Maestro (2023)
Director: Bradley Cooper
Screenwriter: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Sam Nivola

When On the Waterfront opened in 1954, its score gained just as much critical praise as any other element of the film – which isn’t a light feat considering it won eight Oscars. Amazingly, it would remain Leonard Bernstein’s only contribution to cinema. At least, his only contribution that was intended to be part of a film – the music he composed for West Side Story is probably some of his most iconic work, but it was composed for the stage rather than for the screen. For a character as big as Bernstein with a mark on American culture of similar stature, it’s amazing to think that it has taken this long for his second mark on cinema to be made.

Bradley Cooper writes, directs, and stars in Maestro as the man himself. Cooper’s belief in his own ability to multitask is clearly quite strong, and its strength is only matched by his ambition to make a film that spans a life as long and as rich as Bernstein’s. We meet him as an old man who has already done it all, and then we take a step back into his mid-twenties in the early 1940s.

Maestro is a rare case in which style becomes substance. Bradley Cooper’s performance as Bernstein changes to fit each historical era that the film visits – he is more stagey and theatrical in the 40s, and looser and, seemingly, more improvisational in the 70s. It’s not only Cooper’s performance that changes – the cinematography changes to suit the era it’s portraying in more ways than just the use of black and white footage for the older sequences.

As Bernstein himself ages with constantly shifting makeup and facial prosthetics, the look and feel of the world around him informs us as to when it is all taking place by becoming a part of the era it’s portraying. When it’s showing us something from the 40s, it could easily be dropped into a Charlie Chaplin film, whereas the shots that take place in the 70s could be mistaken for Deliverance. In the few glimpses we get into the 80s, it has the atmosphere of a cheesy Miami-set disposable action movie.

The only aspect that isn’t changing and reinventing itself throughout is Felicia, Bernstein’s wife portrayed by Carey Mulligan. Mulligan’s performance is in such stark contrast to Cooper’s that it accentuates both of their characters – Felicia is caring and stable while Leonard is passionate and erratic. They aren’t compatible as lovers, but they share a warmth towards each other that neither takes for granted.

Bernstein is such a flawed character that, if it wasn’t for Felicia’s stability beside him, it would be hard to empathise with why he makes such chaotic life choices at every available opportunity. Maestro never advocates for those choices or attempts to put Bernstein in a light that he isn’t worthy of – it’s as critical of him as it needs to be – but seeing how quickly his personality and his life can change does go some way to creating some relatability for how he could become so self-destructive. A kind light is encouraged by the wealth of context that we’re afforded.

Of course, Maestro isn’t breaking new ground in telling quite a personal story in contrast to an otherwise well-crafted public image. Tár even beat it to be the first one about a conductor to be released in the 2020s. The best comparison for Maestro, however, is probably in something it’s the opposite of, The Greatest Showman. They’re both films about Americans who broke new ground in their respective eras – the former as the first American to lead a symphony orchestra and the latter as the American (P. T. Barnum) who popularised the circus. What makes Maestro and The Greatest Showman so different, though, is that Maestro never attempts to glorify its subject under the pretence that his achievements should outweigh his character. It celebrates his art while retaining the integrity of his flaws.

What it all amounts to is a biopic that is long overdue but served well by its existence now that it is finally here. Bradley Cooper has managed to make Maestro a thoughtful depiction of Leonard Bernstein’s life and character, but also of the world that shaped him and the people who were around him for it all.

Score: 17/24

Written by Rob Jones

You can support Rob Jones on his website: rbrtjones.com
Twitter: @rbrtjones

According to Screencraft, there are six essential elements to a Christmas film: nostalgia, magic, family, atmosphere, hope, and redemption. These can all be easily applied to festive classics we know and love, such as the iconic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the joyous Elf (2003), and the British household staple Nativity! (2009).

Even so, there has been debate upon debate about whether certain films can be entered into the yuletide Hall of Fame, the most prominent of these being Die Hard (1988). One film that should be considered but seems to fly under the radar is Steven Spielberg’s 2002 crime caper and comedy-drama Catch Me If You Can.

Released on Christmas Day, the film is based on the true story of how teenager Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) successfully pulled off confidence schemes worth millions of dollars by impersonating a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, all whilst evading the clutches of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).

Doesn’t sound very Christmassy, right? Wrong!

Spielberg’s caper immediately establishes the film’s sense of nostalgia through its period setting of the 1960s. We are transported back in time to when banks didn’t have high-tech security, Pan Am was the kingpin of American air travel, and Frank’s ugly orange knitted vest was considered fashionable. These are all nostalgic for the people who grew up in and around the 1960s, and that group would have been the target audience for this film back in 2002.

The film’s sense of nostalgia still holds up today. There is a scene in which Frank, in the midst of his pilot con, goes to the cinema to watch the iconic James Bond film of the era Dr. No (1962), then it cuts to him having a suit measured. What name does he give the tailor? Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond.

In a way, it’s magic. Which is, of course, a key ingredient of a Christmas film.

Whilst the magic isn’t depicted in the stereotypical manner of wizards and fairy dust, Frank is represented as an immoral magician, right from the moment he steps into his classroom in a new school and hoodwinks his class into thinking he is the substitute teacher. We buy into the grand scale of Frank’s ongoing mastery of disguise and sleight of hand, and it makes for entertaining viewing even if certain elements of the true story have been widely disputed.

As with most Spielberg films, one of the central themes is a broken home and the effects it has on the children involved. If anything screams “Christmas film” it’s the idea of family and themes of reconciliation and repairing broken relationships.

We are introduced to the tight-knit Abagnale family, with Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) receiving an award as his wife Paula (Nathalie Baye) and son Frank watch on in admiration. We then cut to a scene in which Frank watches his parents dancing by the family Christmas tree, as Frank Sr. recounts the story of how he and Paula met. From here, the idyllic family life takes a turn when Frank Sr.’s tax problems and Paula’s affair ultimately lead to their divorce. Upon being forced to choose which parent to live with, Frank rebels by running away from upstate New York to the City, thus kickstarting his career as a high-stakes con artist.

Throughout the film, we see Frank meeting up with his father, hoping that the money he has made will convince his parents to reconcile and make their living situation go back to the way it was. Frank Sr. resists this idea, having moved on and accepted what happened. This upsets Frank, who plunges deeper and deeper into his scams.

The film’s heartbreaking climactic moment comes years later, as Carl tells Frank that his father has died whilst they are flying back to the US. Distraught, Frank escapes the plane and finds the house of his mother, who has a new family. This prompts Frank to finally stop running and to surrender to Carl and the FBI.

In the climax, Frank sees his mother’s new family on Christmas Day, where there are fairy lights and a tree just like the one in the start of film. He looks on through the window, excluded from the life he used to have and desperately longed to have back. The beautiful tones of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” underpin the emotional weight of the scene, with the warmth of the classic song heavily contrasting Frank being left out in the cold.

