[1991] JFK III

As part of the Conversation Series, I’ll be speaking with certain contributors about certain movies at certain times. 

Zach Schonfeld is a “writer” living in “Brooklyn.” He is currently a reporter for Newsweek Magazine and studied English and American Studies at Wesleyan University, for which we’re all very proud.

We spoke at length about Oliver Stone’s 1991 masterpiece, JFK. Here’s Part III and the conclusion. Part I can be found here and Part II can be found here.

ZS: He pulls it off!

SS: I totally believe that. He’s one of these legendary actors.

So, that’s a really good transition, actually, into how I want to wrap this up. I try to finish my reviews with a discussion of the other films that were nominated for Best Picture. I know we may not have seen all of them – so I do a lot of guesswork at this point in the blog, a “what I’ve heard about the movie,” before having actually seen it or I’ll look up a small summary. 1991 is another(!) compelling year in Academy Award history being that it’s the last time a film took home all five major categories – Best Picture, Best Director —

ZS: Was this Dances With Wolves? 

SS: Actually, this was Silence Of The Lambs. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and then also Best Adapted Screenplay.

ZS: WOAH! Silence Of The Lambs won all of those?

SS: It won a lot of Academy Awards – those five. And all five were the “major” ones, kind of dwarfing the other films that were nominated that year – including JFK, which received eight or so nominations (and I don’t know if it won any, maybe two or three) but they were smaller categories, upon which most people wouldn’t necessarily recommend a film, “Oh did you see JFK? It won Best Art Direction,” which is nice for people involved, though not terrible compelling. [I don’t know if that’s actually true because sometimes a movie can be visually stunning and worth a look – ed.] The other movies nominated that year: Prince Of Tides, starring Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte [Woah, 1991 – ed.], that’s one of those psychological, personal narratives that I’m not necessarily drawn to, but I’m sure the acting was good. Beauty And The Beast was nominated for Best Picture [And should have won, in my humble opinion….or maybe not -ed.], which is funny. That may have been the first time an animated film had been nominated for Best Picture and I guess that shows the strength of Disney, back then. We can also talk about Bugsy.

ZS: What’s that?

SS: Bugsy, Bugsy Siegel, the famous gangster. Just the fifth of five movies nominated that year. Warren Beatty, Annette Benning – you know that classic pairing. I don’t want to say it was a weak year, but there have definitely been stronger years for Best Picture. You’ve seen Silence Of The Lambs I’m assuming.