Throwback Muriels: 1981

Monday, July 18, 2011

1981

Picture:
Blow Out
My Dinner With Andre
Out of the Blue
They All Laughed
Pennies From Heaven
The Aviator’s Wife
Reds
Cutter’s Way
Knightriders
Modern Romance

Director:
Brian De Palma, Blow Out
Louis Malle, My Dinner With Andre
Dennis Hopper, Out of the Blue
Herbert Ross, Pennies From Heaven
Peter Bogdanovich, They All Laughed

Male Lead:
John Travolta, Blow Out
Ben Gazzara, They All Laughed
Steve Martin, Pennies From Heaven
Burt Lancaster, Atlantic City
Jeff Bridges, Cutter’s Way

Female Lead:
Linda Manz, Out of the Blue
Faye Dunaway, Mommie Dearest
Catherine Deneuve, The Last Metro
Marie Riviere, The Aviator’s Wife
Kathleen Turner, Body Heat

Male Supporting:
John Heard, Cutter’s Way
Heinz Bennent, The Last Metro
Jack Nicholson, Reds
Vernel Bagneris, Pennies From Heaven
Gerard Depardieu, The Last Metro

Female Supporting:
Audrey Hepburn, They All Laughed
Nancy Allen, Blow Out
Maureen Stapleton, Reds
Bernadette Peters, Pennies From Heaven
Karen Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Screenplay:
My Dinner With Andre
The Aviator’s Wife
Blow Out
Modern Romance
Cutter’s Way

Ensemble:
They All Laughed
Pennies From Heaven
Reds
Blow Out
The Last Metro

Cinematography:
Excalibur (Thomson)
Reds (Storaro)
Blow Out (Zsigmond)
The Last Metro (Almendros)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Slocombe)

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Administrative Stuff

In keeping with the spirit of the project I started this past winter, I’ve decided to continue formulating lists of retrospective nominees by year. Of course, as we move backwards in time I’d estimate that some years will be pretty lean. Therefore, I fear I will have to stop when I feel I can’t fill out a satisfactory ballot, although this probably won’t happen for a while yet.

As with the present-day Muriels, I based these old-school awards on the film’s NYC commercial release date. Since Mike D’Angelo’s eligibility lists don’t go back past 1998, I used the listed release dates in IMDb for this purpose. And much like the contemporary Muriels, if a movie remains unreleased in Gotham within five years of its international release date, it is ineligible for nominations. Sadly, that means I couldn’t throw any nominations at, say, Play Time, Satantango, the films of Yasujiro Ozu, or (sniff) Jeanne Dielman. So it goes.

Additionally, I reserve the right to allow ties here, especially in the case of movies featuring same-sex co-leads who are equally awesome. Several Bergman films spring to mind here, but there will no doubt be other occurrences as well.

Finally, I’ve decided to limit these lists to a “big nine” (picture, director, 4 acting categories, screenplay, ensemble, and cinematography). Much as I would have loved to include Best Cinematic Moment- probably my favorite Muriels category- here as well, I have a feeling that I’d forget some embarrassingly obvious choices and would prefer to save myself the bother.

As before, I’ll post one of these here per day as long as I’m able. I’ll try to remember to update these as needed, but I make no promises.

By the way, here’s a link to the 1995-2009 throwback Muriels I posted this winter. In time, I’ll probably move them over here, but until then this’ll have to do.