1982

Fitzcarraldo (Director: Werner Herzog)
Nominees: Veronika Voss, The Marathon Family, The Return of Martin Guerre, The Flight of the Eagle, An Egyptian Story, Boat People, Fanny and Alexander, Gandhi

Oscars pick: Gandhi
Nominees: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Missing, Tootsie, The Verdict

I've not always been in tune with the masses in this decade. Case in point... I thought E.T. was transparently manipulative (the mean Government guys march over the hill, while poor E.T. looks pale and sickly… Ohh, doesn’t just turn your heart to goo? No, actually.) The sentimentality made me cringe and the noisy, busy kids gave me an earache. It was painfully cloying, like when the spaceship takes off it leaves a rainbow in the sky, Gah! Gag me with Reese’s Pieces! By its final act, it was like I was under sappy emotional bombardment -- and as things got weepier, I become more detached. As I stated a few decades back, I don't do schmaltz.

I liked Gandhi far better. It was an impressive, expansive biopic - if a bit one-sided (few of Gandhi's faults or controversial politics were extensively explored). I thought it was a superb movie and Ben Kingsly gave an inspiring, Oscar-winning performance. I too gave it a nomination, though not the top prize.

Looking over some of the more popular flicks of '82. Tootsie was hilarious… at first, then it got on its soapbox and faded. Blade Runner was good -- a little cold and dry at the start, but springing to life when Rutger Hauer pops on the screen and things got philosophical. There were a couple of classic scares with John Carpenter's The Thing and Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist, I liked both of them.

My Top 3 on the year? Slobodan Šijan's The Marathon Family, Fassbinder's brilliant Veronika Voss. And...

Werner Herzog's sprawling, yet intimate 3-hour tale of obsession, Fitzcarraldo. In it, Klaus Kinski plays a dreamer with a list of humiliating screw-ups to his name. His one big goal is to open an Opera House in the jungles of Peru and have his beloved Caruso play on its opening night. To raise the money for this, he plans to enter into the rubber business -- and to get to his rubber trees he endeavors to haul a boat over a hill to reach an important and isolated part of the river. It's a crazy scheme, one even the real-life Fitzcarraldo didn't attempt (he at least broke his boat down into sections).

Kinski is astonishing in the lead role. Dressed in white, he is a striking contrast in this muddy land, and he at first seems affluent and confident, but we soon discover that he's a raggedy man - a career failure - though not a despairing one. He never gives up on his dream and while he might seem mad, his plans are born of a deep love of this music. Kinski's eyes are wild, but there's also something childlike in them.  When he tries to share his dream and his music to potential investors, his face alights with joy... only it's like throwing pearls to swine. They have no appreciation for the beauty he is offering them.

There is one person who believes in him, a woman (wife?) played by Claudia Cardinale, who has a giddy, unshaken faith in Fitz. She is childlike in her own way and effervescently positive. And that's a nice side to the film - while it addresses obsession and has its dark, tense edges, there's a sense of optimism that remains to the end.

The second half of Herzog's ambitious picture covers the hauling of the boat over the hill. Which requires the help of a tribe of dangerous and unpredictable natives with a dream of their own. The director actually pulled that boat up that rise, an idea explored in a companion piece documentary about the making of the film, titled Burden of Dreams. First shown on TV, it too is essential viewing. Roger Ebert, who placed both pictures 4th in his top 10 for the year, wrote of the feature... "As a document of a quest and a dream, and as the record of man's audacity and foolish, visionary heroism, there has never been another movie like it."

🎭 For Best Actress, I first had to address the question of where to place Krystyna Janda's Interrogation? The picture was ready for release in 1982 but was banned until 1989. After some debate, I went with '89. 

With that settled, who to choose? Streep (Oscar and many a bloggers choice) was solid, but a little too practiced, too self-conscious in her performance for my blood. She's a talented impressionist, but sometimes I think she gets so wrapped up in that, that she forgets to inhabit a character. And for me this was the case with Sophie, primarily in those sequences in the present - where I got a real "Look at me, I'm doing a voice, isn't it great!" vibe. She and the film are stronger in scenes set in the past.

Lang, however, is Frances Farmer, in mind, body, and soul. There's nothing self-conscious or overly practiced in her work. Yeah, the screaming bits did make me wince, they're a bit too over the top, but that's a minor flaw in an otherwise flawless piece of acting.

Best Actress: Jessica Lange, Frances
Honorable Mentions:
Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice * Rosel Zech, Veronika Voss * Sissy Spacek, Missing * Eleonora Giorgi, Borotalco * Nathalie Baye, The Return of Martin Guerre & La Balance * Renée Soutendijk, The Cool Lakes of Death * Season Ma, Boat People

Supporting Actress: Linda Hunt, The Year of Living Dangerously

Best Actor: Klaus Kinski, Fitzcarraldo (pictured up top)
Honorable Mentions:
Gérard Depardieu, The Return of Martin Guerre * Max von Sydow, The Flight of the Eagle * Paul Newman, The Verdict * Richard Farnsworth. The Grey Fox * Ben Kingsley, Gandhi * Nour El-Sherif, An Egyptian Story

Supporting Actor: Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner (pictured left)



Note on Fanny & Alexander: Wiki reports several release dates and lengths and a turn as a TV miniseries in '84. I'm putting it here, a catch-all for all versions, though I prefer the longer one.


 < Previous * Next >

Home