Margaret Flowers, and My Last Post on Health Care Reform (for now)--Sunday Journal

This is in appreciation of Margaret Flowers, a soft-spoken and practical individual who is true to her dream of providing health-care reform and coverage for all Americans.   She is a pediatrician and Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, and a member of the National Single Payer Alliance. This alliance represents over 20 million people nationwide from doctors to nurses to labor, faith and community groups who are in  favor of a national Medicare-for-All health system.

So much has been written about health care reform from all sides.. A lot of forecful, sensible, impassioned words have passed through the blogosphere.  A lot of people I admire, from Bloggers to The Huffington Post, have said it all and said it well.  I don't think I can add anything of eloquence, or originality, to the fading hope of American health care reform.  So rather than come back regularly to rehash old arguments, I have decided to abandon this subject until a different angle comes into view, and I discover something noteworthy and helpful to contribute and to write. 

By now it's clear that Mr. Obama's plan to reform health care in America is irreparably damaged. Even if some bill manages to pass, it will be nothing close to what stirred my hopes early in the process.  There will be no "universal" care. The interests of insurers, drug manufacturers, and health administrators will be protected.  There will be no government-run plan that would keep check on runaway insurance costs.  By being conciliatory to the obstructionists in both houses, the majorities in those houses allowed an opportunity to slip by, and the minority party successfully intimidated, threatened, lied, and appealed to ignorance to stall the process.

Good old American politics...will be our undoing.

I know a person has a right to change his mind.  I even understand that Mr. Obama is subject to political considerations, and influence.  But I can't deny that I held out some great hope after hearing him speak, as a convincing idealist, the following words to the AFL-CIO in Illinois in 2003:

"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.  I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."

Of course, I will continue to monitor the "dying patient", as it were, for signs of life, but I fear said "patient" will never walk again, let alone run.  I can only sigh in disappointment, and impotent anger.  I am one voice, one drop of water, in a churning ocean of words, so loud that it is now an unintelligible roar.

Before setting aside this subject for now, I wanted to share a bit from Bill Moyers Journal from last Friday. 

Some of you may already know Margaret Flowers.  She is one of the strongest proponents (still!) for a single-payer plan.  I was introduced to her story on Moyers' show, and I wanted to record it in my journal for future reference and to share it with my readers.  She is, to me, a reasonable voice with a sensible message. 

Her methods could be criticized as misguided; yet without histrionics, without casuing harm to anyone (except her own police record), Flowers demonstrated her passion and dedication to this cause, and kept the message of universal health care alive.

There's a complete summary of Flowers and her story on the web site Single Payer Action. 

In brief, Mr. Obama, in his State of the Union Address last month, challenged listeners:

“If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I’m eager to see it.”

....After this entreaty, Ms. Flowers appeared at the White House with a letter to deliver, asking the President and his advisors to re-examine her plan and that of her organization. Instead, she was arrested.  Here's a video of her visit to the White House gate:



You can also find the text of her remarkable letter Here....

I also recommend a look at the Bill Moyers Journal web site.  On the site is a brief  explanation of the Single Payer plan.

A Super Bowl Ad You Won't See--I'm Opting for "8-1/2"--Saturday Journal

Unless you're from New Orleans or Indianapolis, you may not have a stake in the outcome of the Superbowl Game on Sunday evening.  If you're like many non-fans or partygoers, you'll tune in to the "game' in order to watch the commercials.  And there will be the promise of laughs from spots for Budweiser with the  Clydesdales and other critters, Coca Cola featuring The Simpsons, Doritos, Taco Bell, GoDaddy,The Honda Squirrel, a whimsical and effects-laden ad for Cars.com, the TruTv "Groundhog Day", and, for real family fun, the Anti-Abortion Ad featuring University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.


Yes, that does sound incongruous, doesn't it? 


During the Super Bowl tomorrow, CBS will run a 30-second commercial sponsored by the fundamentalist group Focus on the Family. The ad will feature University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. 


That alone has stirred controversy from Women's Groups and other liberal organizations. 


