Best Picture 1978

I know this is the battle of the two Vietnam films but I'm just over here hoping that the other three films don't disappoint. Haven't seen a lick of these but I'm eager to get it started.

1978 Best Picture

The Deer Hunter

There are times where I have put off watching certain films for this project that are deemed classics because I want my reaction to be raw and authentic. I don't want to have watched a film a bunch already if I can help it just so the categories don't become a chore to get through. The Deer Hunter was one of those where I could have watched it already but didn't because I knew I'd get to it eventually for this blog. I was beyond excited to finally watch it because I've heard great things about it and knew the actors involved were all great and it's considered a classic and it's supposed to be a heavy film about Vietnam. I'm glad to have finally watched it but I must say I was very underwhelmed by the film. And I don't think that's because I hyped it up. The film is just over three hours long but director Michael Cimino lingers way too long on some scenes and though this won an Editing Oscar, it needed to be trimmed down considerably. The wedding scene in the beginning of the film lasted almost an hour when it shouldn't have. I get what Cimino was trying to do but less can be more. I don't know why auteurs seem to have trouble editing down their films to make cohesive sense. I don't see this as a masterpiece of filmmaking that others seem to. There are some very, very good acting performances in this film from De Niro and Walken, and Streep and the others to a lesser degree. I like the three act structure where we see the friends at home in Pennsylvania for the first hour and then they go to Vietnam for the next where we see the Russian roulette scene. And the final hour is when De Niro comes back home and adjusts and also tries to save Walken and even John Savage's character. The film just doesn't seem as great as I was lead to believe it was going to be. It doesn't feel like an all-timer and I get that expectations can spoil things but I don't think this was spoiled at all. It's really good in certain things and it's beautifully shot, the music is memorable, some of the acting is incredible, there are a ton of iconic scenes, but it also feels full of itself. The lingering scenes, the use of Russian roulette as a plot point that dehumanizes the Vietnamese (which I'm honestly not that concerned with. It's obviously an artistic choice and not an indictment of them as a people), the fact that women are basically nothing in this film. There are a lot of criticisms of this film that are legit and from what I've read, this just happened to capture the zeitgeist at the right time. A week later and this film would have been shredded by controversy but ballots had already been sent in. I don't disagree with the Academy's choice of this film as the winner. I'm actually fine with it as the winner. It's daring and very epic in scope and has great acting and tells a decent story even if it doesn't represent Vietnam. It's artistic and worth breaking down and scrutinizing and is probably a great directorial achievement. I was just underwhelmed at how this didn't live up to lofty expectations. As an aside, how morbid is it knowing that John Cazale was dying of lung cancer while filming this and didn't live to see the finished product? His filmography is amazing since every film he was in was nominated for Best Picture. Anyway, I recognize that this is a good film, but that I was also let down by how pedestrian it felt at times. Worth a watch to figure out your own thoughts about it.

