2019 Oscars 1: The Favourite & BlacKkKlansman

Once again the Oscars are in town, and so we're pausing our film project to deliver our thoughts on this year's nominees for Best Picture. This week we tackle the modern take on Queen Anne: The Favourite and the true story of a black policeman going undercover in the KKK: BlacKkKlansman. 

The Favourite plot intro

Queen Anne of England (Olivia Colman) has no idea that her confidante and secret lover, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Sarah’s cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) are locked in battle for the influential position of court Favourite…

Paul says...

Upon seeing the original poster for The Favourite, I immediately, and rightfully, assumed that I was going to love this one. It has three of the best actresses around and it’s a testament to their work here that all three are up for acting Oscars too. While Colman may be considered the lead and is up for the Lead Actress award, all three contribute multi-layered and nuanced performances. Colman helps us see through Queen Anne’s needy, unhinged cantankerousness to see the sad, vulnerable woman underneath. We begin by booing at Weisz’s semi-abusive, obdurate Churchill and cheering on Stone’s plucky, kindly and level-headed Abigail. But as time goes on, we see Abigail’s heart turn to darkness as her influence increases and Churchill’s resourcefulness becomes admirable.

This is complex character-driven stuff, made all the more accessible due to a hilarious script that taps into the audience’s desire to laugh at the unfortunate. Anne’s pretend faint when she can’t make a decision in parliament, her hysterical attempt at suicide compounded by Churchill’s indifference to it, and the scene in which Churchill furiously lunges books at Abigail. All of these help us to see these characters as the ridiculous, lonely creatures that they are.

Indeed, the entire royal court is a complete mess. Masses of magnificently-dressed cretins racing ducks or throwing oranges at each other naked just to pass the time. No wonder Queen Anne allegedly turned to Sarah Churchill for sexual pleasure. 

This is a hugely enjoyable film and so kicks off our viewing of this year’s nominees on a positive note. My only complaint is that Nicholas Hoult doesn’t get enough recognition as a conniving member of parliament- he’s totally unrecognisable and proves himself a versatile actor.

Mark: 10/10

Doug says...

This is a great film. Paul’s pretty much nailed everything I’d want to say about the quality of story, character development, and acting. I’d just add that I really did think Nicholas Hoult did some great work - and it’s lovely to see him move past his Skins-era acting and develop his craft. 

Olivia Colman though. What an absolute legend. If she ends up taking the Best Actress Oscar, it’ll be nothing less than a tribute to what hard work and slogging away in the acting world can get you. We’ve seen her in bit-roles across Green Wing, Peep Show and The Mitchell & Webb Show. She’s recently begun to dominate British TV in things like Broadchurch and The Thirteenth Tale - and now she’s broken into America, with a leading role in a huge, momentous film, and a yet-to-be-seen turn in The Crown. She’s brilliant here, with not a single misstep, and moments like the faux-faint in Parliament just show what superb timing, skill and comedy she’s capable of. 

I love that it’s a film about three women too - the men are peripheral - and the Oscar nominations rightfully reflect this. But what I also enjoyed was the deliberately strange, hallucinatory style in which the film progresses. Fish-eye lenses compete with dioramas. Footsteps ring out much louder than in reality. The actualities of the Stuart court (duck racing, orange throwing etc) fit neatly into a world made deliberately odd to us. Director Yorgos Lanthimos has thrown everything he can at this, while still making it a cohesive, compelling story. 

And lastly - I love the de-romanticisation. For example, while travelling to the Palace Emma Stone’s character locks eyes with a handsome man opposite in the coach. One is already imagining a Jane Austen-style romance, when he suddenly shoves his hands down his trousers and begins furiously masturbating while staring at her. A film that never fails to surprise. 

Mark: 9/10 

BlacKkKlansman plot intro

The first black police officer in Colorado Springs, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) and his colleague Flip (Adam Driver) go undercover in the KKK to investigate potential terrorist attacks.

Paul says...

