Because the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, the folks behind the increasingly boring and benumbing Oscar awards ceremony, is afraid to release vote tallies of its Academy Award nominees and winners, we never really know who got nominated overall. We only know who made the cut. Then when it comes to the actual reading of the envelopes, we never know how close the vote really is.
I've heard a lot of reasons why MPAAS doesn't divulge total votes. In the old days, the studios ran the show, and they really did run the show. The voting and ceremony began as a promotional tool. There was extensive bloc voting in which the major studios pushed their own movies. I've also heard that the Oscar people just don't think it's classy to reveal how many votes are cast.
There are other supposed reasons, but I've always thought -- and it's only a thought -- that MPAAS doesn't tell us how many ballot are filled out and sent in because the low number would embarrass them. As of 2007, only 5,829 people are eligible to nominate and vote for the Academy Awards. That's certainly a higher number than how many vote for that joke of an award, the Golden Globe, but it's still incredibly small. In 2008, the Academy will add some more members -- perhaps about 150 movie folks. The Oscar voting bloc is, and always will be, a relatively exclusive club. Does everyone send back their ballots?
I write the above because of Frank Langella. His performance in the new film "Starting Out in the Evening" is surefire Academy Award material. He was eligible, as was the movie, for the recent honors. But both Langella and the film were shut out. How close did he get to being a best actor nominee? We'll never know. Was he No. 6 -- the closest man to the top five? There's no way to tell. Supposedly, only Price Waterhouse, the accounting firm that tallies Oscar votes, knows the numbers, and nobody yet has cracked their safe.
At its core, "Starting Out in the Evening" is about writing. Whether the writer is a bona fide novelist, a journalist, a chronicler of crime, a critic, an essayist, a poet, a playwright or a diarist, there's something within each person who writes that compels them to sit still for that sometimes short, sometimes long period of time and stare at a blank sheet of paper, or as it's done today, stare at the blank computer screen with that damned cursor blinking like a taunting signpost of contempt. Writers wait and wait and wait for the happy moment when words will dance in front of their eyes.
For Langella's Leonard Schiller -- a proud but tired writer and a mainstay of the 1950s and '60s New York literary scene -- his words in the new century are barely able to walk, let alone dance. His previous novels are out of print, his popularity is reduced to his being a trivia question, and he's desperately trying finish the manuscript of his latest (and probably last) novel.
He lives in a wonderful, book-filled, classic upper West Side Manhattan apartment. He's a literary lion still protecting his fabled past. In 21st century America, he continues to use a typewriter. He hasn't updated his telephone in years. On his kitchen wall is one of those boxy, oversized telephones, the squarish, sharp-edged ones that you can drop a thousand times and nothing breaks and it still works. He does occasionally leave his lair, but he's more comfortable at home, puttering away precious hours, but always saving some period of time to work on his unfinished book. What's holding him back? What holds anybody back? Life. Memories. Regrets.
It's rare that a movie about literary people is made, let alone one that explores the writer's life with such precision and sensitivity. Directed by Andrew Wagner, and written by Wagner and Fred Parnes from Brian Morton's novel, "Starting Out in the Evening" derives most of its dramatic power from the relationship between Schiller and an eager young woman named Heather Wolfe, a Brown University graduate student who's writing her masters thesis on the author's work.
At first it seems that Wolfe, acted by Lauren Ambrose, is more starstruck than anything else. She needs his cooperation, but he spurns her interest. Wolfe needs his insights into why his novels are what they are, how they were developed and how much of his writing is the result of personal dreams and demons. Soon, she wins over Schiller with her serious interest in books and literature, and an intellectual friendship develops.
It's here that the movie gets a little messy. Wolfe (and yes, in a corny way, she does come across as someone in sheep's clothing) is determined to resurrect Schiller's career. Rather than concentrate on the intellectual spark between the Schiller and Wolfe, the film drifts into platonic games and then into overtly sexual games.
It's really only a problem because I think this subplot might have worked better with a different actress. There's something off-putting about Ambrose's choices as a performer. I found her a bit annoying because her hero worship and then her vulnerability isn't as believable as it should be. She's flat when she should be emotional. Blame Ambrose and the director for that. She's also out of her depth because Langella is so powerful an actor. Both characters are vulnerable, but Schiller's vulnerability is what we care about. In fact, Wolfe comes across as a little bit of a villain, and I don't think that's the road Wagner and Ambrose wanted to take.
There's also Schiller's daughter with whom to contend. Ariel, superbly played by Lili Taylor, is 40 and facing a serious biological-clock crisis. She wants a baby but has given up trying to find a man for a committed relationship. She'd rather consider having unprotected sex with two boyfriends. The first guy, Victor, matches her age, but she doesn't want to be serious with him. The second guy is a little bit younger and has come back into her life after they drifted apart. That split hurt Ariel, and Schiller doesn't want her being hurt again. This component of the movie actually works better than the primary focus, the Schiller-Wolfe relationship. The writing involving father, daughter and Casey (Adrien Lester), the returning lover, is superb. It crackles with real feeling and hesitation. And the fact that all three parts are well-acted certainly helps.
As the film progresses, the drama intensifies. Wolfe is good, maybe too good, at getting under Schiller's skin with her questions about his private life, his bad marriage and the compromises he's made in his writing. You want him to throw her out of his life, but he begins to appreciate the attention and companionship. Through the movie's ups and downs, the one real constant is Langella's magnificent acting. His Schiller isn't the happiest of men, but he isn't afraid to be a little bit amused or even, at times, bemused. You appreciate his wry smile. As for the final shot, well... anyone who writes -- or wants to write -- will know exactly what's going on. It's a pleasure to welcome this film and praise it for its intelligence and perception.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 25 2008 |