Coming Home

I was very curious about how I would respond to this film going in. I knew it had four acting nominees and won two of them and was a Vietnam film about, well, coming home and dealing with the after effects of combat. I also knew that The Deer Hunter was considered the more classic of the two films so I was worried this may have been a preachy Jane Fonda film that hammers it's message into your skull. But that's why I watch the films and this one was really good. I was surprised at how much I liked it and thought it handled the PTSD subject extremely well. And I think this was one of the first films to actually deal with that side of the war (along with this year's winner - go figure) and it does so in a way that doesn't go overboard. The film is about Jane Fonda who is married to Bruce Dern, a Marine Captain, who is gung ho about going to fight in Vietnam. Fonda starts volunteering at the VA hospital on base and meets an old high school acquaintance in Jon Voight's character, a paralyzed veteran who is very angry at the world. The two develop a friendship and then a relationship and then Dern comes back home after getting wounded and is a changed man. Obviously, the film deals earnestly with what it's like to come home from a war changed without a good support system. Young men were being forced to go fight a war they didn't care about only to get injured and then dumped off on a VA healthcare system that was overwhelmed and run down. No emotional support besides the other veterans as they just sit around and waste away which in turn makes these men angry and bitter at their own country and everyone around them. We see Voight change into a man who starts caring in something when Fonda and he hit it off. I like that the film showed everything in a mostly honest way. The acting wasn't overblown and any angry outburst or emotional state seemed natural to what was going on. Voight isn't just screaming and lashing out for no reason and to show off his acting. The PTSD moments come when necessary and are even more varied than just yelling. We see a friend of Voight's who says off the wall stuff and is mad because he can't play his guitar like he used to. His damage is more mental and it shows the different ways men come back injured from war. Eventually Dern comes home as well and we see he is definitely changed from the war, calling it boring and being embarrassed at how he was injured. He, too, has anger issues and snaps at Fonda for cheating on him and walks around the house with a gun. He is the more violent side of the PTSD (without really getting violent). The story is utterly compelling and holds my interest from start to finish (I was going to watch part of it and go to bed but had to finish it in one sitting) but the acting is top notch. It would be easy to overact and be loud but no one does. Even Fonda is more understated than usual and doesn't do her preachy, advocating for a cause thing so blatantly. If not for the winner this year, I think this film would have won and probably been remembered more instead of being overshadowed. But the film is still a very intriguing look at a subject that I'm sure most people didn't want to talk about back then and this film helped push it into the national conscious even more so. I also wanted to mention the film's use of music. It has whole songs playing as an undercurrent through much of the film and I really liked it in place of a traditional score. Makes it feel more modern, yet still a bit timeless. I know some reviews disliked that the music was ever present but I liked what it brought to the film. The ending to this film is also incredibly powerful and haunting and I think more people should see this film just for the ending alone. A very good film that gets overlooked today.

Heaven Can Wait

While watching this film two things were running through my head: that a film like this would probably never get nominated for Best Picture anymore (let alone a whole bunch of Oscars) and that the Academy just absolutely loved and adored anything Warren Beatty did. This is Beatty's version of the 1941 film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was also nominated for Best Picture and a bunch of other Oscars. The film would again be remade in 2001 as Down to Earth starring Chris Rock but it did not get any Oscar nominations. The film is really a light, body switching comedy that has a couple pretty good laughs and is overall entertaining but doesn't offer up anything that is Oscar worthy. It's about the quarterback of the LA Rams (that would have been an outdated thing that is now not so outdated with their recent move) who dies prematurely due to an error in heaven and then wants to find a body so he can still be the QB of the Rams. He settles for an old millionaire and we go from there with the story. I think the combination of Beatty and it being a loved and respected older film remake that the old people in the Academy could latch onto is the reason it got so much love in 1978. Beatty is very good in the role and it doesn't devolve into too much Beatty like his future nominations would and he's entertaining and spunky, I guess you could say. He's good and very movie star worthy but a reason for this to be nominated for BP? Nah. I guess as a 5th to all the other serious films this could make sense but I imagine if I were alive back then I would have been upset it got in. I dunno, it's funny and has a little bit of heart to it and is kind of a feel good story. I think if you're a really big Warren Beatty fan you'll love this but everyone else will see this is a good, not great, film that doesn't stand up to a The Deer Hunter type of film this year. And that's okay.

Midnight Express

Man, I didn't even realize when watching this that the film was nominated for Best Picture. I thought it only had Hurt's nomination so I wrote his review and went on with the project only to find out close to finishing this year that, whoops, I didn't write this review. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the film but it is what it is. The film is about an American guy who gets arrested for trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey and then has to deal with an unfair Turkish judicial system and an awful Turkish prison system. This seems like a really odd choice for the Academy, especially back in the 70s. This is a very dark, gritty, raw type of story with no happy ending. But it's also kind of inspired because it is so different and not in the Academy's wheelhouse. But I say that the same year that The Deer Hunter won Best Picture and it certainly isn't a bright, cheerful film, either. Interestingly enough, Oliver Stone won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for this film before going on to direct some great films, but it does have his sort of negative worldview attached to it so it makes since that he wrote it. The music for the film is probably the most interesting part of the film. I don't say that to disparage the film at all, just that it has such an 80s vibe to it that the music feels like a harbinger of what was to come. Obviously the film shows violence and torture and a lot of negative stuff when the focus is on the prison. I think that's what surprises me that this could score a Best Picture nomination. The film has some interesting supporting characters and we are transported to a part of the world we rarely ever see. It's an interesting concept for a story but I was a little let down by it. I was expecting something really gripping and intense that would be a wild ride all the way through. But some parts of the film were kinda boring, honestly, and though it was pretty tense at times, I think I wanted more action from the story. I do feel the film is worth seeing but didn't live up to the hype I'd heard about it. Admittedly, not a great review, I know, but it's an interesting choice for the Academy to make for it's top five, it just didn't fully click with me for whatever reason even though it was enjoyable for the most part.