Christmas Eve itself is a recurring motif throughout the film. Frank calls Carl to provoke him to send a team to chase him and apologise for their last encounter. Carl sees through this, realising that Frank has nobody to talk to. A few years later, Frank calls Carl on that day to tell him that he wants a truce, as he is getting married. Carl declines, saying that he will be caught and put in prison. Their final interaction on this day comes when Carl tracks Frank down to Montrichard, where his father met his mother on Christmas Eve. Frank is subsequently arrested by French police.

Hope is another seasonally relevant key theme throughout Catch Me If You Can, as Frank’s schemes are based upon his hope that the rewards will prompt his parents to get back together. The naivety of this notion makes the film’s climax all that more heartbreaking. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in this regard is phenomenal, as he is able to shape-shift from a cocky kid playing the part of an adult into an anxious young boy going through a traumatic change in his life when he is on the brink of adulthood. It is certainly a gamble to cast a 32 year-old as a 16 year-old, but it paid off. Spielberg is able to utilise the actor’s talents to convey this loss of childlike hope over time, presenting a type of coming-of-age we often see in Christmas films like Elf and Meet Me In St. Louis.

At the end of the film, after Frank is sentenced to 12 years in prison, Carl offers him an opportunity for redemption, as he realises that Frank’s conning skills can be utilised to help the FBI detect fraud. Frank accepts serving the rest of his sentence by working at the FBI, but finds that an office job is incredibly tedious. Frank prepares to impersonate a pilot one last time, but Carl finds him in the airport, saying nobody is chasing him. He tries to question Carl about his family, as Carl reveals that he is the father in a broken home, with a daughter not much younger than Frank himself. At that moment, we think Frank is going to go through with the con, but he appears back at the FBI and the film ends with him and Carl discussing one of the cons in great depth. This is a bright, feel-good ending reminiscent of any number of great Christmas films, and one that arguably ties their father-son-like relationship together, revealing to us a found family staple of a deeply unconventional nature but a wholly Christmas one nonetheless.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Director: John Hughes
Screenwriter: John Hughes
Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy

You’d be hard-pressed to name a more beloved Thanksgiving movie than the late John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). For many, the film has a virtual monopoly on the holiday’s cinematic canon (sorry, Charlie Brown) and endures as quintessential post-feast viewing. And, while Hughes’ other holiday flicks such as National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) and Home Alone (1990) would go on to become living room mainstays in their own right, the king of crowd-pleasers’ first foray into holiday fare remains his most timeless. 

The film stars Steve Martin and the late John Candy as an oddball pair of unlucky travelers determined to make it home for Thanksgiving—in spite of the gamut of transportation delays thrown their way. The two are total opposites: Martin plays Neal Page, a prickly, Scroogean advertising executive who wants nothing more than to be left alone, while Candy plays Del Griffith, a chatterbox shower-ring salesman who Neal can’t seem to shake. Needless to say, Neal and Del’s perceived incompatibility makes for some delightful screwball comedy as they continually find themselves stranded. 

Anyone even marginally familiar with Steve Martin or John Candy’s work can see how inspired their casting was for a film with such a premise. These guys are their characters, and their characters are them. Their chemistry is palpable even as Neal’s standoffishness increasingly and hilariously chafes up against Del’s inability to take a hint. Hence the litany of endlessly-quoted one liners—some scripted, some improvised—which have cemented themselves in the American pop-culture lexicon (“Those aren’t pillows!”). 

And yet such iconic moments were ultimately conjured by Hughes’ brisk and gratifying script, as well as his willingness to let the performers make it their own. As Kevin Bacon—who has a brief cameo at the beginning of the film as the guy Neal races to hail a cab during rush hour—once recalled, “He wasn’t precious about his own dialogue. He was precious about his characters.”

One might recall the motel scene—in which Neal ruthlessly explodes on Del, only for Del to soberly reaffirm his security with himself, with all his idiosyncrasies and eccentric tendencies—as one of many in the film that cracks you up while tugging at your heartstrings. This is where the film hits a sweet spot: one where farcical comedy is balanced seamlessly with sincere emotional drama. Martin and Candy elevate the latent sentimentality in Hughes’ script to surprisingly moving ends, and Hughes relishes in it. Perhaps more so than National Lampoon’s and Home Alone—both of which Hughes wrote, but did not direct—Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ direction seems to be in perfect harmony with its performers, mining Martin and Candy’s brilliance for all it’s worth.

Above it all, Neal and Del’s ultimate connection—one between two lonely men who, under different circumstances, would likely remain total strangers—is what maintains the film’s continued resonance. We care about these characters because, in a way, they are us. Perhaps even more so today than in 1987, the tedium of our routines so often alienates us from our neighbors. It would not be difficult to imagine a contemporaneous version of this film sending up the impersonality of ridesharing and the gig economy. (When was the last time you made meaningful conversation with your Uber driver? What if you were now stuck with them?) 

Underneath all the film’s warm-and-fuzziness is a sort of universal truth, an exercise in empathy that has maintained its potency. As Hughes once said about the film: “I like taking dissimilar people, putting them together, and finding what’s common to us all.” These themes are not new, but they are universal—and when delivered skillfully and sincerely, comedy can become quite affecting. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of those films that feels like a rarity in big studios’ output today and yet timeless nonetheless, which is perhaps why it is remembered so fondly. This is a comedy that set a standard for the genre—even if, at the end of the day, it was all in the holiday spirit.

Score: 19/24

Written by Connell Oberman

You can support Connell Oberman in the following places:

Twitter: @ObermanConnell
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And yet it was not without its burdens. The considerable side-effects of growing up in the spotlight reached a disturbing crescendo by the time Foster started undergrad at Yale in 1980, where she was obsessively stalked by John Hinckley Jr., the Travis Bickle wannabe who would go on to shoot Ronald Reagan. Amazingly, Foster continued to act in films between semesters until she graduated in 1985—although few of them managed to garner critical or commercial success. That trend continued in the years following as Foster struggled to redefine herself as an actress. She had displayed such strength and graceful resilience on-screen and in her life: it was about time her adult roles reflected that. 

That much-needed spark came with 1988’s The Accused, in which Foster plays a rape survivor fighting to bring her assailants to justice, and 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, which saw her embody the now-iconic FBI trainee Clarice Starling alongside Anthony Hopkins’ legendary Hannibal Lecter. Foster won an Academy Award for each film, and she carried on the momentum through the 90s with celebrated performances in films such as Nell (1994) and Contact (1997), and even made her directorial debut with Little Man Tate (1991). Foster’s pedigree amongst her peers and audiences was undoubtedly cemented by the time she was invited to head the jury at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, a position from which she ultimately stepped down to star in David Fincher’s suspenseful cat-and-mouse thriller Panic Room (2002). 

Through the 2000s, Foster’s turn as the villainous Madeleine White in Spike Lee’s Inside Man (2006) and her well-documented but ultimately ill-fated effort to direct and star in a biopic about the notorious, if technically brilliant, Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl made convincing counterpoints to dissenting criticisms accusing Foster of “sanctifying herself as an old-fashioned heroine [rather than] taking on dramatically risky roles.” Such criticisms arguably neglected to acknowledge the fact that Foster has been taking risks since she was a child, but they also failed to appreciate the deeply affecting vulnerability Foster brings to even the most competent and resolute of characters. 

