Later on tonight, TCM airs the 1966 Oscar winner, A Man for All Seasons, a movie that, on the whole, I’m not too wild about. But I like plenty of its separate elements. I love the performances, for instance, by Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, and Robert Shaw, especially. I love the music more than a bit and often pull it up online to listen to when I’m in a pensive mood. I also love a lot of the scenery and locations. So it seems silly to not recommend it just because, on the whole, I don’t like it. Why not recommend it just for the parts I love in the hopes that the person taking the recommendation will love those parts as well? Now, the movie itself was well loved by many (and the play it was based on) so it got plenty of accolades and notice. But you could fill a stadium with all the great elements of cinema that never got the recognition they deserved simply because they weren’t in a high profile or critically acclaimed movie. It shouldn’t be that way. We should all appreciate the entire cinematic table of elements.
How many great musical scores haven’t been nominated for an Oscar just because the movie wasn’t a big enough deal? How many performances? How many great editing jobs, makeup jobs, sound effects jobs, photography jobs, etc? How many times has quality work been ignored or forgotten just because it happens to be in a movie that isn’t remembered for much else? Well, I’ve got a few elements I’d like to mention because no one saw fit to give them the recognition they deserved the first time around.
Now, for this little piece, I’m not going to go through a long list of elements because, one, I hate doing lists and, two, I’d rather think of them in the comment section as we introduce more and more. In fact, that’s the point, in a way: to remember, to jog our memories, about the great work in forgotten films. I’ve got one movie that I’d like to use as exhibit A: Raise the Titanic.
Raise the Titanic was built around high expectations (the Clive Cussler novel it was based on had been a huge hit) and an even higher budget. When it was finally released it was savaged by the critics and audiences made the call to stay home and watch A Night to Remember instead. And, okay, fine. It’s not a very good movie. But… but… its special effects work is tremendous with a model Titanic, sufficiently rusted and weathered (and in one piece – hey, it was 1980, they didn’t know yet), rising up from the ocean depths. That these effects weren’t even given a nomination by the Oscars is amazing (for goodness sakes, Moonraker got nominated the year before and the shuttle space laser battle is pretty awful looking) but, you know, bad movie with no box office. See, Moonraker had the good sense to at least make money. Raise the Titanic, on the other hand, had nothing but stunning model work and an amazing score by John Barry. Of course, that got ignored, too. Why nominate a great score from a mediocre movie that didn’t make money? What, because the score is good? You’re kidding, right? How under the radar (or should I say sonar?) is this movie now? How forgotten? Well, I recently looked at a list of the best model work done before CGI and this was nowhere to be found because the people making the list, all in their thirties and twenties, probably didn’t even know it existed.
Here’s another example from around the same time period: The King Kong remake in 1976. Now some people actually like that remake (I’m not among them) and some don’t (that’s me). I think it’s mediocre than awful, actually. But I’ll tell you this: Charles Grodin is hilarious in the role of Fred Wilson, the shameless exec from Petrox Oil, and in my humble opinion, is the best thing in the movie. Well, that and the Kong mask, created by Carlo Rambaldi and Rick Baker. Now, this is a little different. The special effects here did win the Oscar but CGI has rendered this kind of work obsolete and the movie itself has kind of disappeared. There’s now either the original or the Peter Jackson remake (that one I hated) and nothing in between. Well, for Grodin and Rambaldi and Baker’s work alone, it should be remembered. Oh, and once again, I love the John Barry score.
And how about editors? How many people even know what in the hell an editor does? They can change the whole outcome of a scene or change the nature of a character. If you’ve ever seen Modern Romance (and if you haven’t, do, it’s terrific and every element is good), the editing scene in it gives a really good idea of how important an editor is. One of the best editors out there is Thelma Schoonmaker and one of her best efforts ever was After Hours. It was one of the few times she wasn’t nominated. See, the movie didn’t make a lot of money and got no big press upon release. But, really, it’s a movie whose editing tells the story. Martin Scorsese shot the action but, like American Graffiti, it’s how the action is cut together that relates everything to the viewer and provides the film with its perfect tempo. Like all my examples, I’m not a huge fan of this one though I think it’s light years ahead of the previous two examples. But I still like watching it for the tempo and rhythms provided by Schoonmaker’s cuts. It’s great work but since it was in the “wrong” movie, it didn’t get honored.
As always, I run out of space before I really get going but I hope more examples will be provided of specific elements that are great or highly effective while the rest of the movie might not be. It’s important to remember that a movie is made by dozens of people doing multiple jobs. They’re writing, acting, filming, making models, crafting makeup, editing, and so on, and even if 99 percent of everybody on a given production fails, there might be one artist that succeeds. They deserve to be remembered for playing their part in adding to the ever impressive cinematic table of elements.