1999
AMERICAN BEAUTY - Alan Ball
(Written Directly for the Screen)
THE CIDER HOUSE RULES - John Irving
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1998
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE - Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard
(Written Directly for the Screen)
GODS AND MONSTERS - Bill Condon
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1997
GOOD WILL HUNTING - Ben Affleck, Matt Damon
(Written Directly for the Screen)
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL - Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1996
FARGO - Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
(Written Directly for the Screen)
Fargo (1996) is a self-proclaimed "homespun murder story" set in the white-washed, winter wilderness of the frozen and bleak Upper Midwest. An anomaly of categorization, the contemporary masterpiece is a film noir (with stark white vistas and backdrops), a satirical comedy, a suspenseful crime drama, and a violent mystery thriller. The Coen Brothers' film is an original mix of black mirth and murder that both delights and disturbs the viewer. The dark comedy's local color is provided by the flat-accented, dead-pan voices, regional dialect, and exaggerated, down-home mannerisms of the Midwestern characters and oft-repeated phrases such as "You betcha," "Aw Jeez," "You're darn tootin', "Okie-Dokie," "Yup," "Be there in a jif," and "Yah." And a number of incongruous dialogue sequences and extraneous minor characters appear without any real reason except to provide a fascinating journey along the way.
The off-beat, absurdist morality tale from the creative and original producing/writing/directing collaborative team of Joel and Ethan Coen is unlike many of their previous films, with a straight-forward, realistic narrative devoid of their typically quirky and bizarre sequences. It is more a return to their hometown roots and a remake of their debut film, Blood Simple (1983) - set in the hot extremes of Texas, a tale of another husband who hires a hit man to murder his wife.
A kidnapping gone awry, a triple homicide (a highway patrolman and two innocent passersby), two contrasting families (the male-dominated Lundegaards and the female-dominated Gundersons), the corruptible effects of fast food, TV watching and pecuniary greed, and a hapless extortion scheme make up the film's story, but the major strong point is the realistic performances of the two leads:
William H. Macy is superb as the desperate, wretched and incompetent car salesman and hapless husband, who is pathetically in debt, and sets the uncontrollable chain of events into motion with an ill-fated plan to have his wife kidnapped and ransomed by extorting his wealthy father-in-law
Frances McDormand, appearing a third of the way into the film, perfectly portrays the astute, level-headed, warm-hearted (even in the frozen clime), persevering, smarter-than-she-appears pregnant local Chief of Police (supplemented with her loving relationship with her husband)
Its critical and box-office success also came with seven Academy Awards nominations, including Best Supporting Actor (William H. Macy), Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins, The Shawshank Redemption), Best Director (Joel Coen), Best Film Editing (alias Roderick Jaynes, actually the Coens), and Best Picture (Ethan Coen). The film's two well-deserved Oscars were for Best Original Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen), and Best Actress (Frances McDormand, Joel Coen's real-life wife). A brilliant pilot for a dark comedy TV series based on Fargo was made in 1997, starring Edie Falco as Marge Gunderson, but never publicly aired until late 2003 -- the plans for the proposed spin-off series were subsequently dropped.
During the opening credits, a disclaimer states that Fargo's story is a "true story" based on an actual kidnapping and murder case - although the white-on-black inter-title's claim is questionable and has been disputed. [The end credits state: "The persons and events portrayed in this production are fictitious."] However, the tongue-in-cheek claim of authenticity lends an air of credibility to the ghoulish account.
SLING BLADE - Billy Bob Thornton
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1995
THE USUAL SUSPECTS - Christopher McQuarrie
(Written Directly for the Screen)
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY - Emma Thompson
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1994
PULP FICTION - Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino
(Written Directly for the Screen)
FORREST GUMP - Eric Roth
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1993
THE PIANO - Jane Campion
(Written Directly for the Screen)
SCHINDLER'S LIST - Steven Zaillian
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
Schindler's List (1993) is Steven Spielberg's unexpected award-winning masterpiece - a profoundly shocking, unsparing, fact-based, three-hour long epic of the nightmarish Holocaust. [Italian-American catholic Martin Scorsese was originally slated to direct the film, but turned down the chance - claiming the film needed a director of Jewish descent - before turning it over to Spielberg.] Its documentary authenticity vividly re-creates a dark, frightening period during World War II, when Jews in Nazi-occupied Krakow were first dispossessed of their businesses and homes, then placed in ghettos and forced labor camps in Plaszow, and finally resettled in concentration camps for execution. The violence and brutality of their treatment in a series of matter-of-fact (and horrific) incidents is indelibly and brilliantly orchestrated.