And, while Foster has been famously—and understandably—reticent about her personal life aside from her devastating 1982 Esquire essay “Why Me?,” which recounted her experience as a public figure up to the John Hinckley incident, and her 2011 Golden Globes speech which vaguely alluded to speculation surrounding her sexuality, this vulnerability has come to define her career. Jodie Foster is not only simply good at her job, much like many of the women she has played, but she also clearly brings a piece of herself to every role. Now, after a long stint working primarily as a director, she seems to be turning a new chapter—one that sees the celebrated actress return to form with projects such as the upcoming ‘True Detective: Night Country’ (2024), and get personal in films like 2023’s Nyad. 

In 2021, Foster told the New York Times: “I am a solitary, internal person in an extroverted, external job. I don’t think I will ever not feel lonely. It’s a theme in my life. It’s not such a bad thing. I don’t need to be known by everyone.” Perhaps the reluctant movie star would rather her work speak for itself, as it does in these 3 Career-Defining Performances. 

1. Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver Review

Any evaluation of Jodie Foster’s career would be incomplete without mention of her revelatory turn as Iris Steensma in Martin Scorsese’s early-career masterpiece. Hers is widely considered to be one of the best child performances of all time and earned her the first Oscar nomination of her career at the age of 13. Already an acclaimed child star for her work in films such as Disney’s Napoleon and Samantha (1972) and the 1973 adaptation Tom Sawyer, Foster seemed destined to become a defining performer of her generation. If Taxi Driver taught us anything, it’s that she already was. 

Martin Scorsese must have sensed it, too. Foster had previously appeared in the auteur’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, so by the time she was cast in Taxi Driver, she and Scorsese had already established a working relationship. Still, then-12-year-old Foster’s casting as a child prostitute opposite Robert De Niro’s antisocial weirdo Travis Bickle raised more than a few eyebrows. Abundant cautionary measures were taken to ensure Foster’s—and her mother’s—comfort while performing, including regular psychiatric check-ups, constant accompaniment by a social worker on set, and the substitution of Foster with her older sister Connie for a few particularly suggestive scenes. 

Foster herself, though, seemed unfazed by her role’s apparent ethical grayness: “To me it was another role, and I understood the difference between making movies and actually being a person. So it wasn’t really impactful for me. I don’t think I was confused by the sexuality in the film,” she recalled. It might be an overstatement to assume that Foster had a complete and clear-eyed understanding of the film’s thematic material at the time, but she embodied this character with such fearlessness and emotional candor that she elucidates it all the same. 

Her character does not get significant screen time until the film’s third act, when the increasingly unstable Bickle takes it upon himself to facilitate her liberation—and yet Iris is not merely the object of Bickle’s crusade but also the film’s beating heart. Upon their first meeting, or in the iconic diner scene, the sociopathic Bickle is baffled by Iris’s naive buoyancy. She’s a victim of a perverse society, undoubtedly more so than Bickle, and yet her sense of indignation seems far less than that which he feels on her—and his—behalf. By the time Bickle goes on his rampage, the textually rich interactions between he and Iris have called into question any notion that his actions are driven by anything other than a need to placate his violent urges in the name of righteous justice. Still, Iris represents the sort of injured humanity that no doubt wrestles for control inside Bickle. The kids aren’t alright, and neither is he. This layered diagnosis of the many diseases plaguing American society after the Vietnam war (and which are just as prescient today) would have been simply incomplete without Foster’s acutely intelligent and affecting performance. 

While Foster would go on to bolster her early-career resume with starring roles in tentpole films like Freaky Friday (1976) and Bugsy Malone (1976), it was undoubtedly Taxi Driver that would come to define this stage of her career; not only for its revered status, but also for what was undoubtedly her coronation as a performer well ahead of her time—and meant for much more than Disney originals. Robert De Niro famously took Foster under his wing while filming, which, it could be reasonably assumed, only refined her enormous talent. “He really helped me understand improvisation and building a character in a way that was almost nonverbal,” Foster said of the experience. With one of the most prolific actor-filmmaker tandems of all time attesting to her skills, Jodie Foster was clearly bound to play with the big kids. 

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The Silence of the Lambs Review

Foster won her second Oscar for her role as Clarice Starling, the industrious young FBI investigator opposite Anthony Hopkins’ cerebral and chillingly polite Hannibal Lecter, an incarcerated cannibal Starling is tasked with gleaning psychological insight from to help catch a serial killer. Fresh off her first win for her role in 1998’s The Accused, Foster was in a new prime—and while her performance in that film could just as well represent this stage of her career, it is her turn as Starling that has since been immortalized. 

Despite her newfound acclaim in adult roles, Foster had to wait behind industry fixtures such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, and Laura Dern for the role—all three declined the part due to film’s disturbing themes and Foster, having expressed enthusiasm for the part since she read the 1988 novel, got her shot. 

The film has since reached classic-status—despite controversy surrounding its polarizing treatment of themes related to transgenderism and sexuality—thanks in no small part to Foster’s performance. Foster’s Starling, small in stature, nonetheless consumes every scene she’s in, transcending even Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is also at the top of his game. Director Jonathan Demme frequently frames Clarice in close-ups, which feels like a deliberate rendering of the inescapable male gaze that follows her everywhere, and Foster, with her aptitude for the subdued and unspoken, shines. She convincingly embodies a woman who is simultaneously unwavering and deeply vulnerable in the face of Lecter’s psychological ambushes. It’s the type of thing that separates run-of-the-mill crime thrillers from timeless innovations of the genre—and Foster’s performance is timeless in its own right. 

Would it be going too far to say her role in Silence was one of Foster’s most personal? Perhaps not, since Foster reportedly tried to option the novel even before Demme was attached, and since the film offers compelling reflections on gender politics and the experience of being watched. Foster was, unfortunately, no stranger to such themes in her real life, so it makes sense that she approached the role with profound honesty and vulnerability. Clarice is tough; she’s “the woman that saves the women.” And yet she exists in a discomfiting reality that most women know all too well. 

The tension between these elements illuminates a theme that would come to define the roles Foster took on. If not lambs, then Foster’s unusual life experiences nonetheless scream through her work. From “Why Me?”: “There were things to be done, secrets to keep. I was supposed to be ‘tough,’ like cowboys, like diplomats, like ‘unaffected actresses’—not because anyone asked me to but because I wanted to show them (God knows who) that I was strong. I wanted to show them all that Jodie was so uniquely ‘normal’ and ‘well-adjusted’ that nothing could make her fall. I think I believed all this, my subconscious propaganda.”

3. Contact (1997)

By 1997, Jodie Foster was a bonafide movie star. Suddenly, she found herself being sought after for bigger and bigger projects—which would result in a string of genre star vehicles around the turn of the millennium. The actress would go on to work with the likes of David Fincher and Spike Lee, but it was perhaps her collaboration with Robert Zemeckis in his sci-fi melodrama Contact (1997) that bore the most memorable performance from this period in her career. 