What BlacKkKlansman does so well is it answers the question that snivelling Trump supporters have been throwing out there- why do only Black Lives Matter? What about White Lives- surely they matter too? This film juxtaposes Black Pride gatherings with White Pride ones with hard-hitting poignancy. A particularly memorable sequence is when a Black gathering involves an activist played by Harry Belafonte, giving his horrifying witness testimony of the mob lynching of Jesse Washington in 1916. This is interspersed with images of the KKK watching the 1915 epic silent movie, Birth of a Nation, a notoriously racist glorification of white supremacy which is often blamed for provoking the lynching. The KKK members whoop and cheer at this film as if they’re at a football match. The meaning is that, while “Black Pride” involves an ethnic minority rising up to establish their importance in the world, “White Pride” is simply a bunch of insecure white men struggling to give up their position at the pinnacle of societal power. 

As an exploration of racism, and an illustration of a story that is half-true (some bits have been added in because, well, we need a story), I think BlacKkKlansman works pretty well. It’s remarkable that David Duke, Grand Wizard of the KKK and, quite frankly, an utter lunatic, was taken in by it all. Director Spike Lee has no qualms in showing him to be the lonely idiot that he is. 

BlacKkKlansman does fall slightly short in some minor aspects. The jokes more often than not miss the mark. It’s also painfully obvious where the history ends and the story begins because things become noticeably over-the-top. This is particularly obvious in a KKK member’s wife who is so fanatical that she makes Bellatrix Lestrange look like Doris Day. Finally, the film ends with footage of the Unite the Right rallies in Charlotte in 2017. Whilst it drives home the point of the film, its violence feels incongruous and, perhaps, a little gratuitous compared to the relative timidity of the rest of the film.

Nonetheless, BlacKkKlansman boasts a fascinating story, some intense moments, and a really catchy quasi-'70s soundtrack.

Mark: 7/10

Doug says...

Most recent years at the Oscars feature among their Best Picture nominees, at least one film centring on racism or the historical treatment of black people. Think Get Out, Fences, Hidden Figures, Selma, 12 Years a Slave. This year we have two, with Green Book and BlacKkKlansman. The problem with films focusing on a specific segment of the population is that they can sometimes get shooed into award ceremonies simply because of their weighty subject matter. In my opinion, BlacKkKlansman is one of these. 

It’s an interesting story, a black policeman decides to join the KKK through stealth and foil their plans. It’s true too (which makes it even more Oscar-fodder). It also boasts some fine performances - John David Washington as the central Detective Ron Stallworth, Laura Harrier as his love interest and passionate campaigner Patrice, and Ashlie Atkinson as the racist-to-the-core Connie Kendrickson  who all rise to the challenge of their roles. Particular mention must go to Kendrickson who finds a few moments of depth in what is otherwise a monotonously hysterical role. 

But where the film lost me is it gets quite dull in the middle and then director Spike Lee tacks on an ending comprised of real news footage of Trump speaking and neo-Nazis marching. The film seems to be telling a narrative, which then gets caught up in itself and ends up basically saying ‘racism is bad, everyone’. It even ends up dedicating the whole film to a white woman who got killed by a racist protestor at a civil rights march. Tragic, yes. Related to the film - no. And while using real footage in Schindler’s List made the impact much more savage, here it just confuses. With films like Get Out using subtlety and intelligence to make their points through unexpected methods, this film - although stylish - failed to make its point and ended up wasting valuable elements of its real story. 

Mark: 4/10 

67. Forrest Gump (1994)

Plot Intro

Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) is born with physical disabilities in his legs and spine, and learning difficulties too. Following the determined advice of his mother (Sally Field), the heartfelt encouragement of his best friend and love of his life, Jenny (Robin Wright), and the friendship of his army superior (Gary Sinise) Forrest’s life takes some unexpected turns…

Doug says...

Forrest Gump is a bit of an odd film. I watched it back in 2010 and was, I remember, distinctly unimpressed. On a second watching I felt more charitable towards it, but I still find it odd that this won the Oscar and The Shawshank Redemption (far superior in my opinion) lost out. 

