Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1971

The Contenders:

A Clockwork Orange
Fiddler on the Roof
The French Connection (winner)
The Last Picture Show
Nicholas and Alexandra

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1971

The Contenders:

Jane Fonda: Klute (winner)
Vanessa Redgrave: Mary, Queen of Scots
Julie Christie: McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Janet Suzman: Nicholas and Alexandra
Glenda Jackson: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Is It Tsar or Czar?

Film: Nicholas and Alexandra
Format: DVD from Mokena Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

Epic films aren’t always my thing. There are, of course, epics that I really like and there are epics that I wonder why I’ve watched. With a stack of movies near or exceeding the three-hour mark on my current list, I figured it behooved me to go about my old strategy of trying to knock out a couple of the longest films on the list every month. With that in mind, I requested Nicholas and Alexandra from the library, and here we are.

As might be deduced from the title, this is the story of the end of the Romanov Dynasty in Russia. Put a different way, this is the story of how the Bolshevik revolution happened and Russia became a communist state. And, as befits the title, it is told from the point of view of the Romanovs themselves rather than from that of the revolutionaries or from a more general historical perspective. What that means for us is a lot of pomp and finery coupled with scenes of the revolutionaries plotting their overthrow and a lot of shots of the suffering peasants. That’s often the way this sort of thing works—juxtapose the rich people with the poor people, in part to show why the poor people revolted. Here, by focusing on the Romanovs, we get a chance to see why that revolt is supposed make us sad. Or something.