The film, an adaptation of Carl Sagan’s 1988 novel, was a box office success and has largely held up over time despite mixed reviews upon its release. Foster’s performance is far and away the best part of the film, as her character Dr. Ellie Arroway becomes more than a generic sci-fi protagonist in her quest to establish contact with extraterrestrial beings. Foster, with her trademark rugged sensitivity, largely embodies the tension between faith and science and the messy convergence of the two. Like the film’s screenplay, Foster’s performance is interesting because it cleverly subverts easy clichés in favor of a more grounded, humanistic exploration of its otherwise schmaltzy premise. She’s no Ellen Ripley, but she’s just as heroic. 

A film of cosmic ambition, Contact works precisely because of Foster’s ability to bring depth and sincerity to her character. As Dr. Arroway gets swept up in the frenzied worldwide response to her discovery of an otherworldly radio transmission—a flagrant confirmation of the existence of extraterrestrial life—her character nonetheless feels honest and believable, which makes her ultimate journey into space all the more compelling. Zemeckis understands this and rarely separates the audience from Foster even as the film’s scale expands dramatically. 

In Foster’s own words: “I think, more than any character that I’ve ever played, Ellie Arroway is the most like me or at least the most like how I think I should be seen — how I see myself or something.” The lonely astronomer might not be the first of Foster’s characters to feel like a de facto analogue for Foster herself, but her sci-fi milieu only confirms that Foster has the chops to tackle any kind of material. 

Whether she’s surrounded by blue screens or rubbing elbows with other iconic performers, Jodie Foster consistently delivers performances capable of moving even the most cynical viewer. Her filmography boasts a pantheon of strong-willed heroines, precocious youngsters, and complicated women—and her prolific directorial career is nothing to thumb your nose at. With more to come from the legendary actress as she enters her 60s, now is as good a time as ever to appreciate her storied career. 

Written by Connell Oberman

You can support Connell Oberman in the following places:

Twitter: @ObermanConnell
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The four films released annually between 2012 and 2015 present a dystopian near future dominated by class divides and its public’s insatiable appetite for violence and cheap thrills. It focuses upon Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) as she navigates her position as a tribute in the 74th Hunger Games in Panem, what was once North America, before winning and unintentionally becoming the face of a rebellion.

In the universe of the films, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event in which 24 participants (Tributes) are forced to fight to the death until one remains. This competition was enforced by the Capitol (the ruling power of Panem) after the 13 Districts of Panem rebelled against their power. As retribution, District 13 was annihilated, and the 12 remaining Districts must offer up their children into the Hunger Games as a reminder of the cost of insurrection against the Capitol.

One boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected from each District in a lottery system (the Reaping). They are paraded as if they are celebrities, dressed in high fashion, interviewed on mandatory viewing programmes, before being shipped into a custom-made themed arena in a battle that often lasts weeks.

The Victor is then bestowed a home, riches, and exemption from further participation in the Games, while their District receives additional food for the year following their victory. The Victor will then be placed into a pool of Mentors to support the future Tributes of their District as they navigate their own preparation for the Games.

The Quadrilogy follows Katniss primarily, as she wins her first Hunger Games and manages to survive her second until she is liberated by the Rebellion. Whilst this is ongoing, she is navigating complex relationships with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), her two-time District 12 Tribute/Victor counterpart, and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), her childhood friend and closest ally in District 12. Meanwhile, she is trying to keep her family safe, primarily her sister Primrose (Willow Shields), and trying to escape any negative attention from her accidental enemy, President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are evaluating the best moments across the four films that cover Katniss Everdeen’s journey from a District 12 Tribute to the figurehead of a revolution. We will be considering the moments that made our hearts stop and kept us on the edge of our seats as we attempt to outline what truly are the most iconic moments of the Girl on Fire and beyond. These are the 10 Best The Hunger Games Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Katniss Adjusting Her Aim to Kill President Coin
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

The rebellion has ended with the underclass Districts triumphing over the might of the Capitol. The Government of Panem has been overthrown. The end of the Hunger Games, and the end of forced starvation and extreme poverty, is in sight. But Katniss is all too aware of what it has cost her, having witnessed the deaths of her squadron, including Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) and brutally, in the last moments of the war, her little sister Prim (Willow Shields). The whole saga started with Katniss trying to save Prim from death, and despite it all she couldn’t save the person who mattered to her the most. Katniss has been charged with killing President Snow (Donald Sutherland), the now dethroned ruler of Panem. President Coin (Julianne Moore), the leader of the Rebellion and now assumed President, announces what is about to happen. Katniss pulls the single arrow from her sheath and takes aim at Snow, before quickly adjusting her aim and shooting Coin straight in the heart. She intends to kill herself with a nightlock pill (crafted from poisonous berries) tucked in her outfit, but Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) stops her in her tracks, allowing her capture and Snow to be torn apart by seething crowds.

This, as the end of the war, is what we’ve been waiting a long time to see. Katniss facing President Snow, finally with her in power. However, her previous discussions with him illuminate the pawn she has been for President Coin. Katniss begins to see that Coin is not trying to overthrow Panem for entirely pure reasons, she wishes for power and is willing to allow the Hunger Games to continue in a differing format. Katniss also comes to learn that Prim died in a trap placed by the Rebels, which also killed many Capitol children, seen as collateral damage by Coin. In this moment, Katniss finally reclaims the autonomy she lost as a pawn for both Snow and Coin. Whilst she becomes an enemy of the nation, Katniss knows she has avenged her sister and prevented another corrupt leader rising in Panem. Katniss never wanted to be the hero, but she still did it. This, Katniss’ final kill, represents the end of her journey as a warrior and a piece in their games. Katniss barely makes a sound, but the weight of her emotion is clear in every small movement she makes. She has nothing to lose, but might be able to change the course of the future with one final shot.

This moment makes the list because of how shocking it is, and the gravity of the situation itself. Katniss, a girl from the poorest part of a poor region, now stands before two Presidents as the most important person in the country. The culmination of the series must be represented in the top 10, only hindered by how much we’ve lost to get to this point, and how painful it is to see Katniss ready to die after losing Prim.

9. Finnick Odair’s Death
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

In one of the scariest moments of the franchise, Katniss and her elite Capitol invasion squad have descended below the streets of the city to avoid ‘pods’ (traps intended to kill advancing rebels) and increased Peacekeeper (Capitol soldiers) presence. However, the sewers and tunnels beneath the city are not without danger. Snow-white humanoid lizard beasts (created by the Capitol) pursue the group, soon decimating them as they attempt to flee via tight, dark sewer tunnels. Our heroes make a last stand as they attempt to climb out of the sewers, with Katniss and Finnick (Sam Claflin) leading the charge as the most skilled combatants. Finnick manages to save Katniss and takes out countless Mutts as the others escape, ultimately throwing his trident straight through a Mutt to save Katniss as she ascends the ladder. Armed only with a knife, Finnick makes it to the ladder before being dragged underwater to be massacred. Katniss activates a detonation sequence in her Holo (a map loaded with sensitive Capitol info) and uses it to kill Finnick and the Mutts.