But anyway, it’s a great Sunday evening film, gentle and sweet and with a story that purposefully puts its fictional hero at the heart of many American landmark moments, including Elvis’ rise to power, the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal. It does so with its tongue firmly in cheek, the comedy of this everyman accidentally being involved in huge events is played very much up. I’m sure some people have found great meaning in every moment of the film but if I’m honest I think I’m missing these points. It feels like a fun story, with some comedy and a few moments of pathos, but not much else to it. 

The moments of pathos are where this film piques the interest. Jenny has clearly been abused by her drunken father as a child, and an unrecognisable Robyn Wright plays this well, at one point returning to her now-abandoned childhood home and frantically throwing anything she can at it, her shoes, rocks, clods of earth. ‘I guess,’ intones Forrest wisely over the image, ‘sometimes there are never enough rocks’. It would be unbearably cloying, if it weren’t for Tom Hanks' delivery. 

Tom Hanks is probably the most maligned in my original critique. Watching it again, with a lot more film knowledge, his performance is exceptional. He plays it sotto voce the whole film, with barely a flicker of emotion at the best of times. It’s a stoic outlook, which makes a scene at the end of the film where he actually cracks and weeps much more affecting than it really deserves to be. The script actually verges on the melodrama of the ‘80s, and is saved mainly by the vein of humour that runs throughout and the great performances (Hanks and Wright are matched evenly by Sally Fields’ determined mother and Gary Sinise as the really quite attractive Sergeant Dan Taylor).

I also enjoyed how intricately they’ve woven Hanks into original footage, writing a fictional man into real television reports, and overall I found it an easy, pleasant watch. Just not much real focus to it, in the end. 

Highlight 

The moment in a crowded bar when New Year strikes and everyone cheers, only for the camera to turn to Sergeant Taylor, now an amputee in a wheelchair. Gary Sinise sits, motionless as confetti falls around him, and his utter misery and listlessness is overwhelming. It’s the best moment of acting in the whole film. 

Lowlight

I didn’t have much time for the script. With worse actors and less comedy it would have fitted right back into those tedious ‘80s melodramas. 

Mark 

6/10

Paul says...

1994 was a pretty competitive year for Best Picture. Forrest Gump beat Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption to nab the trophy, all three of which are rivals not to be sneered at. Many people I have spoken to about this project are stunned to discover that Shawshank lost out. But that’s not to say that Forrest Gump is relegated to the list of “Undeserving Winners” at all. It remains today a very popular film, and I can see why.

It’s essentially a heavily symbolic discussion of American values. A bit of reading told me that most critics see the film as a glorification of old American values of steadfastness, honour, and good nature towards one’s fellow man no matter their social circle. Forrest embodies all of these qualities. His disabilities provide him with an unshakeably innocent and inflexible view of the world. He does Good Things because they are Good. He doesn’t do Bad Things because they are Bad. He rescues many members of his platoon from certain death in Vietnam, despite their desire to die with honour. He stands by his best friend Jenny even when she runs off for a more hedonistic and nomadic lifestyle. Much of the humour and the moments designed to be “inspirational” are derived from the fact that in the face of corruption, abuse or discrimination, Forrest remains good-hearted no matter what, and it is this attitude to life that the film very sweetly condones.

Perhaps this was more pertinent to early-'90s audiences. The world was still in the throes of the fall of communism and the aftermath of the Gulf War. Doing what is right as opposed to what is glamorous or advantageous must have been an appealing theme at the time, hence Forrest Gump’s triumph over equally enduring nominees. 

However, like most films whose political values are closely tied with the news of their times, there’s an outdated quality to it, mostly through the presentation of Jenny. Jenny’s life takes the opposing path to Forrest’s. She engages with the hippie counterculture of the '60s, fights with the Black Panthers, becomes sexually promiscuous, takes drugs and has strong pacifist opinions when it comes to Vietnam. But her free-spirited lifestyle does not garner the advantages that Forrest’s does. Her’s spirals dramatically into drugs, abusive relationships, mental health problems and, eventually, death by a mysterious virus no doctor can cure (blatantly AIDS). This negative depiction of liberalism is a little unfair. Granted, many groups were violently left-wing and caused more chaos than good. But others developed feminism and civil rights in ways that have helped many social groups over the decades. 

