OVP: Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Film: Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Stars: Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick, Raymond J. Barry, Jerry Levine, Frank Whaley

Director: Oliver Stone

Oscar History: 8 nods/2 wins (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Tom Cruise, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing*, Score, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Tom Cruise: click here to learn more about Mr. Cruise (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Growing up, Tom Cruise was not an actor that my parents liked a lot.  While stars such as Harrison Ford or Sandra Bullock being in a picture was pretty much a blank check ticket situation to see their new film, Cruise's movies were oftentimes only ones we would seek out if they had a lot of buzz.  When I would ask about this (as you can imagine, young John was always talking about movies), a big part of the reason was "I don't think he's a very good actor" which to be fair was something that was a relatively commonplace topic during much of Cruise's career with the general public.  Cruise, because of his arresting good looks (for me, it's always been the hair-Tom Cruise has spectacular hair) and the types of movies he picks (action films, franchise pictures, and romantic melodramas) has usually been dismissed as a pretty boy or a commercial star only.  This is something we've actually seen throughout this year: Errol Flynn, Charles Bronson, & Arnold Schwarzenegger were all never nominated for Oscars, and it took Sean Connery until the second act of his career to win one.

But Cruise, Cruise at the height of his fame did not seem content with being a pretty boy.  His onscreen idol was not Errol Flynn or Sean Connery...it was always Paul Newman, and Paul Newman got to be in action films and be nominated repeatedly for Oscars.  Born on the Fourth of July was not Cruise's first clear play at an Academy Award nomination (he had starred alongside Newman in The Color of Money, and the year before starred in the Best Picture winner Rain Man), but in both cases it was his costar that won Best Actor.  Born on the Fourth of July was the first time that Cruise got nominated, and it's a fascinating film that both signaled where he was headed with his career for the next decade (regularly appearing in films that were Oscar-adjacent) and also an anomaly, given it was the rare really "actorly" role that Cruise would take in his career.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Ron Kovic (Cruise), the quintessential American young man who wrestles for his school, is in love with the prettiest girl at school (Kyra Sedgwick) and devotes his passion to God and Country (specifically the Republican Party).  When fighting breaks out in Vietnam, Ron is the first to enlist, and he goes to war...and promptly realizes how much patriotism relies upon the sacrifices of an average man.  He becomes paralyzed from the waist down, unable to have children or to ever walk again, something he initially refuses (to the point where he nearly loses his legs through obstinance), and then slowly works back to reality, though first having bouts of severe alcoholism & depression.  This leads him away from the Republican Party that sent him to war, and eventually he becomes a vocal supporter of the anti-war movement, nearly being trampled during the 1972 RNC while they nominate Nixon to a landslide victory.  The film ends with this low point being countered with a high point, Kovic's real life speech at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.

It's worth noting before we get into Cruise's work here that this film is directed by Oliver Stone.  In an era where directors like Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, & Robert Zemeckis made films that were only subtly political (though politics are there, especially in Spielberg's work), Stone's films of this era were known for their hyper-political atmosphere.  Films like Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, & Nixon (all very popular with Oscar and usually with audiences) questioned authority to the point of feeling conspiratorial (as a youth who read entertainment & celebrity magazines weekly, I believe I learned the phrase "conspiracy theory" from it being linked to Oliver Stone).  The film's anti-war politics feel a bit more routine today, given that we've had decades of film that have been comfortable questioning the honestly of the US government in foreign affairs, but in 1989 it's worth noting that having the quintessential American boy next door (Tom Cruise) spouting off leftist dialogue in a year where ardent pro-Vietnam congressman George HW Bush had become president is an interesting counter.

The film itself occasionally feels underwritten as a result of the politics, mostly because Stone's politics are so well-honed into the script, sometimes at the sacrifice of character.  I loved, for example, the way that we are introduced to Kovic as a bit weak-willed (he's not the best wrestler, he doesn't have the guts to take the girl he likes to the Prom), and then seeing that the world doesn't actually care about him when he gets back.  He fervently believed in American exceptionalism, and in giving himself as a sacrifice, but when he gets back, he learns as he matures into a true adult that his sacrifice meant little to the people he did it on behalf of (and much of that was just talk, not deed), and those who stayed behind profited in his absence, or worse yet, simply want him to go away.  The cruelty of his not being perfect is felt on his parents, who want their old son back...and hate their new one (the relationship between Ron & his mother is really well done because it's so uncomfortable).  But this also means that we rarely get to know much about the side characters (Sedgwick and Willem Dafoe feel pretty two-dimensional from actors we know can do more), and I wanted to understand more about what made this story specific than trying to make it feel universal to fit Stone's lecture to the viewer.

