2019 was not a vintage year for Hollywood, and the Oscars made sure we will not forget this fact any time soon.

The nominations for Best Picture this year were the winner, “Green Book”, an entertaining enough “BlacKkKlansman”, cringe-fest “Bohemian Rhapsody” which hung on the lead’s brilliant impression of Freddy Mercury, blockbuster “Black Panther”, the earnest “A Star is Born”, European costume drama “The Favourite” and “Roma” which could never win in this category as it was Mexican, a Netflix film and the best film of the year.

The top three of these were not Hollywood productions and therefore outsiders, of those left many were surprised to see Green Book walk away with the much coveted little gold statuette. But why?

This ‘based on a true story’ tale, like any good TV movie, is that of a chapter of Dr Don Shirley’s life. Having been invited to study in the elite Leningrad Conservatory in the Soviet Union, the first black person to do so, we find this piano virtuoso embarking on a tour of the ‘deep south’. His record label employ a minder (Frank Vellelonga, or Tony Lip as his largely Mafiosi friends and acquaintances call him) whose duty it is to drive him from one engagement to the next, and to ensure that he is not way-laid by southern racists with the help of the ‘Green Book’- a guide for black drivers in the segregated south.

​Little about this film stands out as being unworthy of Oscar greatness- the premise has won before: an ‘interracial’ pair drove through the southern states in Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, making similar racial harmony pit stops along the injustice highlighted freeway. There is even a similar ‘driver stops to take a pee, much to the passenger’s horror’ scene. This may well become a trope.

My consternation in this pick lies in the sheer lack of quality. This is a middle of the road excursion. It never slips into the intellectual fast lane, nor does it stop to admire the scenery. It just pootles along introducing a number of lazily constructed stereotypes as characters (Italian immigrants built around the “Forgeddaboudit” persona of the mafia heyday, with no other angle explored). The Italian community featured could well have been on day release from a comedy sketch (Key & Peele have one that comes to mind). There are no events of note, nothing unexpected happens (not even the discovery that Dr Shirley has sexual experiences with men really raises an eyebrow, telegraphed as it was by the occasional pursing of the lips by Mahershala Ali in the role of the good doctor).

The film is even shot in such a disappointingly perfunctory way that I couldn't describe it as shoot by numbers. Tony writes home to his wife “I never knew how very beautiful this country was”, and his droning voiceover is accompanied by a shot of a pretty average looking pasture. No depth, no scope, no beauty. This could not have been hard to do, surely? The viewer wonders what inspired Tony to write those words and why the filmmakers neglected to use the medium of film to share such a visual feast.

​Most disappointing of all was the simplistic way the film dealt with the central issue of prejudice is about as safe and by-the-book as it can possibly be. While travelling through Kentucky, our Italian American driver spots a Kentucky fried chicken: “IN KENTUCKY! When’s that ever gonna happen?!”. Dr Don Shirley, when faced with the culinary experience in question asserts, nonplussed, “I have never had fried chicken in my life.” The first effect is the obvious: The audience watches Tony’s surprise and is encouraged to shake heads and chuckle at his absurd generalisation that “You people love the fried chicken, the grits and the collared greens…”
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“Oh Tony” (the viewer declares), “if only you could see yourself through my 21st century eyes.” The racist assumption of “what THEY eat” is ridiculed. Fair enough, but it is not exactly breaking the surface. Just ten viewing minutes later the two of them are presented with a meal by the white southern gentlefolk who “whipped up a special menu in honour of our guest… home cooked fried chicken!”. We are once again invited to roll our eyes.

I have to say, this is the most disappointing of all the Oscar winners I have yet seen. A winner should highlight some kind of achievement in a film, of ANY description, and quite honestly I am baffled as to what about this film might have stood out to anyone.

Meh.

This is one of the early Oscar winners that few without an intimate knowledge of the early days of the awards would know anything about. It tells the tale of Emile Zola and his lifelong battle against inequality, and for justice.

It is an epic, the scale of the producing is apparent with the brilliant use of hundreds of extras who sometimes play almost as significant a role as any of the principals, creating the tense, hostile atmosphere in the courtroom, the panic in the square and jubilation in the streets for the returning army from the Prussian conflict. The baying of the crowd is particularly impressive- individual voices can be heard while the overall effect is naturalistic. However, the fact that the stand out performance is from the extras maybe reflects that an actor’s training in 1936 is still heavily grounded in the theatre- cinema had not yet quite found a style appropriate to the big screen. Their bold movements, necessary on the stage, like many other films of the era come across as unrealistic and exaggerated. Sometimes even comical without intending to be.

