Today, we focus on films released October 19-December 5, which means we're focusing on Dances with Wolves.
This is why we're here, after all. You voted for me to watch Kevin Costner's directorial works and the films they were released alongside, so here we are. And Costner's first go in the director's chair was also his most successful: it won Best Picture, entered the lexicon, and secured his place in Hollywood, making his subsequent projects possible.
The film started as a spec script by writer Michael Blake, who had only one successful screen credit to his name: Stacy's Knights, a 1983 film about card-counting and revenge featuring, guess who, Kevin Costner. In interviews, Costner paints Blake as talented and temperamental, a man who had trouble selling his work because he entered every interaction with execs and developers with a "fight me" mentality, bemoaning the stupidity of Hollywood suits, refusing to compromise his vision, and overall, just being difficult. But talented! When Costner read Blake's still-unsold screenplay for Dances with Wolves in the 1980s - not because Blake offered it, but because he left it around the house while living with Costner - he immediately saw the appeal...and why studios were nervous about it. It was he who suggested Blake turn in it into a novel and sell that first, which might make it easier to sell the "adaptation" to studios.
Published in 1988 by Fawcett's Gold Medal imprint (meaning straight to paperback), the film rights were immediately snatched up by Costner, by then a star thanks to Silverado, The Untouchables, No Way Out, and Bull Durham, hoping to make it his directorial debut. You had an uncooperative writer, an untested director, and a genre - epic Western - that had dried out, especially since the notorious flop of Heaven's Gate in 1980. Not to mention half of it wouldn't be in English at all, but in the Lakota dialect! Just as they balked at the script, studios balked at the package. Eventually, Costner and his producing partner Jim Wilson secured foreign investment and a deal with Orion Pictures. Costner also paid out of his own pocket when production started going over budget, one of those things that immediately made people raise their eyebrows, smirk, and call the movie, Kevin's Gate. Filming in private ranches and national parks, Costner and crew wrapped up in late 1989. A year later, the film was released, limited on November 9th, wide on November 23rd.
And it was a smash hit. While never, not once, claiming the #1 spot at the box office, it had staying power. By the end of its run, it was the third-highest-grossing 1990 film in the United States, the fourth highest in the entire world. Accolades came from all over the world: the Berlin International Film Festival gave Costner the Silver Bear for Outstanding Single Achievement, the Japanese Film Academy named it the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, France's César Awards nominated it for Best Foreign Film, and the Golden Globes gave it three awards, including Best Motion Picture - Drama. It cleaned up stateside too, named among the best of the year by guilds for the Cinematographers, Editors, Casting Directors, Directors, and Producers.
All on the way to its big night at the Academy Awards, of course, where it won seven of its twelve nominations. Among them: Blake for Best Adapted Screenplay (they'll forgive anyone if they succeed) and Costner for Best Director and Best Picture.
Not bad considering some of the competition it was up against at both the box office and the awards run. Among which were these films:
Avalon
release: October 19
nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Score (Randy Newman), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design (Gloria Gresham)
dir/scr: Barry Levinson
pr: Mark Johnson / Barry Levinson
cin: Allen Daviau
This one's a toughie to sum up, there's a lot going on. Really, it's from the point of view of a boy growing up in the 1950s observing his family's growth, interspersed with memories from the grandfather who arrived with his brothers to the USA in the 1910s. Armin Mueller-Stahl is the grandfather and he floored me. Listen, my grandparents were immigrants, my dad and two of my aunts were immigrants, I am well accustomed to both the ribald humor and strict expectations of European transports: this movie, these performances, reflected the mix of American rejuvenation and Old World guilt that I know so well, that feeling of knowing you've betrayed some part of yourself, no matter your own success or how you justify it. It's a bittersweet movie.
Night of the Living Dead
release: October 19
dir: Tom Savini
pr: John A. Russo / Russell Streiner
scr: George A. Romero
cin: Frank Prinzi
Remake of Night of the Living Dead. A little more on the nose, if you can believe it, than its predecessor, even though it does a marvelous job reinventing Barbara and allowing her a moment of ambiguity. Still, the first thing I think of regarding this movie is when Barbara witnesses rednecks lynching zombies and says, "They're us. We're them and they're us." I've got eyes! Don't tell me!