As for Cruise?  I liked him in this.  I think Cruise, at the time very willing to mess with his star persona, plays Ron as unlikable, oftentimes nauseatingly so, but it works for the character.  I think the way that he embraces the arrogance that comes with youth, knowing that those around you couldn't possibly be right because they've lived longer and seen more of the world (something we all go through as young adults eager to be seen as equals) is really well done.  I do wish he had had more scene partner work-there are times when it feels like he's trying to inhabit the whole screen in his scenes, needing us to KNOW the message he's trying to convey, sometimes swinging a bit from scene-to-scene without giving consistency is an issue (though more the writer's fault), but this is proof of something I already know (I disagree with my parents on this one): Tom Cruise, when he wants to be, is a fine actor.

OVP: Ordinary People (1980)

Film: Ordinary People (1980)

Stars: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, Judd Hirsch

Director: Robert Redford

Oscar History: 6 nominations/4 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actress-Mary Tyler Moore, Supporting Actor-Timothy Hutton*, Supporting Actor-Judd Hirsch, Adapted Screenplay*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Mary Tyler Moore: click here to learn more about Ms. Moore (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

It's hard to express what a big deal The Mary Tyler Moore Show was when it was on in the 1970's.  The show wasn't a gargantuan-style Friends-esque behemoth in the ratings (it was a Top 20 hit for five of its seven seasons, so respectable, but was not once in the Top 5, peaking at #7 in Season 3), but it dominated the pop culture landscape.  The show would spawn three spinoffs, including the critically-acclaimed drama Lou Grant, and win more Emmys than any comedy until Frasier over two decades later.  Three of those would be for Moore as Best Actress in a Comedy Series.  As a result of playing Mary Richards, beautiful-but-talented, a single woman who didn't need a husband to be happy (or successful in life), she created a feminist icon.  Oprah Winfrey herself has stated she got into television because of Mary Richards, and the normally composed Winfrey openly wept when Moore made a surprise appearance on her show.  Coming off such a success would be daunting, but Moore chose pretty well for herself.  Being guided by Robert Redford in his directorial debut, Moore won the only Academy Award nomination of her career for 1980's Ordinary People, arguably the only significant film she'd make in her career in terms of passing into cultural relevance, a movie that won an Best Picture Oscar that is still discussed today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the Jarretts, living in the suburbs of Chicago in an idllic house, but as you can imagine things at home are not idillic.  Their eldest son Buck has passed away from drowning, an accident on a sailboat that occurred while their younger son Conrad (Hutton) was on the boat, and since then Conrad has attempted suicide & gone to a mental hospital.  Conrad is now back-in-school but unsuccessfully readjusting, and his parents are not handling it the same.  His father Calvin (Sutherland) is amiable but largely hoping the problem will go away if he's kind to his son, while his wife Beth (Moore) wants to pretend nothing is different, and lives a sort of plastic Norman Rockwell-style existence, frequently trying to lift her problematic son out of her life completely.  Conrad is in therapy with Dr. Berger (Hirsch), a tough-talking psychiatrist who wants to get to the root cause of Conrad's problems, many of which he places at the feet of his parents.  As we learn, this is both true and an excuse.  Conrad has the ability to change himself, but not those around him, and when he suffers a breakdown, this comes to a head.  His father is willing to bend and be someone different to stay with the son he has left, but his wife is not, and leaves them before the end of the picture.  It's a hopeful, but bleak (and realistic) ending, and look at what grief can do to a family unit.

