: Jack Nicholson.  Sergio Leone makes Henry Fonda into a mean old bastard in Once Upon a Time in the West.  Costa Gavras' Z dramatizes the assassination of a Greek political leader by the military establishment.  Andrei Tarkovsky's non-traditional chronicle of the life of 15th century Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, withheld by Soviet censors for years, finally sees release.

1970

Winner: Patton

My pick: M*A*S*H

Other notable films: Five Easy Pieces, Women in Love, Floating Weeds (Japan, 1959)

George C. Scott gave a great performance as Gen. Patton, but the best film was Robert Altman's military satire M*A*S*H set during the Vietnam Korean War.  I don't know which is more subversive in its portrayal of the military: this or Dr. Strangelove.  In terms of performances, look no further than Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces and Glenda Jackson in Women in Love.  Also, Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds, a remake of his earlier film, finally reaches the United States.

1971

Winner: The French Connection

My pick: A Clockwork Orange

Other notable films: McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Last Picture Show, Walkabout

The French Connection has influenced basically every cop film that has followed, so its impact may seem muted, though Gene Hackman's performance can't be beat.  For me, I say Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange deserved the prize, pushing envelopes of violence and decency, while challenging us to think about a person's free will.  Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a post-modern Western.  The Last Picture Show is a tribute to small town America and a dying way of life.  Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout presents culture clash in the Australian Outback.

1972

Winner and my pick: The Godfather

Other notable films: Cabaret, Deliverance, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Tokyo Story (Japan, 1953)

The Godfather is number one with a bullet.  Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall, Cazale, Coppola.  I can't express how wonderful this works.  Bob Fosse's Cabaret is a musical that pushes the boundaries of the genre.  Deliverance is a chilling thriller about a human horror based in reality.  Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a surrealist film that challenges notions of characterization and narrative.  Yasujiro Ozu's film classic Tokyo Story, dealing with familial relationships, finally sees an American release.

1973

Winner: The Sting

My pick: Cries and Whispers (Sweden, 1972)

Other notable films: Mean Streets, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Serpico, Last Tango in Paris

The Sting, a reunion for the Butch and Sundance team (Robert Redford, Paul Newman, director George Roy Hill), was a great caper and very popular among audiences. So was the demonic possession horror classic The Exorcist and George Lucas' American Graffiti, an ode to high schoolers in the early 1960s.  One must also remember the work of Al Pacino as a good cop admist corruption in Sidney Lumet's Serpico, Marlon Brando as a man having illcit sex in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, and the meeting of Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and director Martin Scorsese in the Little Italy crime drama Mean Streets.  But the best film was Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, a chronicle of three sisters (Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin, Harriett Andersson) and their demons expressed and repressed, illuminated for us as we watch one die horribly in the aloof company of the other two.  Bergman made a film that is both emotionally draining and hauntingly beautiful.  At the very least, the Academy had sense to nominate it and Bergman (and award the cinematography).

1974

Winner: The Godfather Part II

My pick: Chinatown

Other notable films: The Conversation, Scenes from a Marriage (Sweden, 1973), Day for Night (France, 1973), Badlands

Another coin flip.  I can't decide if I prefer Godfather II or the original; Francis Ford Coppola, for all his later, lesser work, guaranteed his place among directors.  And we have to also mention his paranoid thriller The Conversation with Gene Hackman.  It's also hard to choose between Godfather II and Roman Polanski's film noir tribute Chinatown; the acting trifecta of Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and director John Huston as the private eye, damsel, and villain play very well together.  Terrence Malick makes an auspicious film debut about young lovers on a crime spree in Badlands.  Francois Truffaut has fun making a film about the people who make a film in Day for Night.  And Ingmar Bergman chronicles a life between husband and wife with brutal unsentimentality in Scenes from a Marriage.

1975

Winner and my pick: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Other notable films: Nashville, Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Amarcord (Italy 1974)

Nobody can deny that Steven Spielberg changed the course of film when Jaws splashed into theaters.  Even so, I like the Academy's choice of Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, with Jack Nicholson as the troublemaker McMurphy challenging the systematic terror of Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched.  Robert Altman's mosaic of Americana in the country music capital of Nashville is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Sidney Lumet directs another great Pacino performance in the bank robbery drama Dog Day Afternoon.  Federico Fellini makes his best film since 8 1/2; Amarcord is a journey into his childhood memories in a 1930s small Italian village.  Finally, the Monty Python crew search for the Holy Grail and entertain us for all time.