Forget the dubious pleasures of reality TV. Reality cinema, in many guises and genres, came back strong in 2004. If there was one distinctive element about the films of 2004, it was the preeminence of real-life subjects, real-life people, real-life events and, in the year’s very best, real-life emotion.
It’s hard to recall a recent year when the documentary or the film history, biography and docudrama stood so tall in the final reckoning, when so many excellent films and towering performances owed their genesis, at least in part, to a true-life subject.
THE SHORT LIST: Jamie Foxx gives an astounding performance as the late soul-blues great Ray Charles; Bill Condon creates a remarkable drama out of the triumphs and trials of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and wife (Liam Neeson and Laura Linney); Don Cheadle and director Terry George plunge us into the terror of the Rwanda massacres in “Hotel Rwanda”; Hector Babenco punctiliously recreates Brazilian prison life in “Carandiru”; and Johnny Depp improbably becomes James M. Barrie in the backstage Peter Pan tale, “Finding Neverland.”
You could cite the painstaking realism — in writing, staging and performance — given to fictional dramas such as Mike Leigh’s searing abortion drama, “Vera Drake,” or Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke’s brainy, buoyant romance “Before Sunset.”
Or you could recall the brace of excellent documentaries, including Michael Moore’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning (and furiously controversial) “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The year’s movies also excelled in the creation of fantasy worlds: notably Zhang Yimou’s spectacular — and spectacularly unreal — historical action epics “House of Flying Daggers” and “Hero,” Pixar and Brad Bird’s witty super-hero feature cartoon, “The Incredibles,” and Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s science fictional look at blighted love affairs (with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet), “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
As always there was a lot more there than the casual or jaded viewer might first appreciate. Critics and constant moviegoers started carping about the low quality of 2004’s movies back in January, but by year’s end, there were plenty of gems among the dross.
THE10 BEST:
1. The Aviator
(Martin Scorsese) Aviator, plane manufacturer, moviemaker, Hollywood Casanova and all-around eccentric Howard Hughes — the man who started life as a golden boy and ended it as a bearded, germ-obsessed recluse — is one of the most endlessly fascinating of American biographical subjects. But, though filming Hughes’ life obsessed director-producer-star Warren Beatty for decades, the movie that resulted from other hands is a great one — despite some oddly out-of-chronology historical references, the absence of most of Hughes’ crazy last years and the fact that, despite three hours, this movie is still too short. As Hughes, Leonardo DiCaprio cannily portrays boyish adventuring and incipient madness, and Cate Blanchett is simply amazing as Kate Hepburn. As always, though, the star is Scorsese, with his usual incandescent visuals, full-throttle acting ensemble, scintillating mix of truth and stylized fantasy and sheer cinematic magic.
2. Sideways
(Alexander Payne) The most perfectly realized movie of the year: a delightful yet woundingly real look at a flawed American male friendship, with nonpareil Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church as ex-college buddies on a last California wine country fling before an impending wedding and equally fine Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh as the ladies conned into deceptive, destructive affairs. Both hilarious and sad, truthful and fabulously entertaining, Payne’s movie is a defining look at the classic movie pairing of nerdy brain (Giamatti) and reckless stud buddy (Church), a matchup often explored but never better than this.
3. House of Flying Daggers
(Zhang Yimou, China) Initially, I wanted to pair the two great 2004 Zhang Chinese action epics: Cannes sensation “House of Flying Daggers” and all-time Chinese box-office champ “Hero.” Both are spectacular blends of extravagant high-flying Hong Kong-style action, exquisite period visuals and searing emotional drama, but “House,” Zhang’s own favorite, is by a hair the more emotional: a triangle love drama (Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau) of lacerating intensity.
4. Vera Drake
(Mike Leigh, Britain) The world’s preeminent realist-drama director, Leigh, here takes us back to London in the early ’60s when abortion was illegal. A doctor’s son, he shows us unflinchingly the implications, contrasts and moral dilemma. A pregnant upper-class date-rape victim relatively easily has her “problem” solved; meanwhile, well-meaning, generous-hearted Vera (played by Imelda Staunton) tries to help poor girls in trouble — and sees a near fatality and her own potential ruin as results.
5. Carandiru
(Hector Babenco, Brazil) The Carandiru prison riot and deaths, one of the most incendiary and notorious of penal system scandals, becomes the inspiration for one of the best and most comprehensive prison movies ever, from crime-drama master Babenco (“Pixote”). Using the biographical recollections of real-life doctor Drauzio Varella, Babenco paints an unforgettable behind-bars tapestry, teeming with life, violence, conflict and danger.
6. Before Sunset
(Richard Linklater) Over the years, 1995’s “Before Sunrise,” in which Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy talked themselves into love as they strolled around Vienna before train time — has become my favorite modern romantic movie. Here is that film’s deeply satisfying, often entrancing sequel, from that same creative trio, with Hawke’s Jesse and Delpy’s Celine meeting again years later in Paris, before plane time, to recapture the past, catch up on lost years and (perhaps) rekindle sparks of passion. Beautiful, sexy stuff.