What has been even more troublesome is CBS' decsion not to air an ad by gay-dating service ManCrunch.  CBS cited inappropriate content as the reason. 


I fall in with those who believe that advocacy ads have their place, and that all should have an opportunity to purchase ad space.  Or else the playing field shoule be leveled against all such ads.

Back in January Michael Rowe offered a scathing opinion in Huffington Post about the troublesome implications of CBS' decision to air this ad, in light of their refusal to air ads by other groups like United Church of Christ for their inclusiveness to all people, including gays:

The fact that CBS has agreed to air this commercial will doubtless come as a surprise to the United Church of Christ, whose own message--inclusiveness--was deemed too controversial for the network when they tried to air a series of commercials in December 2004.

The UCC commercials were rejected by CBS and NBC because they allegedly contained an "advocacy" message. One of the commercials in particular featured a male couple trying to enter a church to worship, but being barred by a tough-looking nightclub bouncer behind a velvet rope. In the ad, the bouncer denies them entry, but allows more "normal" parishonners (read white, middle-class, heterosexual) to pass freely.

The apparently too-controversial tagline of the UCC commercial was "Jesus Didn't Turn People Away. Neither Do We."

Chances are, the petitions to pull the Tebow ad will not affect CBS' decision to run it, and chances are, as you're enjoying your nachos and Bud Lite, or checking your office pool statistics, or letting the dog out, you will see the Anti-Abortion spot.


In the interest of free access, free speech and in honorable remembrance of the  Fairness doctrine (somewhat inaccurately applied here I know but still I miss it!), below is the ad you most likely won't see.


Is anyone else as weary as I am of hearing that a kiss shared by two guys is "inappropriate" content?


Luckily, Turner Classic Movies must have heard my desperate hope for interesting alternate programming on Sunday (the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet will sustain me for only an hour or so).... and so they will be airing, at 7pm Chicago time, Federico Fellini's 1963 masterpiece "8-1/2", the inspiration for the great and terribly  unappreciated film "Nine".   (I'm confident that "Nine" will be re-discovered, and loved, some day.)


Check out the ManCrunch ad....It's goofy....silly....in keeping with other Super Bowl ads.  It is as appropriate for the Super Bowl as the Tebow ad.

"August" in February--In Praise of Estelle Parsons

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We finally saw the highly-anticipated "August: Osage County" last night at the Cadillac Palace Theater in Chicago.  Tracy Letts' play was a phenomenon: from its beginnings at Chicago's Steppenwolf theater, to a smashing run on Broadway, five Tony Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize, the show is here for a two-week run, back in its home town. To say that this is an emotionally-charged and complex domestic comedy-drama is an understatement. It's the most stirring and troubling portrait of a deluded family since "Whos's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".

The premise of the play concerns the disappearance of the patriarch of an Oklahoma family, and the remaining family members' confrontation of long-buried truths. At the center of the maelstrom  is Violet, the wife of the missing man, and mother of three daughters who come home to deal with the crisis, bringing with them their own failures and foibles, only to be exposed raw . Violet suffers from mouth cancer, is addicted to a host of different painkillers, and has lost her ability to preserve the  fragile, arbitrary bonds of  her family.  During the course of the play, she toys with the audiences' sympathies as she presides over the vicious destruction of her daughters' lives.

But, I asked Mark this morning...what is the play ABOUT?

That is where "August: Osage County" rises above the average drama, with its tightly woven themes and well-paced emotional arc. After thinking about it all day, I write this in appreciation of a wonderful piece of playwriting that has given me a renewed energy and inspiration to move forward with my own play:

It's about caring for aging and difficult parents as well as raising children in a world lacking in kindness and self-restraint.  It's about the rage and guilt experienced by the caretakers of loved ones with alcoholism and drug addiction.  It's about how we build layers of self-deception to protect ourselves from painful truths, and how easily these layers can be stripped away.  It's about life's choices, and regret, and the struggle to keep up the appearance of happiness.  It's about greed, anger, the unfairness of love, and the way marriages are saved or destroyed without logic. It's about the absurdity, even hilarity, of the relationships between people that just  happen to be related to one another.  It's about our ignorance of those who work behind the scenes to help us live better, even as we insist on destroying our lives. It's about poets, and writers, and confessions and expressions of love.  It asks if some truths are best kept hidden, and whether we can save each other from our bad choices with the right action at the right time. 

