1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die-PART 2

Spain (El Deseo, Laurenfilm) 90m Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios 1988 Eastmancolor Language Spanish Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Producer Pedro Almodóvar Screenplay Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar, 1988 Photography José Luis Alcaine Music Bernardo Bonezzi, C. Curet Alonso, Thanks to the Oscar nomination it received for Best Foreign Language Ventura Rodríguez Cast Carmen Maura, Film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown confirmed Almodóvar’s Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de international status. It certainly improves on the most worthy aspects of Palma, María Barranco, Kiti Manver, his previous works: the radical subjectivity of feelings, the exaggeration Guillermo Montesinos, Chus Lampreave, of emotions, and the bizarre mixture of melodrama and comedy. Yayo Calvo, Loles León, Ángel de Andrés López, Fernando Guillén, Juan Lombardero, The story’s premises belong to melodrama. Pepa Marcos (Carmen José Antonio Navarro, Ana Leza Oscar Maura) and her lover Iván (Fernando Guillén) make their living dubbing nomination Spain (best foreign language films. One day he announces that he wants to break things off. Deciding film) Venice Film Festival Pedro Almodóvar to meet him one last time for an explanation, Pepa investigates Iván’s (Golden Osella— screenplay) family life and discovers that his wife, recently released from a psychiatric hospital, plans on killing him. Despite his betrayal, Pepa runs to the “All my movies have airport, where he is about to take off with his new love, and saves his life. an autobiographical Iván tries to make up with Pepa but she turns him down. dimension, but that is indirectly, through the Although Women on the Verge is full of melodramatic situations, the way Almodóvar develops it reveals his particular sense of humor, based personages.” mostly on the eccentric characters populating the film. While Pepa is on the phone investigating her missing lover, her apartment fills with all Pedro Almodóvar sorts of people: Candela (María Barranco), a friend who is running from the police because she had an affair with a Shiite terrorist; a stuttering young man who wants to rent the apartment after Pepa moves out; and Iván’s mad wife, with a gun in her purse. Everyone is so desperate, and the sheer accumulation of such despair in one place is so exaggerated we can only roar with laughter. The quid-pro-quos and the vaudeville situations might make the movie seem like a farcical comedy, but Almodóvar’s sure touch is there to make the difference, with its exaltation of kitsch, excessive colors, and hyperbole. Women on the Verge is a moving female monologue about happiness and loneliness. Loosely inspired by Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play The Human Voice, the film showcases the tremendous talent of Almodóvar’s muse, Carmen Maura. Nor should we forget Antonio Banderas, who took an important step here toward international stardom. DD i Almódovar was born in the Spanish province of La Mancha—a region made famous by Don Quixote.



Spoorloos George Sluizer, 1988 1988 Netherlands / France (Argos, Golden Egg, The Vanishing Ingrid, MGS, Movie Visions) 107m Color Language Dutch / French / English The Golden Egg, a best-selling novel published in 1984 by Dutch journalist Producer George Sluizer, Anne Lordon and author Tim Krabbé, served as the source material for director George Sluizer’s highly acclaimed thriller The Vanishing. Like the book, the film Screenplay Tim Krabbé, George Sluizer, from tells the story of Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets), a young Dutchman whose the novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbé girlfriend Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) mysteriously disappears while the Photography Toni Kuhn Music Henny couple are on vacation in central France. Obsessed with finding out what Vrienten Cast Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, happened to her, Rex single-handedly launches an international missing- persons campaign that completely takes over his life. Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus, Bernadette Le Saché, Tania Latarjet, Years later, long after the trail has gone cold and the police have Lucille Glenn, Roger Souza, Caroline Appéré, closed the case, Rex still scours the countryside out of guilt and as a tribute to Saskia, alienating and eventually losing his new girlfriend in Pierre Forget, Didier Rousset, Raphaeline, the process. Saskia’s unlikely abductor, a French chemistry teacher Robert Lucibello, David Bayle, Doumee named Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) turns up with an offer to tell all, but only if Rex agrees in advance to undergo the exact “Sometimes I same experience as his girlfriend. Rex hesitantly agrees because the imagine she’s alive.” worst thing of all is “not knowing.” Raymond explains that he did indeed kill Saskia, not for sexual or personal reasons, but merely because he Rex Hofman wanted to find out if he was capable of committing such an evil act. Rex (Gene Bervoets) willingly takes a sedative, and in the film’s penultimate scene, awakens to find himself buried alive inside a narrow coffin. The Vanishing ends i with a slow zoom in on a newspaper headline concerning the mysterious “double vanishing”of Rex and Saskia, while Raymond sits contemplatively The Vanishing is the most well known at his cottage, his unsuspecting wife watering the plants that mark the and highly regarded example of couple’s otherwise anonymous graves. Dutch thriller cinema. Despite its adherence to the mystery/horror/suspense form, and its international promotion and reception as an example of contemporary Hitchcockian moviemaking, The Vanishing’s plaintive score, melodramatic tone, and focus on subjectivity rather than detection all serve to make the film extremely difficult to analyze in traditional generic terms. Sluizer’s picture fits most comfortably as part of a cycle of distinctively Dutch “thrillers,” all of which possess an essentially national, culturally specific dimension. Other entries in this cycle include Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man (1983), Dick Maas’s The Lift (1983) and Amsterdamned (1987), and, to some extent, Marleen Gorris’s Broken Mirrors (1984). Despite their incorporation of conventions from disparate genres, and the undeniable presence of auteurist elements in each, it is possible to identify an underlying thematic preoccupation across all of these films. The male protagonists suffer an anxiety about being bound to a female partner in a normal relationship—the expectation or reality of marriage and all it legally and socially entails, namely monogamy, heterosexuality, and lifelong commitment. As with the Italian giallo, Dutch thriller cinema is not so much a genre as a body of films resisting simple generic definition. SJS 751

Czechoslovakia / Switzerland / G.B. / Neco z Alenky Jan Svankmajer, 1988 Germany (Channel Four, Condor, Hessischer Alice Rundfunk, SRG) 86m Eastmancolor Language Czech / English Producer Peter- In his characteristically bizarre and hyperimaginative manner, Czech Christian Fueter Screenplay Jan Svankmajer, filmmaker, animator, and puppet maker extraordinaire Jan Svankmajer from the novel Alice in Wonderland by Lewis captures the feel of Lewis Carroll’s children’s tale Alice in Wonderland while still managing to convey several “adult” and culturally specific Carroll Photography Svatopluk Maly themes. The creative force behind many of his country’s most celebrated Cast Kristyna Kohoutová shorts—including Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), Down to the Cellar (1983), and The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (1983)—Svankmajer here 1988 finds ideal inspiration in the protosurrealist story of little Alice (played by young Kristyna Kohoutová, who enters a world of strange creatures and animals and constantly questions the (il)logic of all she encounters. In Svankmajer’s conception, the disposable products of domestic life (such as rulers, socks, jars, and buttons) become the raw material for gothic splendor. And Lewis’s familiar characters—such as the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare—are here more creepy than charming; as one critic writes, “they’re partly enchanted, partly haunted, and there’s a hint of the morphologist’s lab in them, a trace of formaldehyde.” Finally, however, Alice is less an adaptation than an exercise in auteurism, as Svankmajer finds new ways of treating his familiar obsessions with the inhumanness of routine and the vulgarity and danger of overeating. SJS Finland (Villealfa) 73m Eastmancolor Ariel Aki Kaurismäki, 1988 Language Finnish Producer Aki A woman (Susanna Haavisto), impulsively quitting her job and going off Kaurismäki Screenplay Aki Kaurismäki with a retrenched miner (Turo Pajala), remarks: “Hopefully, I won’t regret Photography Timo Salminen Music Esko this.” Later, as the man enters jail for a murder he didn’t commit, he Rahkonen, Rauli Somerjoki Cast Turo Pajala, declares he has no religion, no fixed address, no family or friends. One of his newfound criminal colleagues dies trying to flee the country, Susanna Haavisto, Matti Pellonpää, Eetu uttering these famous last words: “Bury my heart on a tip.” Hilkamo, Erkki Pajala, Matti Jaaranen, Hannu Viholainen, Jorma Markkula, Tarja Keinänen, If anyone has perfected the cinematic language to express drollness, it is Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. His films have a sardonic, deadpan, Eino Kuusela, Kauko Laalo, Jyrki Olsonen, couldn’t-care-less air that belies the real depth of their commitment to Esko Nikkari, Marja Packalén, Mikko Remes society’s marginals. Ariel, one of his best works of the 1980s, is a relentless parable of hard luck befalling ordinary people. Yet these characters never lament or protest their lot; the best they expect is a ticket to somewhere, anywhere, else. At certain moments of his career, Kaurismaki has seemed, especially in his public pronouncements, incurably flip. But Ariel’s bleak outlook and its determinedly minimal means (approaching the austerity of Robert Bresson) reveal a more authentic engagement with his subject matter. Ariel makes for hypnotic viewing, forecasting the greatness that Kaurismaki would achieve in his 2002 film Man Without a Past. AM 752

The Thin Blue Line Errol Morris, 1988 U.S. (American Playhouse) 103m Color Errol Morris’s third documentary feature (after Gates of Heaven [1978] 1988 Producer Mark Lipson Screenplay Errol and Vernon, Florida [1981]) is an absorbing if problematic reconstruction of an investigation into the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman. As an Morris Photography Robert Chappell, investigative detective-journalist who spent many years working on this Stefan Czapsky Music Philip Glass case, Morris uncovered a disturbing miscarriage of justice in the conviction of Randall Adams—who came very close to being executed, Cast Randall Adams, David Harris, Gus Rose, but was saved as a result of this film. Morris goes so far in his talking- Jackie Johnson, Marshall Touchton, Dale head interview technique that he eventually goads David Harris, Holt, Sam Kittrell, Hootie Nelson, Dennis Adams’s companion on the night of the murder in question, into something very close to a confession. Johnson, Floyd Jackson, Edith James, Dennis White, Don Metcalfe, Emily Miller, R.L. Miller It’s the latter achievement that makes The Thin Blue Line as memorable and as important as it is. But it is worth bearing in mind that “He don’t give a damn if Morris’s highly selective approach also leaves a good many questions you’re innocent, he don’t unanswered. The issue of motive is virtually untouched, and the quasi- abstract re-creations of the crime, accompanied by what is probably the give a damn if you’re first effective film score ever composed by Philip Glass, give rise to a lot guilty. He’s talking . . . of metaphysical speculations that, provocative as they are, tend nevertheless to overshadow many of the issues about what actually about killing you.” happened during the crime. The results are compelling, even though they provide an object lesson in the dangers of being influenced by Werner Herzog; the larger considerations and the film noir overtones wind up distracting us from the facts of the case, and what emerges are two effective half-films, each of which is partially at odds with the other. Yet one can also see Morris honing his flair for juxtaposition and editing that would eventually bear fruit in his remarkable 1997 film Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, where he manages to juggle the continuities and discontinuities between four seemingly unrelated talking heads, and in the multiple achievements of his episodes in the TV series First Person (2000), which has already enjoyed two seasons. JRos Randall Adams (playing himself) i In light of evidence uncovered by this film, David Harris recanted and Randall Adams was freed from prison.

Akira Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988 1988 Japan (Akira, Dragon, Nakamura, Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s animated masterpiece Akira is the pinnacle of Telecom Animation, Tokyo Movie) Japanese apocalyptic science fiction. The plot is deceptively simple: in 124m Color Language Japanese the chaotic future of Neo-Tokyo (named for its replacing the original Producer Shunzo Kato, Yoshimasa Mizuo, Tokyo, destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm in the late twentieth Ryohei Suzuki Screenplay Katsuhiro Ôtomo, century), Kaneda, a teenage motorcycle gang member, finds his former Izô Hashimoto Photography Katsuji Misawa best friend Tetsuo transformed into a homicidal telepath with the will Music Shoji Yamashiro Cast Mitsuo Iwata, and the power to kill hundreds. He reluctantly joins a group of Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Tesshô antigovernment terrorists in their search for the mysterious Akira, a Genda, Hiroshi Ôtake, Kôichi Kitamura, telepath even more powerful than Tetsuo. Michihiro Ikemizu, Yuriko Fuchizaki, Masaaki Ôkura, Tarô Arakawa, Takeshi Kusao, Kazumi Ôtomo’s genius lies in linking the apocalypse with the rage of Tanaka, Masayuki Katô, Yôsuke Akimoto, disaffected teenagers. After all, for a teenager, every emotion is apocalyptic. So imagine if a teenager had telekinetic powers that increase Masato Hirano exponentially with his emotions, and imagine that this teenager were the most angry, resentful little bastard you’ve ever met. Think about that “The most expensive and then think about the most epic scenes of devastation you could animated feature ever possibly imagine, and you have this film. The energy-rush action of Akira is more than a 200 mph adrenaline ride. It provides the sugarcoating for made in Japan and some serious exploration of ideas and metaphors that preoccupy the it’s easily the most Japanese psyche, namely social collapse, malaise, and the continuing impressive, as well.” ambivalence toward military power. It’s not an accident that the chief opposing forces in the story are delinquent teenage bikers, would-be Richard Harrington, revolutionaries, and the military. The Washington Post, 1989 Most of all, Akira’s story is fueled by society’s fear of its youth—wild, uncontrollable, chaotic youth. Tetsuo is the ultimate pissed-off teen, one with enough power to garner himself a body count in the dozens, and there’s a reason the government and the army are terrified of the enigmatic Akira, forever frozen in an arrested childhood. This is adolescence causing destruction on an epic scale, drawing on memories of the atom bombs dropped on Japan in World War II, and our continuing collective fears of annihilation. The fascination that Japanese pop culture has with the Apocalypse goes beyond mere flirtation and leaps headlong into mad, dirty, monkey sex every chance it gets, which isn’t necessarily very healthy, but certainly makes for some excellent stories. AT i The production budget for Akira was nearly $10 million—a record sum for a Japanese animation film. 754

A Fish Called Wanda Charles Crichton, 1988 U.S. (MGM, Prominent, Star) 108m A Brit named George (Tom Georgeson), his American girlfriend Wanda 1988 Technicolor Language English / Italian / (Jamie Lee Curtis), her Yankee lover Otto (Kevin Kline), and George’s stuttering English minion Ken (Michael Palin) together rob a jewelry Russian Producer Michael Shamberg vault. Untrusting and untrustworthy, they’re each criminal amateurs with Screenplay John Cleese, Charles Crichton secretly developed cross-purposes and internal alliances. So Wanda and Photography Alan Hume Music John Du Otto double-cross George by framing him for the crime, although Ken unwittingly intercedes and hides the ill-gotten treasure in his aquarium. Prez Cast John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Maria Aitken, Tom When George is brought to trial and defended by Archie (John Georgeson, Patricia Hayes, Geoffrey Palmer, Cleese), a frustrated lawyer, Wanda resolves to seduce the good magistrate and learn the secret of her gang’s stolen booty. Complications Cynthia Cleese, Mark Elwes, Neville Phillips, quickly develop, perhaps none more aggressively funny than Ken’s Peter Jonfield, Ken Campbell, Al Ashton, several attempts to dispatch dog owner Mrs. Coady (Patricia Hayes), the Roger Hume Oscar Kevin Kline (actor in one witness connecting George with the crime. Mixed in for good measure are Otto’s play-acted gay come-ons to Ken, Archie’s browbeaten support role) Oscar nominations Charles home life, Archie and Wanda’s developing love affair interrupted at every Crichton (director), John Cleese, Charles turn by Otto’s bumbling jealousy, and an airport finale with flight to a Crichton (screenplay) leisurely future the prize for all comers. “To call you stupid would A caper comedy of manners and not so subtle Anglo-American be an insult to stupid cultural disconnects, the success of Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called Wanda lay in its treatment of stereotypical gangster types. First is the absurd people! I’ve known sheep motif of the piece that rests on the communications skills of a man with that could outwit you.” a lifetime stutter (Ken). Then there’s a psycho killer (Otto) rendered as an oversensitive nincompoop manipulated by a femme fatale (Wanda) with Wanda Gershwitz a debilitating erotic weakness for romance languages. Last is the straight- (Jamie Lee Curtis) laced hero (Archie), no more than a cloistered man with great passions, but also someone with an almost pathological knack for receiving the butt end of bad luck situations. Laughs aside, A Fish Called Wanda offers a triumphant reappraisal of one-time scream queen Curtis as a comic actress while providing a launch pad for Kline’s ascent into critical circles as an awards-worthy performer. Effortlessly, but most of all humorously, the film elevated the careers of Monty Python alums John Cleese and Michael Palin and made them Hollywoodstars in the genre. GCQ i The poem Archie recites in Russian to Wanda is “Molitiva,” by Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov (1814–41).

