1996 the year I was born holds a personal place in my heart and while it took me a long time to watch all the movies it was satisfying when I watched all the great ones. 1996 was dominated by three films in terms of critical consensus by three films that all screen in Cannes that year. Those films were Fargo, Secrets & Lies and Breaking the Waves, while neither of them won the best picture prize the three of them are so powerful they still stand high above the rest. The best picture prize went to The English Patient a film I like in moments but the overall product is not as strong and really was your typical average choice. The other nominees for best picture were the Coen brothers spectacular Fargo, Mike Leigh's gut wrenching Secrets & Lies, Cameron Crowe's enjoyable crowd pleasing Jerry Maguire and Scott Hicks' biopic Shine. This lineup outside of Shine is made up on incredible film makers and really great because of Secrets & Lies and Fargo. Jerry Maguire like English Patient has it's moments and Shine is just a terribly contrite and quite boring.
Funnily enough my choice for the year's best film is Secrets & Lies. The film is just unexpected in how emotional it is. The central story of Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste really holds strong in how detailed and emotionally raw it is between Leigh's writing and the two actresses who blow you away each time you watch the film. Then there is the intersecting photography scenes which really help to ground the film and climatic scene of this film holds such power as we witness human nature in all it's colours. Mike Leigh really outdid himself with this film and hits it so hard that is is quite unsatisfying this film won nothing at 1996's oscars.
The academy made some strong choices in the year of indie oscars but while I would also nominate Secrets & Lies and Fargo the other three choices I would've made include Jane Campion's The Piano follow-up The Portrait of a Lady. This film is rather under watched due to coming directly after The Piano but I fell for it hard. Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves the third of the Cannes films is also a spectacular film achievement with Emily Watson giving one of the greatest film debuts of all time making the film better by her presence in the film. Chungking Express would be the final one to fill out my list, directed by Wong Kar-Wai it is one of the greatest achievements by the director I have seen of the ones I have managed to seek out. The acting races in 1996 when to Geoffrey Rush, Frances McDormand, Cuba Gooding Jr. & Juliette Binoche. This choices outside of Rush are fine with McDormand being the closest to the ones I would've rewarded. However in terms of winning performances it doesn't get better then William H. Macy & Steve Buscemi's work in Fargo to win the male acting prizes. Brenda Blethyn just edges above McDormand and Watson to win the actress prize from me. The one performance to fill out the four wins is Joan Allen's magnificent skilled performance as the devastating Elizabeth Proctor.
43 is the amount of films I managed to see that were released in america in 1996 and overall it was quite a strong year for film which surprisingly shown for the most part in the choices made by the academy awards. However while I say this there is a lot of different directions I would've gone which is why my winners and nominees from that year would look like this.
OUTSTANDING PICTURE:
01. Secrets & Lies (Produced by Simon Channing Williams)
02. Fargo (Produced by Ethan Coen)
03. The Portrait of a Lady (Produced by Steve Golin & Monty Montgomery)
04. Breaking the Waves (Produced by Peter Aalbæk Jensen & Vibeke Windeløv)
05. Chungking Express (Produced by Chan Yi-kan)
06. The People vs. Larry Flynt
07. Flirting with Disaster
08. Bound
09. Trainspotting
10. The Birdcage
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR:
Jane Campion for The Portrait of a Lady
Joel Coen for Fargo
Wong Kar-wai for Chungking Express
Mike Leigh for Secrets & Lies
Lars von Trier for Breaking the Waves
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTOR:
Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor in "THE CRUCIBLE"
Woody Harrelson as Larry Flynt in "THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT"
William H. Macy as Jerry Lundegaard in "FARGO"
Ewan McGregor as Renton in "TRAINSPOTTING"
Timothy Spall as Maurice Purley in "SECRETS & LIES"
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTRESS:
Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia Rose Purley in "SECRETS & LIES"
Laura Dern as Ruth Stoops in "CITIZEN RUTH"
Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer in "THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY"
Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in "FARGO"
Emily Watson as Bess McNeill in "BREAKING OFTHE WAVES"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Ewen Bremmer as Spud in "TRAINSPOTTING"
Steve Buscemi as Carl Showalter in "FARGO"
Richard Jenkins as Paul Harmon in "FLIRTING WITH DISASTER"
Nathan Lane as Albert Goldman in "THE BIRDCAGE"
Paul Scofield as Judge Thomas Danforth in "THE CRUCIBLE"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor in "THE CRUCIBLE"
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense Cumberbatch in "SECRETS & LIES"
Barbara Hershey as Madame Serna Merle in "THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY"
Kelly Macdonald as Diane in "TRAINSPOTTING"
Mary Tyler Moore as Pearl Coplin in "FLIRTING WITH DISASTER"
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
The Wachowski Brothers for Bound
Lars von Trier and Peter Asmussen for Breaking the Waves
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for Fargo
David O. Russell for Flirting With Disaster
Mike Leigh for Secrets & Lies
OUTSTANDING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Screenplay by Elaine May; Based on La Cage aux Folles by Jean Poiret, Francis Veber & Edouard Molinaro, The Birdcage