Except for the bookends (its opening and closing scenes) and two other brief shots (the little girl in a red coat and candles burning with orange flames), the entire film in-between is shot in crisp black and white. The film is marvelous for the way in which it crafts its story without contrived, manipulative Hollywood-ish flourishes (often typical of other Spielberg films) - it is also skillfully rendered with overlapping dialogue, parallel editing, sharp and bold characterizations, contrasting compositions of the two main characters (Schindler and Goeth), cinematographic beauty detailing shadows and light with film-noirish tones, jerky hand-held cameras (cinema verite), a beautifully selected and composed musical score (including Itzhak Perlman's violin), and gripping performances.
The screenplay by Steven Zaillian was adapted from Thomas Keneally's 1982 biographic novel (Schindler's Ark), constructed by interviews with 50 Schindler survivors found in many nations, and other wartime associates of the title character, as well as other written testimonies and sources. Oskar Schindler was an enterprising, womanizing Nazi Sudeten-German industrialist/opportunist and war profiteer, who first exploited the cheap labor of Jewish/Polish workers in a successful enamelware factory, and eventually rescued more than one thousand of them from certain extinction in labor/death camps.
Before the film was made, Spielberg had offered Holocaust survivor and director Roman Polanski the job of making the film, but Polanski declined. Since then, ten years later, Polanski made his own honored Holocaust film, the Best Director-winning The Pianist (2002).
The unanimously-praised film with a modest budget of $23 million deservedly won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (the first for Spielberg), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Editing (Michael Kahn), and Best Art Direction. It also won nominations for two of its male leads: Best Actor (Liam Neeson) and Best Supporting Actor (Ralph Fiennes), Best Costume Design, Best Sound, and Best Makeup. Other organizations including the British Academy Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Golden Globes, likewise honored the film. It was the first black/white film since The Apartment (1960) to win the Best Picture Academy Award.
1992
THE CRYING GAME - Neil Jordan
(Written Directly for the Screen)
HOWARDS END - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1991
THELMA & LOUISE - Callie Khouri
(Written Directly for the Screen)
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - Ted Tally
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is one of the most taut, suspenseful, psychological thrillers ever produced. Director Jonathan Demme's superbly-crafted, harrowing film is dark, moody, somber, and truly frightening, yet exhilarating. [Until this A-list film and the director's subsequent opportunity to make more mainstream Hollywood films, Demme was better known as a maverick film director for B-films such as Caged Heat (1964), Melvin and Howard (1980), Something Wild (1986), Swimming to Cambodia (1987), and Married to the Mob (1988).]
Ted Tally's screenplay was based on Thomas Harris's 1988 best-selling novel of the same name. An earlier stylish and slick film thriller, also based on a Thomas Harris novel titled Red Dragon published in 1981, was Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986), (aka Red Dragon: The Pursuit of Hannibal Lecter) - it was the first film to represent psycho-killer Dr. Lecter (played by Brian Cox). [Manhunter probably inspired the short-lived (8 episodes) NBC-TV series titled Unsub (1989) with David Soul - an ahead-of-its-time 'forensic or crime scene investigation' show that likewise led to this 1991 film, and also to the police procedural TV show Profiler (first appearing on NBC in 1996) and to the immensely popular CBS-TV show CSI (and its spinoffs).]
The intimate and disturbing characterizations of mass murderers who mutilate their victims (usually female) were shocking, particularly the character of evil personified - the notorious, cobra-like, intelligent psychiatrist turned psychopath Hannibal Lecter (portrayed masterfully by British actor Anthony Hopkins) and his bargaining game to share information about another wanted serial killer ("Buffalo Bill") with dedicated, fledgling, vulnerable and rising female FBI agent-trainee/investigator Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). The most compelling part of the film is in the developing dynamics of their participation in a cat-and-mouse battle of nerves, and the many chilling, spell-binding discussions in four scenes between them. Their relationship dances and alternates back and forth between psychopath/aspiring female agent, deranged psychologist/therapeutic patient, and father/daughter...
1990
GHOST - Bruce Joel Rubin
(Written Directly for the Screen)
DANCES WITH WOLVES - Michael Blake
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)