1988 Netherlands / G.B. / France / Germany Une histoire de vent Joris Ivens, 1988 (Air France, Capi, Channel Four, La Sept, NOS, NDR, Stichting, Documentaire, TF1, A Tale of the Wind WDR) 80m Color Language French Reading over the filmography of Joris Ivens, it’s hard to believe that a Screenplay Joris Ivens, Marceline Loridan single filmmaker made all his films. Here was an artist who was an active member of the first European avant-garde film movement; who filmed Ivens Photography Thierry Arbogast the first Soviet Five-Year Plan (Komsomolsk [1932]), the Spanish Civil War Jacques Loiseleux Music Michel Portal (The Spanish Earth [1937]), and the American New Deal (Power and the Cast Henxiang Han, Joris Ivens, Guilian Liu, Land [1940]); and who made one of the first essential anticolonialist films (Indonesia Calling [1946]). Such a life was not without its contradictions— Zhuang Liu, Hong Wang few artists could claim to have been awarded both the International Lenin Prize and the rank of Commander of the French Légion d’Honneur. “Miss Loridan said that Therefore, it’s so wonderfully appropriate that his final film, A Tale of the she and Ivens were Wind, which he codirected with his wife and filmmaking partner Marceline Loridan, is one of the most graceful and haunting works of working in a ‘no man’s self-reflection in cinema. land between Lumiere Having witnessed during his ninety years enough for ten lifetimes, and Melies’.” this “flying Dutchman” turned his camera on perhaps his most elusive subject—himself. A lifelong asthmatic begins with some thoughts on Caryn James, the breath that sustains his and all life, and that is manifest in the world The New York Times, 1989 as the wind. Like Ivens himself, the wind knows no boundaries, naturally linking peoples, cultures, and continents. Ivens’s exploration eventually brings him back to China, site of several of his greatest films, where he sets out to find the Dragon, mythic representative of the wind, in order to learn its secret. There are bumps along the way; some Party officials do all they can to very politely stop him from shooting, while at times nature has to be coaxed into cooperating with the filmmakers’ project. Unable to film the magnificent terracotta warriors of the Qin Dynasty, Ivens and Loridan conjure up their own artifacts, even staging a Busby Berkeley–ish number with them. Moving between documentary, fiction, mythology, philosophy, and sheer whimsy, Loridan and Ivens created with their epitaph one of the most magnificently “free” films ever made, a fitting tribute to one of the cinema’s true originals. RP i The movie, the Dutch filmmaker’s last, premiered at the 65th Venice Film Festival in September 1988. 756

The Naked Gun David Zucker, 1988 U.S. (Paramount) 85m Technicolor David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, the team behind the 1980 Producer Robert K. Weiss Screenplay Jerry blockbuster hit Airplane!, first introduced the world to bumbling cop Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) with the comic TV series Police Squad in Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, 1982. But it was this feature-length parody of the traditional cop show Pat Proft, from television series by Jerry six years later that turned Nielsen’s Drebin into a star, spawning two successful sequels. Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker Photography Robert M. Stevens Music Ira The cop who always gets his man—usually by complete accident—is assigned to a new case: Investigating criminal mastermind Victor Ludwig Newborn Cast Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla (Ricardo Montalban), who plans to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II at a Presley, George Kennedy, Ricardo baseball game. (What, you expected the plot to make sense?!) Aiding him is the beautiful Jane (Priscilla Presley, showing a deft comic touch) Montalban, O.J. Simpson, Raye Birk, Susan and an assortment of oddballs including Police Captain Ed Hocken Beaubian, Nancy Marchand, Jeannette (George Kennedy) and Drebin’s partner Nordberg (former football star O.J. Simpson, six years before his notorious trial). Charles, Ed Williams, Tiny Ron, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Leslie Maier, Winifred Freedman, The jokes are dumb and dumber, the spoofs and sight gags coming thick and fast as everything from the American National Anthem to Joe Grifasi classic movies like Casablanca (1942) are skewered by Zucker/Abrahams/ Zucker’s hilariously silly script. Stupid—but in a good way. JB 1988 Italy / France (Cristaldifilm, Ariane, RAI, TF1) Nuovo cinema paradiso Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988 155m Color Language English / Italian Producer Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Cinema Paradiso Giovanna Romagnoli Screenplay Giuseppe Marked by an autobiographical touch, this second movie by Italian Tornatore Photography Blasco Giurato director Giuseppe Tornatore is a nostalgic evocation of his childhood days, but also of those happy times before television when people Music Andrea Morricone, Ennio Morricone used to go to the cinema. It tells the story of a filmmaker who, after Cast Antonella Attili, Enzo Cannavale, Isa being told by his mother that “Alfredo died,” starts to remember the Danieli, Leo Gullotta, Marco Leonardi, 1950s, when as a boy living in a small Sicilian village, he spent almost Pupella Maggio, Agnese Nano, Leopoldo all his time in the Cinema Paradiso. While there he became friends with Trieste, Salvatore Cascio, Tano Cimarosa, the projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret, in one of his best roles), a Nicola Di Pinto, Roberta Lena, Nino Terzo father substitute who, after being blinded during a fire, continued to Oscar Italy (best foreign language film) do his job with help from the child. Everything in their village Cannes Film Festival Giuseppe Tornatore revolves around the cinema, a place of entertainment, but also of meeting and chatter. (grand prize of the jury, tied with Trop belle pour toi, Golden Palm nomination) The personalities of the Paradiso audience are quizzically charming, especially that of the priest, Father Adelfio (played by Leopoldo Trieste), who assumes the censor’s role, cutting out the “daring” scenes. In the esteemed traditions of Neorealism and Italian comedy, Cinema Paradiso finds an excellent balance between humor and nostalgia. Echoing François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), the image of a happy childhood nurtured by the tones of movies reveals Tornatore’s gratitude to the masters of cinema. The film is enjoyable and heartwarming, especially for the relationship between the boy and the projectionist. DD 757

Hotaru no haka Isao Takahata, 1988 Grave of the Fireflies Japan (Ghibli) 93m Technicolor With an attention to craft and design absent from so much mainstream Language Japanese Producer Tohru Hara Western animation, several Japanese animators have subverted the traditionally child-oriented nature of cartoons (at least that’s how they’re Screenplay Isao Takahata, from novel by often perceived) into grand achievements equal to any big-budget, live- Akiyuki Nosaka Music Yoshio Mamiya action film. In fact, as Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies readily attests, Cast Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, sometimes these animated films actually surpass their live-action Yoshiko Shinohara, Akemi Yamaguchi, equivalents, finding narrative freedom, emotional honesty, and a greater Rhoda Chrosite, Amy Jones, J. Robert sense of artistic control on the plane of a two-dimensional set. Spencer, Veronica Taylor A harrowing and painful story of the horrors of war, Grave of the i Fireflies follows two Japanese children orphaned after the firebombing Film critic Roger Ebert considers of their village during World War II. Yet the film seems less interested in Grave of the Fireflies one of the most accusing the military of villainy in the name of battle and more interested in showing the often-silent victims of war, the innocent children left powerful war films ever made. fending for themselves as hell rains down from above. Remarkably, Grave of the Fireflies debuted on a double-bill with Hayao Miyazaki’s much lighter My Neighbor Totoro, and indeed it is hard to imagine audiences of children, let alone adults, making it through this powerful and disturbing film without being overwhelmed by sadness and disappointment in the seeming inevitability of human conflict. JKl 758

U.S. (Fox, Gracie) 104m Color Big Penny Marshall, 1988 Producer James L. Brooks, Robert Greenhut When young Josh (David Moscow) is refused a ride on a fairground Screenplay Gary Ross, Anne Spielberg rollercoaster, he puts a quarter in a carnival wishing machine and wishes Photography Barry Sonnenfeld he were big. Next morning, it seems Josh’s dream has come true—sort of—when he wakes up to find himself in the body of a thirty-something Music Howard Shore Cast Tom Hanks, (and definitely taller) man (Tom Hanks). Fleeing his home when his Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John mother fails to recognize him (and in fact suspects him of being her son’s Heard, Jared Rushton, David Moscow, Jon abductor), big Josh has to go out into the adult world on his own with only his boyish innocence to help him. Lovitz, Mercedes Ruehl, Josh Clark, Kimberlee M. Davis, Oliver Block, Erika Katz, Hanks would go on to win Best Actor Academy Awards two years Allan Wasserman, Mark Ballou, Gary Howard running for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994), but this is arguably his best performance. Perfectly capturing the mannerisms of Klar Oscar nominations Gary Ross, Anne a pre-teen boy (Hanks watched his “younger self,” Moscow, playing with Spielberg (screenplay), Tom Hanks (actor) costar Jared Rushton, and copied his behavior), Hanks portrays overgrown Josh as a gangly innocent who believably charms his way into a job—at a toy company, of course. While the ending gets a little 1988 schmaltzy, director Penny Marshall otherwise keeps the three-hanky stuff to a minimum and gets maximum humor from her cast, especially in the pairing of Hanks and Rushton (as Josh’s schoolboy pal), and the casting of Robert Loggia (as the toy firm’s owner) and John Heard (as Josh’s conniving business rival). JB U.S. (Amblin, Silver Screen, Touchstone) Who Framed Roger Rabbit Robert Zemeckis, 1988 103m Color Producer Frank Marshall, Robert Watts Screenplay Jeffrey Price, Although live action and animation had shared the screen before—most Peter S. Seaman, from the novel Who notably when animated mouse Jerry (of Tom and Jerry fame) danced Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh (1945)—director Robert Zemeckis and animation director Richard Williams skillfully blended the two into Photography Dean Cundey Music Alan this feature-length comedy thriller that still looks technically flawless Silvestri Cast Bob Hoskins, Christopher decades after it was made. Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye, Alan Tilvern, Richard Gruff, seedy-looking private eye Eddie Valiant, memorably played by Bob Hoskins at his grumpy best, doesn’t like Toons, the animated LeParmentier, Lou Hirsch, Betsy Brantley, Joel characters who live in the Toontown suburb of Los Angeles. So he is less Silver, Paul Springer, Richard Ridings, Edwin than pleased when he is hired by film studio boss Marvin Acme (Stubby Craig, Lindsay Holiday, Mike Edmonds Kaye) to check into the activities of his star, a sexy cartoon named Jessica Oscars Charles L. Campbell, Louis L. Rabbit (smokily voiced by Kathleen Turner). Eddie is even less impressed Edemann (special sound effects), Ken by her excitable rabbit husband, Roger (voice of Charles Fleischer), Ralston, Richard Williams, Ed Jones, George especially when the mismatched pair are plunged into a hilarious tangle of murder and blackmail. Gibbs (special visual effects), Arthur Schmidt (editing), Richard Williams (special Smartly characterized, by both the human and animated cast, and wittily scripted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, Who Framed Roger achievement award —animation direction Rabbit is an action comedy just like the classic Warner cartoons it pays and creation of the cartoon characters) homage to: bursting with fun, deliciously surreal, and watchable many times over. It won three well-deserved Oscars. JB Oscar nominations Elliot Scott, Peter Howitt (art direction), Dean Cundey (photography), Robert Knudson, John Boyd, Don Digirolamo, Tony Dawe (sound) 759

1988 Poland (Polish TV) 53m color Dekalog, jeden Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988 Language Polish Producer Ryszard The Decalogue Chutkowski Screenplay Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski was that rare filmmaker who could Photography Wieslaw Zdort mix politics, comedy, religion, tragedy, and metaphysics into his works without coming across as either pretentious or silly. But sadly, just as the Music Zbigniew Preisner Cast Henryk director was finally beginning to taste the fruits of international success, Baranowski, Wojciech Klata, Maja he died unexpectedly in 1996 at the early age of fifty-four. Komorowska, Artur Barcis, Maria Although Kieslowski was the creator of many masterpieces, including Gladkowska, Ewa Kania, Aleksandra The Double Life of Veronique (1991) and the Three Colors trilogy (Blue Kisielewska, Aleksandra Majsiuk, [1993], White [1994], and Red [1994]), The Decalogue may be his most Magda Sroga-Mikolajczyk profound and perfect work. Originally filmed for Polish television, The Decalogue is a collection of ten hour-long short films, each ambitiously “A masterwork of featuring a story based loosely on one of the Ten Commandments and modern cinema, all set in the same bleak Warsaw apartment complex. essential viewing for anyone who cares about Many of Kieslowski’s earlier works obliquely addressed the political the movies as a serious realities of Poland at the time, but with The Decalogue the director aims for something grander and more universal. The collection addresses the art form.” concepts of fate, chance, and faith through the intersection of different lives—children, parents, siblings, and strangers—seeking to illuminate Stephen Holden, the invisible threads that tie us together but also the feelings and beliefs The New York Times, 2000 that connect us to a higher power. i In one installment a father and son ponder the place of God in a time Kieslowski was made a Fellow of the dominated by technology. In another, a doctor deliberates the ethics of keeping a patient on life support, when his life or death will forever alter British Film Institute in 1990 for his the complicated future of the patient’s troubled wife. Two brothers try to contribution to film culture. honor their estranged father’s memory by caring for his priceless stamp collection. A horrifying murder calls into question the ethics of the death penalty. Each installment focuses on a mostly blameless domestic situation, profound quandaries with no right or wrong way out, and Kieslowski carefully follows the different paths his characters take. Although each of The Decalogue’s segments may be attached to a specific Commandment, the connection is rarely clear or obvious. Kieslowski seems more interested in how those ancient rules apply when considered in the not always cut-and-dried context of contemporary, everyday life. Each installment shares certain thematic similarities, even if they possess slightly different aesthetics. As with his later Three Colors trilogy, the various episodes of The Decalogue sometimes also share the same actors, actors whose presence helps connect the disparate (and without exception compelling) stories. Working in close tandem with his regular screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, composer Zbigniew Preisner, and nine different cinematographers, Kieslowski achieves that rare feat: a seamlessly unified diverse anthology that gets closer than almost any other film to what it means to be human. Compelling, intelligent, and poetic, The Decalogue is a true work of art that teaches even as it entertains. JKl 760

U.S. (Mirage, Star II) 133m Color Rain Man Barry Levinson, 1988 Producer Mark Johnson Screenplay Ronald Bass, Barry Morrow Photography John Seale Numerous writers and directors had tinkered with the script of Rain Man before director Barry Levinson came on board. Many believed the story Music Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Doc Pomus, of a used-car salesman trying to befriend his autistic brother on a cross- Hans Zimmer Cast Dustin Hoffman, Tom country journey so he can get his hands on the latter’s multimillion dollar inheritance just too difficult to bring to the screen. Even the film’s Cruise, Valeria Golino, Gerald R. Molen, Jack eventual stars, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, seemed worried about Murdock, Michael D. Roberts, Ralph Seymour, the movie’s outcome when they dubbed it “Two Schmucks in a Car” Lucinda Jenney, Bonnie Hunt, Kim Robillard, during shooting. Beth Grant, Dolan Dougherty, Marshall Levinson luckily didn’t balk at the idea of making a film with little Dougherty, Patrick Dougherty, John-Michael dramatic story, instead focusing on the human development that is at the picture’s heart. Traveling across country with the autistic Raymond Dougherty Oscars Mark Johnson (best (Hoffman) because Raymond won’t fly, Charlie Babbitt (Cruise) gradually picture), Barry Levinson (director), Ronald Bass, gets to understand the brother he hardly knows and in the process develops a sense of decency he didn’t have before. Hoffman captures Barry Morrow (screenplay), Dustin Hoffman his character’s autism without going overboard on the nervous tics, but (actor) Oscar nominations Ida Random, most impressive here is Cruise, who holds his own alongside a more experienced actor and expertly depicts a shallow man who finally finds Linda DeScenna (art direction), John Seale some depth in his life. JB (photography), Stu Linder (editing), Hans Zimmer (music) Berlin International Film Festival Barry Levinson (Golden Bear, reader jury of the Berliner Morgenpost) i Dustin Hoffman prepared for this role by working with autistic men. 761

