Scott-344 "Julia" holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first times I read a screenplay before seeing the film and was completely enthralled -- in suspense and moved to tears. Notice how characterization drives the slowly building suspense culminating in a fantastic third act devoid of pyrotechnics or gimmicks. (Never mind that the story is almost 100% fiction; this is adaptation at its finest.)A well-deserved Oscar-winner for Alvin Sargent, the script belongs on any screen writing student's bookshelf alongside "Chinatown" and "Ordinary People" two other Oscar-winners from the era. Confession - by "era" I mean from my USC screen writing class, where I also read terrific scripts like "Marathon Man" (the Hoffman-Devane-Keller lunch scene a textbook example of "reversal" writing), "Breaking Away" and "Cutter's Way."

evanston_dad The fact that "Julia" received 11 Academy Award nominations back in 1977 should give you some indication of what kind of movie it is. Movies don't get nominated for that many Oscars unless they are fairly palatable, tasteful, and adhere to a certain sheen of prestige. "Julia" is all of these things, but don't hold that too much against it. It also happens to be a handsome and well-made drama about a female friendship during troubled times.Apparently the film, though about real-life characters like Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, has little of truth in it and according to many is an outright fabrication. I don't really care, because I don't watch movies for their veracity; I watch them for how well they craft narratives in the language of cinema, and "Julia" does this very well. A large middle section, depicting Hellman's journey by train into Berlin during the rise of the Nazi party in order to smuggle money into the country for use by the anti-fascist underground, is one long sustained nail biter, and showcases director Fred Zinneman's ability to understate to tremendous effect. The film takes a while to get going, and an irrelevant denouement makes the film longer than it needs to be and causes it to end rather abruptly, but overall it's a very good movie.I took a while to warm to Jane Fonda's performance as Hellman. She's mannered and inauthentic in her early scenes, but her performance grew on me as the film progressed, and I came to think she earned the Oscar nomination she received. Vanessa Redgrave, who won that year's Best Supporting Actress award, is astonishing in what amounts to really only one real scene, set in a cafe after her character, the Julia of the title, is reunited with Hellman after a long separation. Both women are fascinating to watch in this scene, but Redgrave especially is mesmerizing. With very little screen time, she is able to make the presence of her character pervade virtually every single frame; even when she's not on screen, which is most of the time, you find yourself thinking about her.In addition to the nominations already mentioned, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Jason Robards, who won for the second consecutive year, the only person in Oscar history to win back-to-back supporting awards), Supporting Actor (Maximilian Schell, in a puzzler of a nomination given he's barely in the film and has not much to do when he is), Adapted Screenplay (which it won), Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, and Original Score.Grade: A

gavin6942 At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.Somehow this ended up winning three awards at the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor for Jason Robards, Best Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Alvin Sargent's script. Must have been a slow year.Although this is not a bad film, it suffers from being a load of baloney. The original author made up this tale to make herself look daring and brave, but in reality she had no connection to the events and was a complete fraud. If we accept he story as a story, it is pretty good, but because the film uses all the "real" names, it sort of rewrites history for the worst.

richard-1787 There are movies - many of them? most of them? - that make no effort to connect with what might be called the art of cinema. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with making a movie just in the hopes of turning a profit.There are also movies - not as many, but still too many - that make every effort to connect with the art of cinema but not enough effort to engage the audience. That, in my opinion, is not so fine, but as long as I don't have to sit through them, I can't complain.And then there are movies - never enough - that connect with and advance the art of cinema not to impress critics but to enthrall audiences. Those are masterpieces, and they keep you riveted to your seat as they unfold.Julia is one such film. I first saw it in 1977 when it was released, and all these 35 years since I remembered enjoying it. This evening I watched it again, and had a chance to marvel at how well it was made. The language is often beautiful, which is appropriate in a movie about a great writer, Lillian Hellman. The images are also sometimes beautiful, which is something to be thankful for. The acting is uniformly fine. It presents Hellman's recollections of a childhood friend of hers, Julia, and her efforts to reconnect with her during the late 1930s, by which point Julia had become involved with anti-Fascist groups in Germany. We never get the details. They don't really matter, or at least didn't to me. There is no great apotheosis at the end; Hellman is not transformed by her experience. It is painful. We are made to feel that pain. The story ends.This is one of the best movie experiences I have had in quite some time. Good script writing, fine acting, and good direction can come together to make a very fine movie. Would that they did more often.