Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1998

The Contenders:

Nick Nolte: Affliction
Edward Norton: American History X
Ian McKellen: Gods and Monsters
Roberto Benigni: Life is Beautiful (winner)
Tom Hanks: Saving Private Ryan

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1998

The Contenders:

Gods and Monsters (winner)
Out of Sight
Primary Colors
A Simple Plan
The Thin Red Line

Friend?

Film: Gods and Monsters
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

Movies about movies, or movies about the people in movies are at least a little bit self-referential. Gods and Monsters is such a film. While not actually about the movies themselves, the film serves as something like an emotional biography of James Whale, the man who directed Frankenstein and Show Boat among other films. While it touches briefly on his early life, the film focuses instead much more on the end. The title of the film comes from a line spoken in Bride of Frankenstein, a film that is referred to throughout the running time.

Gods and Monsters takes place after the Korean War and about a decade and a half after Whale had left the film industry completely. He was a unique personage in the era, being one of only a few people in the country, let alone Hollywood, who was openly gay at a time when such was more than simply taboo. This is more or less what the film explores, and in truth, Gods and Monsters is more about Whale’s homosexuality than it is about his life specifically.