Die Hard John McTiernan, 1988 1988 U.S. (Fox, Gordon, Silver) 131m Color Before Die Hard, Bruce Willis was just an actor with one hit TV show Language English / German / Italian (Moonlighting) and a flop movie (Blind Date [1987]) to his name, but Producer Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver following Die Hard’s huge success, he deservedly became one of Screenplay Jeb Stuart, Steven E. de Souza, Hollywood’s hottest stars. from the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp Photography Jan de Bont His cocky charm breathes life into the character of John McClane, a Music Michael Kamen Cast Bruce Willis, New York cop visiting his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) at her Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald Veljohnson, Paul office in Los Angeles, just as the building falls into the control of a group of ruthless terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). While all the Gleason, De’voreaux White, William office workers—staying late for the company Christmas party—are Atherton, Hart Bochner, James Shigeta, Alan herded into one area by the bad guys, our hero (who was in the bathroom Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bruno Doyon, when the assault begins) is off and running around the partially incomplete tower. In his own words, he is“a fly in the ointment, a monkey Andreas Wisniewski, Clarence Gilyard Jr., in the wrench, a pain in the ass” to the terrorists who aren’t quite sure Joey Plewa, Lorenzo Caccialanza Oscar who is attacking them or how he got loose. nominations Stephen Hunter Flick, Richard Shorr (special sound effects), Richard Edlund, John McTiernan—who previously helmed the Arnold Schwarzenegger Al Di Sarro, Brent Boates, Thaine Morris alien-action movie Predator (1987) —packs his skyscraper adventure with explosions, fights, and relentless action, as our antihero (he smokes, curses, (special visual effects), Frank J. Urioste, and bloodily despatches the bad guy) picks off the terrorists by listening John F. Link (editing), Don J. Bassman, in on their walkie-talkies in an attempt to figure out their nefarious plan. Kevin F. Cleary, Richard Overton, McTiernan, along with writers Jeb Stuart and Steve DeSouza (adapting Al Overton Jr. (sound) a Roderick Thorpe novel), effectively redefines the action movie as a one- man-army. Willis quips his way through a series of clever setups and payoffs “Nine million terrorists (when McClane takes his shoes and socks off at the beginning of the movie in the world and I gotta to combat jet lag, you just know his bare feet are going to be a plot device kill one with feet smaller later, and they are), his undershirt getting dirtier by the second. His only pal is a flat-footed cop (Reginald Veljohnson) whom he communicates with by than my sister.” radio, whereas most of the other police officers and federal agents are either too dumb or too trigger-happy to realize what’s really going on. Superbly acted by Willis as a guy who really would rather be somewhere else, McClane is a hero for the 1990s who has continued to mutter his “yippee-ki-yay motherfucker” catchphrase in three enjoyable sequels. A true rollercoaster ride of a movie. JB John McClane (Bruce Willis) i The scene where McClane falls down a shaft was a mistake: the stuntman was meant to grab the first vent. 762

Dangerous Liaisons Stephen Frears, 1988 U.S. / G.B. (Lorimar, NFH, Warner Bros.) 119m Christopher Hampton translated his own acclaimed play Les Liaisons 1988 Eastmancolor Producer Norma Heyman, Dangereuses (itself based on a Choderlos de Laclos novel) into Dangerous Hank Moonjean Screenplay Christopher Liaisons, a sumptuous, decadent drama of eighteenth-century French Hampton, from novel by Choderlos de sexual intrigue, brought to life on screen by director Stephen Frears. Laclos and play by Christopher Hampton Photography Philippe Rousselot Glenn Close steals the show as the vicious and vindictive Marquise Music George Fenton Cast Glenn Close, de Merteuil, whose main enjoyment in her bored, rich life is to conspire John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Swoosie with the equally cynical Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich). Their latest scheme involves the virginal Cécile (Uma Thurman) and the pure Kurtz, Keanu Reeves, Mildred Natwick, Uma Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), but Valmont’s attempts to ruin Thurman, Peter Capaldi, Joe Sheridan, them both for his own pleasure is complicated when he falls for the unsuspecting Madame. Valerie Gogan, Laura Benson, Joanna Pavlis, Nicholas Hawtrey, Paulo Abel Do Frears leads us into the boudoirs and drawing rooms of the wealthy Nascimento, François Lalande aristocracy, each one dripping with elegance and wickedness in equal measure. Close is perfectly acid tongued, Malkovich both seductive and Oscars Christopher Hampton (screenplay), slimy, and the cast rounded out by the unusual casting of Keanu Reeves Stuart Craig, Gérard James (art direction), (better known for more modern roles) as Chevalier Danceny, just one of James Acheson (costume) the poor fellows caught up in Valmont’s machinations. A handsome look at lust, betrayal, and guilt, Dangerous Liaisons is both lavishly mounted Oscar nominations Norma Heyman, Hank and beautifully portrayed. JB Moonjean (best picture), Glenn Close (actress), Michelle Pfeiffer (actress in support role), George Fenton (music) Canada (Morgan Creek) 115m Color Dead Ringers David Cronenberg, 1988 Producer Marc Boyman, David Cronenberg One of the coolest and most controlled of David Cronenberg’s films, Screenplay David Cronenberg, Norman Dead Ringers explores his perennial theme of bodily penetration not Snider Photography Peter Suschitzky through the visceral gore and horror of his earlier work but through the seemingly clinical medium of gynecology. Jeremy Irons plays identical Music Howard Shore Cast Jeremy Irons, twin gynecologists, Elliot and Beverly Mantle, who run a fertility clinic in Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske, Toronto. Elliot, an extrovert who is self-confident, seduces his patients and, when he’s tired of them, passes them on to his shy, insecure twin. Barbara Gordon, Shirley Douglas, Stephen The women never know the difference. But when hedonistic junkie Lack, Nick Nichols, Lynne Cormack, Damir actress Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold) enters their lives, their perverse symbiotic dependency is undermined. Andrei, Miriam Newhouse Inspired by a real-life event, Cronenberg creates a fragile interior world of emotional and psychological vulnerability, structured and lit in such a way as to suggest an aquarium: The outside world is held precariously at bay, and disintegration threatens the mind even more than the body. Claire’s physical peculiarity foreshadows the three-way disruption that will destroy the brothers’ relationship, and their lives. With the help of split-screen techniques, Irons gives a masterly double performance, ensuring by subtle variations in stance, voice, and gesture that we’re never in any doubt which twin we’re seeing. His tour de force, and Cronenberg’s quiet, insidious intensity, forge a film that’s even more disturbing to think about in retrospect than it is to watch. PK 763

RoboCop Paul Verhoeven, 1988 U.S. (Orion Pictures) 102m Hollywood may be a cynical place, but it rarely welcomes cynicism in its Color Producer Louis D. Lighton films. All the more remarkable, then, that a studio should lavish a big Screenplay Edward Neumeier, Michael budget on a Dutch filmmaker who was known in his own country for Miner Photography Charles Lang films that indulged in sex, violence, and depravity. But perhaps it Music Basil Poledouris Cast Peter Weller, recognized the brilliance in Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner’s script, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy, Ronny Cox, and understood that no Hollywood director could do it justice. Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Robert DoQui, Ray Wise, Felton Perry, Paul McCrane, Crime has brought the America of tomorrow to its knees. In Detroit, Jesse Goins Oscars Stephen Hunter Flick, Omni Consumer Products, which owns the city’s police department, John Pospil (sound effects editing) Oscar unveils its latest weapon: a half-man, half-robot cop, trained in all aspects nominations Frank J. Urioste (editing), of the justice system. However, the rot of corruption on both sides of the Michael J. Kohut, Carlos Delarios, Aaron law leaves the new defender fighting alone in the battle to save the city. Rochin, Robert Wald (sound) RoboCop’s strength lies in its subversiveness; the film is one of the finest satires of Western culture that Hollywood produced in the 1980s. 1988 Punctuating the action sequences, a series of advertising breaks question the values of a consumer-obsessed society. Each of them, from sunscreen that will likely cause cancer and a car security system that electrocutes thieves, to a nuclear war game for the family, are merely an exaggeration of real commercials. Likewise, the blurred line between corporate malfeasance and criminal activity is all too believable, while the notion that law enforcement could become privatized has become a reality. IHS G.B. 84 mins Producer Colin MacCabe, Distant Voices, Still Lives Terence Davies, 1988 Jennifer Howarth Screenplay Terence Davies Photography William Diver and Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) remains Terence Davies’ masterpiece. One Patrick Duval Music Various Cast Freda of the finest features ever produced in the UK, it’s a highly distinctive Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh, marriage of style and content, combining the social concerns of much British cinema with formal and existential preoccupations more readily Lorraine Ashbourne, Dean Williams associated with European art cinema. Cannes International Critics’ Prize An autobiographical work, the film examines the life of a working- class family in Liverpool, encompassing the wedding of the elder daughter, the christening of the younger daughter’s infant child, and the secondment into the armed forces of the family’s son. Presiding over the family is the sadistic father (Pete Postlethwaite), who is always too quick with his fists, and the long-suffering, loving mother (Freda Dowie). Unfolding as a series of meticulously constructed vignettes, told from the perspectives of different members of the same family, Distant Voices, Still Lives is rich in poetry, emotion, and performance. An affecting work, in which ordeal and sufferance are brilliantly juxtaposed with passages of intense happiness and communal spirit, it is also the film with which Davies established his ability to write incredible female characters. 1940s Liverpool is beautifully rendered by the use of a muted palette, which gives a hand-tinted look to certain scenes. The director’s visual aesthetic is all the more impressive given the film’s modest budget. JWo 764

When Harry Met Sally Rob Reiner, 1989 U.S. (Castle Rock, Columbia, Nelson) When Harry Met Sally provides indisputable proof, if it were needed, that 1989 96m Color Producer Rob Reiner, Andrew all the right ingredients—a skilled comic director (Rob Reiner), great script (Nora Ephron), and brilliant casting (Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan)—do Scheinman Screenplay Nora Ephron add up to a damn-near perfect piece of film entertainment. Photography Barry Sonnenfeld Music Marc Shaiman Cast Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Sharing a postcollege car journey from Chicago to New York in 1977, smart-mouthed Harry (Crystal) announces to snobbish Sally (Ryan) that Fisher, Bruno Kirby, Steven Ford, Lisa Jane they will never be friends because, in his often skewed logic, “men and Persky, Michelle Nicastro, Gretchen Palmer, women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” At the end of the trip, the pair go their separate ways, only to cross paths a Robert Alan Beuth, David Burdick, Joe few years later in an airport and then again when she is on the verge of Viviani, Harley Jane Kozak, Joseph Hunt, breaking up with her boyfriend and he has split up with his wife. Of Kevin Rooney, Franc Luz Oscar nomination course, they do eventually become friends, and it is inevitable that they become more than that before the movie’s end—but that is half the fun. Nora Ephron (screenplay) A romantic comedy that tips its cap to Woody Allen movies like Annie “You know, you may Hall (1977), this is brought right up to date by Ephron’s witty dialogue be the first attractive that accurately depicts the modern-day dating game. Harry learns the woman I’ve not wanted drawbacks of dating a younger woman when he asks a girl where she was when Kennedy was shot only to get the reply, “Ted Kennedy’s been to sleep with in my shot?” Against the backdrop of the most cinematic of cities, New York, entire life.” scene upon scene is either a classic or features memorable dialogue and is played expertly by the two leads: Sally’s fake orgasm in the deli, after which a woman at a neighboring table (played by Reiner’s own mother) says, “I’ll have what she’s having,” and the store karaoke session when Harry bumps into his ex-wife are just two examples. Excellent support roles include Bruno Kirby as Harry’s pal and Carrie Fisher as Sally’s. A triumph for all involved—Nora Ephron (who died in 2012) didn’t write another script to match this Oscar-nominated one—the film turned Ryan into a highly sought-after leading lady and made Harry Connick Jr., who performs the film’s 1930s and 1940s standards (including “It Had to be You”) on the soundtrack, a bona fide star (it won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance). JB Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) i The famous orgasm scene was filmed at a real restaurant—Katz’s Deli in E. Houston Street, New York.

Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen, 1989 1989 U.S. (Rank, Orion) 107m Color Woody Allen in winning philosophical form (coming off September [1987] Producer Robert Greenhut and Another Woman [1988], two of his bleaker dramas, made back-to- Screenplay Woody Allen back and both coolly received) tackles life, death, truth, love, God, and all things Dostoyevskian in Crimes and Misdemeanors. A wonderful cast Photography Sven Nykvist Music Bach, plays out a plot constructed like a set of Chinese boxes for a novel on Schubert Cast Bill Bernstein, Martin film about close encounters of the Upper East Side kind. Handsomely shot by Ingmar Bergman’s regular cinematographer Sven Nykvist, with Landau, Claire Bloom, Stephanie Roth, Allen making striking use of music by Schubert and Bach as well as the Gregg Edelman, George J. Manos, Anjelica jazz and swing favorites we associate with him. Huston, Woody Allen, Jenny Nichols, Joanna Two apparently quite different stories dovetail at the last moment. Gleason, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, Zina Judah Rosenthal, a respected eye surgeon (played by Martin Landau in Jasper, Dolores Sutton, Joel Fogel Oscar a brilliant, Oscar-nominated role), is an adulterer desperate to discard nominations Woody Allen (director), Woody his angry mistress Dolores (Anjelica Huston) when she threatens to make a mess of his well-ordered, comfortable, and hypocritical life. Meanwhile, Allen (screenplay), Martin Landau Allen’s documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern’s attempts to woo Mia Farrow’s (actor in support role) Halley are frustrated by his insufferable brother-in-law, Lester (a marvelous turn by Alan Alda), a practiced charmer who makes sitcoms “Crimes and and is, incidentally, the subject of Cliff’s current film. The big questions Misdemeanors is a are Judah’s to ponder when his shady brother (Jerry Orbach) offers to thriller about the dark take the Dolores situation in hand—homicidally. Around his dilemma a nights of the soul.” network of family, friends, and brief acquaintances expose themselves, suffer, love, struggle, and crack deathless one-liners. Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1989 Allen in his familiar existentialist, angst-ridden Manhattan intellectual nebbish persona unsurprisingly delivers the best of these in the bittersweet comedic strand: “He wants to produce something of mine,” trills Farrow.“Yes,”worries Allen,“your first child!”More unusually, weighty, realistic, tragic drama and comedy of manners mingle in a uniquely sophisticated, ambitious discussion of values, morality, and law. Allen, firing on all cylinders, steers through pain, profundity, and outrageous humor with his inimitable, signature style, addressing good and evil, guilt and retribution, movies versus reality, and swell cocktail parties with wit and penetration. Crimes and Misdemeanors is intricate and adult, dark and delightful, and right up there among his very best work. AE i Allen wrote this film after feeling he’d been “too nice” to the characters in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). 766

Batman Tim Burton, 1989 U.S. / G.B. (PolyGram, Warner Bros.) 126m In this blockbuster movie version of Bob Kane’s classic comic, director Tim Technicolor Producer Peter Guber, Jon Burton reimagines eponymous superhero Batman (last seen on screen Peters Screenplay Sam Hamm, Warren in a campy 1960s TV incarnation) as a dark and conflicted character. Skaaren, Bob Kane Photography Roger Pratt Music Danny Elfman, Prince Michael Keaton stars as tortured soul Bruce Wayne, a brooding man who as a child saw his parents killed by muggers in a darkened alleyway. Cast Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Now a multimillionaire industrialist by day, at night he dons a cape, Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee mask, and knee-high boots to become Batman and right the wrongs of Williams, Michael Gough, Jack Palance, Jerry bleak, gothic Gotham City. But is he a superhero or a crazed vigilante? Photojournalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) and reporter Alex Knox (Robert Hall, Tracey Walter, Lee Wallace, William Wuhl) are among those who want to discover Batman’s secret identity Hootkins, Richard Strange, Carl Chase, Mac and find out the truth. McDonald Oscar Anton Furst, Peter Young While Burton gives his Caped Crusader depth, darkness, and even (art direction) romance (in the form of Vicki), the show is almost stolen from his hero by the villain of the piece, the Joker, played with gusto by Jack Nicholson. Resplendent in purple suit and clown-like makeup, dancing to the Prince 1989 songs that pepper the soundtrack, he was surely the most enjoyably unlikable bad guy to hit the big screen in a long time. JB U.S. (Gordon Company, Universal Field of Dreams Phil Alden Robinson, 1989 Pictures) 107m Color Producer Brian E. Frankish, Charles Gordon, Lawrence Gordon, With the mantra “If you build it, he will come” ringing in his head, Kevin Lloyd Levin Screenplay W.P. Kinsella (writer) Costner’s Iowa farmer acts on the voice emanating from his cornfield and, against the opposition of all those around him, ploughs through Phil Alden Robinson (screenplay) his crops to build a baseball diamond. The apparition of legendary batter Photography John Lindley Music James “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) may be the catalyst for Ray’s journey Horner Cast Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, to find more players from the game’s long, distant past, but his mission Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta, Timothy Busfield, is merely a cover for some deeper meaning in Phil Alden Robinson’s mythical family drama. James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Frank Whaley, Dwier Brown In Ray Kinsella, Kevin Costner embodies the average Joe of middle America. Ray is a more domesticated variation of the sports-obsessed everyman figure Costner played in Bull Durham (1988) and other sports- related characters from such films as Tin Cup (1996) and For the Love of the Game (1999). But Field of Dreams is about more than America’s obsession with sport – it signaled the beginning of the masculinity-in- crisis era for Hollywood’s white alpha male stars. In opposition to the “hard bodies” of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Ray’s more sensitive soul nostalgically yearns for a time when patriarchal superiority was seemingly infallible, thus defining the search for a new male identity in a post-Reagan era. He is not merely on a voyage of self- discovery, but a quest to find his position in the gender revolution of late-twentieth-century America. The resulting drama perfectly encapsulates the period that witnessed America on the cusp of a new age, when the ideologies it had lived by had finally crumbled away. JT 767