Screenplay by Arthur Miller; Based on The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Screenplay by Arthur Miller; Based on The Crucible by Arthur Miller, The Crucible
Screenplay by Anthony Minghella; Based on The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
Screenplay by Laura Jones; Based on The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Screenplay by John Hodge; Based on Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION:
Production Design by William Chang for Chungking Express
Production Design by Stuart Craig; Set Design by Aurelio Crugnola & Stephenie McMillan for The English Patient
Production Design by Janet Patterson; Set Design by Martin Childs & Mark Raggett for The Portrait of a Lady
Production Design by Catherine Martin; Set Design by Brigitte Broch for Romeo + Juliet
Production Design by Kave Quinn; Set Design by Tracy Gallacher for Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING BREAKTHROUGH/DEBUT:
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies)
Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire)
Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting)
Edward Norton (Primal Fear)
Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves)
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Robby Muller for Breaking the Waves
John Seale for The English Patient
Roger Deakins for Fargo
Stuart Dryburgh for The Portrait of a Lady
Brian Tufano for Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN:
Ann Roth for The Birdcage
Bob Crowley for The Crucible
Ann Roth for The English Patient
Janet Patterson for The Potrait of a Lady
Kym Barrett for Romeo + Juliet
OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR:
The Birdcage (Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, Christine Baranski)
Fargo (Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Peter Stormare)
Flirting With Disaster (Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Téa Leoni, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Beth Ostrosky, Lily Tomlin, Celia Weston, David Patrick Kelly, Josh Brolin, Richard Jenkins, Glenn Fitzgerald, Nadia Dajani)
Secrets & Lies (Brenda Blethyn, Elizabeth Berrington, Marianne Jean-Baptise, Phyllis Logan, Lee Ross, Claire Rushbrook, Timothy Spall)
Trainspotting (Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kevin McKidd, Kelly Macdonald, Peter Mullan)
OUTSTANDING FILM EDITING:
Andres Refn for Breaking the Waves
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen for Fargo
Christopher Tellefsen for Flirting With Disaster
Christopher Tellefsen for The People vs. Larry Flynt
Masahiro Hirakubo for Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
All Things Fair (Directed by Bo Widerberg)
Antonia (Directed by Marleen Gorris)
Chungking Express (Directed by Wong Kar-wai)
L'uomo delle stelle (Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore)
Ridicule (Directed by Patrice Leconte)
OUTSTANDING MAKEUP:
James McCoy & Cheri Minns for The Birdcage
Sanne Gravfort & Jennifer Jorfald for Breaking the Waves
Fabrizio Sforza & Nigel Booth for The English Patient
Rick Baker and David LeRoy Anderson for The Nutty Professor
Ben Nye & Bron Roylance for The People vs. Larry Flynt
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE:
George Fenton for The Crucible
Rachel Portman for Emma
Gabriel Yared for The English Patient
Carter Burwell for Fargo
Wojciech Kilar for The Portrait of a Lady
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG:
"You Must Love Me", Evita (Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber; Lyric by Tim Rice)
"Hell Fire", The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Music and Lyrics by Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz)
"I Finally Found Someone", The Mirror Has Two Faces (Music and Lyric by Barbra Streisand, Marvin Hamlisch, Bryan Adams and Robert “Mutt” Lange)
"Kissing You (Love Theme from Romeo + Juliet)", Romeo + Juliet (Music and Lyrics by Des'ree and Tim Atack)
"Because You Loved Me", Up Close & Personal (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren)
OUTSTANDING PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
Samuel L. Jackson (Hard Eight, A Time to Kill, Trees Lounge)
William H. Macy (Fargo, Ghosts of Mississippi, Hit Me)
Frances McDormand (Fargo, Lone Star, Primal Fear)
Edward Norton (Everybody Says I Love You, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Primal Fear)
Kristen Scott Thomas (Angels & Insects, The English Patient, Mission: Impossible)
OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING:
Tom Bjelic, David Evans & John Douglas Smith for Crash
Eugene Gearty, Lewis Goldstein, Skip Lievsay & Glenfield Payne for Fargo
Sandy Gendler & Val Kuklowsky for Independence Day
Tom Bellfort & Christopher Boyes for Mission: Impossible
Jonathan Miller for Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING:
Walter Murch, Mark Berger, David Parker & Chris Newman for The English Patient
Michael Barry & Allan Byer for Fargo
Ron Bartlett, Christopher Boyes, Shawn Murphy & Gary Rydstrom for Mission: Impossible
Michael Barry for The People vs. Larry Flynt
Ray Merrin, Brian Saunders & Mark Taylor for Trainspotting
OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS:
Volker Engel, Douglas Smith, Clay Pinney & Joseph Viskocil for Independence Day
Andrew Eio, John Knoll, Joe Letteri & George Murphy for Mission: Impossible
John Knoll & Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for Star Trek: First Contact
Grant Mason & Tony Steers for Trainspotting
Stefen Fangmeier, John Frazier, Habib Zargarpour & Henry La Bounta for Twister
Now that've talked about some recent cinema with 1996 I'll next venture back 1961. The year were West Side Story considered by many one of the greatest filmed musicals achievements dominated the entire conversation by winning just about every award aside from screenplay. I'll wait to reveal if I thought it was best or if I go in a different direction from what the academy chose.
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