Reversal of Fortune
release: October 19
wins: Best Actor (Jeremy Irons)
nominations: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
dir: Barbet Schroeder
pr: Edward R. Pressman / Oliver Stone
scr: Nicholas Kazan
cin: Luciano Tovoli
The true story of socialite Claus von Bülow being accused of the attempted murder of his now-comatose wife Sunny and of the lawyer, Alan Dershowtiz, defending him. Claus looks guiltier than guilty, what with his mistress and the fact that his entire household is against him, his insistence on being charming and making jokes about the allegations. Scenes with Claus, including the tense flashbacks of his tumultuous relationship with Sunny, make this less a legal drama than a comedy about modern aristocracy: their appetites, their expectations, their tiny worldview. It's sharp satire using a real possible crime.
Frankenstein Unbound
release: November 2
dir: Roger Corman
pr: Roger Corman / Kobi Jaeger
scr: Roger Corman and F.X. Feeney
cin: Armando Nannuzzi / Michael Scott
A scientist time travels to Geneva, Switzerland, meeting both Victor Frankenstein and Mary Shelley. Here's a film that supposes that Mary Shelley adapted Frankenstein almost verbatim from events happening around her, allowing its hero to meet both creators and creations, the better to make remarks about...wait, is it about the evils of technology or the joys of free love ("Shelley and Byron preach free love - I practice!") or the long range of satellites (our hero's intelligent car can still do Wikipedia-style searches on any subject even when transported to the 19th century). Dumb. Gnarly makeup. Insanely great music score.
Home Alone
release: November 16
nominations: Best Score (John Williams), Best Original Song ("Somewhere in My Memory" by John Williams & Leslie Bricusse)
dir: Chris Columbus
pr/scr: John Hughes
cin: Julio Macat
A child is accidentally left behind as his family goes on an extended Christmas vacation. Macaulay Culkin was, I think, nine years old when he played the lead. There is something about him, an un-self-conscious ability to command the camera's attention. The McAllisters are a rotten family, though, there are a lot of families with 100 different children running around at all times, I don't know of a single one that wouldn't personally go upstairs to the attic to get their kid before taking an international flight, I don't care how much of a hurry they were in. It's not a movie I grew up watching, so I...like, I get it, but I don't know that I like it.
Rocky V
release: November 16
dir: John G. Avildsen
pr: Robert Chartoff / Irwin Winkler
scr: Sylvester Stallone
cin: Steven Poster
With Rocky IV, I called Stallone's frequent protestations of humility "the insistence of someone so far out of touch he thinks he's still humble." In Rocky V, Stallone seems aware of this, and so he has Rocky lose everything, the movie climaxing not with a pro bout but with amateur fisticuffs in the street. I like Stallone because, conceptually, that's actually a great hook. I get frustrated because, in execution, this movie blows. I don't know how else to put it.
Vincent & Theo
release: November 16
dir: Robert Altman
pr: Ludi Boeken / Emma Hayter
scr: Julian Mitchell
cin: Jean Lépine
The relationship between artist Vincent van Gogh and his art dealer brother Theo. Terrific sets and a real commitment to showing how dingy and out of control the famous Van Gogh's life was, sympathetic to Theo as a patron who wants to showcase challenging works but is often cut off at the knees by employers and the tastes of the time. And those who have seen such things can relate to Theo's constant push to showcase his brother's work, his unending financial support of him...all while being accused by Vincent of never lifting a finger to help. So, it's interesting, but at over two hours, it's a little repetitive in its beats, and never quite repeats the success of its opening scene: modern-day documentary footage of a Van Gogh at auction, the price climbing higher and higher, intercut with the Van Goghs in squalor. A lot of Acting, everyone gets their fair share of Screaming Scenes.
Predator 2
release: November 21
dir: Stephen Hopkins
pr: John Davis / Lawrence Gordon / Joel Silver
scr: Jim Thomas & John Thomas
cin: Peter Levy
Predators come to a near-future Los Angeles and unleash a new terror. Comically over-the-top action. What makes this work is casting Danny Glover as an over-it cop who's done waiting for orders, he's got the muscle and the morals to take on the druglords himself...it's the alien hunters he didn't expect. Transferring the action to LA makes sense - the Predators appear to be hunters challenging warriors from different planets - so the idea of them going up against tough gangs is a natural fit. Shouldn't they be going after cops or soldiers, though?