Glory Edward Zwick, 1989 U.S. (TriStar) 122m Technicolor Following the bloom of American Civil Rights it became fashionable to Producer Freddie Fields Screenplay Kevin resurrect little-known stories from the ravages of time. Edward Zwick’s Jarre, from the letters of Robert Gould Shaw, Glory is one such exercise meant to rewrite the blank slate of memory. from the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln The film opens on a Civil War battlefield, where former slave John Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) labors to bury dead soldiers. Colonel Robert Shaw (Matthew Broderick), a liberal white blue blood, is thereafter placed Burchard Photography Freddie Francis in charge of the Union Army’s first all-black volunteer company. Into his Music James Horner Cast Matthew care are entrusted the raison d’être of the war, slaves and free blacks, each of whom is transformed into a fighting elite finally sent to their Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, doom storming a fort. Morgan Freeman, Jihmi Kennedy, Andre Braugher, John Finn, Donovan Leitch, J.D. Notable for being an inspirational alternative history, Glory more Cullum, Alan North, Bob Gunton, Cliff De importantly showcased a group of outstanding young black actors. Young, Christian Baskous Oscars Denzel Foremost was Denzel Washington in his first Oscar-winning role as Private Trip. Other standouts include Jihmi Kennedy (Private Jupiter Sharts) and Washington (actor in support role), Freddie Andre Braugher (Corporal Thomas Searles), although the sign of the Francis (photography), Donald O. Mitchell, times is surely the picture’s eulogy of sacrifices made on behalf of racial Gregg Rudloff, Elliot Tyson, Russell Williams harmony as the salve for present-day racial tensions. (sound) Oscar nominations Norman True, Glory is consumed with sentimentalism and fatal purpose. But Garwood, Garrett Lewis (art direction), it is equally an antidote for contemporary cynicism, with a heroic true story and a winning score by James Horner. GC-Q Steven Rosenblum (editing) 1989 France / Netherlands / G.B. (Allarts, Elsevira, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover Erato, Erbograph, Films, Vendex) 124m Color Peter Greenaway, 1989 Producer Kees Kasander Screenplay Peter Greenaway Photography Sacha Vierny Taking his dissatisfaction with conservative politics to the extreme, Peter Music Michael Nyman Cast Richard Greenaway devised The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover as an opulent and decadent riposte to Margaret Thatcher’s England. Michael Gambon Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, plays Albert Spica, the monstrous, obnoxious, oafish thief of the title, Alan Howard, Tim Roth, Ciarán Hinds, Gary holding court at a trendy London restaurant, decimating a disgustingly Olsen, Ewan Stewart, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, over-the-top banquet while surrounded by numerous sycophants and Ron Cook, Liz Smith, Emer Gillespie, Janet lackeys. Ignored for too long, his wife Georgina (Helen Mirren) initiates a passionate affair with a quieter, bookish patron (Alan Howard), Henfrey, Arnie Breeveld, Tony Alleff facilitated by the accommodating chef back in the kitchen. So busy consuming and humiliating his hangers-on, Gambon at first doesn’t notice his wife’s deception, but once he discovers her adultery he concocts a cannibalistic revenge. Greenaway directs his film like a tapestry gone wrong, revealing all manner of depravity as he pans back and forth between the kitchen and dining room (with a different color scheme in each locale) in search of a smidgen of good will amid the savagery. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover seethes anger and disgust, most of it directed toward the upper class, whose waste and barbarism is portrayed not just as a blight on society but frankly as an affront to good taste. JKl 768

My Left Foot Jim Sheridan, 1989 Ireland / G.B. (Ferndale, Granada, RTE) Despite the strong potential for maudlin depression, My Left Foot 1989 98m Technicolor Producer Noel Pearson emerged as a surprisingly entertaining, earthy, funny, and uplifting celebration of Irishman Christy Brown, who was born imprisoned in a Screenplay Shane Connaughton, Jim body horribly crippled by cerebral palsy but won recognition and respect Sheridan, from book by Christy Brown as an artist and writer. The concept of a disabled man with a surprising Photography Jack Conroy Music Elmer intellectual gift clearly has parallels with the fictional Rain Man (1988), Bernstein Cast Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda but My Left Foot is at least its equal in every department, not least in the Fricker, Alison Whelan, Kirsten Sheridan, principal performances. Daniel Day-Lewis is riveting in a role as far as he Declan Croghan, Eanna MacLiam, Marie could get from his affected aesthete of A Room with a View (1986) or his Conmee, Cyril Cusack, Phelim Drew, Ruth gay opportunist in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). Brenda Fricker is McCabe, Fiona Shaw, Ray McAnally, Patrick radiant as Christy’s devout, careworn mother. Ray McAnally, who sadly died before the film’s release, gave his last rich characterization as Laffan, Derry Power, Hugh O’Conor Christy’s unpredictable, heavy-drinking father. And young Hugh O’Conor Oscars Daniel Day-Lewis (actor), Brenda as the boy Christy conveys the nightmarish frustration of a bright child, presumed to be an idiot, struggling to communicate with his family. Fricker (actress in support role) Oscar nominations Noel Pearson (best picture), First-time director Jim Sheridan and cowriter Shane Connaughton don’t flinch from the tragedy and rage in Christy’s life as a wheelchair- Jim Sheridan (director), Shane bound wit patronized and subjected to daily humiliations despite his Connaughton (screenplay) considerable abilities. But their rounded impression of the man leaves an overwhelming sense of the miraculousness of life and of Christy’s “Jim Sheridan’s My Left remarkable spirit. This is underlined by the magical quality injected into Foot must be the most the smallest incidents—like the child Christy’s wonder when he is borne passionately empathetic by his brothers and sisters to their sweet, spooky Halloween street festivities. film about a physical affliction ever made.” The famous left foot is featured in running jokes and dramatic episodes as Christy saves his mother’s life, scores goals, paints, fells an adversary in a pub brawl, attempts suicide, lays bricks, and types his autobiography, all with the eponymous appendage. Having mastered the physical difficulties of a rigid, twisted body and impaired speech, he conveys a man whose cleverness brings him little relief, but whose humor, lust, and single-mindedness illuminate what might otherwise have been simply harrowing. AE Hal Hinson, The Washington Post, 1989 i Daniel Day-Lewis, as Christy Brown, proved the out-of-left-field Oscar winner who could not be denied.

1989 Hong Kong (Film Workshop, Die xue shuang xiong John Woo, 1989 Golden Princess, Magnum) 111m Color The Killer Language Cantonese / Japanese Producer Tsui Hark Screenplay John Woo Although director John Woo, producer Tsui Hark, and star Chow Yun-Fat Photography Peter Pau, Wing-Hung Wong had worked together previously and had each amassed a body of major work, it was the international success of The Killer that established Hong Music Lowell Lowe Cast Chow Yun-Fat, Kong action cinema as a distinct brand. Most of the major creatives then Danny Lee, Sally Yeh, Kong Chu, Kenneth proceeded to up-and-down Hollywood careers, while Western Tsang, Fui-On Shing, Wing-Cho Yip, Fan Wei filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino began lifting Yee, Barry Wong, Parkman Wong, Siu-Hung elements of their distinctive style—the popular flat-on-his-back, gun- in-each-hand slide is a favorite Chow Yun-Fat move, often imitated by Ng, Sing Yeung, Siu Hung Ngan, pretenders—to enliven their own action pictures. Kwong Leung Wong The Killer is an action melodrama about an honorable, sentimental “The director’s greatest hit man (Chow) trying to save enough money from a run of assassinations gift is his talent for to pay for an operation to restore the sight of a singer (Sally Yeh) Dexedrine-spiked, accidentally blinded during one of his hits, while a tough cop (Danny Lee) learns to respect the murderer he’s required to track down and apocalyptic action.” finally joins with him for a gruesome glorification. A genocidal film with more corpses than Total Recall (1990) and Die Hard 2 (1990) combined— Hal Hinson, ironic in that the plot hinges on the lack of suitable cornea donors in The Washington Post, 1991 Hong Kong—this is a literally astonishing mix of stunts, soap, and sly humor. The comic-book gunplay and violence of the action elements are mixed with an emotional strain that owes something to Douglas Sirk, but the real love story isn’t the mild triangle between cop, killer, and blind victim but the almost-gay buddyship that works up between the two male leads. The original Chinese title translates as Bloodshed of Two Heroes, which represents the film rather better than the export title, emphasizing its status as a relationship movie rather than privileging one of its main characters as a solitary figure. It winds up with a scene that establishes Woo’s screen personality: a shoot-out in a chapel that sees candles, bullets, and bodies flying across the screen as doves flutter (sometimes in snatches of slow motion) and liturgical music swells, with blotches of blood on bright-white clothes and tears flowing as freely as gore. KN i All of the action sequences were improvised on the set with the actors, stuntmen, and stunt director. 770

Drugstore Cowboy Gus Van Sant, 1989 U.S. (Avenue) 100m Color Producer Karen Gus van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy is a funny and very moving account of Murphy, Nick Wechsler Screenplay Gus addiction. We follow a gang of junkies led by Bob (Matt Dillon) who feed their habits by robbing drugstores in Portland, Oregon. The petty crimes Van Sant, Daniel Yost, from novel by James and the repetitive lives of the addicts are chronicled by the director Fogle Photography Robert D. Yeoman without moralizing or comment. But the fragile nature of the relationships within the gang, and particularly the doomed love of Bob and his wife Music Elliot Goldenthal Cast Matt Dillon, Dianne (Kelly Lynch), are as well observed as they are brilliantly acted. Kelly Lynch, James LeGros, Heather Graham, While the plot may seem simple—run-ins with police and other Eric Hull, Max Perlich, James Remar, John junkies—there is real tragedy as the film moves toward its denoument. Kelly, Grace Zabriskie, George Catalano, When one of the gang overdoses and Bob has to smuggle the body out of a motel hosting a sherriff’s convention and then bury the body in the Janet Baumhover, Ted D’Arms, Neal Thomas, woods, he decides that he has to go straight. In the detox hostel he Stephen Rutledge, Beah Richards Berlin meets up with an old friend, a junkie priest played by William Burroughs, International Film Festival Gus Van Sant and their conversations punctuate his final encounters with the world (C.I.C.A.E. award—forum of new cinema) he has left. The entire film is magnificent but these final conversations between Dillon and Burroughs are sublime. CM 1989 Astenicheskij sindrom Kira Muratova, 1989 The Asthenic Syndrome U.S.S.R. (Goskino, Odessa) 153m BW / Color A great movie about the contemporary world, but far from an easy one Language Russian Screenplay Aleksandr to take or understand, because it breaks so many rules about what films Chernykh, Kira Muratova, Sergei Popov are supposed to be like. Directed in 1989 by Kira Muratova, The Asthenic Syndrome has been perhaps rightly called the only “masterpiece of Photography Vladimir Pankov Music Franz glasnost.” It begins with a powerful, black-and-white narrative about a Schubert Cast Olga Antonova, Sergei woman doctor named Natasha (Olga Antonova) who is in an exploding, aggressive rage about the death of her husband. The film then turns into Popov, Galina Zakhurdayeva, Natalya Buzko, an even more unorthodox tale in color about a disaffected high-school Aleksandra Svenskaya, Pavel Polishchuk, English teacher named Nikolai (played by cowriter Sergei Popov) who periodically falls asleep regardless of what is happening around him. The Natalya Ralleva, Galina Kasperovich, Viktor title alludes to a form of weakness or disability that presumably Aristov, Nikolai Semyonov, Oleg Shkolnik, encompasses both the doctor’s aggressiveness and the schoolteacher’s passivity. Muratova evidently regards these two forms of behavior as Vera Storozheva, Aleksandr Chernykh, emblematic of what is blighted about contemporary society. Leonid Kushnir, Nadya Popova Berlin International Film Festival Kira Muratova Though this epic has plenty to say about postcommunist Russia, it is (Silver Bear—special jury prize, Golden also one of the few recent masterpieces that deal more generally with the demons loose in today’s world. And it is interesting to add that at Bear nomination) least two of Muratova’s subsequent features, Three Stories (1987) and Chekhov’s Motifs (2002), have continued the process of extreme stylization in the acting as well as the practice of squeezing together two or more fictions. Both factors sharply distinguish her late work from such relatively conventional and relatively naturalistic early features as Brief Encounters (1967), in which she acted. JRos 771

Do the Right Thing Spike Lee, 1989 1989 U.S. (40 Acres & a Mule) 120m Color It’s sometimes hard to remember, living now on a global, pop-culture Producer Spike Lee Screenplay Spike Lee landscape that has been so thoroughly sculpted by the language, music, aesthetics, and politics of hip-hop, that there was a time when the force Photography Ernest R. Dickerson of that youth movement hadn’t yet been tapped. At the same time, Music Rubén Blades, Cathy Block, Chuck D, given the materialistic, shallow artistry that has come to define mainstream hip-hop and the music (rap) that is its soundtrack, it’s Flavor Flav, James Weldon Johnson, sometimes just as hard to remember when the music was radical, Rosamond Johnson, Raymond Jones, Bill subversive, and proudly revolutionary. Spike Lee’s social protest film Do Lee, Sami McKinney, Michael O’Hara, Lori the Right Thing brilliantly captures that moment when rap was urgent and conscious; more impressively, it channels the issues of racism, race Perry, Mervyn Warren, Public Enemy pride, class struggle, and the joys and grinds of everyday urban life into Cast Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, a paradoxically brightly colored snapshot. Incendiary and insightful, it’s Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike a film borne of hip-hop, when hip-hop had something to say. Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Paul Benjamin, The film’s opening is set to the music—an assault of beats and Frankie Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, booming voices—of hip-hop elders and icons Public Enemy. Filled with Miguel Sandoval, Rick Aiello, John Savage a cast of vibrant characters whose intersecting day-in-the-life stories are Oscar nominations Spike Lee (screenplay), used to illuminate larger sociopolitical points, Do the Right Thing is anchored by Mookie (Lee), a pizza delivery boy who canvases the Danny Aiello (actor in support role) neighborhood making his deliveries. We meet his shrill, demanding Cannes Film Festival Spike Lee (Golden girlfriend (Rosie Perez), cantankerous but lovable elders (Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis), and neighborhood youth as represented by, among others, Palm nomination) Radio Raheem (Bil Nunn) and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito). We also meet the Italian pizzeria owner, Sal (Danny Aiello), whose ambivalence “Living, breathing, about his black clientele is forked in the differing attitudes of his racist riveting proof of the son Pino (John Turturro) and more color-blind child Vito (Richard Edson). arrival of an abundantly Rounding out the characters is a profane, hilarious Greek chorus of middle-aged and elderly black men whose scathing commentary on the gifted new talent.” day’s events provides comic relief. Vincent Canby, As the hot summer’s day progresses and tempers flare, ordinary The New York Times, 1989 slights take on huge significance. Sexual and racial tensions that lie just below the surface of daily exchanges explode, and the resulting fiery i violence is a clear metaphor for the state of late twentieth-century The movie’s title comes from a American race relations. Controversial and frequently misrepresented Malcolm X quote: “You’ve got to by detractors (many of whom claimed that the film was a call to riot), Do the Right Thing is an unapologetic, angry film. It’s also filled with images do the right thing.” of black love and camaraderie that continue to be so rare in American cinema that they’re radical. Shot in bright colors that all but pop off the screen, filled with slightly skewed camera angles often suggesting the freewheeling style of comic books, and edited to reflect the energetic thrust of the most propulsive rap track, Do the Right Thing has become one of the most influential movies in the history of filmmaking, not only for its stylistic flourishes, but for giving filmmakers permission to draw from the experiences of lives previously ignored or distorted in both Hollywood and so-called independent film. It dares you to dismiss it. EH 772