It's about America, in particular the severe outlook of those who live in the "plains", and how we have lost our ability to appreciate our natural circumstances.  The Native American woman  hired to cook and keep house is plain-spoken and clear-eyed, knows what she wants, and is content with what she has.  Her presence in the play raises it to a level of a metaphor that hovers over the play from her attic bedroom in the intricate 3-story set Letts required. 

Just like the Weston family, the country is seen as having lost its promise. Violet retreats finally to the attic, desolate and desperate, for comfort, which their housekeeper provides, in a tableau reminiscent of the extraordinary "pieta" of "Cries and Whispers".  It is sad, but not devoid of hope.

I write this in appreciation of well-developed, original characters, written with humor and honesty. I was surprised at the number of laughs the play elicited, especially during the centerpiece dinner scene, which takes the audience from farce to rage.  At the end of Act Two, I was wound up with a mixture of anger and relief at suspense that had just been barely relieved.  

Most of all, I write this in appreciation of the talents of 82-year-old Estelle Parsons in the lead role of Violet Weston.  I admired her from the first time I witnessed her primal performance as Blanche Barrow in "Bonnie and Clyde" (Best Supporting Actress Oscar, 1967). 

Her explosive and heartbreaking work in this play was like a personal act of love from her to the audience.

Parsons was reluctant to take on the role; as a New Englander, she thought the raw honesty of these characters was too foreign to her.  Yet she agreed, and later joked that she found her inner "viciousness" necessary to embody the character.  Parsons always had a sly presence on the screen, a barely disguised humor in her acting.  Here, on stage,she is so given over to the role, its physical depictions of additcion, her wild swings from raucous humor to pathos, it is impossible to see her as having played anything else.  Her energy and emotional investment exhausted her....she could barely smile during the curtain call.  I want to thank the whole cast and crew, and Tracy Letts, and especially Parsons for giving us a carefully constructed masterpiece mounted with great care by all involved.

This was a defining moment in my newly expanding foray into serious theater.

Postscript: Apparently Tracy Letts has completed a version of the screenplay for the film now being produced by the Weinstein Company.  Casting has not yet begun, but there is a frenzy of agents and performers jockeying for parts.  If the movie keeps its focus tightly on the characters within the setting of the house, without "opening up", it could be a powerful classic.

A Dog-Shelter Story--Wednesday Journal

Taking a break from Oscars, and the movies.  In a few days, I'll come back to weigh in on the nominations for 2009, back from my 40-year sentimental journey.


But tonight, here's a story of what occurred yesterday, a fitting commemoration of a difficult anniversary.  I want to preserve this in my journal here and share it with the rest of you.  What happened was moving, and necessary.

Yesterday (February 2) was a snowy, dreary Groundhog Day.  It was just like Groundhog Day exactly two years ago, the day we put to rest our Bassett Hound, Maggie.  She was having seizures continuously, and the light was gone from her eyes.  The veterinary team was exceedingly kind to us, as we spent our last moments very close to her, reassuring her it that was all right for her to leave us, to feel better at last.    Two years later, the pain of losing her is manageable, but has not gone away completely. It's a feeling that reminds me that she was once a very important part of my life.  As Joni Mitchell wrote in her song Hejira, "There's comfort in melancholy...."


A couple of weeks ago, while cleaning kitchen cabinets, I found the last can of dog food we had purchased for her. We never had the heart to get rid of it, and I had forgottten it was there.  I checked and the expiration date was still good.


