1985 the midpoint of the 80's was a year that I hadn't seen really film from other then Out of Africa and Witness so it was a pleasure to revisit this film year because I was bound to see some brilliant films that I hadn't seen before. Having gone into revisit already haven seen the best picture choice I knew that the films I was going to see could only be better then that film. Yes having seen Out of Africa due to my love of Meryl Streep I was unimpressed by much of the film outside of Streep and really thought it was again another weak choice made by the academy The one reason I believe it won was because people bought into the spralling foreign journey in Africa as well as the romance between the central characters which while good is nothing new to the genre. This uninspired choice is made worse by me due to the strong competition of films also nominated for best picture that year. They were Spielberg's The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, John Huston's Prizzi's Honor and Peter Weir's Witness. Other then Prizzi's Honor which I find to be dreadful having watched it for the first time this a strong lineup. Spielberg may have had the brilliant source material to work with on The Color Purple but none of this takes away from his impressive work. As a white jewish male director he is able to capture the black experince like I never would've expected and even down to his casting choices it's a impressive feat of a picture all around. Kiss of the Spider Woman from Héctor Babenco is another strong feature from the year. The story is heartfelt and takes it's time to be told as we really get to fall for these two central guys. William Hurt who won the actor prize deservedly so is heartbreaking to watch playing the rather tragic role of Luis Molina with such respect and dedication that while he has been great after this Spider Woman is his peak. Witness from Peter Weir is also good not near the level of Spider Woman and Color Purple but still a great film from this year and arguable the great performance Harrison Ford has ever given. As I said the list of pictures nominated is good especially with the later three I discussed but the other two just pale in comparison that overall it's not a strong enough field for me.
The list of films from 1985 is stacked from the great america cinema to the even greater foreign cinema which while not all first released in 1985 made it stateside this year. My choice for the greatest film achievement of 1985 is Ran. Again you can never go wrong with Akira Kurosawa and Ran his final all time great film shows how truly the horrors of life when shot by Kurosawa can be beautiful. The film is a feast of color and glorious image after image. Kurosawa really is one of the greats and Ran goes to show his immense talent like no other. My runner up for the best film is Shoah the nearly 10 hour documentary about the holocaust is a film feet like no other. Never has a director gone so in detail to capture the experinces like in Shoah which is a documentary interviewing witnesses of the atrocities of the Holocaust. It's an emotionally punishing film due to these first hand accounts of the horror they suffered and never will a film be able to properly capture what this horrific time was like as Shoah does. Kiss of the Spider Woman which I discussed above is my third favourite feature of the year and just one more thing I want to point out is Sonia Braga's work in the film. Her role if anyone would've played it would probably be winning but Braga is just so captivating playing multiple roles through the memory of these men that her not even being oscar nominated is criminal. Blood Simple. the first Coen Brothers feature was first seen on the festival circuit in 1984 but the year it actually opened was 1985 and boy did these brothers know how to make an entrance to the film industry. Blood Simple. contains the Brothers mastery of suspence and with McDormand their frequent collaborator in the lead role you get some brilliant Coen Brothers film making. The final film that makes my five favourite of the year is Peter Bogdanovich's Mask. Bogdanovich had been prolific earlier on his career and Mask was really a return to form for the director. Showing the story a young teen suffering is such a tricky subject matter to approach but Mask does it so different giving us both the voice of the young teen and his mother in such equal time that you really get to know these characters so greatly. Cher gives her greatest performance in Mask and Eric Stoltz along with Cher form one of the most believable mother / son relationship to be seen on the big screen.
38 is the amount of films I've seen from the year and overall it was a good year with some truly all time and never to be redone films released this year. Below is the list of winners and nominees I would've chosen as best in 1985.
OUTSTANDING PICTURE:
1. Ran (Produced by Masato Hara & Serge Silberman)
2. Shoah
3. Kiss of the Spider Woman (Produced by Francisco Ramalho Jr. & David Weisman)
4. Blood Simple. (Produced by Ethan Coen)
5. Mask (Produced by Martin Starger)
6. Lost in America
7. The Purple Rose of Cairo
8. The Color Purple
9. The Breakfast Club
10. Desert Hearts
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR:
Woody Allen for The Purple Rose of Cairo
Héctor Babenco for Kiss of the Spider Woman
Joel Coen for Blood Simple.