U.S. (Action) 90m Color Producer Hal The Unbelievable Truth Hal Hartley, 1989 Hartley, Bruce Weiss Screenplay Hal Hartley The Unbelievable Truth is the highly intriguing, if not always fully Photography Michael Spiller Music Jim successful, first feature by independent writer-director Hal Hartley. Shot Coleman, Kendall Brothers, Philip Reed, Wild in his hometown on Long Island, he gives us, among other characters, a mechanic mistaken for a priest (Robert Burke) returning from a prison Blue Yonder Cast Adrienne Shelly, Robert sentence, a politically alienated teenager (Adrienne Shelly) who later finds John Burke, Chris Cooke, Julia McNeal, work as a model for lingerie ads, and the teenager’s mercenary redneck father (Christopher Cooke). Burke, Shelly, and Cooke would go on to work Katherine Mayfield, Gary Sauer, David Healy, with Hartley again in subsequent features—Burke in Simple Men (1992) Matt Malloy, Edie Falco, Jeff Howard, Kelly and Flirt (1993), Shelly in Trust (1990), and Cooke in Trust and Simple Men. Reichardt, Ross Turner, Paul Schulze, Mike Brady, Bill Sage Fantasies about global annihilation obsess the teenager, fantasies about money obsess her father, and fantasies about a pair of murders 1989 apparently committed by the mechanic obsess almost everyone else in the film. The unvarnished quality of some of the acting limits this effort in spots, but the quirky originality of the story, characters, and filmmaking, and the offbeat, deadpan humor serve to keep the audience curious and alert. JRos U.S. (Dog Eat Dog, Warner Bros.) Roger & Me Michael Moore, 1989 91m Color Producer Michael Moore Michael Moore’s black-comedy documentary about the consequences Screenplay Michael Moore of massive layoffs by General Motors in Flint, Michigan, and the writer- Photography Chris Beaver, John Prusak, director’s own unsuccessful attempts to meet with Roger Smith, GM’s chairman, and bring him to Flint to see what his actions have wrought, Kevin Rafferty, Bruce Schermer is certainly impressive, as well as bracing proof that movies can be both Music Buddy Kaye Cast James Bond, Pat hugely entertaining and politically sharp at the same time. Mixed in with Boone, Rhonda Britton, Anita Bryant, Karen Moore’s justifiably lethal anger, however, is a certain sense of glib Edgely, Bob Eubanks, Ben Hamper, Dinona superiority over Flint’s victims and corporate villains, which one is invited Jackson, Timothy Jackson, Tom Kay, Michael to share, but the breezy results, many of which are exhilarating and never Moore, Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, Ronald Reagan, boring, are not exactly devoid of cheap shots and journalistic oversimplifications. These qualities could be said to carry over into Fred Ross, Robert Schuller, George Sells, Moore’s second big success, Bowling for Columbine, thirteen years later. Roger B. Smith, Steve Wilson Berlin Thus the cheerful heartlessness of Reaganism that is the film’s subject is not entirely irrelevant to its own methods, and critic Dave Kehr aptly International Film Festival Michael Moore dubbed Roger & Me around the time of its initial release, “the first feel- (peace film award—honorable mention) good atrocity film.” Roger & Me’s rather cavalier manner of juggling certain timeframes and sequences of events led at least one reviewer at the time to dismiss Moore as a charlatan. Despite this there are irrefutable facts in his muckraking. Moore’s populist desire to entertain, which ensured his commercial success and the wider reach of his ideas, also entailed some self-aggrandizement as well as a certain number of journalistic shortcuts. In the final analysis it is worth asking which is more important: corporate greed, or Moore’s ego trip. JRos 774

Sex, Lies, and Videotape Steven Soderbergh, 1989 U.S. (Outlaw, Virgin) 100m Color Writer-director Steven Soderbergh—now best known for Erin Brockovich 1989 Producer John Hardy Screenplay Steven (2000) and the Oscar-winning Traffic (2000)—made a striking debut with this drama that went on to win the Golden Palm and Best Actor Soderbergh Photography Walt Lloyd awards at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. Music Cliff Martinez Cast James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Written in just eight days and filmed in five weeks on a budget of just $1.2 million, Sex, Lies, and Videotape has been credited with transforming Giacomo, Ron Vawter, Steven Brill, the independent movie industry, enticing mainstream audiences to see Alexandra Root, Earl T. Taylor, David Foil small-scale indie films they otherwise would have missed. And this film Oscar nomination Steven Soderbergh is certainly unmissable, a sly, sexy, and intelligent look at modern-day (screenplay) Cannes Film Festival Steven relationships set in the steamy South. Soderbergh (Golden Palm, FIPRESCI award) tied with Yaaba), James Spader (actor) Andie MacDowell, in her first leading role following appearances in St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984), stars as “Anyway, being happy Ann Millaney, a perfect wife stuck in a dull, almost sexless marriage to isn’t all that great. I John (Peter Gallagher), an egotistical lawyer. Unbeknownst to Ann, John is having an affair with her feisty sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), but mean, the last time I was all the secrets and lies in their combined relationships are revealed really happy . . . I must when John’s former school friend Graham (James Spader) drives into town and forces the others to face truths about themselves and each have put on 25 pounds.” other. Graham, of course, has surprises of his own to be exposed—he has a trunk full of videotapes, each featuring a woman talking openly about her sexual secrets. But how did he get all these women to open up to him? Soderbergh’s dialogue is breathtakingly frank, and he fills his film with skilled actors who deliver their lines brilliantly. Former model MacDowell—who has yet to give a better performance—is terrific as the prissy Southern flower, and San Giacomo a discovery as her uninhibited sibling. But the film really belongs to Spader—a former teen actor (Pretty in Pink [1986], Less than Zero [1987]) who here shows an unexpected depth and sensitivity as he expertly portrays the most interesting of Soderbergh’s repressed quartet. Superb. JB Ann (Andie MacDowell) i Soderbergh’s first big break came in 1985 when rock group Yes asked him to shoot a full-length concert film.

1989 Taiwan (Artificial Eye, 3-H, Era) 157m Color Beiqing chengshi Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989 Language Taiwanese / Mandarin / Japanese A City of Sadness Producer Chiu Fu-Sheng Screenplay Chu T’ien-wen, Wu Nien-Jen Photography Chen There are two separate stories to tell here. One is this wonderful story that happens sometimes, most of the time unpredictably: the rise of a Huai’en Music Tachikawa Naoki Cast Wou New Wave, of an artistic movement in a country, and of the emergence Yi Fang, Nakamura Ikuyo, Jack Kao, Tony of one or two (rarely more) exceptionally talented filmmakers. This occurred in the 1980s in Taiwan with the New Cinema movement, and Leung Chiu Wai, Li Tianlu, Ikuyo Nakamura, one of the most talented directors who appeared at the time was Hou Xin Shufen Venice Film Festival Hou Hsiao-hsien. He began by making personal, autobiographical films (The Hsiao-hsien (Golden Lion) Boys from Fengkuei [1983], A Summer at Grandpa’s [1984], The Time to Live and the Time to Die [1985]) that revealed his sense of pace, the “By the end of A City physical intensity of his shots, and the suggestive strength in the of Sadness, you realize apparently indifferent way he filmed even the most simple situations. Hou sees the world Then there is a second story, concerning that inevitable moment as it is, in all its when a nation needs its cinema to tell itself and the world its own tale— its collective autobiography, so to speak. In 1989, the vanishing of the contradictory glory.” military dictatorship that had ruled the island for forty years presented filmmakers the opportunity to tell the recent story of Taiwan. And this is Glenn Heath Jr, what Hou, the “subjective avant-garde auteur,” decided to do (and what Slant Magazine, 2011 he continued to do with The Puppetmaster [1993] and Good Men, Good Women [1995]). A City of Sadness, which was clearly viewed in its own country as a huge step forward in the ability of cinema to look, finally, at Taiwan’s recent past, constitutes a real turning point—a fact which also enabled the film to become a great public success. A combination of historical fresco and modern film, the complex narrative structure of A City of Sadness (based on the intricate lives of four brothers) and the enormous amount of historical information it embodies convey a beautiful and emotional sense of the period, the group, the individual, the inner feelings, and the demands of the various communities each brother belongs to—willingly or not. A City of Sadness is not only a masterpiece, it is a model for all those films that intend to show the major events of a country, most of the time becoming boring monuments instead. J-MF i This was the first Chinese-language film to win the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. 776

U.S. / G.B. (Channel Four, Republic, True Trust Hal Hartley, 1990 Fiction, Zenith) 90m Color Producer Hal Hartley, Bruce Weiss Screenplay Hal Hartley Hal Hartley’s second feature—a decided improvement over his first, Photography Michael Spiller Music The The Unbelievable Truth (1989)—returns to the same basic turf, a Long Great Outdoors, Philip Reed Cast Adrienne Island commuter town, and features the same lead actress (Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Merritt Nelson, John Shelly) as an alienated teenager. This time around, Shelly plays a high MacKay, Edie Falco, Gary Sauer, Matt Malloy, school student who finds herself pregnant, provokes her father’s fatal Suzanne Costollos, Jeff Howard, Karen Sillas, heart attack, gets unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend, and Tom Thon, Hannah Sullivan, Marko Hunt, kicked out of the house by her mother (Merritt Nelson). Then she is assaulted, witnesses a kidnapping, and meets an angry and disgruntled Kathryn Mederos, Bill Sage electronics whiz (Martin Donovan), all in the same day. It’s a credit to the film that this overflow of incident neither strains 1990 credibility nor becomes exploited for facile comedy. In fact, the real story in Trust only begins once the heroine and the electronics whiz become involved and their mutual adjustments—including the strains represented by their difficult parents—gradually transform both of them. Unpredictable while remaining honest to both its characters and its milieu, this flaky comedy drama improves as it proceeds, much as Hartley’s own body of work has often done. JRos France / Germany (Cinéa, NEF) S’en fout la mort Claire Denis, 1990 97m Eastmancolor Language French Producer Francis Boespflug, Philippe No Fear, No Die Carcassonne Screenplay Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau Photography Pascal Marti French director Claire Denis refers to her films Chocolat (1988), No Fear Music Abdullah Ibrahim Cast Isaach No Die (1990), and I Can’t Sleep (1994) as her trilogy about colonialism and its aftermath. No Fear, No Die follows, in a quasidocumentary De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig fashion, a few months in the lives of Dah (Isaach De Bankolé) and Jocelyn Dommartin, Christopher Buchholz, Jean- (Alex Descas), two black men training roosters for illegal cockfights in Claude Brialy, Christa Lang, Gilbert Felmar, the basement of a shady suburban nightclub in France. Besides its underlying portrayal of exploitation of illegal immigrants, the film’s Daniel Bellus, François Oloa Biloa, Pipo claustrophobic, oppressive atmosphere is a fascinating ground for the Sarguera, Alain Banicles, Valérie Monnet dynamics of power, violence, desire, and cruelty enacted in this marginal Venice Film Festival Dominique Auvray world, as tensions gradually mount between Jocelyn and the nightclub owner’s son Michel (Christopher Buchholz). Michel becomes jealous (Silver Osella—editing) of the attention Jocelyn gets not only from his father, but also from his father’s beautiful girlfriend Toni (Solveig Dommartin), whom both men covet. The rivalry between Jocelyn and Michel, complicated by issues of race and power, finds its brutal resolution in a senseless murder at the end of No Fear, No Die, highlighting the absurdity of postcolonial violence. The close and raw filming of the ritual training of roosters, of the protagonists’ faces and bodies, as well as the powerful performances of Descas and Bankolé, make this film an intense, intimate experience of a facet of human behavior triggered by circumstances in which“all men, whatever their race, color, or origins, are capable of anything and everything.” CO 777

Goodfellas Martin Scorsese, 1990 1990 U.S. (Warner Bros.) 145m With this epic, Martin Scorsese returned to the world of tough-talking Technicolor Producer Irwin Winkler (mostly) Italian-American hoods featured in Mean Streets (1973), Screenplay Nicholas Pileggi and Martin following thirty years in the lives of a group of neighborhood crooks. Scorsese, from the novel Wise Guy by From hanging around the taxi rank, punk kid Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) Nicholas Pileggi Photography Michael progresses to hijacking, airport robberies, extortion, grievous bodily harm, drug dealing, and, finally, informing. Along the way, he gets a Ballhaus Music Various artists Jewish wife (Lorraine Bracco) who, unlike the Corleone women, finds it Cast Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, impossible to keep out of the wholesale sleaze that goes along with her Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, Frank Sivero, husband’s way of life. More important, of course, are Henry’s close male relationships: with Jimmy (Robert De Niro), a coolly violent heist Tony Darrow, Mike Starr, Frank Vincent, man, and Tommy (Joe Pesci), an unstable psychopath with hopes of Chuck Low, Frank DiLeo, Henny Youngman, getting “made.” In the end, Hill is turned by the FBI and informs on his few surviving friends, winding up condemned to a Federal Witness Gina Mastrogiacomo, Catherine Scorsese, Protection limbo where if you order spaghetti with marinara sauce you Charles Scorsese Oscar Joe Pesci (actor in get “egg noodles and ketchup.” support role) Oscar nominations Irwin Drawn from cowriter Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book Wiseguy, this Winkler (best picture), Martin Scorsese is more matter-of-fact in its insider’s chattiness than the mythmaking (director), Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese The Godfather (1972). Indeed, Goodfellas is almost a companion piece to (screenplay), Lorraine Bracco (actress in the comical Married to the Mob (1988) as it observes the manners and fashions of the organized crime world. Underlaid by a constant barrage support role), Thelma Schoonmaker of cunningly selected pop singles, from Tony Bennett to Phil Spector to (editing) Venice Film Festival Martin Sid Vicious, this panorama of illegal America stays with a group of wholly repulsive, increasingly corrupt people for nearly two and a half hours Scorsese (Silver Lion—director) but never loses its fascination. De Niro, underplaying in a secondary role, is quietly chilling as the repressed but unpredictable robber who “As far back as sometimes seems to think he’ll only be safe once he has killed everyone I can remember, he knows. However, the show-off monster is Pesci, who plays the I always wanted to maniacal Tommy as a homicidal Lou Costello, segueing instantly from foul-mouthed rat-tat-tat wisecrack routines into mortifying threats or be a gangster.” slap-in-the-face atrocities. Without moralizing, the film manages to convey the dead-end horrors of a life not just outside the law but outside all possible law. KN Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) i Martin Scorsese’s parents appear in the film—his mother as Tommy’s mother and his father as a prisoner. 778

Nema-ye Nazdik Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 Close-Up Iran (Institute for the Intellectual Based on a real incident, Abbas Kiarostami’s masterly film first appears Development of Children & Young Adults) to present itself as a purely documentary reconstruction of the events leading to the trial of Hossein Sabzian for attempted fraud. 97m Color Language Farsi Producer Ali Reza Zarrin Screenplay Abbas Kiarostami Kiarostami’s subtle approach to the narrative comprises a witty, illuminating, highly inventive exploration of the symbiotic relationships Photography Ali Reza Zarrindast between truth and falsehood, appearance and reality, documentary and Cast Hossain Sabzian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, fiction. The characters are “played” by themselves. Some events are dramatically recreated, some simply described, others—like the trial Abolfazl Ahankhah, Mehrdad Ahankhah, itself (at which, strangely, Kiarostami is often allowed to take over Monoochehr Ahankhah, Mahrokh questioning)—are presented as documentary footage. Although the narrative line, for all its flashbacks, is clear, the way in which it is presented Ahankhah, Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi, Ahmad and the status of what we’re shown—is this for real, or acted out?—keep Reza Moayed Mohseni, Hossain Farazmand, shifting, and the film becomes a multilayered investigation into that most Hooshang Shamaei, Mohammad Ali Barrati, elusive of phenomena: the Truth. Davood Goodarzi, Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi, But even as he undermines our assumptions about objectivity, Hassan Komaili, Davood Mohabbat Kiarostami directs us toward one small, inescapable truth: that everyone, to quote Renoir, has his reasons. Besides being a funny, thought- i provoking deconstruction of documentary conventions, Close-Up is a Directors to have praised Close-Up tribute both to the power of cinema and to the essential goodness—and imaginative capabilities—of ordinary people. GA include Werner Herzog, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese. 779