As it turned out, I was scheduled for a shift at the Buddy Foundation yesterday, on this wistful aniversary.  I somehow knew that the time spent there would be emotionally healing.  I took the can of food with me to the shelter, because  my shift on Tuesdays is always feeding time., and I got permission to use it to feed the dogs in our care. 


Other than  the souveniers we have in safekeeping (her bandanas, collar and leash, fleece coat, old toys, and of course, armloads of photographs), this was the last item we had that was related to Maggie's care.  It felt like she was there with me at the shelter, wagging her tail at the prospect of sharing a meal with my new friends, all of them jumping and making happy noises.

I opened the can, and wept silently, internally... there were no tears.  I was happy in my work with these creatures, all of them characters, all of them depending for their very lives on the care provoded by us volunteers.  I was joyful that I was sharing the last of Maggie's food to sustain the lives of these homeless, hapless animals.  Some of them would never find a home, I knew.  This was all they would ever have. 

Maggie, in her own way, just wanted to help me out.

So Cassie the sweet little beagle, Zoe the dalmatian mix, Abel the Golden Retriever, Danny the pit bull,  Starsky the Boxer/Basset Hound...they and others received the benefit of Maggie's "generosity".   I was able to let go a little more...not for good, not completely, but happily, knowing that one life was flowing into so many others.

It felt, like nothing else I have experienced, like a true communion.  

Oscar Year 1969--BEST PICTURE

It is the eve of the nominations for the 2009 Academy Awards, and also the final entry in my look back 40 years to the movies that competed for the prize in 1969.  It was a groundbreaking year for Oscars and the movie industry alike. Just look at the movies that were released that  were minor contenders in the Oscar race, or received no nominations at all:  Arthur Penn's sophomore effort "Alice's Restaurant"; Bob Fosse's directorial debut "Sweet Charity"; the unclassifiable "Medium Cool"; Visconti's "The Damned"; Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch"; Eric Rohmer's "My Night at Maud's"; Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run";  "Goodbye Columbus", "I Am Curious (Yellow)", Hitchcock's "Topaz", "Marooned", "Me, Natalie"; and "The April Fools". 

As I look over the films with acting nominations, already discussed in this series, only two had received Best Picture nominations.  In this final installment we will finally catch up with the rest of the slate, including "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "Hello Dolly", and "Z".

For the most part, 1969 was a groundbreaking and exciting time to attend the cinema.  I have some romanticized notions of the era, simply because I was too young to attend many of the most cutting-edge work then on display (and I know that there were some horrendous releases, too).  Soon, however, I would get my chance to view, ponder, discuss, and re-view most of these movies, which contributed to the formation of my tastes and preferences in this art form.  As a long-time movie-lover and student of the trends, history, and artistry of the popular motion picture, I still believe that the excitement generated by these pictures, the discussions, the word-of-mouth, and the lasting effect on American culture, has never been (and perhaps never will) be seen again in quite the same way.  

There was the excitement of something new, a sense of getting to glimpse something that had been forbidden, which united movie audiences into a new kind of communal experience. Movies emphasized contributing to the social conversation, with the best films dealing either directly, or in artistically enigmatic ways, with the issues that fascinated and troubled Americans during the decade: the Vietnam war, student unrest, drug use, the sexual revolution, growing violence, the questioning of conventional society, the Hippie movement, dropping out, and the uncertainty of the American future.  To be sure, most of these films are characterized by their bleakness; but they were tempered fiinally by their artistic vision, and willingness to experiment and take chances, so that many of them, grim as they were, became ultimately exhilarating, and drew audiences back again and again to watch and discuss anew.

I loved movie year 1969 in a singular way, as I would soon love the movie year  (and Oscar year) of 1970.  What was different then was a lack of reliance on hardware or gimmicks; instead, every new film had the freedom to treat a new subject matter in ways that were unavailable to filmmakers in a more regulated time.  There was almost no demographic marketing;  audiences were trusted to find and respond to great adaptations, or original scripts, or modern interpretations of traditional stories that often and offered ways to contend with the times. As a result, studio executives were mystified by the box office success of  the "new cinema" offerings like "Easy Rider".  Viewers were enthused and thrilled by multilayered cinematic innovation (serious "adult" subject matter, traditional camera and lighting techniques, unusual and powerful use of music, and brilliant manipulation of time and meaning through montage) that exploded across screens.  Movies for the most part were made for anyone, and they were not engineered, as they seem to be today, to appeal to a lucrative narrow market before becoming disposable.

