I probably should have started the 1967 project with In the Heat of the Night, as it's the big winner of the year at the Oscars, but I wanted to get the first "Revisiting" post out. Now I can do this in a more proper order.
2) In the Heat of the Night (winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay). My first viewing
Based on what I read before Pictures at a Revolution, I viewed In the Heat of the Night as the "compromise" Best Picture: more daring than Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, not as edgy as Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate. I also thought it was a typical black/white buddy movie, with saintly Sidney Poitier educating racist Rod Steiger (who won Best Actor).
My impressions were incorrect. In the Heat of the Night is a worthy winner, mostly eschewing sappy bonding moments in favor of biting dialogue - Stirling Silliphant adapted John Bell's novel - and uneasy relationships. Sometimes the words amuse: "What do you mean I have the wrong man? I have the motive which is money and the body which is dead!" Steiger's exasperated Chief Gillespie huffs. More often, the story sears, a murder mystery on the surface but at its core an honest look at racial interactions featuring an educated, “interloping” black detective, Virgil Tibbs (Poitier), and a long-established, wary white police chief (Steiger).
Poitier seethes in depicting the treatment Virgil receives in Sparta, Mississippi. "May I see the man I'm supposed to have killed?" the Philadelphia-based detective sneers at one point. When a white man, Endicott, bristles at being questioned and slaps him, Virgil slaps Endicott back. Poitier developed an ulcer during production, and it seems he decided Virgil had one, too. "They call me Mister Tibbs," Poitier hisses in his most famous line. The actor said Virgil is his favorite of his roles; it's an absurd oversight the Academy didn’t even nominate him.
Director Norman Jewison rarely lapses into stereotype, and he uses a great bluesy opening by Ray Charles and a Quincy Jones score a flavor to accompany the oppressive Southern summer heat. (The movie was shot in fall in Illinois, and the actors kept ice chips in their mouth so their breathe wouldn’t appear on camera.) Forty years later, In the Heat of the Night still crackles.
Showing posts with label 1967. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1967. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Revisiting ... The Graduate
Late last year, I told my cousin Mary that I wanted to start a monthly feature for the blog in which I watched a movie I hadn't seen in years. It could be something I adored when I first saw it or a flick I didn't care for even though many others do. I even watched The English Patient and took notes on it to prepare for this project. Then, of course, life interfered.
While cleaning out my 2008 notebook, I remembered another project I wanted to start. Therefore, this entry gives me the opportunity to do that and to start "Revisiting."
The 1960s were a turbulent decade, a furious energy reflected in Hollywood and many films of 1967. Mark Harris, a longtime presence at Entertainment Weekly, traces the evolution of the five movies nominated for Best Picture, four with social leanings and one old-fashioned big-budget song-and-dance epic. Inspired by Harris' book, Pictures at a Revolution, I decided to watch or re-watch the five flicks in question, looking at their quality overall and their relevance today. It's funny how time has changed opinions - including mine.
1) The Graduate (winner of Best Director Oscar). My second viewing; first was in 1996.
When I first watched The Graduate, I was 20 years old and, like our protagonist, a soon-to-be college graduate. I related to Benjamin's (Dustin Hoffman) anxiety and disaffect (although I always had too much ambition to be like him). The script by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry spoke to me, as it did to many people in their teens and 20s in the late 1960s: It was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. As for Anne Bancroft, I remember thinking her Mrs. Robinson a cold, bitter shrew. Otherwise, The Graduate held a place on my all-time Top 10 list for years.
Funny what a decade or so of life experience can do for you.
Today, I notice The Graduate more as a directorial achievement - that's a well-deserved Oscar for Mike Nichols - and less for its storyline, now so often copied. Nichols uses light and shadow for great dramatic effect, e.g., staging conversations between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson in the dark. He sets up a heartbreaking moment when Robinson daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) uncovers her mother's affair with her boyfriend: As the camera pans out, she's tinier and tinier, in a corner, face wet from tears and rain. Nichols' greatest act may be the ways he employed the oft-played Simon and Garfunkel tunes: sometimes whistled, sometimes heavy on the guitar, rarely played all the way through.
I also have an empathy for Mrs. Robinson I lacked before cynicism and disappointment entered my life. Through reading Harris' book, I learned the emotion Bancroft tapped into was anger, a discovery that illuminated her performance. Conversely, I now find Benjamin spoiled and lazy, one of those tired people forever trying to find themselves. Dude, stop flitting about. Join the Peace Corps if you're bored. Be grateful you aren't going to 'Nam.
While cleaning out my 2008 notebook, I remembered another project I wanted to start. Therefore, this entry gives me the opportunity to do that and to start "Revisiting."
The 1960s were a turbulent decade, a furious energy reflected in Hollywood and many films of 1967. Mark Harris, a longtime presence at Entertainment Weekly, traces the evolution of the five movies nominated for Best Picture, four with social leanings and one old-fashioned big-budget song-and-dance epic. Inspired by Harris' book, Pictures at a Revolution, I decided to watch or re-watch the five flicks in question, looking at their quality overall and their relevance today. It's funny how time has changed opinions - including mine.
1) The Graduate (winner of Best Director Oscar). My second viewing; first was in 1996.
When I first watched The Graduate, I was 20 years old and, like our protagonist, a soon-to-be college graduate. I related to Benjamin's (Dustin Hoffman) anxiety and disaffect (although I always had too much ambition to be like him). The script by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry spoke to me, as it did to many people in their teens and 20s in the late 1960s: It was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. As for Anne Bancroft, I remember thinking her Mrs. Robinson a cold, bitter shrew. Otherwise, The Graduate held a place on my all-time Top 10 list for years.
Funny what a decade or so of life experience can do for you.
Today, I notice The Graduate more as a directorial achievement - that's a well-deserved Oscar for Mike Nichols - and less for its storyline, now so often copied. Nichols uses light and shadow for great dramatic effect, e.g., staging conversations between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson in the dark. He sets up a heartbreaking moment when Robinson daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) uncovers her mother's affair with her boyfriend: As the camera pans out, she's tinier and tinier, in a corner, face wet from tears and rain. Nichols' greatest act may be the ways he employed the oft-played Simon and Garfunkel tunes: sometimes whistled, sometimes heavy on the guitar, rarely played all the way through.
I also have an empathy for Mrs. Robinson I lacked before cynicism and disappointment entered my life. Through reading Harris' book, I learned the emotion Bancroft tapped into was anger, a discovery that illuminated her performance. Conversely, I now find Benjamin spoiled and lazy, one of those tired people forever trying to find themselves. Dude, stop flitting about. Join the Peace Corps if you're bored. Be grateful you aren't going to 'Nam.
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