Ordinary People's best moments come from the prickliness that happens within a family unit, and how each person plays a part (and what happens when one of them is no longer there to play said part).  I think what's so smart about Redford's direction and the script is the way that it doesn't shy away from this.  It's very clear that Buck was Beth's favorite child, and that Calvin tried to compensate by favoring Conrad, though he wasn't as successful because Beth is the dominant figure in the household.  What is more intriguing is watching Beth & Calvin's own realities start to dissipate as we move into the movie.  It's clear that while Calvin loved both the boys, Beth might not have loved either of them, or at least not in a conventional way...she saw them as ornaments for her life, things to show to her friends.  There's an extremely uncomfortable but telling moment where Calvin wants to get a photo of Beth & Conrad together, and while Conrad is willing, Beth refuses, insisting she doesn't need it, and you see the look on Timothy Hutton's face as he understands in real time his mother no longer even wants to be seen next to him, he has strayed so far from what is acceptable as her ornament.  This is a very real type of mother (just look at all of the parents who abandon their children for being gay or trans), who only loves their child if they match the vision they have of them in their head.

And it's a testament to Moore (and the writers) that she doesn't get a redemption.  Part of what makes this performance so good is that Moore's Beth is not someone who is going to change, because she'll never see what she's doing as wrong.  She is the sort of person who has never considered that her worldview might be incorrect, and while Conrad & Calvin are capable of such introspection, she is not, which makes the ending work really well-you get a sense of her going back into her own life of golf, cocktail parties, & church fundraisers, everyone gossiping about how lonely she is behind her back but too afraid to reach out for fear of her slapping their hand.  All of the performers in this are good (Sutherland's blistered dad, Hutton's damaged son, even the least of the main quartet Hirsch's hipster doctor works more than he doesn't), but Moore is the best because she manages to play unlikeable so real.

The big controversy for any Oscar watcher (this is one of the very rare Best Picture winners I'd never seen) is that it beat Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, and so (for the record) I want to acknowledge that this is not as good as Raging Bull (few movies are).  That movie does more with form, and has a better central performance.  But it is strong, and I get why it has developed a sort of second battalion of defenders in recent years after being something of a How Green Was My Valley/Dances with Wolves-style punching bag for so many years.  It's a great movie...it just probably shouldn't have beaten a masterpiece.

OVP: Director (1999)

OVP: Best Director (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Sam Mendes, American Beauty

Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich

Lasse Hallstrom, The Cider House Rules

Michael Mann, The Insider

M. Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense

My Thoughts: We are into the home stretch on 1999.  This is the first time in eons that I don't have a year completed-and-on-deck.  I will own that I have the next year picked out (and will be working overtime over the next week to get some of the screenings done for said year), but as it stands right now, we will have a short break between 1999 and our 27th season of the Oscar Viewing Project, though I'll work to keep it as short as possible as despite this being a decades-long project at this point...I don't like the idea of losing a week on it.  But that is a problem for future John...today my problems are not getting distracted by the recent Tim Walz VP announcement (giving future readers an indication of what we were all thinking this morning) and to discuss the Best Director nominees of 1999.

We're going to start with Spike Jonze, the only one of these five men who didn't get their film into the Best Picture lineup.  Jonze's best trick as a director may be keeping Charlie Kaufman in check.  The legendary screenwriter struggles when he's playing both roles, but given he's only writing, he maintains some of his most insane impulses at bay, and we get a coherent, inventive projection in front of us.  I love Jonze's plays with space, the way that getting into Malkovich's mind feels claustrophobic the whole time (the audience only feels really free when we're ourselves), and how the film feels on the verge of going into Narnia with the dullness it brings to the real-world before we enter an Oscar nominee.

M. Night Shyamalan became shorthand in the years after The Sixth Sense for a specific type of "the audience doesn't suspect what's about to happen!" horror film that would become en vogue, and he would lean into with lessening results (even today, that's what movie crowds think when they see his name on a picture).  But the first movie that he broke out with...it is worthy of decades of hype.  The way he moves the camera, every shot feeling deliberate but not necessarily in a way that feels belabored, he gives us so much color (specifically red), and shows how grief and depression can leak into the lives of those around us, to the point where they bear the brunt of that rawness.  Horror as metaphor is not new, but it's rarely this succinct.

Similar to Shyamalan, Sam Mendes is crafting a vocabulary in American Beauty that would be copied, detailed, and used by filmmakers in the 21st Century that followed.  I love the way that we get this film as a crumpled piece of paper unfolding, us getting layers of dents and bruises in the marriage, in the American Family itself.  The way that it explores the limitations of examining your own toxic masculinity, and how it impacts those around you, is fascinating.  If we are going to nitpick, I do think that Mendes fails to make the ending work-it's too soft, too predicted-but that's a small complaint, this is some of his best work.