So it's with some sense of amusement that I must admit that a couple of the films offered as the Best of the Year by the Academy in 1969 did not, to my mind, wholly represent what was most cutting-edge or exciting, either in subject matter or technique, but rather reflected the confusion, fear of  new subject matter and imagery.  It was the result of divided opinion within the industry on what constituted great realism in film art vs. pure entertainment, and whether the two could meet.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

"Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true".  So begins one of the most likeable and popular movies of 1969, and is still favored by audiences old and new.  The pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in a casual, loosely plotted and beautifully-shot story of the dying west, breezily directed by George Roy Hill,  with an enormously popular score by Burt Bacharach, heralded the era of the "Buddy Film". It's the tale of two outlaws who rob trains, run from the law, exchange witty banter amid the splendor of the West, travel to Bolivia with their best girl, and become legends that never really die.  It combined elements of other of the year's films in a colorful, entertaining package: the male-bonding of "Midnight Cowboy"; the bicycle that Newman rides evolved into the choppers of "Easy Rider"; and the bullet-laden finale south-of-the-border recalled the last hurrah of "The Wild Bunch".  Yet the violence here was soft-pedaled; "Butch Cassidy..." was often referred to as "The Wild Bunch Lite." William Goldma's Oscar-winning screenplay instead focuses on the affability of the two leads, adding Katharine Ross' character of schoolteacher Etta Place for a delicious threesome.  "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" looks like an authentic Western, but seeks to draw parallels between Butch and Sundance and more contemporary outlaws, the hippies and nonconformists on the contemporary scene.  Nowhere was this more evident than in Bacharach's smashing yet anachronistic and contemporary music, and the golden, soft-focus lighting of Conrad Hall's cinematography (both received Oscars).   Among the movie's best-loved scenes is an interlude with Newman, Ross, a bicycle, and the Oscar-winning Best Song, "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head".  The movie boasts a number of wonderful scenes that elevate this movie to classic status:  Butch and The Kid leaping from a cliff into a river despite Sundance's inability to swim; the Gang demolishing a train with enough TNT to blow up a small building; Etta's supposed ravishing by Sundance, to which she asks that "for once I wish you'd get here on time".  The tone is kept light, and even the final shootout spares us any images of death in a final freeze-frame.  With 4 total Oscars, this was the biggest winner of 1969; four years later the Academy finally had its chance to award this irresistable pair by honoring "The Sting" with the big prize.

"Hello, Dolly!"

It was almost pre-ordained that "Hello Dolly" would earn an Oscar Nomination for Best Picture. The film version of the classsic and popular Broadway musical, directed by Gene Kelly, was heavily promoted by 20thCentury-Fox, which scored big four years earlier with "The Sound of Music". In fact,  "Music" screenwriter  Ernest Lehman produced this film and editor William Reynolds cut this one as well.  The original show boasted a score with standards like the title tune, "It Takes a Woman", "Put on Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", and the show-stopper "Before the Parade Passes By".  The film cast Barbra Streisand, fresh off her Oscar-win for "Funny Girl", as Dolly Levi the matchmaker, and Walter Matthau, so good a year earlier in "The Odd Couple", as Horace Vandergelder, Dolly's reluctant love interest. Despite the lavish costumes and sets, energetic choreography, and great tunes, it was the miscasting of the leads that ultimately kept the movie "Hello, Dolly" from classic status on the level of "My Fair Lady".  Streisand performed well, but was too young for the role, and  had no chemistry with Matthau, who appeared uncomfortable throughout.  Kelly's direction of supporting players was fine,  all of whom helped propel the bedroom-farce-script into a fairly entertaining film, although it often loomed like a dinosaur next to the more nimble and topical fare in this category.   However, there are a couple of classic scenes that make "Dolly" worth a look today. Louis Armstrong, who scored a number-one chart-topping hit with his rendition of the title song, made a welcome appearance in a duet with Streisand. The scene made magic. And the big parade sequence is sweeping and irresistable. In the 1960's, big musicals were the staple of the Academy Awards. In the decade alone, four of the 10 Best Pictures were musicals: "West Side Story", "My Fair Lady", "The Sound of Music", and "Oliver!".  Nominees also included "The Music Man", "Mary Poppins", "Doctor Dolittle", and "Funny Girl".  1969 also saw "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "Paint Your Wagon", and "Sweet Charity" as competitors in technical categories.  By then, audiences had their fill of the genre, and the budgets devoted to these extravaganzas started sinking the studios.  "Hello Dolly" was the beginning of the end for the big, lavish movie musical as an assumed player at Oscar time.

