The PAD Awards: 1990s

And just like that, it's this decade's Paul and Doug (PAD) Awards. It's been a decade of drama and romance, to say nothing of Nazis, wolves and shipwrecks. The 1990s certainly made a splash...

On with the Awards.

Least favourite film

Paul says: The English Patient

This film polarised us more dramatically than any other film so far on the project, with Doug praising it with a generous 9 out of 10, while I condemned it with a scathing 3. Generally, I found The English Patient to be a bit like Instagram. Most of it looks lovely, but scrape away the attractive cinematography and camera angles, and the plot has no real impetus or intensity. The cast make a good effort, it’s true, and The English Patient probably holds the dubious honour of being one of my “Least Bad Least Favourite Films”. But in a decade fraught with colourful and vivacious pieces, it’s a film with much style but little substance. 

Doug says: American Beauty

Aside from Spacey being a predatory creep playing a predatory creep, this film felt overwrought, overwritten and ultimately full of itself. Like the teenager hanging around a graveyard, willing themselves to weep tears of bitterness over how life is hard, this was a self-indulgent piece that feels dated and most of all, wrapped up in itself. What was the point of making this? 

Favourite Male Performance

Ben Kingsley, Schindler's List

I didn’t give this performance nearly enough credit in my review of this film. But Ben Kingsley’s tender, understated role in Schindler’s List is on par with his equally seminal performance as the title character in Gandhi. Kingsley brilliantly contrasts with Liam Neeson’s confidence and bravado as Schindler, and through him we immediately gain a sense of fear and trepidation in a country where genocide and xenophobia was about to become the order of the day. This provides a sinister edge to his role, as well as Kingsley being probably the only character who is relentlessly sweet-natured throughout. Seeing Kingsley escort the real Itzhak Stern’s wife to Schindler’s grave in the devastating final scene is just the cherry on top. Great stuff! Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs was pretty much my only other choice.

Doug says: Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs

This is a tremendous performance, given that he’s only on screen for about fifteen minutes of the whole thing. In it, he turns a murderous cannibal into a compelling, addictive figure who somehow inspires sympathy. Matching the fantastic Jodie Foster step for step, Hopkins dominates the screen even when off-stage, his eerie stillness and frantic fava-bean-lip-licking spreading an unease that seeps into the rest of the picture. An astonishing, pervasive performance. A special mention also goes to Kevin Costner who led Dances With Wolves superbly. 

Favourite Female Performance 

Paul says: Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs

As Doug has pointed out, Anthony Hopkins, although usually credited as being the star of the film, constitutes a mere 16 minutes of screen time. Jodie Foster takes up far more, and due to the hype around Hannibal Lector as a character, it is easy to forget that the film is really all about her. The Silence of the Lambs is, unexpectedly, one of the few truly feminist films in our project, and Foster’s careful, subtle acting contributes to this. Those inconspicuous looks she gives when yet another bloke puts her down; her fascination with Lector reflecting the audience’s own obsession; and her most humane moments of fear, anger and euphoria; all of this make her a well-deserved Best Actress winner, and a true icon of the fictional, feminist world. Big shout outs to other female performances of the '90s go to Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love, Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart in Titanic, and Annette Bening in American Beauty.

Doug says: Gloria Stuart, Titanic

Probably my favourite category of the PAD Awards, this decade we were spoilt for choice. We had Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs and Kristin Scott Thomas icily storming through The English Patient, to say nothing of Kate Winslet having a whale of a time as Rose in Titanic. But my winner is a lesser acknowledged actress. Gloria Stuart, for me, is one of the key elements of Titanic’s success, anchoring the film in an emotional, present day. Stuart delivers lines gorgeously, unafraid of the rolling emotion within and pulling the audience through the ship’s sinking. But more than that, she then acts as the film’s conscience: stopping the present day bounty hunters, and focusing the story back onto the loss of lives that actually occurred. The tears that came at the end of our viewing are in no small way due to her sublime performance and exceptional line readings. 

Favourite Film 

Paul says: Schindler's List

This is a tough one because, statistically speaking, this has been by far the best decade on our project for me. But it would be almost insulting to the millions of people who died in the Holocaust if I didn’t choose Schindler’s List. I had been warned about the sheer force of this film by virtually everyone who has seen it, and nobody over-exaggerated. All of us who watched it had to take a few moments to fully digest what we witnessed. It doesn’t have the brutality of The Pianist, it doesn’t have the fictitious sentimentality of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It’s all true, it’s all tender and it’s absolutely stunning. This is an impassioned, arduous, heart-rending three hours and it’s worth every single second. No other film about the Holocaust has managed to portray the inhumanity and yet also the desperate humanity that went hand-in-hand during this horrible time. Titanic and The Silence of the Lambs were close calls. 

Doug says: Dances with Wolves

We’ve had a damn fine season this decade, and with contenders like Titanic, Schindler’s List and The Silence of the Lambs, picking a winner is a tough one. But ultimately, the film that truly wowed me and elevated itself above the rest was the fantastic Dances With Wolves. Not only did it give space to the story of the Native Americans, it displayed astonishing scenes such as the buffalo hunt with truth and vivid cinematography. I particularly enjoyed how much attention and care was given to the Native Americans and the battle between Western and Native ways of life. Special mention has to go to Schindler’s List, whose final scene was a remarkable piece of cinema history, and whose subtle depiction of the insidiousness of fear was truly terrifying. 

Average Film Scores 

Paul: 7.1/10 (Paul’s highest rated decade)

Doug: 6.8/10 (Doug's second-highest rated decade)