Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1989

The Contenders:

Isabelle Adjani: Camille Claudel
Jessica Tandy: Driving Miss Daisy (winner)
Michelle Pfeiffer: The Fabulous Baker Boys
Jessica Lange: Music Box
Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine

Tortured Past

Film: Music Box
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I’ve mentioned in the past about my position on Holocaust drama. I fully agree that it’s a story that needs to be told over and over. But there is only so much real horror I can stand before something like numbness sets in. It’s not a lack of outrage on my part, but sort of an overwhelming grayness where the horror is still there and I’ve lost the ability to react to it in some way. It’s why I pace myself on such films. Too many right in a row, and I emotionally freeze up to protect myself. Paced out, I can still feel the full horror, revulsion, and outrage that is necessary. And then we get Music Box, and my outrage comes from somewhere entirely different.

Anne Talbot (Jessica Lange) is a defense attorney in Chicago. She has just learned that her Hungarian immigrant father, Michael J. Laszlo (Armin Mueller-Stahl) may have his U.S. citizenship revoked for lying on his forms. The state contends that he lied because he a war criminal who actively participated in the slaughter of Roma people and Jews in Hungary. In fact, the state contends that he is actually a man known as Mishka, a commander of the Arrow Cross death squad. Michael claims that the accusations are false and have come from Hungarian communists who are attempting to discredit him for protests he was a part of. For her part, Anne believes in the truth of her father.