Lasse Hallstrom's The Cider House Rules stands out here like a sore thumb not because it's a bad movie (it's not, it's a perfectly decent movie on its own), but because in a lineup that, even if you don't like the other movies themselves, they all have a very distinct directorial style.  That's not the case here.  To use Classical Hollywood terms, Hallstrom's film feels very much "director for hire," with a pretty straight-forward approach.  That's not all bad-there's a breeziness to Hallstrom's work that makes some of the lighter moments feel effortless, but given the weightiness of the film toward the back half, you need a more heavy-handed director to make it work, and Hallstrom doesn't pull that off.

Our final nominee is Michael Mann, one of those esteemed filmmakers whom it's weird only will ever get one Best Director nomination (Mann is 81 and only makes about a film a decade lately...I doubt he has more than one picture left in him at this rate).  The tightness of the movie comes from the editing first, but the direction soon follows-I think the pacing and the way that Mann keeps the audience edgy, always wondering what will happen in a story that they know the ending of, is a trick that's really hard to pull off, but he does it beautifully.  Combined with sturdy sound work, Mann ushers through a complicated picture in a flashy box office draw fashion.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes started out the long list of accolades that Sam Mendes won in the 1999 awards season, beating Mann, Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Neil Jordan (The End of the Affair), & Norman Jewison (The Hurricane).  The BAFTA's totally did their own thing in giving the statue to Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother) against Minghella, Shyamalan, Jordan, & Mendes, while the DGA picked Mendes as their winner atop Jonze, Mann, Shyamalan, and Frank Darabont (The Green Mile).  My money for sixth place is on Jewison, a long-time Oscar favorite (he was nominated in this category three times in his career), and hadn't been around for a decade, though Darabont, Jordan, or even David Lynch (The Straight Story) aren't crazy ideas.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Oscar would spend so much time nominating Alexander Payne for Oscars he didn't deserve recognition for in the next two decades, it's a pity they didn't pick the one time he should have been chosen for a directing nomination, his brilliant satire Election.
Oscar's Choice: Mendes was brand-new, but against a horror film and a director known for featherweight dramas, this wasn't the dealbreaker it might've been in some years.

My Choice: I'm going to go with Shyamalan.  I think that The Sixth Sense is the type of tight, timeless picture that's rare to pull off, and needs to be rewarded even if I'll own that some of the filmmakers later pictures don't have this sense of discipline.  Behind him (in order) would be Mendes, Mann, Jonze, & Hallstrom.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you staying with Oscar and their first-timer Sam, or do you want to see dead people with me?  Do you think Michael Mann should've gotten more Oscar nominations than he did?  And am I right that it's Jewison in sixth place (or do you prefer Darabont/Lynch/Jordan)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 1999: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Director Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Director (2023)

OVP: Best Director (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things

Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest

My Thoughts: We are moving toward the tail end of our 2023 conversation today, with the Best Director field.  One of the more pronounced side effects of the ten-wide field, and one of the weirder ones for sure, is that people have forgotten how to count.  With ten nominees for Best Picture and only five for Best Director, that means that (at least) five films from the Best Picture field will not get into the Best Director field.  This is okay (not every good film needs an Oscar nomination), but for some people, this is an invitation to scream about, say, Greta Gerwig missing here for Barbie even if she was nominated for Best Screenplay, as if this is an enormous crime.  So, before we begin, I do not think that Gerwig's lack of a nomination was a huge surprise (I didn't guess her), nor do I think her missing was particularly anti-feminist (especially since the one woman in this lineup was likely the one who bumped her).

That woman is Justine Triet, who directed Anatomy of a Fall.  Triet's nomination is kind of cool on a solely political front, given that many feel that her film was not chosen for the International Feature race because of her public criticisms of French President Emmanuel Macron during her Cannes acceptance speech.  We don't judge based on personal feelings about the nominees, but I will note-she seems like a badass.  Her nomination, though, I wasn't a huge fan of-I think that the film feels too overlong, and it runs into too much repetition with its plot.  It also doesn't handle the "did she do it?" question well, a problem I put pretty squarely at the feet of the director.  The actual title scene is done well, and there are some Hitchcockian flares that I was into, but overall I was disappointed with this and feel like it got a nomination in part because it was so serious.

