The Sting

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Sting!

Original image located here. Accessed 5th July 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 46 (1973)

Given the 1970s are regarded as one of, if not the, strongest decades of Best Picture winners, it does raise an interesting question: Which of the ten winners is the weakest? 
Such a question is by no means a slight against the movie in question. It just sits besides some titans that would easily overshadow it. So would The Sting be the weak point of the 70s? 

Well I will admit it certainly stands on it's own. Whereas 70s cinemagoers embraced the New Hollywood movement and cynicism, The Sting is a deliberate throwback to the 1930s style of film-making. And it's not just in the aesthetic: the structure and direction is undeniably lifted from an earlier, long-gone era of film-making. If anything this seems to be a flipside to The French Connection: if that movie embodies the realism and cynicism of New Hollywood, then The Sting seems oddly resistant to them.  
But that is by no means a bad thing: This is a solid crime caper based around building up a con-game to take down a crime boss. Certainly the narrative is bogged down by multiple double-crosses but I do admire the effort gone into making this movie. After all, it has the most compelling poker game I have ever seen on celluloid. 

The French Connection

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... The French Connection!

Original image located here. Accessed 28th June 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 44 (1971)

Hey, did you now that the director of The Exorcist made other movies? And he has a Best Director Oscar to his name?!

Okay, sarcasm aside, this is very much a product of it's time: the era of New Hollywood was underway and the Academy voters has discovered cynicism. And here we do indeed have a more realistic approach to film-making and film-makers more than willing to take risks. 

And it works. There's so many highlights I don't know where to start: Gene Hackman on fire. An opening scene that has our protagonist dressed as Santa Claus chasing down and beating up a guy. A detective protagonist that is less Dirty Harry and more Captain Ahab. An intense car chase that was famously illegally shot. Some truly stunning location photography. The template for countless police procedural movies to follow. And an ending that hits like a truck.

Speaking of which, is this the bleakest movie to win the Best Picture Oscar? One would think so but that's what makes it a unique entry compared to it's brethren. And all the better for it.