I’m realizing how odd it is to complain about the Oscars or to pigeonhole the Academy’s tastes. They can get it astoundingly right (i.e., I can agree wholeheartedly) and wildly wrong (i.e., I disagree) all in the same year in the same categories. Case in point…
1992:
“Unforgiven” – Yes, yes, yes. This is a great movie. Spot on. Finally, some recognition for Clint, who by this point had been awesome for, oh, twenty some odd years — but welcome to the party, Academy.
“The Crying Game” – Oh. Okay. It’s a good movie, kind of defined by the twist. I liked the movie, but the marketing campaign — in which Miramax told us there was a big twist — was egregious and perhaps evil.
“Howard’s End” – Oh, dear Lord I hate Merchant-Ivory movies. Not my cup of tea, but right up the Academy’s collective alley. Wikipedia says it was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics, so named because Sony Important and Destined to Be Remembered Forever Films sounded too presumptuous.
“A Few Good Men” – Really loved this back then, the dialogue, the speech, and Tom Cruise’s performance. And while I still enjoy it, it’s not as good as I thought it was.
“Scent of a Woman” – Ugh, are you serious, Academy? Obviously I’m not the first to point this out, but this was the turning point for Pacino, when he decided to start sentences in his normal, gravelly voice and then to SHOUT THE REST OF THE SENTENCE LIKE THIS. It’s really annoying but he was RE-WARDED! WITH AN OSCAR!
What Should Have Been Nominated:
“Glengarry Glen Ross” – Pacino didn’t do that as much in this adaptation of Mamet’s play. He did the short. Bursts. Of. Inflection. But without as much shouting. And when he did raise his voice, it seemed to fit the material. As in his response to Ed Harris’s query, “What does that mean?”
“It MEANS, Dave, you haven’t had a good one IN A MONTH. None of my BUSINESS. You wanna PUSH ME. To ANSWER YOU.” He’s great, Harris is great, Spacey’s at his weaseliest, Alec Baldwin’s at his slimiest, and Lemmon’s at his vulnerablest. Great. Movie.
“Reservoir Dogs” – Oh, dear Lord, I love Quentin Tarantino movies. Sure, there was the controversy, that he stole the plot and some shots from “City On Fire.” I will concede that he’s a total talentless loser when you produce a scene from “City On Fire” in which the characters discuss Madonna, which then leads to a discussion of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and another scene where, oh, I don’t know, a cop posing as a criminal tells a phony story that includes the line, “I’m trying to watch ‘The Lost Boys!'”
“Malcolm X” – Seriously, I thought of this movie when George Clooney accepted an Oscar for “Syriana” and bragged about how forward thinking the Academy is.
“One False Move” – I expected greater things from Carl Franklin after this, an absorbing crime thriller starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, the latter of whom co-wrote the script. You can do it, Carl. Make another great movie. Please.
“Unforgiven” – It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got. And everything he’s ever gonna have.
The genius of Eastwood’s film is that its characters have the same misinformed awe for the outlaws and lawmen of the American west that led to the genre’s dominance. In my last column, I attributed the greatness of “The Silence of the Lambs” to its focused point of view. “Unforgiven,” on the other hand, takes multiple points of view in telling the story of several prostitutes who put a bounty on a couple of cowboys who scarred one of their friends for life because she giggled at the size of the bigger cowboy’s, um, manhood.
When William Munny (Eastwood) meets the so-called Schoefield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), the story behind the bounty has already taken on a life of its own. “Hell, they even cut her teats,” Schoefield, a legend in his own mind, tells Munny. Munny needs the bounty. A widower, he struggles to run a hog farm with his kids. He enlists the aid of his old running buddy, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), and in doing so further exaggerates the extent of the damage done to the prostitute.
Ned and Munny were bad boys. Outlaws. Cold blooded killers. And so was Little Bill (Gene Hackman), the gun control crazy Sheriff of Big Whiskey, the town where the cowboys cut up the woman. Little Bill makes quick work of English Bob (Richard Harris), the first bounty hunter to show up in Big Whiskey, and steals English Bob’s biographer, a scared little weasel named Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) to boot.
Little Bill eviscerates Beauchamp’s work, pointing out that his writing is filled with inaccuracies. Like a man nicknamed “Two Guns” didn’t carry two guns at all, but was simply well-endowed. And he died for it. It’s ironic, then, that the inciting incident was spurred by a man who was not so lucky to be well-endowed. His buddy, who did no cutting, but held the woman down, tries to give the victim a peace offering, but the other women won’t have it. It’s very obvious that they don’t speak for the victim; she appears touched by the gesture, but says nothing.
The movie asks if a man, more to the point, a killer, can change and can he outrun his past? Yes, and no. Ned freezes after firing a shot that maims the more sympathetic cowboy, leaving Munny to finish him off. But Ned quits, and heads home, only to be caught by Little Bill’s posse. As they torture him, The Schoefield Kid confirms our suspicions: he’s a liar and a fraud, a normal person who is desperate to have the reputation of a killer. He goes through with the murder, but it takes a toll on his soul. Finally, he reasons, “They had it coming,” to which Munny replies, “We all got it comin’ kid.”
It all leads to a confrontation between Little Bill and Munny, during which Munny takes out half of Big Whiskey. Only one man can survive and, for the time being, outrun his past.