​We begin in the draughty hovel of a room he shares with an early Cezanne, the master painter, who was also yet to hit any headlines. Very sentimentally shot in soft focus, black and white, and with orchestral strings brought in regularly to direct emotion it has a very dated feel. There is an artistry to it all, but it is hidden- camera trickery might go unnoticed, such as the very clever lighting and use of shadows to enhance the scale and depth of certain shots. For instance, in the 2nd military tribunal (of Estherhazy) there are only ten soldiers behind him, but the lighting gives the impression of the darkness, power and reach of this moment.

Costume and set design were also carefully considered. The contrast between poverty and opulence is  stark- the broken, dirty window panes and crates of the start are replaced by gilt-edged furniture, sparkling 18 candle candelabras and rooms stuffed with other decorative items. If it were not already enough, Zola and his wife ensure you can’t miss their progress up the material ladder: “see the pearls Emile bought for me when we were in Italy”; “this most exquisite majolica”.

You may know Zola, the author, legion d’honneur holder, founding father of modern France. Here he is shown to have a moral compass that always pointed true north, much to his detriment in the early days where he suffers at the hands of the authorities and rich, dumpy employers- none of whom argue that the man can’t write, but all abhor his chosen subject of bringing to light the injustices suffered by the poor, the weak, the vulnerable while berating the rich, the powerful for what he saw as their criminal inaction and neglect of ordinary citizens. “Why do you write such muckraking stuff when there are many pleasant things in life?” his tubby superior implores.

​The film focuses on two moments of inspiration in Zola’s life. The first, a chance encounter with a lady of the night who gives him the bones of the story for his first bestseller, ‘Nana’. She is running from police who are rounding dozens of such ladies up in the square, Zola hides her in plain sight at his table in a cafe and they get chatting. She tells him her story of hopes dashed, small girl in a big city, being taken advantage of by unscrupulous characters and finally the death of her young daughter. He puts pen to paper, tells her story (calling it “Nana”), hits a winning streak of success after success and finally finds economic stability.

That’s the set up. The years pass, Zola himself grows ‘fat and old’ (his old friend Cezanne warns him) and soft too… he effectively retires from fighting injustice, feeling he has earned it. But we are barely half way through the film, and so the second moment of inspiration arrives.

​Another female figure- the wife of a wrongly convicted military man serving a life sentence on Devil’s Island (the notorious prison island off Guyana, you might remember it from 'Papillon' - the 1973 film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman*) arrives and appeals to Zola to take up their cause. Although reluctant, he can’t refuse once he takes the time to study the evidence not just of his innocence, but also of a conspiracy at the top of the military establishment. A juicy target he has no intention of passing up.

And so Zola, in what will prove to be his final act of defiance against a superior authority begins a seemingly unwinnable battle when he utters the immortal line: “I accuse…” (or “J’accuse!” if you so prefer) and accuses the entire higher military establishment of collusion, conspiracy, fraud and cowardice. This soon becomes a courtroom drama, the earliest I have yet seen, shot sumptuously with over a hundred extras who are fantastically directed. Once again, Zola suffers indignity, and this sets up the denouement. Vindication! Justice! Vive la France!

​Overall, the film impresses, but with a running time of just under 2 hours and every minute heavily laden with overacting, wigs, stiff backs and calculated movements it is one whose qualities, like a large Havana cigar, are perhaps best enjoyed by connoisseurs of the genre. The rest of us are unlikely to make it all the way through.


Postscript: Many of Emile Zola’s writings are referenced throughout the film, and I wanted to add a final note on this. At Zola’s funeral at the very end of the film the eulogy given includes the following words, a translation of Zola’s (from the 19th century) and here used as a warning to Europe, in the middle of the rise of the Third Reich- : “Do not forget those who fought the battles for you and bought your liberty with their genius and their blood. Do not forget them and applaud the lies of fanatical intolerance. Be human.” Fine advice to all. 

​*Corrected 9/9/18- I previously stated that Napoleon was imprisoned there, but that was the Island of Elba. Silly me.