U.S. / Italy (Caminito, Rank, Reteitalia, Scena) King of New York Abel Ferrara, 1990 103m Color Producer Augusto Caminito, Mary Kane Screenplay Nicholas St. John Abel Ferrara’s King of New York is a chronicle of the downfall of New York drug kingpin Frank White (Christopher Walken), who, after years of illegal Photography Bojan Bazelli Music Joe Delia activity, decides to expiate his sins by building a hospital in an inner-city Cast Christopher Walken, David Caruso, neighborhood. His attempts to give something back to the community Laurence Fishburne, Victor Argo, Wesley encounter hostile resistance from every side—his Chinese drug partner Snipes, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Giancarlo (Joey Chin), the local Mafia, and an overzealous tough cop (David Esposito, Paul Calderon, Steve Buscemi, Caruso) ready to do anything to bring him down. Frank’s futile efforts Theresa Randle, Leonard L. Thomas, trigger an ethnically motivated gangster war that ends in a bloody Roger Guenveur Smith, Carrie Nygren, showdown among the city’s criminal factions. Ernest Abuba Walken gives a tour de force performance in the lead as a ruthless 1990 killer with a twisted sense of morality, and Laurence Fishburne as White’s henchman Jimmy Jump contributes to the film’s frenetic energy. Like all of Ferrara’s work, King of New York is not an easy movie to watch. It is violent and disturbing, with a high body count, further exploring the director’s interest in characters who seek salvation against the backdrop of a drug-infested and violent New York City underground—depicted here as the archetypal Gotham City. Ferrara’s 1992 follow-up, Bad Lieutenant, featuring Harvey Keitel as an unnamed cop who is as corrupt as Walken’s White is devious, takes the director’s bloody yet introspective examination of sin and redemption even further. RDe Pretty Woman Garry Marshall, 1990 U.S. (Silver Screen, Touchstone) A 1940s-style romantic comedy given a modern twist, Pretty Woman was 119m Technicolor Language English / a refreshing antidote to the macho wham-bam movies that dominated Hollywood’s output in the late 1980s. One of the highest-grossing Italian Producer Arnon Milchan, pictures of 1990, it succeeded in making the “date movie”popular again. Steven Reuther Screenplay J.F. Lawton Photography Charles Minsky Music James Pretty Woman also gave huge career boosts to its two stars, Richard Newton Howard Cast Richard Gere, Julia Gere (who hadn’t had a hit since the mid-1980s) and Julia Roberts, who Roberts, Ralph Bellamy, Jason Alexander, earned an Oscar nomination for her performance. Gere is at his suave best as Edward Lewis, a business mogul on a trip to L.A. who winds up Laura San Giacomo, Hector Elizondo, lost near Hollywood Boulevard, and asks hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Alex Hyde-White, Amy Yasbeck, Elinor Vivian (Roberts in a miniscule miniskirt and PVC thigh boots) for Donahue, Judith Baldwin, Jason Randal, Bill directions back to his Beverly Hills hotel. Being the smart and sensible Applebaum, Tracy Bjork, Gary Greene, prostitute she is, Vivian offers to take him where he needs to go, and it’s not long before she has charmed him into hiring her for the week to be Billy Gallo Oscar nomination Julia his“beck-and-call girl.”In return for her time and effort she gets unlimited Roberts (actress) use of his credit card to buy clothes and learns how to dine at a fancy restaurant (thanks to the friendly hotel concierge, played by Hector Elizondo). And, no surprise, Vivian falls in love with her benefactor. The whole thing is highly improbable, of course. For starters, it’s unlikely any Hollywood Boulevard streetwalkers look as well groomed as Vivian. The success of Roberts in the role of a hooker is politically incorrect, but the sheer charm of Pretty Woman never fails to shine through. JB 780

Dances with Wolves Kevin Costner, 1990 U.S. (Tig, Majestic) 183m Color “I want to see the frontier . . . before it’s gone.” An idealistic Union soldier 1990 Language English / Sioux / Pawnee is rewarded for gallantry in the Civil War with his choice of assignment, Producer Kevin Costner, Jim Wilson an outpost in the Dakotas. There he is befriended by a tribe of Lakota Screenplay Michael Blake, from his novel Sioux and goes native, only to witness the encroachment of the white Photography Dean Semler Music John man and twilight falling on the great horse culture of the Plains. Barry, Peter Buffett Cast Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Heartthrob Kevin Costner’s directorial debut—ambitious, epic, some Grant, Floyd “Red Crow”Westerman, Tantoo of it in Lakota with subtitles—Dances with Wolves had Hollywood wags Cardinal, Robert Pastorelli, Charles Rocket, predicting it would be another Heaven’s Gate (1980). But Costner had the Maury Chaykin, Jimmy Herman, Nathan Lee last laugh, riding away with seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Chasing His Horse, Michael Spears, Jason R. Director (over Martin Scorsese for Goodfellas). Lone Hill, Tony Pierce, Doris Leader Charge Oscars Jim Wilson, Kevin Costner (best “Dances with Wolves” is the name the Indians give to Costner’s picture), Kevin Costner (director), Michael Lieutenant John Dunbar. He is by stages terrified, intrigued, then captivated by his feather-decked neighbors and their way of life. And Blake (screenplay), Dean Semler the story of how he finds himself and comes by his new name is as (photography), Neil Travis (editing), John enchanting a Western as ever was—rich, lyrical, warm, full of unlooked- for laughs, heartbreaking, and spectacularly cinematic. Costner’s Barry (music), Russell Williams, Jeffrey direction is remarkably accomplished, taking each elegiac, mystical, or Perkins, Bill W. Benton, Gregory H. Watkins romantic interlude to an exciting action payoff, with battles, buffalo, the (sound) Oscar nominations Kevin Costner spectacular plains of South Dakota, and the handsome cast all gifts to (actor), Graham Greene (actor in support Australian cinematographer and Mad Max (1979) veteran Dean Semler. role), Mary McDonnell (actress in support The Indians are portrayed with unprecedented respect and affectionate intimacy as proud, quick, and humorous by Native Americans who are role), Jeffrey Beecroft, Lisa Dean (art both magnificent looking and engaging, notably Graham Greene as direction), Elsa Zamparelli (costume) shaman Kicking Bird and Rodney A. Grant as warrior Wind in His Hair. Berlin International Film Festival Kevin Costner (Silver Bear—outstanding single Sentiment is strong, at times exhaustingly melodramatic. But the achievement, producing/directing/acting, film’s eloquence and evocative beauty make it enduringly enjoyable. A year later Costner presented the special edition, with an hour of Golden Bear nomination) additional material which expands the hero’s romance with Stands with a Fist (Mary McDonnell) and shows the fate of captured white buffalo hunters. But there is no new major action scene and the added length, lovely and involving for devotees, does slow the pace. Action fans prefer the original, utterly enjoyable three-hour version. AE i In 1991, Dances with Wolves became the first Western to win a Best Picture Oscar for sixty years.

1990 U.S. (Filmcat, Fourth World Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer Media, MPI, Maljack) 83m Color Producer Lisa Dedmond, Steven A. Jones, John McNaughton, 1990 John McNaughton Screenplay Richard Fire, John McNaughton Photography Charlie Directed by John McNaughton, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is loosely Lieberman Music Mic Fabus, Ken Hale, based on the story of real serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas. It is exceptional Steven A. Jones, Robert McNaughton for its realism of style and amoral viewpoint, and it remains with the Cast Mary Demas, Michael Rooker, Anne viewer as one of the most disturbing movies ever made. Bartoletti, Elizabeth Kaden, Ted Kaden, Denise Sullivan, Anita Ores, Megan Ores, Henry flouts horror-film conventions with its flat narrative, a build-up Cheri Jones, Monica Anne O’Malley, of episodes where the expected murders occur in unexpected ways. In Bruce Quist, Erzsebet Sziky, Tracy Arnold, one scene, Henry (Michael Rooker) kills two prostitutes in his car and then goes with his roommate Otis (Tom Towles) to buy a hamburger. Tom Towles, David Katz The plot of Henry (insofar as it has one) follows events that occur “I’m not going to make after Otis’s sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) moves into their small Chicago moral decisions for you. apartment, disrupting this pair’s somewhat repressed homosexual partnership in crime. A low-budget movie, Henry excels in depicting the I’ll present you with a life of drifters amid a grubby lower-class milieu. At one point the film situation. I know how I cuts from the corpse of a woman Henry has killed to show a nasty matron feel about it, but it’s not in Becky’s beauty salon spouting racist slurs. my place to tell you how Becky romanticizes about Henry when she hears how he killed his to feel about it.” mother. Rooker brings a surly, Brandoesque appeal to the role of this psychopath, which helps to explain Becky’s bad choice of love objects. John McNaughton, 1999 The film culminates in two especially upsetting murders. First, Henry and Otis kill a suburban family. After witnessing the mayhem, we suddenly realize that we have watched this footage alongside the killers, who are sitting on the sofa reviewing their home movie of the deed. Later, Henry kills Otis, whom he has caught raping Becky. Henry and Becky leave town, but the next morning, in the film’s final sequences, Henry leaves their hotel room alone, pausing to drop off a heavy suitcase by the roadside. Henry is so understated it might seem dull to younger viewers jaded by the gory excesses of other post-1980s horror flicks. Nor does it boast a charmingly elegant killer like Hannibal Lecter. Instead, Henry evokes horror through gritty realism and excellent acting. The film is not fun to watch, but it is important in that it forces viewers into questioning our cultural fascination with serial killers. CFr i Henry was filmed in 1986, but was not released until 1990 due to a dispute with the U.S. censors. 782

Archangel Guy Maddin, 1990 Canada (Cinephile, Ordnance, Winnipeg) Guy Maddin, the underground cult wizard from Winnipeg, followed up 90m BW Producer Greg Klymkiw Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988) with Archangel, an even stranger black-and-white feature made on a heftier budget. The film involves Screenplay Guy Maddin, George Toles amnesiac victims of mustard gas during World War I and the Russian Photography Guy Maddin Cast Kyle Revolution. The hero, a Canadian soldier (Kyle McCulloch), mistakes a nurse (Kathy Marykuca) for his dead love; she’s married to a Belgian McCulloch, Kathy Marykuca, Sarah Neville, aviator (Ari Cohen) who can’t remember he’s married, and she gets so Ari Cohen, Michael Gottli, Victor Cowie, confused that she winds up mistaking the Canadian for the Belgian. David Falkenburg, Michael O’Sullivan, Margaret Anne MacLeod, Ihor Procak, There are other complications, some of which, like the amnesia, suggest a deranged remake of Random Harvest (1942), but Archangel Robert Lougheed, Stephen Snyder, Michael often appears to be about nothing at all—except perhaps Maddin’s Powell, Sam Toles, Lloyd Weinberg obvious love for late silent and early talkie studio productions with kitschy pictorial effects, as well as offbeat surrealist conceits (such as a hailstorm of bunny rabbits falling into trenches). The results may not be 1990 consistently funny or affecting, but it never seems that Maddin is out to produce straight-out comedy or camp, much less serious drama. What comes across is a fascinating fetishist delirium, where memories of remote war movies get recycled into something that is alternately creepy and beautiful. JRos Total Recall Paul Verhoeven, 1990 U.S. (Carolco, TriStar) 109m Technicolor Cult science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s story We Can Remember It for Producer Buzz Feitshans, Ronald Shusett You Wholesale is impressively translated onto the screen with numerous Screenplay Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, jaw-dropping special effects and lashings of violence by Dutch director Gary Goldman, from the short story “We Can Paul Verhoeven, who had previously scored a similar sci-fi hit with the Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. 1987 blockbuster RoboCop. Dick Photography Jost Vacano Music Jerry Goldsmith, Bruno Louchouarn Cast Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Doug Quaid, an everyday Joe (albeit Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon one built like Hercules) who has recurring dreams about living on Mars. Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside, Marshall His wife (Sharon Stone) dismisses his fantasies, so Doug pays a visit to a Bell, Mel Johnson Jr., Michael Champion, Roy virtual reality vacation company and gets hooked up to a machine that Brocksmith, Ray Baker, Rosemary Dunsmore, will simulate a trip to the red planet. Unfortunately, it also gives his brain David Knell, Alexia Robinson, Dean Norris, a good zapping, and Doug wakes up from his virtual trip believing he is Mark Carlton Oscar Eric Brevig, Rob Bottin, a secret agent. He soon finds himself pursued by various human and Tim McGovern, Alex Funke (special visual mutant heavies while he tries to work out in his head what is fact and effects) Oscar nominations Stephen Hunter what is fiction. Flick (special sound effects), Nelson Stoll, Michael J. Kohut, Carlos DeLarios, Aaron Many of Dick’s favorite themes (also explored in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which became Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi film Blade Rochin (sound) Runner in 1982) are explored in Total Recall—identity, perception, memories, real and manufactured—but never at the expense of action. And action there certainly is, from a fun fight between Stone and Schwarzenegger, their sparring dialogue an added bonus, to the final, gruesome but gripping showdown. JB 783

Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton, 1990 1990 U.S. (Fox) 105m Color Rather than follow the hugely successful Batman (1989) with another Producer Tim Burton, Denise Di Novi special-effects-driven bonanza, director Tim Burton instead delivered a Screenplay Tim Burton and Caroline delightfully realized movie that was about as far from a mainstream Thompson Photography Stefan Czapsky Hollywood blockbuster as it was possible to get. The result is Edward Music Danny Elfman Cast Johnny Depp, Scissorhands, a decidedly left-of-center fairy tale that remains the most Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony whimsical and touching film of Burton’s career so far. Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Robert Oliveri, Conchata Ferrell, Caroline Aaron, Dick The Edward of the title (Johnny Depp) is not a man at all, but the Anthony Williams, O-Lan Jones, Vincent creation of The Inventor (an all-too-brief cameo performance from the Price, Alan Arkin, Susan Blommaert, Linda marvelous Vincent Price in his last film role). Edward looks human Perri, John Davidson Oscar nomination enough, except for one detail—he has scissors instead of hands—and he lives a solitary life in a crumbling mansion high above a neighborhood Ve Neill, Stan Winston (makeup) of pastel-colored houses. It is only when kindly Avon lady Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) discovers his hiding place that Edward descends to the “Edward Scissorhands “real”world below, and finds himself embraced by Peg’s neighbors when isn’t perfect. It’s he displays his special talent for hairdressing, dog grooming, and hedge shaping. Life for the trusting and innocent Edward is complicated, something better: however, when he falls for Peg’s cheerleader daughter Kim (Winona pure magic.” Ryder) and is soon coerced by her boyfriend (Anthony Michael Hall) into committing a crime. Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, 1990 One of the many successes Burton pulls off in this delightfully odd film is to cast his various players against type in this eccentric dreamlike world. Hall, best known for playing the nerd in John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club (1985), succeeds in showing a far nastier side in his role as oafish boyfriend Jim. Ryder, on the other hand, devoid of the ample cynicism she displayed in Heathers (1988), brings a delicate touch to her role as the nice girl on the block. It is Depp, however, who impresses the most, creating a character trapped by his incomplete body, conveying Edward’s frustration with few words, his pale, scarred face showing the hurt when he discovers that even his gentlest touch with his scissor hands can cause pain. An ambitious, beautifully conceived modern-day fairy tale. JB i As the character of Edward, Johnny Depp said only 169 words throughout the entire movie. 784

Germany / France / Poland Hitlerjunge Salomon Agnieszka Holland, 1990 1990 (CCC Filmkunst, Losange) 112m Eastmancolor Language German / Russian Europa Europa Producer Artur Brauner, Margaret Ménégoz Screenplay Agnieszka Holland, from book Salomon Perel, played by Marco Hofschneider, changes uniforms, by Salomon Perel Photography Jacek languages, and identities in an effort to survive the Holocaust. Renowned Petrycki, Jacek Zaleski Music Zbigniew Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland refrains from passing judgment Preisner Cast Marco Hofschneider, Salomon on her chameleon-like protagonist as she represents unspeakable Perel, René Hofschneider, Piotr Kozlowski, psychological tortures and miraculous escapes from a matter-of-fact Klaus Abramowsky, Michèle Gleizer, Marta distance, not dwelling on agony or bloodbath. This is what renders this Sandrowicz, Nathalie Schmidt, Delphine incredible story so shockingly believable and separates it from other films Forest, Andrzej Mastalerz, Wlodzimierz Press, about the Holocaust. Martin Maria Blau, Klaus Kowatsch, Holger Hunkel, Bernhard Howe Oscar nomination Set between 1938 and 1945, Europa Europa is actually based on the Agnieszka Holland (screenplay) real-life adventures of Salomon “Solly” Perel. Solly is a young Polish Jew from Germany, whose life takes a grotesque turn when the Nazis break “There are a great many into his family’s apartment. With the family dispersed, Solly ends up movies about the tragic alone, saved only by the Nazi uniform he puts on. This act launches his career as a performer. First, he winds up in a Russian orphanage in experience of the Jews eastern Poland, where he receives a thorough education in communist during the Second World dogma, renouncing his Jewish identity and denouncing religion as “the opiate of the masses.” Hitler’s troops take him back to Germany, where War, but only a handful he is employed as a Russian interpreter, accepted as an Aryan. The irony as passionate, as subtly and danger of his performance reach their epitome when he joins the intelligent, as universal Hitler Youth, where he is taught how to recognize and kill Jews. as this one.” Hiding his circumcision becomes particularly dangerous when his good looks win the hearts of a gay Nazi officer and a desirable but The Washington Post, 1991 excessively anti-Semitic girl, played by Julie Delpy. As the only physical reminder of Solly’s true identity, circumcision becomes a rich metaphor in the movie. Some of the most powerfully ambiguous moments of Europa Europa show Solly overidentifying with the role he is playing, suggesting that true identity might not be possible at all. Unsurprisingly, there is no catharsis or tragedy at the end; although when Solly is miraculously reunited with his lost brother Isaak (René Hofschneider), we sense that his performance is far from over. AI i The film received a lukewarm reception in Germany, but won much praise in the United States.