Katniss having to mercy kill Finnick is yet another traumatic moment for her and the audience. Finnick’s death represents the hopelessness of the group’s Capitol mission. Finnick is the Victor amongst Victors, beloved by all and a larger-than-life personality. Katniss lied to make this mission happen, and she sees Finnick’s death as yet another that she caused, another weight for her to bear. It could have been avoided if she had only stuck to her original orders of avoiding live combat, but she wished to be the one to kill Snow no matter what. Finnick’s death cuts deep as, by this point, we know he has married his childhood sweetheart, and that in his years post-victory of the Hunger Games he was sex-trafficked by President Snow. He was presented as a symbol of success amongst the Districts but treated only as a plaything by those in charge.

This scene is so iconic for many reasons, the pure shock of Finnick’s death when he has become one of the most beloved characters and revealed many new layers of vulnerability throughout the franchise. As an audience member, you just want to see Finnick finally live a quiet life with his wife, however it is snatched away in a particularly horrifying manner, allowing him no reprieve from the non-stop torture he has faced since the age of fourteen. Finnick’s death remains one of the biggest talking points of the franchise many years on.

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Dream Scenario (2023)
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Screenwriter: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Dylan Baker, Tim Meadows, Lily Bird, Jessica Clement, Paula Boudreau, Marie McPhail

Nicolas Cage has become an internet darling in recent times, to the point that he’s the first actor since John Malkovich who has been able to comfortably play himself in a film without it seeming self-indulgent. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck turning up for a small cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back might qualify for a special dispensation, however. The thing with Nicolas Cage that makes him unique, though, is that he is one of very few actors who pops up in anything and everything. He can just as easily carry a huge budget blockbuster as he’s likely to be the face of a straight-to-streaming B-Movie. What we can always guarantee is that he’ll always give it his absolute best. Whether that means creating a new meme or garnering widespread critical acclaim doesn’t really matter, because either way we’re in for something special.

To that end, Dream Scenario seems like, well, a dream scenario for a Nicolas Cage film. At its base, it’s about an unremarkable professor, played by Cage, who wants more from his life, and suddenly finds notoriety when he starts popping up in people’s dreams. As a premise, it’s weird and compelling, but it also comes with the backing of A24 – a studio who have built a certain level of trust among audiences with films like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Past Lives in recent memory. It sounds like a B-Movie fit to garner the internet’s next favourite meme, but it’s backed by a studio that could give us Cage’s next Academy Award for Best Actor.

Paul (Nicholas Cage) is instantly quite relatable as a character – he lives a normal life with a normal job and a normal family. It’s comfortable, but it isn’t anything exciting. We get a glimpse into the kind of person he is when he sets up a meeting with a former colleague, Sheila (Paula Boudreau). Sheila is about to have a piece of research published that Paul believes he should be credited for. Whether he actually should or not is never confirmed, but Sheila certainly doesn’t agree with him.

As we get to know Paul more, it’s quite easy to believe it might well have been a reach on his behalf in an attempt to gain any kind of recognition in the field he has been working in for his entire life. Paul’s wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), encourages Paul to record the meeting so she can hear her husband demand what he’s owed, but he deletes the recording before she’s able to hear the truth of what actually happened.

Paul and Janet go to the theatre together where an ex-girlfriend, Claire (Marnie McPhail), recognises Paul. She’s excited to see him because he has been on her mind lately, albeit unwillingly. He has been appearing in her dreams. He then learns that he has been appearing in his students’ dreams too, and then also the dreams of a bunch of random people who are asking who he is and why it’s happening on Facebook.

Initially, he’s besotted by the limelight, and he actively takes his space in it. People are excited to meet him for what appears to be the first time in his life and he can’t get enough of it. He even derails whole lectures to engage in a Q&A sessions with students who are seeing him in their dreams. What he isn’t so happy about is that, like in real life, he always seems to play a passive part in the dreams. As he starts to play a much more active role in his own life, the version of him that appears in people’s dreams follows suit, but it isn’t to a desirable end.

Dream Scenario is far less weird than it seems. Much like Being John Malkovich, it uses its surrealist nucleus as a driver to explore much more usual themes. Through this odd phenomenon where Nicolas Cage’s Paul is appearing in everyone’s dreams, we’re asked to consider cultural phenomena that are relevant to modern life. The newly instantaneous and unfiltered nature of how a person can rise to fame, the loss of nuance that comes with the sudden mass awareness of a flawed individual, and the frivolity of cancel culture are all brought into question.

There isn’t really anything in Dream Scenario that absolutely has to be driven by the idea that this random person has started showing up in people’s dreams, though, nor is there any attempt to explore how or why it might be happening. If Paul had just gone viral as the result of pulling a strange face in the background of a news report, for example, most of Dream Scenario would be exactly the same film.

The story of Paul’s rise and fall could still be the same for the large majority of it, and in a way, it might have even been more satisfying as a complete narrative. There wouldn’t have been any abstract concept to dive further into when there was clearly no interest in doing so. The interest of the film is plainly in deconstructing and commenting on modern viral celebrity culture and the pitfalls that come with it.

Dream Scenario is a showcase of what Nicholas Cage does very well, or at least one of the things he does very well. It’s a character study of a man who’s frustrated with a life that most people would be satisfied with because he wants more from it. It’s as if Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation was rewritten to replace the references to orchids with an allegory about a mild-mannered Freddy Krueger, and who else could play such a role? It’s effortlessly watchable and compelling in a number of ways, but it wouldn’t have hurt to further explore the absurd concept that it all comes from.

Score: 19/24

Written by Rob Jones

You can support Rob Jones on his website: rbrtjones.com
Twitter: @rbrtjones

Some of the most famous movie scenes of all time feature originally composed music or lift pieces from older films and recontextualise them for a modern audience, such as Tarantino pinching all of Ennio Morricone’s back catalogue. But what happens when you abandon this approach in favour of utilising a soundtrack of pre-released popular songs? It’s an idea that has been utilised as a directorial trademark by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright, but it is widely acknowledged to have been popularised in western cinema by Easy Rider (1969) and specifically the films of Martin Scorsese. The latter has many a trademarked needle drop in his repertoire, but his use of soundtrack was arguably at its height in his 1990 gangster thriller Goodfellas.

In Goodfellas, the meticulously chosen selection of 50s to 70s music plays a huge hand in creating the memorable moments that have stayed with us (and reached new audiences) across the past thirty-plus years. In an interview with Esquire, the film’s music editor Chris Brooks claimed that Scorsese “[…] knew every one of those songs two years before he shot a frame of film.” It clearly paid off…

Although primarily told in chronological order, Goodfellas opens in media res, with the three central protagonists – Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) – driving to dispose of a body in 1970. During the sequence, they realise the man is not dead, so they brutally murder him. After the job is done, Henry delivers the legendary opening line of “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” and slams the car boot down. This is where we hear the first needle-drop: the late, great Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches”.