Akira Kurosawa for Ran
Steven Spielberg for The Color Purple
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTOR:
Jeff Daniels as Tom Baxter / Gil Shepherd in "THE PURPLE ROSE OF CARIO"
William Hurt as Luis Molina in "KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN"
Raúl Juliá as Valentine Arregui in "KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN"
Eric Stoltz as Roy L. 'Rocky' Dennis in "MASK"
Jon Voight as Oscar 'Manny' Manheim in "RUNAWAY TRAIN"
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTRESS:
Norma Aleandro as Alicia in "THE OFFICIAL STORY"
Cher as Florence 'Rusty' Dennis in "MASK"
Whoopi Goldberg as Celie Johnson in "THE COLOR PURPLE"
Frances McDormand as Abby in "BLOOD SIMPLE."
Helen Shaver as Vivian Bell in "DESERT HEARTS"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Klaus Maria Brandauer as Bror in "OUT OF AFRICA"
William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi in "PRIZZI'S HONOR"
Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown in "BACK TO THE FUTURE"
Vittorio Mezzogiorno as Jean Lerman in "L'HOMME BLESSE"
Eric Roberts as Buck McGeehy in "RUNAWAY TRAIN"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Sonia Braga as Leni Lamaison / Marta / Spider Woman in "KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN"
Julie Hagerty as Linda Howard in "LOST IN AMERICA"
Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede in "RAN"
Audra Lindley as Frances Parker in "DESERT HEARTS"
Ann Wedgeworth as Hilda Hensley in "SWEET DREAMS"
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen for Blood Simple.
John Hughes for The Breakfast Club
Anna Hamilton Phelan for Mask
Aída Bortnik & Luis Puenzo for The Official Story
Woody Allen The Purple Rose of Cairo
OUTSTANDING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Screenplay by Menno Meyjes; Based on The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Screenplay by Natalie Cooper; Based on Desert Heart by Jane Rule, Desert Hearts
Screenplay by Leonard Schrader; Based on Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Screenplay by Kurt Luedtke; Based on Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen; Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Story Teller by Judith Thurman; Silence Will Speak by Errol Trzebinski, Out of Africa
Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni & Masato Ide; Based on King Lear by William Shakespeare, Ran
OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION:
Production Design by Norman Garwood for Brazil
Production Design by J. Michael Riva; Set Design by Linda DeScenna The Color Purple
Production Design by Clovis Bueno for Kiss of the Spider Woman
Production Design by Stuart Wurtzel; Set Design by Carol Joffe, The Purple Rose of Cairo
Production Design by Shinobu Muraki, Yoshirô Muraki; Set Design by Jiro Hirai, Mitsuyuki Kimura, Yasuyoshi Ototake, Tsuneo Shimura & Osumi Tousho for Ran
OUTSTANDING BREAKTHROUGH/DEBUT:
Laura Dern (Mask)
Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple)
Frances McDormand (Blood Simple)
Catherine O'Hara (After Hours)
Oprah Winfrey (The Color Purple)
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Barry Sonnenfeld for Blood Simple.