Yorgos Lanthimos is also a nomination from someone I like, but who didn't need his name listed here.  We talked yesterday about how much I loved Emma Stone's performance in Poor Things, but it sometimes feels like I'm liking it in-spite of her director's work.  Lanthimos' approach here is too much.  He uses too much garishness, and the way that the film's use of a sort of futuristic Victorian style feels, well, it feels undefined; why are we doing this other than it feels odd?  I also don't like the way that he can't handle the evolution of Bella in the final thirty minutes without it just being about her fighting yet another man.

Jonathan Glazer, on the opposite end, puts so much into the pacing of The Zone of Interest it reads very much like a director's picture.  The way that he moves the camera, using tracking shots and far-away dialogue to give us both the foreground and background of the story in multiple scenes is superb, and I loved the interruptions of color across the movie screen, letting the audience absorb what is happening in the picture.  Glazer's mastery of the ending, too, cannot be ignored-I admired the way that it connects to modern day, and the wretching sound that happens when your soul feels like it's vomiting out of your body, you've condoned so much evil.

Quentin Tarantino has spent much of the past five years complaining about how he's only going to make ten pictures, because "directors make their worst stuff toward the end of their lives."  Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese, now in his eighties, has made two of his finest films during that time frame.  The approach with Killers of the Flower Moon is so awe-inducing, giving us the sort of large, expansive epic that (if your name isn't Martin, Steven, or Ridley) they don't really let you make anymore.  I enjoyed the way that he honors not just the Osage people, but also the illumination that can happen from making a movie at all, bringing a story to light that has been kept in darkness.  The film's final, solemn moments (where Scorsese takes centerstage) are some of his best.

Christopher Nolan was always going to win an Oscar.  All of the fanboys who worried about it for years, the second he made a movie like Dunkirk, should've known it was inevitable.  That he won for a movie that combines his blockbuster flare with an Academy-friendly plot (and that made almost $1 billion) is a really incredible testament to his endurance as one of the most exciting mainstream filmmakers of the past couple of decades.  I think his approach with Oppenheimer is great, particularly the tricky balance that he strikes between jumping through decades & finding some sort of insight into an enigmatic man.  There are problems that I have with Oppenheimer, but those are not an issue of the director (more of the writer and to some degree the actors & composer)...I have nothing bad to say about this nod.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have six nominations now (ruining the only category where we used to have five-wide for all precursors) and they picked Nolan to win against Gerwig, Lanthimos, Scorsese, Bradley Cooper (Maestro), & Celine Song (Past Lives).  The BAFTA's also had six nominations (I hate this trend), with Nolan beating Cooper, Glazer, Payne, Triet, and Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers) while the DGA chose Nolan over Gerwig, Lanthimos, Payne, & Scorsese.  I'll be real to all of those who led the charge-I don't think Gerwig was in sixth place here...my money is that she was in seventh.  Payne is a more traditional choice for the Academy, and they have liked him more in the past.  I actually predicted him in favor of Triet, and so he's the one that stands out as the likely just-miss.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Sofia Coppola got nominated so early in her career, and then the Oscars totally forgot she was still making truly great pictures.  This trend continued with Priscilla, which shows the unrest of a young woman finding herself while also falling in love with a domineering man, with a distinct directorial flare that I suspect the Academy would admire from Tarantino or Scorsese.
Oscar's Choice: Christopher Nolan had this Oscar roughly by last August.  It was the kind of train you can't stop from coming.

My Choice: Glazer, who is in a different league (in general-this is his best movie, and the made Birth and Under the Skin).  Scorsese is next, followed by Nolan, but I would've been proud to put either of them in the top spot if Glazer hadn't hit such a home run.  Triet, and then Lanthimos close out the category.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you staying with Oscar and his Nolan coronation, or do you want to sit with me and Jonathan Glazer?  At some point Greta Gerwig is winning this-but for what kind of movie?  And do we think Scorsese (or his buddy Steven Spielberg) just get nominations for the rest of their careers, or will they get one more statue?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2023: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Director Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: The Nun's Story (1959)

Film: The Nun's Story (1959)

Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Mildred Dunnock

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Oscar History: 8 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actress-Audrey Hepburn, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Audrey Hepburn: click here to learn more about Ms. Hepburn (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Like many women who wore the title of "America's Sweetheart" Audrey Hepburn's critical acclaim has been questioned through the years by some, claiming she was a "limited" actress.  This feels like an odd thing to point out for Hepburn, who more than almost any actress we're going to profile this year, received a lot of critical acclaim.  Hepburn was cited for five Oscars in her career, winning for Roman Holiday, and that didn't include her lauded work in My Fair Lady, which was widely-expected by many to be a spot for her to get a nomination.  She also was one of the first people to win an EGOT (an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, & Tony) and did so as a performer.  Today, we are going to discuss one of Hepburn's Oscar-nominated turns, the final one that I had yet to see, and one that I think shows the versatility of her acting, rather than calling it (as her critics have) "one-note": The Nun's Story.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on the life of Gaby, a young postulant who for most of the film is known as Sister Luke (Hepburn).  She has, before the start of the film, decided to devote herself to a life as a nun, something that we don't get a lot of insight into the rationale why, though we think it's to become a nurse in the Congo (there's a throwaway line about a boy she liked late in the film, and I rather liked that this might be a secondary reason for her, because it adds a depth to the film even if it might also be a touch antifeminist to assume she couldn't just want this for a career).  Of course, being a nun is not just about nursing, but instead also about devotion to God, and throughout the film we get to see Sister Luke struggle with a crisis-of-faith, trying to find a way to help those around her through her scientific skills, but also to get back to her devotion to the church, and wanting to show that she can be worthy of her new calling, and not just being a nurse.  As the film progresses, it becomes evident that she cannot, and in the final moments of the film, she leaves the convent forever.

The movie was cited for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it's worthy of most of them.  The film is wonderfully-structured, giving us a glimpse not only into the life of a woman trying to become a nun, but giving it two-dimensionally.  I have read that some (particularly composer Franz Waxman) were critical of the Catholic Church, but I'll be honest-I don't think the story gets that across.  If you want to debate the Church, you've got your evidence there-the constant critiquing of Sister Luke for having human impulses feels cruel in parts.  But there's also a spot for those who are sympathetic to the church, showing how becoming a nun isn't a calling for everyone, even for the most kindhearted of women (i.e. there's more to being a nun than being good).  I loved that approach, and honestly really liked this movie.  There are critiques to be had (I don't think that it gives us enough connection to those around Sister Luke for us to really understand why she ultimately gives up the church after sacrificing so much), but they're thin.  Zinnemann's approach, the film's lovely cinematography, and the way that it wordlessly adds depth to the ending by foregoing Waxman's score as Hepburn leaves the convent, rather than giving us a dramatic swell, is marvelous.  It's clear at that moment that Sister Luke is picking the only way out, but she's not sure if it's the right one, and the music not giving the audience any indication this is the correct path is really well-designed.

Hepburn's performance here is really stellar.  The cinematography & makeup work are helping her cause, to be fair.  I love the way we start to see the angelic Hepburn's eyes start to become sallow with the weight of the world on her, highlighted by the constant focus on her face (in many ways copying what cinematographer Arthur C. Miller did for Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette).  But Hepburn is also giving something extra to her work here.  Her internal struggles, the way that her inner-monologue never shuts off, particularly when we see that she can't speak to other people, is very reminiscent of Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, and it's very effective.  Hepburn shows here she might always look like a pixie, but she also was able to use that to create versatility.  She's up against actresses like Simone Signoret & Katharine Hepburn, generally considered to be "better" actresses than she is, but her performance honestly is more nuanced and stronger in the way it highlights the picture than either of those two more celebrated thespians.  Hepburn's critical reputation from some snobbish cinephiles as one-note is, well, wrong.

OVP: Director (1931-32)

OVP: Best Director (1931-32)

The Nominees Were...