The lively brass selection that creates the opening of the song submerges us into the glamorous lifestyle of the gangster, allowing us to gaze with Henry’s childlike wonder at these powerful mobsters, making us forget about the brutality we just witnessed in the opening scene. As we are transported back to 1953, the lyrics of the song, coupled with the richness of Bennett’s voice, establish the running theme of the film: the ascent to, and descent from, power.

Through the use of doo-wop and crooner tunes popularised in the 1950s, we see Henry’s journey from a bullied neighbourhood kid into a fully-fledged mob associate.

Despite the flashy violence often seen in his films, Scorsese is an auteur renowned for authenticity, whether that be capturing Tibetan spiritual leaders, Gilded Age high society or Jesus Christ himself. When it came to Goodfellas, Henry’s upbringing mirrored Scorsese’s own in 1950s Italian-American neighbourhoods in New York. Therefore, the sequences of Henry’s childhood were soundtracked to Italian-language songs, reflecting the tradition and values set by the mobsters that Scorsese himself would have encountered.

The jump-cut to adult Henry takes us to 1967, significant in both the film’s timeline and the progression of music. In the 60s, music producer Phil Spector pioneered what is known as the Wall of Sound technique, where he would utilise studio recordings to make rich, orchestral tones that were designed to be played on jukeboxes and radios. With that, Spector used his formula to popularise several girl groups, including The Crystals.

In Goodfellas, Henry has seamlessly adjusted into his glamorous gangster lifestyle and his new challenge is his relationship with Karen Friedman (Lorraine Bracco). Whilst he was originally disinterested in her, her fiery attitude and “great eyes like Liz Taylor’s” prompted him to take her on a date to the notable Copacabana club. To emphasise his importance in the mafia world, Henry takes Karen through the back door of the club and through the kitchens before the waiter miraculously produces a table out of thin air for them to sit right next to the stage. This sequence is shot in an unbroken long take and accompanied by The Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me”. It is a sweet and romantic song, where context reflects that both the music and Henry are in a new stage of life.

This new stage of life culminates with Henry and Karen’s wedding montage, as The Harptones’ dreamy “Life is But a Dream” plays throughout. The Harptones were a fairly unsuccessful group, never breaking into the top forty, but their song is the perfect choice for how Henry and Karen’s lifestyle was too good to be true.

From this point, we rattle through Henry’s day-to-day mobster business, reflected through the use of more of the same doo-wop, adult standard tunes. Significant hits being Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (a song originally written to be in the 1960 version of Ocean’s 11) and Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You”. Even when Henry and his associates are arrested, the breeziness of prison life for a gangster is reflected by “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin. The singer’s voice is as cool as you like.

When Henry takes a turn for the worse, however, the soundtrack keeps up with him. During his time in prison, Henry becomes mixed up in the drug trade. We see him snorting cocaine with his new girlfriend Sandy at her apartment, soundtracked by the Scorsese Staple “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. Used again in his films Casino and The Departed (twice in the latter), the brutal anti-war ballad is a stark contrast to the easy-listening previously heard within Goodfellas, signifying how Henry has strayed from his original path of gangster to dealer.

What was there from the 60s and 70s still remains, but only just. Christmas tunes from Spector’s acts The Ronettes and Darlene Love play when the mafia are celebrating their Lufthansa heist victory. However, the joy is short lived for all three protagonists: Tommy is murdered to the sound of the piano exit from Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla”, and Jimmy silently decides to murder all of his crew to the sound of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. These iconic rock songs accompany pivotal and iconic scenes in the film, and all incidentally feature Eric Clapton, whose career spanned from the 60s and into the 70s. When filming, Scorsese played “Layla” on-set to synchronise the staging, blocking and camera movement with the instrumentals.

The climax of the film sees us hurtling into the 80s, as Henry has the day from Hell trying to juggle his family life, gangster life and drug-dealing life, until it all blows up in his face. The sequences from the chaotic day are amplified in tension by the use of high-octane songs from rock legends Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, The Who, George Harrison, and Muddy Waters. The glamour is gone, Henry’s life is over; rock n’ roll is here to stay.

And so, that leaves us with the final song. The last shot sees Henry living as a ‘schnook’. Stuck in witness protection to save his own skin, Henry laments that everything he worked for was for nothing and that he is confined to living a boring, meaningless existence. Scorsese chooses to close the film with Sid Vicious’ cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. This is a spectacular song choice to end the film with as it is an imitation of a legendary crooner song associated with glamour and elegance, performed by an artist known for his notoriety and vulgarity. In the end, Henry becomes Sid Vicious, the outcast, desperately longing for the glamour that Frank Sinatra had.

The Goodfellas soundtrack is one for the ages. It illustrated how Martin Scorsese’s careful crafting of a soundtrack comprised of pre-released songs can elevate plot points, convey narrative changes, reinforce or signal developments to themes, and add a great deal of authenticity to a film’s world.

Alexa, play “Gimme Shelter”.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

During LaMotta’s fight against Janiro, blood spurts from the latter’s face in an unrealistic, exaggerated way – one that resembles a burst pipe more than a wound. The judge’s table is doused with such velocity that blood appears to have been hosed from behind the camera. We then see the glasses of ringside photographers simultaneously splattered with blood in an absurd, cartoon-like fashion. Expressionist techniques, of which these are an example, seek to diverge from objective portrayal and distort visual reality in order to convey the psychological states of characters. In this case, the exaggerated presence of blood acquires thematic value to illustrate LaMotta’s excessive appetite for violence. Kasia Boddy points out that exploding flash bulbs and powerfully amplified punches not only act as ‘scoring music’, but make the violent display even more ‘surreal and abstract’.

The use of black-and-white dampens the appearance of graphic violence by making blood less visually prominent than if it was red. The monochromatic, high contrast duality embodies the motif of LaMotta’s internal struggle between good and evil. Even in the most nauseating instances of violence, monochrome gives the film something of an aesthetic quality, evoking early cinema such as German Expressionism and Film Noir. To give blood a stark appearance, Scorsese used Hershey’s Chocolate – the same material used in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The classical opera that underscores much of the film, most notable of which is Pietro Mescagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, instils Raging Bull with an artistic sense of grandeur.

But aestheticizing violence is not the same as glorifying it. Despite the use of conventional Hollywood techniques to make fight scenes engaging, such as fast cutting and amplified punching sounds, Scorsese presents violence unfavourably. This is done by aligning our subjectivity with the characters on the receiving end. After LaMotta knocks Janiro unconscious, a slow-motion descending pedestal shot follows his fall to the ground. Starting at eye height, the camera descends at the same speed as Janiro’s fall, rotating ninety degrees in unison with his head as it hits the canvas. By forcing us to incur Janiro’s subjectivity, somewhat of a shared experience is created between him and us, furthering our detachment from LaMotta.

Expressionist temporal manipulation is used in the Sugar Ray Robinson fight. The shot of LaMotta waiting for Robinson to stand after being knocked down runs in slow motion, conveying LaMotta’s impatient subjectivity as he waits for the violence to resume. Similarly, slow-motion shots from Jake’s point-of-view are used when Vickie interacts with other men at the bar, conveying Jake’s paranoid gaze. Through Jake’s perennial eye of distrust, Vickie’s interactions appear longer than they are in objective reality, making all men she speaks to a self-perceived threat to his marriage.