Allen Daviau for The Color Purple
Rodolfo Sanchez for Kiss of the Spider Woman
Gordon Willis for The Purple Rose of Cario
Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô & Shôji Ueda for Ran
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN:
Aggie Guerard Rodgers for The Color Purple
Patricio Bisso for Kiss of the Spider Woman
Milena Canonero for Out of Africa
Jeffrey Kurland for The Purple Rose of Cairo
Emi Wada for Ran
OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY:
Shoah (Directed by Claude Lanzmann)
OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR:
After Hours (Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara, Linda Fiorentino, Verna Bloom, Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin, Will Patton, Clarence Felder, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Martin Scorsese, Victor Argo, Larry Block, Rocco Sisto)
The Breakfast Club (Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Paul Gleason, John Kapelos)
The Color Purple (Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, Akosua Busia, Adolph Caesar, Willard Pugh, Rae Dawn Chong, Laurence Fishburne, Grand Bush, Dana Ivey, Leon Rippy, Bennet Guillory, James Tillis, Desreta Jackson, Leonard Jackson, Howard Starr, Lelo Masamba)
Desert Hearts (Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonnea, Audra Lindley, Andra Akers, Dean Butler, Gwen Welles, James Staley, Katie La Bourdette, Alex McArthur, Tyler Tyhurst, Denise Crosby, Antony Ponzini)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Edward Herrmann, John Wood, Deborah Rush, Zoe Caldwell, Van Johnson, Karen Akers, Milo O'Shea, Dianne Wiest, George Martin)
OUTSTANDING FILM EDITING:
Roderick Jaynes & Don Wiegmann for Blood Simple
Mauro Alice for Kiss of the Spider Woman
Susan E. Morse for The Purple Rose of Cario
Akira Kurosawa for Ran
Thom Noble for Witness
OUTSTANDING FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
Dangerous Moves (Directed by Richard Dembo)
Ghare-Baire (Directed by Satyajit Ray)
The Official Story (Directed by Luis Puenzo)
Ran (Directed by Akira Kurosawa)
A Time to Live, a Time to Die (Hsiao-Hsien Hou, Jia-hua Lao, Li-Yin Yang & Hsiao-Ming Hsu)
OUTSTANDING MAKEUP:
Ken Chase for The Color Purple
Tom Savini for Day of the Dead
Michael Westmore & Zoltan Elek for Mask
Tameyuki Aimi, Chihako Naito, Noriko Takamizawa & Shoshichiro Ueda for Ran
William Munns for The Return of the Living Dead
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE:
Quincy Jones, Jeremy Lubbock, Rod Temperton, Caiphus Semenya, Andraé Crouch, Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Joel Rosenbaum, Fred Steiner, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey & Randy Kerber for The Color Purple
Nando Carneiro & John Neschling for Kiss of the Spider Woman
John Barry for Out of Africa
Tôru Takemitsu for Ran
Chu-chu Wu for A Time to Live, a Time to Die
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG:
Back to the Future, "Power of Love" (Music by Chris Hayes & Johnny Colla; Lyrics by Huey Lewis)
A Chorus Line, "Surprise Surprise" (Music by Marvin Hamlisch; Lyrics by Ed Kleban)
The Color Purple, "Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)" (Music by Quincy Jones & Rod Temperton; Lyrics by Lionel Richie)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "We Don't Need Another Hero" (Music and Lyrics by Terry Britten & Graham Lyle)
White Nights, "Say You, Say Me" (Music and Lyrics by Lionel Richie)
OUTSTANDING PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
Meryl Streep (Out of Africa, Plenty)
OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING:
Michael Jacobi, Neil Kaufman & Magdaline Volaitis for After Hours
Charles L. Campbell & Robert R. Rutledge for Back to the Future
Ship Lievsay, Michael R. Miller, Jun Mizumachi & Fred Szymanski for Blood Simple.
Rodney Glenn for Brazil
Kathleen Earle Killeen & Dan Lieberman for The Purple Rose of Cairo
OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING:
Chat Gunter for After Hours
Bill Varney, B. Tennyson Sebastian II, Robert Thirlwell & William B. Kaplan for Back to the Future
Lee Orloff for Blood Simple.
Willie D. Burton for The Color Purple
Chris Jenkins, Gary Alexander, Larry Stensvold & Peter Handford for Out of Africa
OUTSTANDING VISUAL EFFECTS:
Kevin Pike & Ken Ralston for Back to the Future
George Gibbs & Richard Conway for Brazil
Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Scott Farrar & David Berry for Cocoon
Howard Jones, Steven Kirshoff & Mark Mann for Day of the Dead
Will Vinton, Ian Wingrove, Zoran Perisic & Michael Lloyd for Return to Oz
Now having gone the 80's I'm going back to the very beginning of the 50's with 1950. This year is big in terms of a close two film race for just amount every prize. One film is about theatre and the other about film. The former All About Eve won the big prizes over the latter Sunset Boulevard. Which one of these will I choose or is there another film other then these two that I might wanna vote for.
No comments:
Post a Comment