Boyz ’N the Hood John Singleton, 1991 U.S. (Columbia) 107m Color Given early 1970s heralds like Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks, the 1991 Producer Steve Nicolaides Screenplay John 1980s saw a select few African-American filmmakers break into the mainstream. Foremost among them were Robert Townsend and Spike Singleton Photography Charles Mills Lee, each crafting witty comedy-dramas about the condition of black Music Stanley Clarke, Ice Cube Cast Hudhail America. Yet it was John Singleton’s autobiographical debut, Boyz ’N the Hood, that fully introduced a so-called black American cinematic voice Al-Amir, Laurence Fishburne, Lloyd Avery, into the critical establishment. For his efforts Singleton earned two Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Mia Bell, Morris Academy Award nominations, and his film was a runaway hit that provided Columbia Pictures with a monster windfall. Chestnut, Lexie Bigham, Nia Long, Angela Bassett, Kenneth A. Brown, Nicole Brown, Opening in the aftermath of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad, Singleton’s drama settles on three ten-year-olds, Tre (Desi Arnez Hines II), Tyra Ferrell, Ceal, Desi Arnez Hines II Doughboy (Baha Jackson), and Ricky (Donovan McCrary). Raised in Oscar nominations John Singleton single-parent homes, their world is riven with gang violence, police (director), John Singleton (screenplay) brutality, and economic hardship. When Tre’s mother Reva (Angela Bassett) deposits him at the front door of his father Jason “Furious” “How you think (Laurence Fishburne), he gets a crash course in masculinity and the crack rock gets into transforms into an upwardly mobile teen. the country? We don’t Flash forward seven years. Tre (now played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) is a own any planes. We high school senior with a part-time job, an application to a historic black don’t own no ships.” college, and a girlfriend named Brandi (Nia Long). Doughboy (Ice Cube) is a gangbanger and loafer trading on the patience of his mother, Jason “Furious” Styles Mrs. Baker (Tyra Ferrell), while his brother Ricky (Morris Chestnut) builds (Laurence Fishburne) himself up as a Division I college football draft prospect. Though trying to escape the ’hood, Tre still remains linked to his neighborhood friends. i When Doughboy’s underworld connections threaten the trio, Ricky is Singleton is the youngest nominee for killed in a drive-by shooting. Afterward Tre confronts his father’s sage training and manages to avoid the mistakes of his downtrodden world. the Best Director Oscar. He was just Through an ending scrawl we learn he escapes the trap of poverty and twenty-four years old at the time. violence and accompanies Brandi to college. Pedantic but expertly orchestrated through a moving depiction of intraracial violence in the American inner city, Boyz ’N the Hood is a vividly memorable morality tale addressed to the same youth represented on screen. After a sobering dedication reminding us of the number of young black men killed by other young black men, it launches into a realistic, profanity-laden, and affecting coming-of-age story. Noteworthy for the screen debut of rapper Ice Cube, Singleton’s film evinces an awareness of Hollywood storytelling conventions and demonstrates a real affection for the topical influence of hip-hop music. Organized in a clear three-act structure and tending toward broad moralizing, the picture therefore exudes a professional polish. But it is also scored with the percussive beats and hypnotic raps of various chart- toppers lending their sounds to Tre’s escape, making Boyz ’N the Hood the achievement of a career, the origin of a wave of small-scale, black- centered inner city and ghetto dramas that flourished in the 1990s. GC-Q 787

La belle noiseuse Jacques Rivette, 1991 The Beautiful Troublemaker France / Switzerland (CNC, France 3, Films about artists are risky, courting terrible clichés—romantic genius George Reinhart, Canal+, Pierre Grisé, Region in the garret, tormented soul projected onto canvas—to show what Languedes, Ronsillon Sofica 2, Sofica 3) 240m someone goes through while shaping sensations and intuitions into pictures. Jacques Rivette accepts the challenge gleefully in La belle Eastmancolor Producer Martine Marignac noiseuse, extrapolating from a short story by Balzac: This will be the story Screenplay Pascal Bonitzer, Christine of an “unfinished masterpiece,” produced and then hidden by a famous artist in his twilight years. Laurent, Jacques Rivette, from the short story “The Unknown Masterpiece” by Honoré Rivette and his writers, Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent, juggle many themes skillfully. On one level, the film offers a glimpse into the de Balzac Photography William privileged world of art, where creators, dealers, and confidants weave a Lubtchansky Music Igor Stravinsky subtly erotic tangle. At the film’s core, Rivette studies, with a minute Cast Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle attention to detail and duration, the dancelike rapport between an artist, Béart, Marianne Denicourt, David Bursztein, Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) and his mostly naked model, Marianne Gilles Arbona, Marie Belluc, Marie-Claude (Emmanuelle Béart). Their sessions wheel through many moods: Roger, Leila Remili, Daphne Goodfellow, Frustration, aggression, exuberance. The master–slave relationship shifts. Susan Robertson, Bernard Dufour Cannes Slowly, through many trials, an artistic work takes form. Film Festival Jacques Rivette (grand prize of the jury, prize of the ecumenical jury— As Frenhofer faces the disturbance in his marriage to Liz (Jane Birkin), special mention, Golden Palm nomination) warily watches the emergence of a new generation, and confronts the specter of his own mortality, it is hard not to see this melancholy hero 1991 as the director’s own self-portrait. AM U.S. (New Line) 100m Color The Rapture Michael Tolkin, 1991 Producer Karen Koch, Nancy Tenenbaum, Nick Wechsler Screenplay Michael Tolkin Few movies have treated religion seriously, and fewer still have explored Photography Bojan Bazelli Music Thomas evangelical Christianity on its own theological terms. This is what Newman Cast Mimi Rogers, Darwyn Carson, Michael Tolkin does in The Rapture, which may be viewed with equal pleasure as a spiritual melodrama, a faith-based fable, and an eccentric Patrick Bauchau, Marvin Elkins, David fairy tale with roots in a real religious subculture. Duchovny, Stephanie Menuez, Sam Vlahos, Mimi Rogers plays Sharon, a swinging single who enjoys cruising for Rustam Branaman, Scott Burkholder, foursomes with a sleazy male friend. Then she hears about a religious Vince Grant, Carole Davis, Patrick Dollaghan, movement that emphasizes a personal relationship with God, whose day of judgment—complete with a transcendent “Rapture” that will whisk James LeGros, Dick Anthony Williams, good souls to heaven—is said to be coming soon. Her newfound faith DeVaughn Nixon helps her weather turbulent storms, such as her husband’s death. When she thinks the end of times is imminent, she takes her daughter to a lonely patch of desert, where they await God’s saving hand. In the film’s most audacious twist, the Rapture actually does arrive, but by now suffering has led her to reject the idea of a just and merciful deity. At once a psychological drama, a reflection on faith and free will, and a crisp 1990s variation on what Hollywood used to call the “woman’s picture,” this offbeat parable offers rich rewards for the open- minded moviegoer. DS 788

Taiwan (ICA, Jane Balfour, Yang & His Gang) Guling jie shaonian sha ren shijian 1991 237m Color Language Mandarin A Brighter Summer Day Edward Yang, 1991 Producer Yu Welyan Screenplay Yan Hongya, Lai Mingtang, Yang Shunqing, Epic in scope if not always in scale, Edward Yang’s subtle and rich Edward Yang Photography Huigong Li, portrait of Taiwan fits so many details into its deceptively brisk four- hour running time that it’s a wonder Yang delivered the film as short as Longyu Zhang Music Zhan Hongda it is. Set during a single Taipei school year in the early 1960s, A Brighter Cast Zhang Guozhu, Elaine Jin, Wang Juan, Summer Day depicts a country still reeling from the disruptive influx of Chinese Nationalists (led by the repressive Chiang Kai-shek) in 1948. Zhang Han, Jiang Xiuqiong, Lai Fanyun, Yang’s Taiwan is torn between communism and democracy, nationalism Lisa Yang, Zhang Zhen and liberality, with confusion, alienation, and uncertainty leading to a sometimes debilitating anomie. “Every event has one best position to observe Yet as powerful as A Brighter Summer Day may be, Yang infuses it from . . . [You] have to be with touches of humor and humanism that temper the distressing aware of the risk of using atmosphere of impending doom. The direction is patient and serene; close-ups. You might lose the film is like a masterful symphony of dozens of characters whose tone important information and tempo are deftly orchestrated by Yang. Favoring static or slow- if you restrict the viewer’s moving long shots over close-ups, Yang gives his cast great freedom to explore their emotions (or apparent lack thereof ), acting for the story attention to a very and each other and not just the camera; yet Yang clearly wants the film focused spot.” to be about specific places and things as much as people. That A Brighter Summer Day reveals facts and plot points with the care, planning, and Edward Yang, 2000 deliberation of a great novel therefore comes as no surprise. Neither does the emotional weight of the film’s tragic conclusion, the payoff of all of Yang’s rigorous narrative design (itself the product of four years of preparation), which manages to seamlessly weave together the story of Taipei street gangs, puppy love, rock and roll, lost cultural signifiers, and the search for a national identity. While often compared loosely to Nicholas Ray’s moody classic Rebel Without A Cause (1955), A Brighter Summer Day is so much more. A masterpiece of the Taiwanese New Wave and a cinematic highpoint of the tail end of the twentieth century, this is a film whose grasp of period and place is masterful almost beyond the realm of mere storytelling. It’s like a multifaceted photo album composed of truly moving, thought-provoking pictures. JKl i The movie is based on a real-life incident that Yang recalled from his own childhood.



JFK Oliver Stone, 1991 U.S. (Alcor, Camelot, Ixtlan, Canal+, Never a stranger to controversy, Oliver Stone followed up his powerful 1991 Regency, Warner Bros.) 189m BW / Color post-Vietnam movie Born on the Fourth of July (1989) with a film that angered and amazed people in equal measure—his questioning, Producer A. Kitman Ho, Oliver Stone overwhelming, urgent conspiracy movie JFK. Screenplay Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar, from Many people believe that we don’t know the whole truth about the the book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Do Kennedy by Jim Marrs and On the we really think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? Does the Warren Commission report, which attempted to come to a conclusion, really Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison provide the answers? Although many people have debated whether Photography Robert Richardson more than one person pulled a trigger that day, Stone went one further and committed some of the many theories to celluloid, and in doing so Music John Williams Cast Kevin Costner, delivers a fascinating film that raises even more questions than it answers. Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Oldman, Beata Pozniak, At the picture’s heart is Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), the real-life New Orleans district attorney who had his own theories about who shot JFK Michael Rooker, Jay O. Sanders, Sissy Spacek, and conducted an investigation into the matter from 1966 to 1969. Stone Brian Doyle-Murray, Gary Grubbs, Wayne quite rightly doesn’t buy into all of Garrison’s theories—some believe he Knight, Jo Anderson, Vincent D’Onofrio, was a loose cannon who couldn’t distinguish real clues from crackpot conspiracy ideas. But the director uses him as a push-off point, the Pruitt Taylor Vince Oscars Robert Richardson symbolic center of a film simply because he is the only man in America (photography), Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia who even attempted to bring anyone to justice for what must be the most famous murder of all time (and one that remains incompletely (editing) Oscar nominations A. Kitman Ho, solved, shocking when you realize how many witnesses were present). Oliver Stone (best picture), Oliver Stone (director), Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar Using documentary footage—including the infamous home movie (screenplay), Tommy Lee Jones (actor in shot by Abraham Zapruder—as well as flashbacks, reconstructions, quick support role), John Williams (music), editing, and a skillful use of words and music, Stone weaves many ideas Michael Minkler, Gregg Landaker, and theories together using the huge mountain of evidence and witness Tod A. Maitland (sound) testimony without ever confusing or hoodwinking his audience. We don’t get a result by the time the end credits roll three breathtaking hours later, “Kings are killed, but we do know—as if there was any doubt in our minds previously— Mr. Garrison, politics is that it was impossible for Lee Harvey Oswald to have acted alone. power, nothing more!” And for those who were not alive or weren’t old enough to remember “X” (Donald Sutherland) the events of 1963, they are all here—the shooting of Kennedy during a cavalcade through Dallas, Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald, and so on. We i see them as Garrison does, and Stone cleverly shows us what would convince this ordinary man to wade through so many reports and The part of Earl Warren, chairman of stories to seek out conspiracies that may have involved the CIA, Castro the Warren Commission, is played supporters, or various fringe groups. He would not succeed in getting by the real-life Jim Garrison. us to care so completely about this search for truth without a strong central performance from Costner, who holds your attention throughout the film despite the numerous heavyweight actors who stroll in and out playing small roles—from Tommy Lee Jones as suspect Clay Shaw to Joe Pesci, Gary Oldman (as Oswald), Donald Sutherland, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Kevin Bacon, and Sissy Spacek, all of whom are superb. A truly astonishing piece of filmmaking from a one-of-a-kind director. JB 791

Slacker Richard Linklater, 1991 1991 U.S. (Detour) 97m Color Richard Linklater’s delightfully different and immensely enjoyable second Producer Richard Linklater feature was the first one to get any substantial distribution, after the Screenplay Richard Linklater more obscure and more obviously cinephiliac Super 8mm opus It’s Photography Lee Daniel Cast Richard Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988). Slacker takes us on Linklater, Rudy Basquez, Jean Caffeine, Jan a twenty-four-hour tour of the flaky dropout culture of Austin, Texas, Hockey, Stephan Hockey, Mark James, which has remained Linklater’s headquarters throughout his multifaceted Samuel Dietert, Bob Boyd, Terrence Kirk, career. Unlike all his subsequent films to date, Slacker doesn’t have Keith McCormack, Jennifer Schaudies, Dan anything resembling a continuous plot except in the most literal way Kratochvil, Maris Strautmanis, Brecht that it moves chronologically and geographically through part of a day Andersch, Tommy Pallotta in Austin, but it’s brimming with weird characters and wonderful talk (which often seems improvised, though it was all scripted by Linklater, “Who’s ever written apparently with the input of some of the participants, as in his 2001 a great work about the animated film, Waking Life). The structure of dovetailing dialogues calls immense effort required to mind an extremely laid-back variation of Luis Buñuel’s The Phantom in order not to create?” of Liberty (1974) or Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967), in which various events are glued together simply by virtue of appearing in proximity within the Dostoyevsky Wannabe same patch of time and space. Combining a certain formal logic with an (Brecht Andersch) illogical drive toward spinning out gratuitous fantasies and digressions is an impulse that follows Linklater through many of his subsequent pictures, but it’s likely that this combination has never been displayed quite as brazenly as it is here. “Every thought you have fractions off and becomes its own reality,” remarks Linklater himself to a poker-faced cabdriver in the first (and in some ways funniest) sequence, again anticipating Waking Life by spouting fanciful philosophy from the back seat of a car. And the remainder of the movie amply illustrates this notion with its diverse paranoid conspiracy and assassination theorists, serial-killer buffs, musicians, cultists, college students, pontificators, petty criminals, street people, and layabouts (around ninety in all). Even if the movie goes nowhere in terms of narrative and winds up with a somewhat arch conclusion, the highly evocative scenes give an often hilarious sense of the surviving dregs of 1960s culture and a superbly realized sense of a specific community. JRos i Slacker directly inspired Kevin Smith to make his own debut as a filmmaker with Clerks (1994). 792