"Anne of the Thousand Days"

Like the lavish musical, the costume epic (especially a British one) was a staple of the Oscar nominations through the 1960's.  Films like "Beckett" and "Lion in Winter" were major Oscar contenders.  "A Man For All Seasons", "Lawrence of Arabia" and, to some extent, "Tom Jones" were winners in this genre.  After 1969, with one or two exceptions ("Nicholas and Alexandra" comes to mind), the costume epic rarely got made, let alone nominated.  "Anne of the Thousand Days" was one of the more interesting entries by virtue of its supremely talented cast headed by Genevieve Bujold and Richard Burton, and a good script based on a literate play by Maxwell Anderson (1948).  Hal Wallis, who also produced "Beckett" and, amusingly, "True Grit", was committed to the authenticity of the project.  And the story of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII is one of the most fascinating marital battles in history; it changed the face of organized religion.  Burton and Bujold were perfect here, although Burton had done this type of role many times before, and it was wearing out its welcome with audiences and apparently, Academy voters.  Irene Papas also made an appearance here, her second Best-Picture film this year ("Z" was the other, of course) playing once again the suffering wife/mistress.  Although "Anne of the Thousand Days" looks conventional, its adult subject matter and language made it difficult to film faithfully prior this year.  Frank discussions about incest and bastard children, and a more natural treatment of marital love, set this apart from the staid and stately film version of the King's divorce in "Man for all Seasons".  This is a lusty and emotional pageant, where "Seasons" was more cerebral.  I go back and forth on this one.  It's absorbing and great fun to watch; on the other hand it seems to lack some spark of cinematic invention, which keeps me from re-visitng it more often. 

"Z"

Film audiences, and the Academy, showed their sophistication by embracing this French-Algerian co-production about the assassination of a liberal democratic hero in Greece in the early 1960's, its cover-up by the ruling military dictatorship, and the subsequent exposure of the scandal by a principled investigator and a crusading journalist.  The story of Gregorios Lambrakis was still fresh in the minds of the politically aware. This is a quick, suspenseful, angry film that also received nominations for  Director Costa-Gavras, Screenwriter Jorge Semprun, and also won for Foreign Language Film and Film Editing (in what must have been a close race with "Midnight Cowboy").  This was a film meant to stir up audiences.  During a prologue in which government officials are comparing communists (i.e., radicals and liberals) to a fungus to be eradicated, a post-credit title card proclaims that the film is INTENTIONAL!  All similarity to persons living or dead was intended by the filmmakers, and was signed by the director and screenwriter. As proof of the dangers posed by making "Z", the music score, composed by Mikis Theodorikis, who was under house arrest at the time as a ploitical dissident, had to be smuggled out of Greece to be used in the film.  The filmmakers used the techniques of a suspense thriller (brilliantly quick cutting, dense plot, lots of characters and points of view, sudden violence, and emotional music) to hammer home the scandal and corruption "Z" meant to expose. This is a rare foreign-language film that I actually prefer to see dubbed.  It moves so fast, and the quickly flashing images are so compelling, and often so beautiful, that much is lost in reading the subtitles on this densely-written movie.  To enrich the story, a sly subplot emerges involving the politician's infidelities, and his wife's anguish and mysterious acceptance of his death.  This is one of the best examples of a political thriller...thinking of its closest counterpart today, one is tempted to cite "The Hurt Locker", although even that lacks any political point of view, preferring instead to remain an effective suspenser with no partisan overtones.  This film shows us the fair resolution of the investigation, but outrages the viewer with an epilogue that tells the fate of those who were successful; dead, arrested, or exiled by a new corrupt ruling party.  [At the finale of "Z", we are shown a list of things the government sought to outlaw, including: peace movements, strikes, labor unions, long hair on men, The Beatles, other modern and popular music, Sophocles, Leo Tolstoy, Aeschylus, writing that Socrates was homosexual, Eugène Ionesco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Anton Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Mark Twain, Samuel Beckett, the bar association, sociology, international encyclopedias, free press, and new math. Also banned is the letter Z, which was used as a symbolic reminder that "he  is alive").]

