Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1980

The Contenders:

Coal Miner’s Daughter
The Elephant Man
Ordinary People (winner)
Raging Bull
Tess

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1980

The Contenders:
David Lynch: The Elephant Man
Robert Redford: Ordinary People (winner)
Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull
Richard Rush: The Stunt Man
Roman Polanski: Tess

Tess

Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

One of these days, smart filmmakers will devise something other than rape to serve as a crisis for women in a story. Oh, I understand that this happens on occasion, but there are times when it feels like “rape” is one of the most frequently written words on this blog. There’s only so much of it I can take before I’ve have enough. And when the topic is rape, I get to “enough” pretty quickly. In the world of film, “creepy rapist” is an occupation. And when the director is Roman Polanski, as with Tess, “creepy rapist” takes on new meaning. For added weirdness, Polanski made the film and dedicated it to Sharon Tate, his murdered wife, who had wanted him to make the film with her in the lead role.

Tess is the nearly three-hour epic version of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, set at the end of the 19th century and concerning the young and pretty Tess Durbyfield (Nastassja Kinski). Tess is the daughter of John Durbyfield, who discovers that he is descended from the d’Urbervilles, a noble family with lineage extending back to William the Conqueror. However, the d’Urbervilles are all but gone with the male line having vanished. Interested in both the potential monetary gain and prestige, he sends Tess off to a local family with the same last name in hopes of being accepted.