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
release: November 23
nominations: Best Actress (Joanne Woodward)
dir: James Ivory
pr: Ismail Merchant
scr: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
cin: Tony Pierce-Roberts
I ought to tell you now that I have never seen The Three Faces of Eve, important to know as I confess: this might be my favorite Joanne Woodward performance so far. The movie follows a conservative couple and their family between World Wars in Kansas City, Missouri. Paul Newman is Mr. Bridge, ramrod-straight, humorless, oddly jealous/protective of his eldest daughter's development. Woodward is Mrs. Bridge, content to follow her husband's lead yet increasingly tempted by the liberalness of both her best friend (a terrific Blythe Danner) and, well, the general scope of her interests. A film that captures people on the precipice of change and their reactions to it, acknowledging that it often may be unsatisfactory dramatically but, ultimately, what we see is true. Lovely movie.
Misery
release: November 30
wins: Best Actress (Kathy Bates)
dir: Rob Reiner
pr: Rob Reiner / Andrew Scheinman
scr: William Goldman
cin: Barry Sonnenfeld
Richard Farnsworth gets to do some sleuthing, Lauren Bacall has a cameo, but otherwise, this is a two-hander between James Caan and Kathy Bates and it is a thrill! Caan is masterful at playing fear, frustration, resentment, and keeping (trying to) it all under control, putting on a good face for this psycho idiot with bad ideas, just managing the pain; his suffering is unbearable to watch, but, here we are! Bates, well, her Annie Wilkes is a legendary performance: you think there's nowhere for her to go, she comes in dialed up so high, but it's actually her ability to sustain that level while offering little nuanced reactions and line readings that make for a great performance. I hate the idea of something being "more true now than ever before," but given what I see on a daily basis with fandoms on social media - the obsessive threads, the toxic advice, the religious zeal with which they fight - Misery has proven to be a timeless warning. These people are out there...these people are unhinged...these people are why you have a career...
Cyrano de Bergerac
release: December 1
wins: Best Costume Design (Franca Squarciapino)
nominations: Best Actor (Gérard Depardieu), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Ezio Frigerio / Jacques Rouxel), Best Makeup (Michèle Burke / Jean-Pierre Eychenne), Best Foreign Language Film
dir: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
pr: Michel Seydoux
scr: Jean-Paul Rappeneau & Jean-Claude Carrière
cin: Pierre Lhomme
Big-nosed Cyrano helps handsome young Christian woo the beautiful Roxane, whom Cyrano also loves. Opulent movie, not in terms of on-screen glamour (it's pretty grimy, I love it!) but the scale of this thing is impressive in all categories: the many and detailed sets my God, the rooms full of extras, the details on the wigs and makeup delineating class and comportment, the cinematography, the rousing score, every single element coming together to fully engulf us in the sights, the smells, the flavors of this story. The actors are good, too.
The Grifters
release: December 5
nominations: Best Director, Best Actress (Anjelica Huston), Best Supporting Actress (Annette Bening), Best Adapted Screenplay
dir: Stephen Frears
pr: Robert A. Harris / Jim Painter / Martin Scorsese
scr: Donald E. Westlake
cin: Oliver Stapleton
A veteran bookie's runner reunites with her long-estranged small-time hustler son, which only spells trouble for them and everyone around them. A great look at the different kinds of cons or grifts people can pull, from big-time operations a la The Sting to the simple palming of one bill for another. Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening are great, John Cusack provides a tragic weariness that is painful to watch (when his mother says he needs to get out because he doesn't have the strength for the con...boy do I believe it!). Great suspense score from Elmer Bernstein, one of the best to ever do it. Wasn't crazy about all the plot turns, nor the insistence on Oedipal subtext that, frankly, the performances are not giving. Bowled over by Pat Hingle's single-scene appearance as a crime boss who will brook no quarter, one of the most frightening performances I've ever seen in a movie.
Tomorrow, the Best Picture nominee that continued an odd trend.
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