7. Ray
(Taylor Hackford) Another great bio-movie with the year’s single most amazing performance: Jamie Foxx, playing Ray Charles and having to match his acting to the late giant’s soundtrack singing became so completely convincing that I never thought of him as an actor, but simply as conduit for the Genius. There are other fine performances here as well, in Hackford’s unsparing but deeply loving celebration of a flawed master and his terrifying but inspirational life.
8. The Incredibles
(Brad Bird) Animation seems to achieve new heights every year; even the disappointing Robert Zemeckis’ “Polar Express” is a revelation in the IMAX 3-D format. And the biggest leap often comes from Pixar. John Lasseter and the “Toy Story” maestros provided the wondrous technology for the imaginative writer-director (and voice actor) Bird to realize his witty, ingenious, exciting and affectionate tale of a superhero family condemned to the bland ‘burbs but then pulled back into action. For kids and adults: a gem of character and humor, and an action lollapalooza as well.
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9. Moolaade
(Ousmane Sembene, Senegal) From the acknowledged father and first creator of African cinema, Senegal’s peerless 81-year-old writer-director-novelist Sembene, came a film that ravished critics at Cannes: the luminously simple and vibrantly alive ensemble portrait of an African village and a band of women who revolt against their tribal elders, husbands and the barbaric (and real-life) medical ritual of female circumcision.
10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(Michel Gondry) After “Sideways,” this is the year’s cleverest scenario — and one of its most imaginative and original. Writer Charlie Kaufman (“Adaptation”) takes a sci-fi look at what might happen if a company capable of erasing all memories of unhappy love affairs got into the act. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet shine as the unlucky, rubbed-out lovers; Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Wood as the expungers. The concept is fanciful, but being Jim Carrey becomes Phil Dickian fun. The treatment of those fantasies seemed raw and real as a bad morning — and as full of accidental poetry as a sudden snowfall.
THE NEXT 10:
11. “Bon Voyage” (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France) Just off the top 10 by a hair: this sumptuous French romantic comedy/adventure thriller set during the chaos after the World War II German invasion. Full of star actors (Gerard Depardieu, Isabelle Adjani) and great scenes, a wonderful pure entertainment.
12. “Hero” (Zhang Yimou, China) Leap to “House of Flying Daggers” above.
13. “The Motorcycle Diaries” (Walter Salles, U.S.-Brazil) From Che Guevara’s chronicle of his youthful cycle trip across Latin America with buddy Alberto Granado: a terrific road movie that suggests “Easy Rider” with fewer druggie undercurrents.
14. “Troy” (Wolfgang Petersen) If you compare this hunky re-creation of the Trojan wars to “The Iliad,” it suffers, but so does everything else. With Brad Pitt as a golden Achilles, it’s one of the all-time top sun-and-sandal epics, furiously scenic and exciting.
15. “Spider-Man 2” (Sam Raimi) The old webhead returns, battling Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) and inner demons. A little overrated, but a superior comic-derived movie.
16. “A Very Long Engagement” (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France) The “Amelie” team of director-writer Jeunet and gamin-star Audrey Tautou returns for an even better movie: the romantic, funny, moving and macabre tale of a determined girl searching for her lost soldier-lover.
17. “The Blind Swordsman Zatoichi” (Takeshi Kitano, Japan) Japan’s famed blind, fat masseur master swordsman, incarnated for decades by the late Shintaro Katsu, returns in force, thanks to director-star Kitano. A slasher.
18. “Million Dollar Baby” (Clint Eastwood) Director/star Eastwood starts out this boxing melodrama as if it were more “Rocky,” with himself as trainer/manager, Morgan Freeman as his pal and Hillary Swank as a contender. Then he goes into deep noir mode, with shattering results.
19. “Shaun of the Dead” (Edgar Wright, Britain) The year’s best horror movie was also one of its funniest comedies: a tribute to Romero’s original “Dawn of the Dead” that pitted zombies against slackers, with gut-slicing and gut-busting results.
20. “The Trilogy” (Lucas Belvaux, Belgium-France) A real tour de force from writer-director-actor Belvaux. After terrorist Belvaux’s jailbreak, the same events, shown from three different viewpoints, become three different genre movies: icy thriller, marital comedy and stark drama.
THE YEAR’S BEST RESTORATIONS:
“The Leopard” (Luchino Visconti, 1963, Italy) Visconti’s supreme historical epic, with Burt Lancaster, based on Giuseppe de Lampedusa’s novel. In the restored original Italian and English language release versions on DVD from Criterion.
“The Big Red One” (Samuel Fuller, 1980) Fuller’s great WWII epic, with Lee Marvin, returned almost to its original three-hour length. (Warner Bros.).
TOP 5 DOCUMENTARIES:
1. “Fahrenheit 9/11” (Michael Moore)
2. “Touching the Void” (Peter Macdonald, Britain)
3. “Tarnation” (Jonathan Caouette)
4. “Lightning in a Bottle” (Antoine Fuqua)
5. “My Architect” (Nathaniel Kahn)