Hong Kong (Film Workshop) 134m Color Wong fei-hung Tsui Hark, 1991 Language Cantonese / English / Mandarin Once Upon a Time in China Producer Tsui Hark Screenplay Yiu Ming Leung, Tang Pik-Yin, Tsui Hark, Yu Kai-Chi Tsui Hark was Hong Kong’s reigning filmmaker in the 1980s and early Photography Chan Tung-Chuen, Wilson 1990s, deftly infusing his eye-popping action films with witty political commentary. Once Upon a Time in China finds him breathing new life Chan, David Chung, Andy Lam, Arthur into the chronicles of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung. Wong, Bill Wong Music Romeo Díaz, James Wong, a legendary healer and martial artist, the subject of several Wong Cast Jet Li, Biao Yuen, Rosamund of Hark’s films dating back to the 1960s, is given a lavish reintroduction Kwan, Jacky Cheung, Steve Tartalia, Kent in this, the first episode in Tsui Hark’s Once Upon a Time series. Set in Cheng, Yee Kwan Yan, Mark King, Jonathan 1875, Wong (Jet Li) faces off against British exploiters and corrupt Isgar, Shun Lau, Chi Yeung Wong, Ma Wu, Chinese businessmen in a wild and convoluted plot involving Simon Yam, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Yuen Kam- imperialism, the press-ganging of Chinese peasants into the building of America’s railroads, arms smugglers, and disgraced martial artists forced Fai, Yuen Shun-Yee, Tony Yuen to work as hired thugs. This is popular Hong Kong cinema at its most breathless, aided by the 1991 superb athleticism of Li, who makes his entry into world stardom as the poised and stoical hero. He is the center of dazzling set pieces that include a gravity-defying duel fought with ladders, and a standoff between an unarmed Wong and an opponent with a gun. Underneath the twisting plot and relentless action, however, is a palpable melancholy—a lament for a China about to change forever under Western influences. AT U.S. (MGM, Pathé) 129m Color Thelma & Louise Ridley Scott, 1991 Producer Mimi Polk, Ridley To call Thelma & Louise a feminist road movie is both accurate and a Scott Screenplay Callie Khouri slight disservice to the film—the latter simply because you run the risk Photography Adrian Biddle Music Hans of minimizing the picture’s far demographic reach. The story of a Zimmer Cast Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, browbeaten housewife (Geena Davis) and her sardonic, world-weary Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher waitress best friend (Susan Sarandon) who embark on a weekend McDonald, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brad Pitt, getaway and end up fleeing the law after one of them kills a would-be Timothy Carhart, Lucinda Jenney, Jason rapist, this film struck a deep chord in audiences across gender, racial, Beghe, Marco St. John, Sonny Carl Davis, Ken and class lines when it was released. It continues to resonate with viewers because it not only confidently feminized a genre previously owned by Swofford, Shelly Desai, Carol Mansell men, but it did so by supplying details about social inequities that Oscar Callie Khouri (screenplay) Oscar allowed a host of spectators to see themselves in the heroines and to nominations Ridley Scott (director), Geena identify with both the fright and the flight of the women’s journey. Davis (actress), Susan Sarandon (actress), As the titular characters, Sarandon and Davis embody everyday Adrian Biddle (photography), American women struggling against a host of obstacles (boorish men, Thom Noble (editing) dead-end jobs, joyless lives) while simply trying to survive. Director Ridley Scott captures a blue-skied, green-plain United States that is the stuff of myth and legend, promising freedom—but not to all. And it’s the gap between that promise and the harsh reality that gives the film its punch, making it a biting commentary on America’s dreams, truths, and limitations. EH 793

My Own Private Idaho Gus Van Sant, 1991 1991 U.S. (New Line) 102m Color Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, only his third feature and the follow- Producer Laurie Parker Screenplay Gus up to his 1989 breakthrough Drugstore Cowboy (his 1985 debut, the Van Sant Photography John J. Campbell, ultra-low-budget Mala Noche, is an unsung treasure), remains the writer- director’s most profound, moving, and complete film—what Desson Howe Eric Alan Edwards Music Bill Stafford has called “an exquisite, cinematic poem . . . about the eternal search to Cast River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, James belong somewhere, and the lonely landscape of the soul.”Without stifling his artistic, even avant-garde impulses for the sake of accessibility and Russo, William Richert, Rodney Harvey, mainstream appeal—something he would be accused of doing after Chiara Caselli, Michael Parker, Jessie Thomas, his maudlin middle-of-the-road dramas Good Will Hunting (1997) and Flea, Grace Zabriskie, Tom Troupe, Udo Kier, Finding Forrester (2000)—Van Sant delivers a delightfully idiosyncratic story that relies on images at least as much as words to captivate viewers. Sally Curtice, Robert Lee Pitchlynn, Mickey Cottrell Venice Film Festival River Phoenix True, the casting of teen heartthrobs Keanu Reeves (in what may be his finest performance to date) and River Phoenix (who would die (Volpi cup—actor) tragically of a drug overdose at the age of twenty-three, right on the cusp of a brilliant career) as the leads certainly didn’t hurt My Own Private “I’m a connoisseur Idaho’s commercial prospects. But in explicitly thematizing homelessness, of roads. I’ve been homosexuality, and teenage prostitution; by offering up a protagonist tasting roads my whole who suffers from narcolepsy and romanticized memories of a mother life. This road will never who abandoned him as a child; and in paying extended homage to end. It probably goes Orson Welles’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays, Chimes at all around the world.” Midnight (1965), via a self-consciously anachronistic use of bardspeak in several key scenes, no one can claim that Van Sant was unwilling to Mike Waters risk alienating unsuspecting middle-American audiences. Though too (River Phoenix) unconventional at both the narrative and stylistic levels to generate blockbuster appeal, the picture was lauded by critics, cherished by Van i Sant enthusiasts, and awarded prizes at several international film festivals. The film’s title is taken from the B-52’s song “Private Idaho,” The film centers on the relationship between Mike (Phoenix) and Scott (Reeves), two young hustlers living on the streets in Portland, released in 1980. Oregon. Members of a raucous and libidinal family of social outcasts who congregate in a condemned building, the pair sell their bodies to whomever is buying in order to survive—though we eventually learn that Scott is actually the rebellious son of a well-to-do Portland family who has chosen this lifestyle largely as a means of humiliating his father. With Mike, on the other hand, what you see is definitely what you get: a quiet, dreamy, gentle boy who is in love with his best friend, falls asleep at the drop of a hat—frequently at inopportune moments, a trait the director taps for both humor and pathos—and is obsessed with finding his long-lost mom. It is this latter quality that provides the impetus for the film’s rambling (but never slow) road trip of a plot, as Scott accompanies his always-endangered buddy on excursions ranging from Idaho to Italy in search of a myth of maternal love that the audience sees as the scratchy home-video footage of Mike’s mind. In this tender yet unsentimental picture, Van Sant succeeds as few other filmmakers have in conveying the subjective experience of troubled, disaffected youth. SJS 794



The Silence of the Lambs Jonathan Demme, 1991 1991 U.S. (Orion) 118m Color Producer Ronald The first horror movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, The M. Bozman, Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt Silence of the Lambs also has the distinction of being only the third movie Screenplay Ted Tally, from novel by in history to win the five major Oscars—after It Happened One Night (1934) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). Thomas Harris Photography Tak Fujimoto Music Howard Shore Cast Jodie Foster, An adaptation of Thomas Harris’s best-selling novel, the film was a Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony deserved winner, featuring superb performances from Jodie Foster and Heald, Ted Levine, Frankie Faison, Kasi Anthony Hopkins, with director Jonathan Demme, previously best Lemmons, Brooke Smith, Paul Lazar, Dan known for comedy, delivering a continuous shiver down the spines of the audience without ever resorting to gore. Foster, as FBI recruit Clarice Butler, Lawrence T. Wrentz, Don Brockett, Frank Starling, is asked by her superior, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), to visit Seals Jr., Stuart Rudin, Masha Skorobogatov notorious serial killer Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter (Hopkins, in a role Oscars Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, Ronald originally offered to Jeremy Irons), a former psychiatrist held in a M. Bozman (best picture), Jonathan Demme subterranean prison who may have an insight into the psyche of a (director), Ted Tally (screenplay), Anthony murderer named Buffalo Bill (creepily brought to life by Ted Levine), Hopkins (actor), Jodie Foster (actress) Oscar which will help the FBI catch him. nominations Craig McKay (editing), Tom Fleischman, Christopher Newman (sound) Of course, the witty, cultured Hannibal is too clever to give up such Berlin International Film Festival Jonathan information easily. He draws Clarice into an uneasy, disturbing relationship in which he demands insight into her childhood in return Demme (Silver Bear—director, tied with Ultrà; for his opinions. It is their exchanges, in Hannibal’s dark, gothic dungeon, Golden Bear nomination) separated only by glass, that are at the film’s heart as Foster and, most notably Hopkins, give tour de force performances, delivering Ted Tally’s often quotable words—“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”—with delicious (if that word can be used in reference to a movie about a cannibal) verve. Since the movie’s release in 1991, Hopkins’s memorable character has taken on a life of its own, appearing in the disappointing 2001 sequel Hannibal—with the role of Clarice played by Julianne Moore—and more enjoyable prequel Red Dragon (2002), based on the same Harris novel as Michael Mann’s superior, stylish Manhunter (1986). JB “Oh, he’s a monster. Pure psychopath . . . From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.” Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) i Surprisingly for such a major role, Hopkins is only on screen for around sixteen minutes. 796

U.S. / France (Carolco, Canal+, Terminator 2: Judgment Day James Cameron, 1991 1991 Lightstorm, Pacific Western) 137m Color Language English / Spanish Arnold Schwarzenegger got the best role of his career in director James Cameron’s 1984 movie The Terminator as a monosyllabic killer robot Producer James Cameron sent from the future, so it was hardly surprising he decided to reprise Screenplay James Cameron, William the role seven years later in Cameron’s sequel. This time, Arnie’s T-800 Wisher Jr. Photography Adam Greenberg cyborg is the good guy, sent by rebel leader of the future John Connor (Michael Biehn’s character from the original movie) to protect his Music Brad Fiedel Cast Arnold younger self (Edward Furlong) and his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton), Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, so they can lead the fight that is to come against machines that will Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Earl Boen, take over the earth. Joe Morton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Castulo Guerra, Danny Cooksey, Jenette Goldstein It is what the T-800 is protecting them from that really impresses Oscars Gary Rydstrom, Gloria S. Borders here—a new breed of Terminator, the far nastier T-1000 (Robert Patrick) (special sound effects), Dennis Muren, Stan that, thanks to some eye-popping special effects, is made of liquid Winston, Gene Warren Jr., Robert Skotak metal and can morph into any shape, taking on the guise of another (special visual effects), Stan Winston, Jeff human or reforming from a puddle in his quest to terminate John and Dawn (makeup), Tom Johnson, Gary Sarah. In fact, everything in this sequel is bigger and better, from Rydstrom, Gary Summers, Lee Orloff (sound) Hamilton’s beefed-up physique to the multiple explosions, slick Oscar nominations Adam Greenberg direction, and fast-paced action. A spectacular treat. JB (photography), Conrad Buff, Mark Goldblatt, Richard A. Harris (editing) France (Constellation, Hachette, Sofinergie, Delicatessen Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991 UGC) 99m Color Language French Creatively combining genres—postapocalyptic sci-fi, black comedy, Producer Claudie Ossard Screenplay Gilles and sweet romance—and offering audiences an impressively oddball Adrien, Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet collection of sounds, colors, actors, and images, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s inspired film Delicatessen was the recipient of several Photography Darius Khondji Music Carlos European awards and anticipated the pair’s subsequent collaboration, d’Alessio Cast Pascal Benezech, Dominique The City of Lost Children (1995). Jeunet would go on to direct Alien: Resurrection in 1997, which was followed by the international Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, Jean-Claude blockbuster Amélie in 2001. Dreyfus, Karin Viard, Ticky Holgado, Anne- Marie Pisani, Boban Janevski, Mikael Todde, Delicatessen boasts an unforgettable opening: A mysterious figure Edith Ker, Jacques Mathou, Rufus, Howard covered from head to toe in an outfit made entirely of trash anxiously attempts to sneak away from a deli (located beneath a dilapidated Vernon, Chick Ortega, Silvie Laguna apartment building) by hitching a ride in a garbage truck. Suddenly the lid to his can of freedom is violently ripped open and the menacing butcher-in-charge (Jean-Claude Drefyus) brings a huge meat cleaver down upon him. We soon learn that the butcher’s specialty is human flesh, and once his new employee—the saw-playing ex-clown Louison (a beautifully smush-faced Dominique Pinon)—falls for his bespectacled cellist daughter (Marie-Laure Dougnac), the race to make Louison the special of the day is on. To save her clown boyfriend from her cannibal dad, Julie betrays the latter to a group of lentil-eating rebels who live underground. With an eccentric screenplay by comic-book writer Gilles Adrien, and a number of darkly humorous set pieces, Delicatessen is a feast for the eyes and ears. SJS 797

France / Poland / Norway (Canal+, Norsk, La double vie de Véronique Sidéral, Tor) 98m Color Language French / The Double Life of Veronique Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991 Polish Producer Leonardo De La Fuente Screenplay Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof The Double Life of Veronique, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s first feature after his ten-part masterpiece Decalogue (1988)—launching the European Piesiewicz Photography Slavomir Idziak coproduction mode of making films that would lead to his Three Colors Music Zbigniew Preisner Cast Irène Jacob, trilogy (Blue [1993], White [1994], and Red [1994])—is an exquisite enigma following the parallel lives of two twenty-year-old women, one in Poland Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik, and one in France, both played by the beautiful Irène Jacob. As in Three Aleksander Bardini, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Colors, European coproduction becomes not only a means of financing Jerzy Gudejko, Janusz Sterninski, Philippe but also part of the formal and thematic conceptualization of the project. Volter, Sandrine Dumas, Louis Ducreux, The Polish Veronika is a talented singer with a heart condition; the Claude Duneton, Lorraine Evanoff, French Véronique quits her voice lessons and gets involved with a Guillaume De Tonquedec, Gilles Gaston- puppeteer (Philippe Volter) who writes children’s books. Masterfully Dreyfus, Alain Frérot Cannes Film Festival directed, this rather dreamlike film is simultaneously an effort on Krzysztof Kieslowski (FIPRESCI award, prize of Kieslowski’s part to hold onto to his Polish identity and an equally determined effort to move beyond it—almost as if the filmmaker were the ecumenical jury, Golden Palm dreaming of a resurrected artistic identity for himself as Polish state nomination), Irène Jacob (actress) financing went the route of Polish communism. JRos 1991 Tongues Untied Marlon Riggs, 1991 U.S. (Frameline) 55m Color The late Essex Hemphill’s politically sparked, erotically charged poetry and Producer Brian Freeman defiant punk spirit deeply infuse Tongues Untied, the groundbreaking, Cast Essex Hemphill controversial documentary that vogued before Madonna, brought homo-thugs to light almost a decade before homophobic rappers and Berlin International Film Festival an idiotic mainstream media clumsily acknowledged their existence, and Marlon Riggs (Teddy—documentary) gave nuance and dignity to the degraded black sissy—all with humor and pathos. Performance footage, outrageous set pieces (the famous “snap off” scene), queen-on-the-street interviews, stinging critiques of homophobia in black films (using clips from Eddie Murphy’s Raw [1987] and Spike Lee’s School Daze [1988]), and talking heads either reciting poetry or simply testifying about their lives, add up to a portrait of both blackness and queerness that fairly seethes with energy. Above all, what makes the film mandatory viewing is the way it critiques socially sanctioned bigotry while celebrating art (the creation of one’s self and life) and Art (the creation of culture and its artifacts) that are produced within and beyond the confines of said bigotry. The depth and heart of Tongues Untied exposes the failings of both the largely white, theory-driven New Queer Cinema and the narrowly defined “authenticity” of most post-Spike Lee black cinema. Taking the viewer on a tour of a doubly marginalized subculture without pandering to the tourist’s expectations or preconceptions, Tongues Untied transforms object into self-defining subject. EH 798