And that intention was to show that the Army fighting for freedom in the
Posted in General on 13. Oct, 2010
And that intention was to show that the Army fighting for freedom in the last “just war” was compromised, odious and boring to most of its members – but necessary. When the crisis came, the miserable, exploited, disaffected men fought with heart and feeling.The film made audiences understand the drab spirit of the Army – and the desperate lives of Prewitt and Maggio. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it was marvellously cast: Burt Lancaster as Warden; Montgomery Clift as Prewitt; Frank Sinatra as Maggio; Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed as the women. Out of its 13 nominations, it won eight Oscars: Best Picture; to Zinnemann for directing; to Reed and Sinatra; to Burnett Guffey for photography; to Taradash for adapted screenplay.
It also won for sound and editing.Fifty years old, the picture more than stands up. The sexual restraint may even seem welcome (it is certainly not the case that the movie lacks eroticism – the relationship between Clift and Reed is steamy and suggestive). Two years ago, when Michael Bay’s dreadful Pearl Harbor (183 minutes) was released, it was easy to see how all the advances in special effects barely masked two things: that the new film could not create characters anyone cared about; and it accepted an Army with Boy Scout attitudes – one in which every soldier thought of nothing but doing his duty. Far from the real awkward Army that Roosevelt and George Marshall led, this was the cockeyed Army that Bush and Rumsfeld dream of.The comparison with Chicago cannot be direct – the films are so far apart in genre. And Chicago may not win Best Picture, though for now I think it has to be the favourite. It is the only one of the nominated films that is still steadily making money at the box office. And Rob Marshall, its director, has just been given the directors’ own award for excellence The writing is on the wall.Not that I am against musicals.
Last year’s Moulin Rouge was a wonderfully passionate and innovative picture. In contrast, the songs in Chicago are hackneyed; the dancing is Bob Fosse shtick – the angular finger-clicking spasms he lived by; the characters are as flimsy as Renee Zellweger’s underwear; the story is junk This is not a picture about anything. It presents a cold, bright world, so packed with timing that mortality seems eclipsed. Just compare Richard Gere’s smarmy character with Joel Grey’s haunting MC in Cabaret.Does it matter? Seemingly not.
But that’s one more nail in the coffin of Oscar’s indifference, and one more step towards irrelevance and oblivion on the part of the Hollywood movie. For 1953 (not a very comfortable world), From Here to Eternity was honest entertainment It did not cheat on the nature of reality. Chicago is froth that has no notion of such duties.d.thomson independent.co.uk. Over 50 years after its release, the hardest thing to grasp about Sunset Boulevard is that it was a studio picture, from Paramount, made on the lot, paid for and ordained by the system.