Frank Borzage, Bad Girl

King Vidor, The Champ

Josef von Sternberg, Shanghai Express

My Thoughts: Coming off of yesterday's Best Actress field, I am happy to report that we are in much better territory for Best Director.  Unlike Best Actress, this features at least one truly worthy nominee, and one nominee that is no slouch.  It also features three distinctive film directors.  King Vidor & Frank Borzage would gain reputations as some of the better "directors for hire" of Hollywood's Golden Age, sometimes getting lost in their reputations the fact that they had gifts.  Vidor's The Crowd and Borzage's Moonrise, for example, are pretty much perfect films, and their best work (in my opinion).  But only one of these guys is generally given the title of "auteur" and given his cinematic output in the early Sound Era, it's easy to see why.

Josef von Sternberg is that director, who from 1927-1935 was one of the most interesting filmmakers working in cinema, first in Germany, then in the United States.  In that time, he made seven movies with Marlene Dietrich, two of which won him Best Director nominations (the other one was Morocco).  Watching Shanghai Express, it's sometimes confusing how good the movie is because it looks so incredible.  Von Sternberg did impossible things with a camera, giving us a beautiful depth in his films that no American filmmaker would be able to achieve until Orson Welles.  I love the way he moves the camera from different shots, sometimes giving us the action at the center, sometimes moving it to the side, playing with the script visually to the point where you don't really care that the story doesn't make a lot of sense.

Frank Borzage's work in Bad Girl isn't nearly as stylized or sophisticated, and that's especially true when it's paired with such a defanged screenplay.  For a movie literally called Bad Girl, it's quite prudish in its approach, and Borzage doesn't know how to make the weakest of film setups (just a series of misunderstandings between a married couple) elevate into something special.  I know there are people who are champions of this movie, and lord knows in 1932 there were given its Oscar history, but I don't get it at all.  It's less bad and more just confusing in its critical acclaim.

The final nomination is much easier to understand.  Vidor does a superb job of framing the fighting scenes against the action outside of the ring.  I loved the way that the story is built around "the big fight" but by the time it's come, the stakes of what it's supposed to be about have completely changed.  Vidor knows that this movie is not just about economy (and it so easily could've been only about that), but instead about the ways that masculinity (and how it is valued over love) can weaken the resolves of even the strongest of men.  Watching Beery lose his battles to his former glory is heartbreaking.

Other Precursor Contenders: Of the five films that didn't get a Best Director nomination, but did get in for Best Picture, we have Ernst Lubitsch directing two (likely cancelling himself out), and while it would be tempting to pick the Best Picture winner, Edmund Goulding has no Oscar history and Grand Hotel is more of a call sheet film.  Therefore I'm going to assume it was either John Ford for Arrowsmith or Mervyn LeRoy for Five Star Final, and given Ford has the longer Oscar history, he'd be my guess.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Howard Hawks is one of the most consistent filmmakers in Classical Hollywood, directing classics in every genre from film noir (The Big Sleep) to screwball comedy (Bringing Up Baby) to westerns (Red River) to Science Fiction (The Thing from Another World).  He somehow only got one nomination, for the total snooze Sergeant York.  A perfect time to honor him would've been for 1932's Scarface with Paul Muni, a total achievement and the best early gangster film of the 1930's.
Oscar's Choice: I cannot explain it, but Frank Borzage won.  Given he already had a statue and Vidor & von Sternberg would never win one, it feels like a particularly stupid indulgence from the Academy.

My Choice: It's absolutely von Sternberg, who is in another class with Shanghai Express.  Behind him is Vidor, and then Borzage is forgettably in third.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you sticking with me and giving this statue to von Sternberg (his personal life aside) or do you want to go with AMPAS and Frank Borzage?  What would you consider to be the best film of these three men, all quite prolific directors in their day?  And was it Ford, LeRoy, Goulding, or Lubitsch in fourth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 1931-32: Actress, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Story, Art Direction, Cinematography, Previously in 1931-32

Past Best Director Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Director (2000)

OVP: Best Director (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Stephen Daldry, Billy Elliot

Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ridley Scott, Gladiator

Steven Soderbergh, Erin Brockovich

Steven Soderbergh, Traffic

My Thoughts: Actors are not allowed to be nominated in the same category in the same year.  This doesn't come up a lot, though there are high-profile situations where it was definitely a factor in the years we've profiled so far (Kate Winslet in 2008, Nicole Kidman in 2001).  Directors, on the other hand, are allowed to be nominated twice in the same year.  There was a time this wasn't allowed, after Michael Curtiz pulled it off in 1938, but the only other time it's ever happened was in 2000, when Steven Soderbergh achieved the seemingly impossible and directed himself to two nominations in the same category.