It would be unfair for me to condemn the film entirely for this. Admittedly it does provide some exploration into why Jenny ends up involved with such hedonistic and reactionary people. She was sexually abused as a child by her father and this has naturally screwed her up. The film deals with this quite powerfully, albeit too briefly (two small scenes is all we get). As a result, all liberal movements here are depicted unfairly as extremely and hysterically liberal, which is a bit one-dimensional in my view.

These questionable values make Forrest Gump a little less relevant now than its more timeless Best Picture nominees. But it does boast a funny script, sweet and warm-hearted moments, outstanding performances from Hanks and Wright (the latter is totally unrecognisable from her ice-cold role as Claire Underwood in House of Cards), and some astonishing visual effects that put Tom Hanks into conversations with real ex-US presidents and American icons.

Highlight

Jenny’s return to her childhood home, where memories of her father’s sexual abuse remain vivid. It’s a beautifully shot and acted moment where she throws whatever she can find at the already dilapidated shack. A lovely example of understatement and pathos.

Lowlight

Call me a bleeding-heart liberal but the one-dimensional depiction of countercultural revolutionaries as over-emotional and selfish is a little unfair.

Mark

7/10

66. Schindler's List (1993)

Plot Intro

Poland, 1939. Charming, opportunistic businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is looking to open and run an enamelware factory. Upon discovering that employing Jewish workers is significantly cheaper than Polish ones, Schindler enlists the aid of Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to smuggle Jews out of the newly-established Krakow ghetto and into his factory. As the Jews’ plight in the early '40s goes from bad to worse, and Schindler encounters the psychopathic actions of German commandant Amon Goth (Ralph Fiennes), Schindler realises that his actions have not only garnered him a tidy profit, but also saved about 1000 lives from certain death. Suddenly, his priorities and values start to shift…

Paul says...

Oh my Lord, where do I start with this one?! Schindler’s List is a film that I have always wanted to see because, from what people say, it’s pretty much impossible to criticise. But I also dreaded watching it due to the assurance from basically everyone that it’s so powerful and intense that it makes The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas look like The Little Mermaid. 

And these many, many tear-stained people are absolutely right. This is by far the most emotional film we’ve watched on this entire project. The only other film to drive me to tears was How Green Was My Valley, but oddly enough, the plight of late-19th century Welsh miners pale in comparison to the mass murder of millions of Jews. It solidifies the '90s as a more humane period of film-making, in contrast to the self-serving showiness of the '80s, where our actions and our moral compasses are challenged and improved. 

Schindler is a fascinating historical figure, made all the more so by Liam Neeson’s nuanced performance- yes, even more nuanced than his performance in Taken! He is portrayed here at first not so much as a villain, nor as a hero. He’s a businessman with ambitions and dreams of profit. He achieves this, through slightly underhand though far from nefarious purposes. The Jews’ persecution is pretty separate from his rise in prominence, and Schindler doesn’t seem to have an opinion on the actions of the Third Reich at all. It’s not until the Jews he has got to know, in particular the infamous girl in the red coat, start to suffer and die that his actions turn from capitalist money-grabbing to heroism at its finest. The beauty of the tale is that his actions (i.e. employing the Jews in his factories) never change- but his intentions do. The film shows that even the most emotionally detached of people can turn into someone to revere.

The intensity of the tale is helped along by Ralph Fiennes’ terrifying take on Amon Goth. A quick Wikipedia search will tell you that Goth was, indeed, the absolute lunatic Fiennes makes him out to be. Goth would train his dogs to attack anyone he chose, kill Jewish servants for trivial reasons such as his soup being too hot, and shoot randomly at Jewish workers from the balcony of his mansion. This, coupled with montages of phenomenal violence and upheaval towards the Jewish people, turns this film into one of the most horrifying depictions of the dehumanisation and inhumanity that was occurring at the time. It’s easy to make a film showing how evil and violent Nazis were, but Spielberg uses Schindler’s List to show how frightened and trapped the Jews were as well. It’s like being right there in the action and there are some sequences that leave you with PTSD afterwards, such as the Jews’ expulsion from the ghettos, or when Schindler’s female workers are accidentally sent to Auschwitz rather than the safe haven of his factory.