 "Z" was prophetic, as it predicted the Watergate fiascos and other government cover-ups that would soon engulf our national consciousness, and did so without compromise.  As the journalist following the hot lead, Jaques Perrin may be familiar to modern audiences as the producer of the popular documentary "Winged Migration".  The Motion Picture Academy did itself proud by citing "Z" as truly one of the best movies of 1969.

"Midnight Cowboy" (Oscar Winner)

The only X-rated film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, a sensitive, shocking, sometimes funny, ultimately heartbreaking film, the standard bearer in this category for everything that was new and fresh and exciting in movies at that time, a story about friendship and love between two unlikely, lonely drifters, a glimpse into a world of apathy and violence and desperate longing for love expressed in empty sexual encounters...It's a masterpiece, uncompromising and, according to interviews with Producer Jerome Hellman and Director John Schlesinger, it could not be made today.  What shocked audiences (and the industry) were its frank observations about homosexuality, prostitution, and sordid depictions of poverty and violence underneath the posh exteriors of Manhattan's socialite milieu. What attracted audiences were the characters, and their unseemly but warm-hearted relationship, and their descent into tragedy borne of love and sacrifice.  Opening-day crowds in New York lined up around blocks to see the new film by Dustin Hoffman, counterculture hero of "The Graduate"; and those familiar with the book, or the merely curious, were wondering what might have nabbed it a rating restricting it to adults 18 or older.  Director Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt perfectly balance the tricky line between realistic grit and cinematic symbolism. Joe Buck's background is sketched through unusual flashbacks employing shock-cutting, imbalanced color, multiple printing, and eerie, atmospheric sound.  A party scene with no-holds-barred depictions of sensuality, psychedelic color and music, is also hilarious as seen through the eyes of the two unlikely protagonists.  John Barry's indelible score is one of the most perfect marriages of theme and character, its lone harmonica amid the orchestration standing out as an appropriately melancholy voice among the overwhelming vastness of the city. Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" sets a mood of anticipation and buoyancy, only to become more ironic and desperate as the film progresses. Hoffman's Ratso, limping, hustling, and fast-talking to survive, overturns expectations, erasing all traces of Benjamin Braddock's nerdy awkwardness.  Jon Voight becomes a wayward brother to us all. We willingly follow this Candide on his journey to self-discovery and ultimately hard-won freedom, at a terrible price.  It is a fast-moving film about heavy subjects, and its color and humor and eccentric supporting players make this a film to re-visit over and again.  Every role is played perfectly, with unforgettable characterizations by Sylvia Miles, Barnard Hughes, John Macgiver, and especially Brenda Vaccaro. Early audiences may have been baffled by what they had just seen, but subsequent viewings draw us closer to these lives and make apparent their grace in the midst of  decadence and degradation. This is a parable, a rabble-rouser, an aesthetically tough but beautiful film exerience, one of my favorite of all of the Oscar-winning Best Pictures.