We'll start with Erin Brockovich, which of the two was the less likely given its subject matter (the directing branch has not only a history of denying women nominations...they're also not wild about films featuring women in the leads).  His work here is solid, though not exceptional.  A lot of the trademark flourishes we associate with Soderbergh (the camerawork, the lingering shots) are gone, and it feels in some ways like a direct-for-hire gig with a great script.  I do think that the ways he frames the monologues are at least solid, giving as much reaction as we get focus on Julia, but while this is decent, I'm surprised it happened given that they could've put a new name into the conversation while still keeping Erin in Best Picture.

On the flip side, Soderbergh's direction of Traffic is really special, and kind of indicative of him as a filmmaker.  I love the way the camera tries to capture the motion of being on drugs in addition to the actual surroundings, the frenetic energy that comes from being out-of-control.  I also think he smartly ties the movie together as the plot lines intersect, taking advantage of the audience's genuine surprise as characters from different stories begin to overlap.  A gifted filmmaker, but (give or take Magic Mike), his finest hour.

Soderbergh's biggest competition at the Oscars was not himself-it was Ang Lee.  Lee's work in Crouching Tiger heralded a new era for the eventual two-time Best Director winner (who had, five years earlier, missed for Sense and Sensibility).  Crouching Tiger is, like Traffic, an achievement of the director.  The way that the film moves, giving us giant, seamless action sequences that are paired with vengeance and romantic backstory, and the way that he captures all of this while also bringing the natural landscape and production design into the story, is extraordinary, giving us this complete, giant epic.

Ridley Scott was also in the hunt for his first Oscar (something that he's still in the hunt for, though Napoleon didn't get him into the conversation again).  Gladiator is one of those movies that reads (to me) like the old Sydney Pollack quote that Hollywood's definition of a director is "damage control expert."  This is just giant, with him trying to scoop up a hefty visual effects budget, wildly different acting styles, and a too-big story into one, specific film.  It's too much, and comes across as messy by the end of it in Scott's hands, even if some pieces of the picture work well.

Our final nominee is Stephen Daldry, whose film Billy Elliot is the only movie we won't be revisiting tomorrow for Best Picture.  Daldry's work here is challenging-he has to wrangle around child actors and have them tell a pretty mature story about lost dreams and how you have to find your moment.  Billy is the kind of family film you realize the dimensions of it a lot more when you're older.  But he does that beautifully, giving us a distinctive English town and the claustrophobia of it, all of which finds an escape every time Jamie Bell stands on-point.  A sentimental film that's never schmaltzy.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Ang Lee, besting Scott, Istvan Szabo (Sunshine), and both of the Soderberghs.  The BAFTA's, usually so contrary, gave the exact same lineup as Oscar (though here they went with Lee as the winner), and the DGA got rid of Daldry in favor of Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), with Lee winning again.  In sixth place, I think Crowe is a decent guess, as would be Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) or maybe even someone like Philip Kaufman for Quills (at the time, Kaufman had been on a long run of "eventually will be nominated" successes that ended after this movie so it's very possible he just missed) or maybe Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away), who was no stranger to Oscar by this point.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'm going to be totally honest-I've got a lot of other nominees that I think should've gotten nominated here, but none of them were really on Oscar's radar, and given how strong Lee/Soderbergh are, I'm going to give AMPAS a pass even though this could've been improved.  You'll see my much more esoteric selections on Monday.
Oscar's Choice: Despite Lee's dominance all season, his loss wasn't seen as a huge upset given Soderbergh's historic double nomination.  But Traffic pulled it off for him (Lee would win twice-he's fine).

My Choice: I'm going to continue the precursor trend and also pick Lee over Soderbergh (Traffic), though either was a good decision.  Behind them is Daldry, Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich), and Scott.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you think that Ang Lee was already worthy years before he won for Brokeback, or do you think Oscar made the right call with Soderbergh?  I ask this a lot, but seriously...is Ridley Scott ever getting an Oscar (even an honorary one)?  And was it Kaufman, Zemeckis, Hallstrom, or Crowe in sixth place (for the record, I lean toward Kaufman even though no one will probably agree with me)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2000: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Director Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022