There isn’t much more to say about Schindler’s List - like I said, it’s almost impossible to criticise. It’s a magnificent work of art, and a film that helps you grow as a human being due to its uplifting and hopeful ending. Spielberg may be well-known from his Saturday night family movies such as Indiana Jones, Jaws and E.T., but Schindler’s List is a reminder that he delves with equal success into historical dramas - Bridge of Spies and The Colour Purple being other prime examples. Just a couple of pieces of advice before viewing- maintain a suitable stock of wine for those depressing moments, and have an episode of Kimmy Schmidt to watch immediately afterwards.

Highlight

The final scene, in which the real people from the drama, accompanied by the actors who play them, visit Schindler’s grave. It shows, in the most powerful way possible, that after all that death, there was life.

Lowlight

Schindler’s goodbye scene to his Jewish workers after the war ends perhaps goes on a few minutes longer than it should. And it wasn’t enough to get Liam Neeson a Best Actor Oscar (he lost to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia).

Mark

10/10

Doug says...

Owing to a clerical error where we accidentally started the film halfway through (what film is split across two discs these days?!), we opened the film on a harrowing scene where Jewish corpses are being hurriedly burnt in one of the concentration camps. 

This will sound cold, but stay with me. At this point I felt very little. It’s one of the problems with how to represent the Holocaust artistically. It is simply too overwhelming. Our brains cannot quite comprehend it. I was taught about this period of history thoroughly at school. One teacher ended up crying as he explained the specifics of what happened. Another teacher told us (in a tone I’ve never quite forgotten) that in her opinion, the Holocaust has cast a shadow that will outlive our generation today. 

It remains one of the most incomprehensible periods of modern history. A civilised, Western country that in photographs seems quite similar to us, here, today - that suddenly turns on an entirely innocent segment of their population and begins systematically murdering them. So as I saw the familiar images of mass death and horror, I thought ‘this film isn’t going to affect me’. 

We quickly realised the mistake, and flipped back to the beginning. And here’s how Spielberg is clever (and it is clever). He uses Schindler as a fixed point, but he ensures that we recognise people throughout. It’s how you make the horror of the Holocaust real, so it actually affects us. And he goes back to where it’s just (‘just’) anti-semitic graffiti in the street. And then slowly through the film, we see it getting worse and worse. Each stage is accompanied by groups of oppressed Jews saying to each other ‘well it can’t get worse’, with the horrific irony of us knowing it does. We see wealthy Jews who clearly thought their money would save them being ushered brutally from their houses into the ghettoes. We see children hiding in the concentration camps in toilets and under floorboards. 

Paul has talked about Ralph Fiennes and pointed out everything I’d want to say - except I’d add that his brutality acts as a metaphor for the Nazis brutality overall too. It’s a film steeped in symbolism, almost entirely in black and white, with simply a candle’s wick being in colour, and the final scene (which I’ll come to). Schindler is a great central figure, acting for purely commercial reasons before he comes to realise just how awful a situation he’s immersed in. All the acting is stellar, and there’s some really exceptional moments. I’d also shout out to Ben Kingsley who proves that his extraordinary performance in Gandhi was no fluke. 

It’s brilliantly written, helping you to understand just how these people’s lives were turned upside down almost immediately, after a long, quietly-sustained, campaign of hatred. The feeling of dread threads throughout. Every moment a scene begins, someone watching it in our living room would mutter ‘oh no’. You didn’t know what was coming despite the fact you do know what was coming. One scene critics complained about was were a group of Jewish women were ushered into the showers at a camp, having heard rumours about the ‘Final Solution’. They become hysterical, screaming, only for it to be revealed they are actually being showered. Critics complained this was ‘baiting’ of Spielberg, but I’d argue otherwise. It’s representative of the entire uncertainty. No one knows what was happening. This group of women were lucky - we already know many weren’t. 

