1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 1: Shine
The Oscars were given out earlier this week. I hadn’t seen any of the nominees. Not a one!
I take that back. I’d seen Icarus, one of the documentaries (actually, I slept through most of it).
I gather that the Best Picture winner was something called The Shape of Water. Whenever I hear of such a title, I can’t help but recall THE FLOWER THAT DRANK THE MOON, the title of a (fictitious) movie lampooned in Ghost World.
I think that I may be “all out of love” with the movies – at least, with new ones. The only movies that still affect me came out many years ago. Most of them were released when I was a teenager.
Last night, I showed Karin Shine, which was released in 1996. That was the year of the many “indie” Oscar nominees. The others were The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, and Secrets & Lies. I’ve watched all of them many times, and I know them by heart, or nearly.
I shall discuss them in the next few months, as well as other classics from 1996 (and maybe a few from 1995 and 1997).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Directed by Scott Hicks, Shine is about a musician. It is most successful, however, in what it does for the eye rather than for the ear. This isn’t entirely surprising. Two excellent movies directed by Hicks’s fellow Oceanian, Jane Campion – Sweetie and An Angel at My Table – are Shine’s visual predecessors. The visual power of these movies is less the result of composition (i.e., the spatial balancing of different elements) than of concentration upon this or that colorful, textured object. The viewer is led to focus, in succession, upon such objects as a broken picture frame … broken eyeglasses … a pair mismatched of shoes … a pair of purple-pink gloves with the fingertips cut off … a purple-pink feather boa … a tape recorder whose tape has run out … a cigarette with ash dangling from it … a rain-speckled car hood … a death mask … and many, many pianos, elegant and shabby (there seems to be a different piano in Shine for each life change undergone by the protagonist).
I don’t know if I need to repeat the story. Talented young David learns music under the tutelage of his overbearing father; the strain eventually causes David to break down. He plumbs the depths. And then, seemingly out of nothing, he finds love. It’s this third act that catapults the movie into greatness. The suddenness with which David’s life is reclaimed would be jarring in any other story. Here it feels natural: David always has had in him the capacities for profound misery and for profound joy.
David grows up being told: you must be strong. You must win. Only thus will you survive.
But only when love is extended to him does he “shine.” He takes to love quickly and voraciously, like a plant finally flourishing for having received water.
Noah Taylor, the great depicter of Australian youth, shows us the early David: clever and modest, torn between hope and despair.
The mercurial older David is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, never again so compelling as he is here. On screen only a few minutes, Rush manages an Oscar-inevitable performance.
Two elderly characters – a poetess, played by Googie Withers, and a music teacher, played by John Gielgud – passionately encourage David. The viewer is convinced of the value that these two people recognize in David.
David’s father is played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, a specialist in depicting oppressive patriarchs. He dominates his scenes; then he is absent; then he reappears, like Caesar’s ghost to Brutus. His performance mixes horror with tenderness.
Finally, there is Lynn Redgrave, in a small but impactful role at the end of David’s story. She is the one commissioned by the heavens to bring David fully back to life, and she leaves the viewer with no doubt as to why she would.
I take that back. I’d seen Icarus, one of the documentaries (actually, I slept through most of it).
I gather that the Best Picture winner was something called The Shape of Water. Whenever I hear of such a title, I can’t help but recall THE FLOWER THAT DRANK THE MOON, the title of a (fictitious) movie lampooned in Ghost World.
I think that I may be “all out of love” with the movies – at least, with new ones. The only movies that still affect me came out many years ago. Most of them were released when I was a teenager.
Last night, I showed Karin Shine, which was released in 1996. That was the year of the many “indie” Oscar nominees. The others were The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, and Secrets & Lies. I’ve watched all of them many times, and I know them by heart, or nearly.
I shall discuss them in the next few months, as well as other classics from 1996 (and maybe a few from 1995 and 1997).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Directed by Scott Hicks, Shine is about a musician. It is most successful, however, in what it does for the eye rather than for the ear. This isn’t entirely surprising. Two excellent movies directed by Hicks’s fellow Oceanian, Jane Campion – Sweetie and An Angel at My Table – are Shine’s visual predecessors. The visual power of these movies is less the result of composition (i.e., the spatial balancing of different elements) than of concentration upon this or that colorful, textured object. The viewer is led to focus, in succession, upon such objects as a broken picture frame … broken eyeglasses … a pair mismatched of shoes … a pair of purple-pink gloves with the fingertips cut off … a purple-pink feather boa … a tape recorder whose tape has run out … a cigarette with ash dangling from it … a rain-speckled car hood … a death mask … and many, many pianos, elegant and shabby (there seems to be a different piano in Shine for each life change undergone by the protagonist).
I don’t know if I need to repeat the story. Talented young David learns music under the tutelage of his overbearing father; the strain eventually causes David to break down. He plumbs the depths. And then, seemingly out of nothing, he finds love. It’s this third act that catapults the movie into greatness. The suddenness with which David’s life is reclaimed would be jarring in any other story. Here it feels natural: David always has had in him the capacities for profound misery and for profound joy.
David grows up being told: you must be strong. You must win. Only thus will you survive.
But only when love is extended to him does he “shine.” He takes to love quickly and voraciously, like a plant finally flourishing for having received water.
Noah Taylor, the great depicter of Australian youth, shows us the early David: clever and modest, torn between hope and despair.
The mercurial older David is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, never again so compelling as he is here. On screen only a few minutes, Rush manages an Oscar-inevitable performance.
Two elderly characters – a poetess, played by Googie Withers, and a music teacher, played by John Gielgud – passionately encourage David. The viewer is convinced of the value that these two people recognize in David.
David’s father is played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, a specialist in depicting oppressive patriarchs. He dominates his scenes; then he is absent; then he reappears, like Caesar’s ghost to Brutus. His performance mixes horror with tenderness.
Finally, there is Lynn Redgrave, in a small but impactful role at the end of David’s story. She is the one commissioned by the heavens to bring David fully back to life, and she leaves the viewer with no doubt as to why she would.