After LaMotta’s loss to Robinson, a hazy shot shows his anger at the judges’ decision. The visual distortion resembles the blurry mirage of hot air above a fire. This rippling technique, accomplished by lighting a flame beneath the camera, creates the impression that the film stock itself is alight. This not only symbolises LaMotta’s anger, but evokes imagery of his ring as a hellish inferno.

Despite the monochrome majority of the film, the home video scene is shot in colour. This found footage sequence was deliberately desaturated and optically degraded to mimic the fading effects of older films – Scorsese even scratched the negative with a hanger to bring about the grainy, aged look. We see the LaMottas’ happy moments, such as barbecues, weddings or children playing. These warming shots are the only parts of the film where the family appear happy, offering the audience brief respite from the antagonism everywhere else. The sequence is interspersed with black-and-white shots from LaMotta’s boxing career. Two consecutive shots show Jake with his hands raised as if in victory – one after a boxing contest and the other at a family gathering. If the colour footage represents what Barbara Mortimer reads as Jake’s ‘fantasy and idealisation,’ then the failed father and abusive husband’s only victory is in the ring.

The use of these aesthetic techniques is one of the film’s ambiguities. We are not given a stable, external portrayal of LaMotta. Instead, our perspective oscillates between his subjectivity and a more neutral one. Steve Neale argues that our identification with characters is ‘multiple, fluid and contradictory.’ By forcing viewers to briefly witness the destructive, frightening subjectivity of LaMotta with expressionist techniques, Scorsese draws a clear image of LaMotta’s warped psyche. During his jail cell soliloquy, a tearful LaMotta insists, ‘I’m not an animal.’ His behaviour throughout suggests something different.

Written by Callum McGrath

Website: Reel – Studies in Cinema

Bibliography
Boddy, Kasia, Boxing: A Cultural History, London: Reaktion, 2008
Mortimer, Barbara, ‘Portraits of the Postmodern Person in “£”Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The King of Comedy”, Journal of Film and Video, 49.1-2 (1997), 28-38, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20688131.

A prolific filmmaker whose career began in 1967 with Who’s That Knocking at My Door and has covered every decade since, Marty (as his friends call him) is a cinephile of the highest order, and of course an exquisite storyteller whose films have cemented themselves into cinema’s historic and sacred vault of masterpieces. His upbringing as an Italian American in Queens and Little Italy meant that he became accustomed to the crime-riddled streets of New York and the plethora of interesting characters that called that place home; an aspect of his life that is said to have started his love for character examination.

Everyone and their dog knows about Scorsese’s great narrative films – there have been 27 of them altogether: Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), The Departed (2006), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), being just some of his most iconic releases over the years. But what you might not be so aware of are the great man’s many acclaimed documentaries.

Martin Scorsese’s work as a documentarian has resulted in 17 films over the course of his career. What began with the production of short films in conjunction with the United States Information Agency (USIA) for educational and information purposes, was Marty’s first insight into documentary filmmaking – it wasn’t until Scorsese made the now-iconic Italianamerican in 1974 that his love for the medium began to take shape. Scorsese’s love of people, film, and music, is the basis for many of the great non-fiction offerings he has put his name to; the passions, themes and experiences that define so much of his filmmaking legacy.

We at The Film Magazine would like you to join us in exploring this legacy in our Movie List of 5 Unmissable Martin Scorsese Documentaries.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

1. Italianamerican (1974)

The 1970s was an important decade for Martin Scorsese. It became the decade that allowed him to cultivate the famous auteur style of filmmaking that forged his career. By the time 1974 came around, Scorsese had already directed Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Boxcar Bertha (1972), and Mean Streets (1973), with the former and the latter taking great inspiration from our first documentary in question.

Italianamerican is an obscure film that explores the relationship between the director and his parents. Starring Catherine and Charles Scorsese, and set in their New York apartment on Elizabeth Street, Martin lays the foundations down for a conversation; a sincere and frank discussion with his parents that covers his upbringing, the importance of family, religion, their Italian heritage, and the difficulties that poor immigrants faced when hoping to gain opportunities in the United States. Even with all these crucial themes being inspected, the most memorable sequence of the film involves Catherine demonstrating how she makes her world-famous (they are to Martin at least) meatballs, a recipe that you can find in the end credits (for all you would be chefs out there).

This is Scorsese’s most intimate and personal documentary. And it comes so early on in his filmmaking journey too. How basic the film appears on the surface is what makes it work, as we follow the Scorseses around their family home and pay homage to a heritage that he is obviously proud of. The talk of religion is an important theme throughout as well; it lays out the ideas that Martin has about Catholicism and its role in his life (he was famously about to pursue priesthood as a vocation before finding his calling). Religion has become one of the most powerful motifs throughout Scorsese’s filmography, with the questions surrounding it becoming the primary structural themes in several of his pictures – think Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Silence, and of course, The Last Temptation of Christ.

The importance of Italianamerican is celebrated by the masses as the most important insight into the mind of the famed director – it foreshadows certain subjects and messages that would soon enough become known about Scorsese’s films. Even in its brief 50-minute runtime, we get all we need to know about the origins of the man, as well as an inkling into the style and substance of what his future documentaries might consist of.

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2. The Last Waltz (1978)

Between the years of 1974 and 1978, Martin Scorsese stepped up his filmmaking game. He graced us with the hugely underrated Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) before gifting us with Taxi Driver, arguably his most highly renowned film of all time, before his final film of the decade, New York, New York (1977), a romantic musical forged as a tribute to Scorsese’s hometown of New York and the city’s relationship with Jazz music. It feels almost poetic that Scorsese’s second documentary of his career, The Last Waltz (1978) would be another musical tribute, this time dedicated to Canadian rock band The Band.

Filmed in 1976 during The Band’s farewell show at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, The Last Waltz features concert performances from the band, intermittent song renditions that were shot on a studio soundstage, as well as interviews with the members of The Band conducted by Scorsese himself. The origins of the film began when The Band’s tour manager from 1969 to 1972, Jonathan Taplin (who also produced Mean Streets) proposed that Scorsese should direct the upcoming project while introducing him to Robbie Robertson (lead guitarist for Bob Dylan and member of The Band) as a means of sweetening the deal.

The Last Waltz was marketed as The Band’s “farewell concert appearance” and consisted of dozens of special guests such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton. Scorsese’s love of music, specifically rock music, made this the ideal subject matter to get stuck into. The director’s vision of what he wanted the film’s aesthetic to look like was definitive, and his role with the editors to sift through hours of footage and angles took almost two years of dedication.

The film begins with the title card, “This film should be played loud,” which is exactly how a rockumentary should be experienced. The collection of footage that was gathered and produced offers a unique experience into the backstage goings-on of the music industry, and the interviews that are interspersed during the film are brilliantly insightful and engaging. The Last Waltz is not only one of the most definitive documentaries on Scorsese’s CV, but it has also been dubbed as one of the greatest documentary concert films ever made.