And so to the final scene. I’d spent three and a bit hours being horrified, upset and very moved. And yet (I think in part to my familiarity to the subject thanks to many history lessons on it) I had some slight distance. If it had ended with Schindler’s devastating realisation that he could have (should have) done more, I would have rated it a very good film. But by then introducing a scene where real people that Schindler saved lay stones on the real Schindler’s grave (he was buried in a a sacred Jewish site in Jerusalem), I suddenly connected the dots. This is a real story, meticulously researched and represented. These are real people who actually saw these horrors. 

There’s a short film that floats around the internet where the man who ran the Kindertransport, saving thousands of Jewish children from the camps, is at the theatre with his wife. Unbeknownst to him, the entire theatre’s audience is made up of some of the children (now grown) that he saved. When they stand around him, his reaction is entirely of shock, and I dare you to watch it and not end up sobbing. 

It was the same here. Suddenly, after hours of torment, hatred and the darkest elements of humanity out on the surface, there were survivors who were saved by someone making the effort to be good. Even Pandora’s Box has hope, after everything else. Reality struck and I ended up sobbing for about twenty minutes after it finished. 

Highlight

This is a film that should be seen. Moments such as the wealthy Jewish family being ejected from their home, and the one-armed factory worker being swiftly executed will stay with you. Spielberg even spoke about how he couldn’t bring himself to include everything such as the fact that the SS would throw babies out of windows and then shoot them, as target practice. This film begins to address the darkness of who the Nazis were and still manages to leave us with hope. 

Lowlight

I can’t find one. This is a film that has haunted me after for days. Critics accused it of being too emotional, but I can’t help but feel this is a reaction to the shock and feelings they’ve been made to experience by this unflinching piece. 

Mark

10/10 

65. Unforgiven (1992)

Plot Intro

A local ragamuffin attacks a prostitute (Anna Levine) with a knife after she inadvertently laughs at his tiny penis. She ends up disfigured, and her prostitute gang are even more incensed when the local sheriff Little Bill (Gene Hackman) lets them off with a measly fine. The Head Prostitute (Frances Fisher) sets a reward of $1000 for the murder of the men who attacked her girl. So ex-outlaw William Munny (Clint Eastwood) and his buddy Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) head over to the town to get the reward- but they find that their remorseless killing days are potentially over.

Doug says...

This is Clint Eastwood’s final western (or so he says), as he wanted to stop making this genre of film before he started repeating himself. Tim Burton might want to take a note from his book, but that’s by the by. Avid readers of this blog will know I’m highly averse to war and male-dominated films, so this doesn’t stand much chance of doing well by me. 

Except that it isn’t actually terrible. It’s a basic story with no shocks or turns and actually very little plot. The acting is generally fine and apart from a few killer angles, most of the cinematography is pretty standard too. But what Eastwood does well is he removes the glamour from the Western genre, leaving us instead with a brutally real and unpleasant atmosphere. The Sheriff is as bad as the villains, meaning we can’t really throw our weight behind anyone. This is a place where women are less valuable than horses, where a no-gun-rule is enforced…by men with guns. 

In fact Eastwood really makes a point of this hypocrisy. Richard Harris (later the OG Dumbledore) rocks up as a smug English assassin only for the Sheriff to then beat the shit out of him. And the (brief) emotional heart of the film ends up coming from one of the assassins as he reveals it was his first kill. Westerns don’t usually have much room for men admitting they can’t handle having killed. Toxic masculinity takes a step back. 

However there was a point at the beginning when I thought this film was going to take a much more interesting angle. It all begins with two men cutting a prostitute’s face because she laughed at how not well endowed he was. And then the gang of prostitutes, led by Rose’s mother from Titanic (also known as the actress Frances Fisher) begin to take matters into their own hands. I had hoped at this point that it would be a revolutionary western in that it would feature female protagonists seeking their revenge. 

Sadly Eastwood’s imagination didn’t stretch that far so he rides in and then the film promptly becomes all about him. Ah well, a critic can dream. My main issue though is that the film doesn’t offer any kind of message or comeuppance. It’s similar in tone to The French Connection, but that film had a point. At the end, it showed us the ‘hero’ was actually pretty damn awful, and not admirable. Here I think we’re still supposed to think Eastwood is great, even as he shoots out half the village. Gritty? Yes. Underpinned by a crucial guiding point? Not even for a second. 

