Norman Jewison

                 Part 3

    It’s time to highlight the last great movies of esteemed director Norman Jewison and move on to other topics. All of these are ground-breaking, daring, and good.

A Soldier’s Story (1984) features Black actors in most of the major roles, unusual at the time. Denzel Washington has a supporting role in one of his first big movies. Adolph Caesar was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar but lost to Haing Ngor for The Killing Fields  and the movie itself was nominated for Best, but lost to Amadeus. The plot involves the murder of a black officer and the intricate peeling away of assumptions and prejudices. Howard Rollins portrays Major Davenport, the principal investigator. 

Agnes of God (1985) takes place in a convent where a dead baby is found in the room of a nun (Meg Tilly) who is covered with blood. She denies knowing anything about the conception or death of the baby. The Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) gets the court to assign psychiatrist Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda) to discover what actually happened. She buys Agnes’ story that she is entirely naive and has no knowledge of carnal things. Bancroft and Tilly received Oscar nominations, but both lost.

Always known for his ability to extract great performances from his cast, Jewison did just that in Moonstruck (1987). Cher, known mostly as a brassy, abrasive singer portrays Loretta, and she is a wonder. Very feminine and winning, Cher steals the movie. Danny Aiello plays her fiance who she doesn’t really love. Nicholas Cage portrays his brother Ronny, and Loretta falls head over heels in lust with him. This time Norman Jewison lost the best directing Oscar to Bertolucci for The Last Emperor. My take on this is that he was robbed. You decide.

The next rabbit pulled out of the directorial hat came in In Country (1989) and here the surprise is Bruce Willis. Basically known as the sardonic lead in the Die Hard movies, here he is just quite excellent as Emmitt Smith, a returned Viet Nam veteran suffering from PTSD. His 17-year-old niece Samantha is played by Brit Emily Lloyd, dead on as a Kentucky teen ager. She dreadfully misses her father who was killed in Viet Nam and wants Emmitt to help her know more about him. Critics hated this film but I liked it a lot. 

And finally there is The Hurricane (1999). This is a splendid biopic about Ruben (Hurricane) Carter, an outstanding middleweight boxer wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in New Jersey. Denzel Washington is, of course, terrific as Carter. After 20 years in prison Carter was finally freed some time after the witness who falsely named him recanted. Denzel was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Kevin Spacey for American Beauty.

All of the films in this article are for grown-ups. Most are out there somewhere on some streaming service or another. For next time, I'm considering Mr. Movie's tops for 2023.