Born into an Irish-British family, Lansbury grew up around actors: her mother was Moyna McGill (born in Belfast), a regular in West End shows and sometimes film. She later stated that cinema, television and books were her way of ‘self-education’. This ‘education’ led to her becoming besotted with cinema, eventually landing her first stage role in a school production of Maxwell Anderson’s “Mary of Scotland”.

Her film career began three years after she graduated from the Feagin School of Drama and Radio. In Gaslight (George Cukor’s 1944 film based upon the Patrick Hamilton 1938 play), she amassed high praise for her performance, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Several instances of her early film work gained her accolades such as this, highlighting her flair for dramatic roles as much as comedic ones.

Angela Lansbury kept us glued to the screen and always invested in the trajectory of her character, regardless of whether she took a supporting or leading role in a project. From her highly nuanced performances of individualist upper-class dames such as “Mame” (for which she originated the role on Broadway in 1966) and quick-witted sleuthing detective Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, her evident acting flair always led us to become engrossed in her performances on stage and on the screen.

The performances mentioned below only skim the surface of her extensive filmography, which houses multiple gems and intergenerational classics. While there is much of Angela Lansbury’s work to discover and enjoy, these are Angela Lansbury’s 3 Career-Defining Performances.

1. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Angela Lansbury’s contribution to Albert Lewin’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” marks the first of her turns at the heart of many book-turned-film pieces. She plays tavern singer Sibyl Vane who falls for – and is briefly engaged to – the titular protagonist Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield). The movie itself is shot in black-and-white, with an interesting use of Technicolour to indicate the handsome, or degenerate, portrait of Dorian. It gained 6 nominations in total, most notably a Golden Globe win for Angela Lansbury (detailed below), and an Oscars Best Cinematography win for Harry Stradling. Interestingly, both Wilde (who penned the novel) and Lewin (the film’s director) posthumously won the 1996 Hugo Award, a literary award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Despite being just eighteen years old, Angela Lansbury holds her own amongst her co-stars. In one particular instance, she watches Dorian playing Chopin’s “Prelude No. 24” at his piano. She enters the room wordlessly and has minimal dialogue with Dorian after he has finished playing. Her posture and intense but deeply thoughtful gaze immediately convey the chemistry she has with him, indicating a slew of unspoken thoughts. Another moment of note is when she sings “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” – Lansbury’s classical vocal training and sweet vocal tone shine through here. This musical moment encapsulates her enigmatic performance.

It is easy to see how Angela Lansbury earned the 1945 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her turn in this film. She also got nominated for the 1945 Oscar for the same category but lost to Anne Revere (National Velvet). Her mature and assured command of the screen in this role led the pathway to her highly acclaimed career.

2. The Reluctant Debutante (1958)

The Reluctant Debutante was directed by Vicente Minnelli and the screenplay was written by William Douglas-Home (who also wrote the 1955 play). It was not nominated for any awards, but it came in at number 12 on the British Box Office’s Most Popular Film for 1959. Angela plays Mabel Claremont, Sheila Broadbent’s (Kay Kendall’s) chatty friend. The cast also includes Rex Harrison as Jimmy Broadbent and Sandra Dee as Jane Broadbent. The film was remade in 2003 under the title What a Girl Wants, with Amanda Bynes as Daphne Reynolds (the updated version of Sandra Dee’s character) and Colin Firth as Henry Dashwood (a modern version of Rex Harrison’s character).

In The Reluctant Debutante, the role of Mabel particularly showcases Lansbury’s impeccable comedic timing. The scenes in which she schemes alongside the Broadbent couple are deliciously funny; her lines are delivered with an utterly charming smoothness that keeps you endlessly curious about how she will end up strong-arming the outcome of her daughter’s fate. A highlight of Lansbury’s performance in this film is one of her earlier scenes when she and her daughter meet Jane Broadbent for the first time. Angela carries an eccentric bravado with this character that leaves you open-mouthed in a state of shocked awe. The way she commands the driver to move her bags so that everyone can ‘squeeze together’ in the same car is so slick that it leaves you out of breath just watching it.

Something significant to note with this entry is that it marks the actor’s move from being typecast as the ingenue to a more motherly and mature figure. Lansbury’s performances within adapted films act as bookmarks to her acting development. Blue Hawaii (1961) serves as another example of this, as it sees her playing mother to the iconic Elvis Presley and donning a southern accent with tremendous comedic beats. Her roles in films of this type showcase her ability for levity alongside her well-shown dramatic acting talents. This goes to show that throughout her life, and subsequently through her performances, Lansbury highlights different nuances within different characters to make them jump off of the page and onto the screen.

3. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Beauty and the Beast Review

The final film in this Career-Defining Performances list is an all-time animated classic. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, amazingly in their directorial debuts, with songs penned by the legendary Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, Beauty and the Beast won multiple awards, including both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Score. It also became the first animated film to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Angela Lansbury plays the iconic wisecracking, heart-on-her-sleeve Mrs Potts. In other words, the perfect maternal character archetype.

Throughout Beauty and the Beast, Lansbury infuses charm and motherly warmth into the character of Mrs Potts through her nuanced vocal delivery. Additionally, her singing elevates this, which in turn has gifted us a beautiful Disney love ballad. To wax lyrical (excuse the pun, à la Lumière!) on the origins of this ballad for a moment, it is widely known that Angela delivered “Tale as Old as Time” in just one take. Unbelievably, she did not think that she was fit to sing a romantic ballad as it was not within her usual vocal repertoire. Thank goodness she was convinced otherwise, as that one-take-wonder is what is seen on screen. Throughout the film, whilst both singing and speaking, with her effortless yet grounded performance, she breathes life into a teapot – a feat that only she could make possible.

The trajectory of Angela Lansbury’s career progressed from ingenue (with Sybil in The Picture of Dorian Gray) to maternal figure (see the description of her work in The Reluctant Debutante) to grandmother-type roles. This final archetype, in many ways, has crystallized the legacy of her standout characters. Lansbury herself remarked that these roles “pulled her out of the abyss” following her husband’s death in 2003. It is easy to see why as, within the context of these films, her characterisations have maintained levity and emotional grounding to audiences in the decades that have followed. Some examples of these are Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna Romanov (Anastasia’s grandmother) in Anastasia (1997) and the withdrawn-but-ultimately-nurturing Eglantine Price in another classic Disney flick, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

It is arguable that this role in Beauty and the Beast cemented her legacy. With her contribution to this picture, she introduced her acting feats to a new generation of film-watchers who had never before been exposed to her work. Due to the mark that this carved on not only her career, but on Disney’s history and the trajectory of the roles she played, Angela Lansbury is and will be forever synonymous with this part which will eternally gain new legions of fans in all stages of their lives.

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During her 96-year life, Angela Lansbury chalked up 122 acting credits to her name. The discussion of the three above performances, as well as the allusion to several more, evidently serves as a summary of her career: the performances are incredibly varied and efficiently delivered by a master of her craft, wherein that delivery subsequently lives on beyond her life. To quote the master herself, “actors are not made, they are born.”

Written by Alannah Purslow

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