An Unmarried Woman

I went into this film not knowing much about it other than a few reviewers I like had said this was going to be better than I thought and that had me hoping for a dark horse favorite for Best Picture. I'd heard good things about the lead performance in Jill Clayburgh and how she was robbed of an Oscar. That is all sort of the truth. I was hooked on this film from the get go and was really into it and the performance by Clayburgh. I was fully expecting this to become a new favorite but then the film slammed on the breaks about an hour and twenty minutes in, hard enough for you to smash your face on the windshield. Up to that point, this film was amazing. Legit amazing because Clayburgh was actually really great, the backdrop of NYC in the late 70s was what I live to see in this project, the dialogue was witty, yet not obnoxious, and the story moved at a brisk pace from the outset. It follows Clayburgh as we see her in her marriage living day to day life and then things get rough and her husband admits he's in love with another woman. Clayburgh takes time for herself, visits a shrink, and then has casual sex before the breaks are slammed. It reminds me of Sex and the City at times, especially when Clayburgh gets together with her friends and they just crack jokes on each other, make fun of each other, talk openly and frankly about sex and their lives, and are just a hoot to watch in general. I love their interplay and it's done convincingly and not in a screenplay, awkward dialogue kind of way. I love when she walks the street and we see late 70s NYC. It's just like a documentary of the way we were. Just one of my weird things I like about old films. But, in saying all that, the film grinds to a halt once Clayburgh meets this painter guy and they become romantic. And it's where the film stops being this amazing, must see film for me, which is unfortunate. I'm not interested in her relationship with this painter guy and I wish she would just go back to being the strong, independent woman on the prowl. But really it's just fun to see her navigate life now that she is free and can do what she wants without being tied to a husband. I liked that part of the performance a lot. Clayburgh makes the film watchable and I'd still recommend it with a caveat that it will eventually grind to a halt. The ending is satisfying, however, because Clayburgh's character stays true to her newfound independent woman spirit. This is a film that feels very modern and could probably be remade in today's Hollywood but this one is good enough for now.



Trying to figure this year out was hard. Heaven Can Wait was not an Oscar worthy film. It didn't deserve all the nominations it got and was a very forgettable film. Warren Beatty had too much sway over the Academy and that's a sad thing. Midnight Express just didn't feel like an Oscar film, simple as that. But it was a pretty unique choice. Better than the film I ranked behind it and better than some random British film or romantic comedy or something. An Unmarried Woman is actually pretty great to be nominated. It felt so modern and different as far as female fronted films go. It's worth seeking out and watching. The whole year came down to the two Vietnam films. I read something in the Oscar book I have about how Democrats were for Coming Home and Republicans were for The Deer Hunter which is just absurd. The Deer Hunter deals with the coming home aspect, too, but does make the Vietnamese look shitty in their very limited scenes. It's not representative by any means and I feel like Democrats would like both films and probably Republicans, too, if they aren't so war hungry, other races are bad types. The winner isn't as controversial as you may have been lead to think. Anyway, I am having trouble deciding between the two. Both are good and The Deer Hunter does seem like the better film, though Coming Home seems more relevant. I think my nod is to the Oscar winner but I do feel like that could easily change and I'd give it to Coming Home. I think I need more time to let these two marinate and see which one tastes better. A decent year but one that I wish was better all the way through.

Oscar Winner: The Deer Hunter
My Winner:  The Deer Hunter
Coming Home
An Unmarried Woman
Midnight Express
Heaven Can Wait