It’s confusing to me why this won, especially when it was up against classics like Howards End and Scent of a Woman (which admittedly I haven’t seen, but my friend Sophie does an excellent rendition of the climactic speech which is Oscar-worthy in itself). Perhaps it was simply that Eastwood announced it was the end of his western-making era and the Academy saw fit to reward him for that. Either way, it’s not a bad film, it just feels rather pointless. As if there was a moral but the writer forgot to stick it in. Puzzling stuff. 

Highlight 

The scene where The Kid breaks down over having killed a man feels fresh amid all the ‘Manly Men’ happenings. Jaimz Woolvett kills a long monologue, with a superb, underperformed realness. 

Lowlight

It’s also quite boring. I had quite a few moments where I went on Instagram. The upside is I saw my cousin’s hilarious attempt at life-drawing, so it wasn’t all bad.  

Mark 

3/10

Paul says...

Have you ever watched an old Western and wondered how all the men can just slaughter each other without any blood, remorse or consequences of any kind? This kind of cavalier attitude is satirised by the Austin Powers movies when we see the devastated families of the security guards that Powers or his alter ago James Bond murder without thought. And Unforgiven dissects it relentlessly.

This sort of pondering on what it means to be a hero, what it means to be good, and whether the two can be combined, is becoming a trope of the '90s. Dances With Wolves proved that white men and Native Americans are just as good (and as bad) as each other. The Silence of the Lambs drew attention to the insidious and underlying depravity of a society that professes to be “great”. And Unforgiven follows similar thoughts. Murdering another human being is no easy deed in this film. Most characters hesitate with horror at the thought of pulling the trigger, and those that manage to commit the deed are psychologically damaged afterwards. Ironically, the only character who isn’t damaged is the very one who is conventionally the hero of the Western, the Sheriff himself. And a writer who is known for creating action-packed tales of the Wild West is given an education of the grim reality of gun warfare and vigilantism. This is a welcome change after the tiresomely human-loving '80s glamour-parades.

I also enjoyed other aspects of Eastwood’s destruction of the Western hero. The characters can’t even run or ride a horse in that beautiful way that John Wayne did. Eastwood struggles to mount it leading to some embarrassing falls, and when he massacres the Sheriff's men they don’t so much flee and as try to shuffle awkwardly away before being gunned down. The characters that take the usual “villain” role are just a couple of idiots who got angry at a prostitute. They get nothing more than this, drawing attention to the fact that while they committed a pretty bad deed, our “heroes” are about to commit a worse one.

I always love a genre-bender, and Unforgiven questions the nature of heroism and masculinity with thoughtfulness and profundity. 

But here is where it fails - it takes far too long to get anywhere. There are some lengthy scenes in which Eastwood, Freeman and their youthful gung-ho companion mumble to each other in that stoney dead-pan way that macho cowboys do. Eastwood’s a great actor (see Gran Turino for him at his absolute best in recent years), but here he is particularly one-note. And Freeman’s so forgettable that his eventual death didn’t mean much to me. 

Richard Harris, of all people, is totally wasted. His entrance is so full of charisma and delightful smugness that I wanted the film to be about him, but he exits halfway through after a terribly overlong scene in which Gene Hackman slowly humiliates him. A good bit of chopping could have upped the pace, and made the Tarantino-esque climax even more tremendous, rather than a random scene of phenomenal violence tacked onto the end. 

So as clever as it is, Unforgiven doesn’t have the heart of Dances With Wolves nor the pace of Silence of the Lambs, so its moral philosophising gets lost amidst boredom. I think next week’s offering will pack a bigger punch.

Highlight

The scene in which the “heroes” murder the first of the two “villains” is actually very tense. Freeman can’t pull the trigger and Eastwood can only bring himself to injure the poor guy and wait for him to bleed to death. You can see in their faces that they have reached a point in their lives where killing does not have the glamour that Wild West stories claim it does.

Lowlight

As Doug says, it’s quite boring. A couple of wise-cracking, anthropomorphic sidekicks would have made things more fun.

Mark

4/10