Cinema
The 68th Academy Awards/ Dead Man Walking (15, selected cinemas)
Monumental snoozeroo
Mark Steyn
Athe Oscars a few years back, Dudley Moore noted: 'It took me ten years to become a household name. Even in my own household.' Alas, movie fame is as enduring as Dud's marriages. Two years ago, he was back watching the Academy Awards on tele- vision just like the rest of us, and got so incensed that his latest starlet fiancee wound up calling the Malibu cops over an incident of alleged pre-spousal abuse. Dudley is still a household name, but mainly for what goes on in his own household.
Possibly as part of a co-ordinated strate- gy with the Malibu Police Department to keep Dud from getting over-excited, this year's Oscars were a monumental snooze- roo — longer than Braveheart but with 'I don't know much about art, but! like queueing.' nothing under its kilt; like Babe recast with a talking sloth; like II Postino, the delivery was terrible and not worth waiting for.
But enough of postal metaphor. For after presenter Sidney Poitier's description of the art of motion pictures — 'the path- ways of the heart and the rivers of the mind lead us to no known address' — all metaphors should be stamped 'Return to sender'. Whoopi Goldberg was jollier, but none of her scripted material was up to her response to a reporter from the E! Enter- tainment Network as she arrived for the 1991 ceremony. 'Last year you had hives,' he began. 'How are you doing this year?' 'I've got my period,' said Whoopi.
I had high hopes of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who in 1992 got themselves arrested over 216 HIV-positive Haitians they wanted admitted to the United States. At that year's Oscars, invited to present the award for Best Editing, they renewed their demand. When the applause had died down, Robbins said: 'Which brings us, of course, to editing . . . '
Sarandon and Robbins are almost parody Hollywood liberals. Long before Aids rib- bons became de rigueur, long before gay activists launched their 'Night of the Livid Queers' Oscar protesters, Susan and Tim were the lone celebrities wearing `Silence=Death' Aids buttons at the 1990 awards. Faced with an anti-capital punish- ment movie directed by Robbins, you feel pretty certain of what you're in for. True to form, in Dead Man Walking, Sarandon plays Sister Helen Prejean, a liberal Louisiana nun who disdains wimples in favour of co-ordi- nated leisurewear. Sean Penn, banged up in the state pen, is on death row and a count- down to lethal injection. He is the victim of child abuse, denies having killed or raped anybody, and looks like Bruce Springsteen, who, as it happens, sings the title song. Sister Helen is trying to get him off.
It sounds like we're being set up for one of those tediously manipulative injustice- of-the-system pictures. But Robbins's and Penn's performances keep shaking up your expectations. Penn's convicted killer gives a television interview complaining about 'nig- gers' and praising Hitler as a man who knew how 'to get the job done'. Almost immediately, he regrets what he's said — a foolish bit of macho-strutting that has sealed his fate. He's clearly loathsome, but still not a man who deserves to die. Then, gradually, Robbins reveals the gruesome murders in flashback, and, as we realise the truth at last, Sister Helen forces the con- demned man to confront what he's done and to lead himself to grace.
Robbins thinks he shows us why Penn's character shouldn't be executed. I think he shows us why he should be, but then I hap- pen to have no objections to the death penalty, at least not for Louisiana, where life is cheap. What's impressive about Dead Man Walking is that it's a mainstream Hol- lywood social-issue film that's honest: it doesn't simplify or tidy up; it has a docu- mentary authenticity, especially in the sup- porting roles; and, instead of taking the easy route and transforming Penn's role into an emblem of a cause, it courageously shows us something closer to the average death-row profile, a violent man unable to rise above his own banality. I liked this picture, and I'm glad the Academy did, too. But the Oscars should have gone to Robbins and Penn, not Sarandon, who turned in yet another of Hollywood's generic nun performances.
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