Double Feature Tuesday
Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson)
My Left Foot (1989, Jim Sheridan)
In 1989 Dustin Hoffman took home his second Academy Award for Best Male Actor for his portrayal of Raymond Babbit, the autistic savant and brother of Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise in full yuppie scum mode) in the blockbuster hit Rain Man. A road movie with strong dialog (a hallmark of director and Baltimore native Barry Levinson’s work), sharp editing and cinematography reminiscent of German director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), Rain Man was the top-grossing film of 1988 earning $358 million while racking up four Academy Awards including Hoffman’s Oscar. A year later Daniel Day-Lewis was awarded the first of his two career Oscars for his role in 1989’s ‘My Left Foot’ as Christy Brown, an Irish artist who fought through cerebral palsy to become an internationally renowned writer and painter using the aforementioned appendage to complete his work.
Today, these roles would undoubtedly go to, for My Left Foot, an actor with cerebral palsy, or to an autistic actor in the case of Rain Man. In the 1980s, ‘serious’ actors of stage and screen dominated those roles, usually with an Academy Award nomination in mind.
With his squirmy body rocking and phrase repetition, Hoffman’s Babbit is the more iconic character, providing an introduction to a condition few in the U.S. understood at the time. But Levinson and screenwriter Barry Morrow’s decision to also make Raymond a mathematical genius, with the ability to count cards in Black Jack and formulate complex calculations in seconds, also muddied the waters of the public’s perception of the condition. As Charlie Babbitt, Cruise wasn’t nominated for Best Supporting Actor. It does feel like Cruise playing himself, but it’s an important straight man role that balances the movie.
Of the two roles, Daniel Day-Lewis’ Brown still carries weight. He embodies the Irishman with frustration, anger, sarcasm, loyalty and perseverance, a man constantly fighting his own body to express himself both as an artist and a human, with his mother Bridgett (actress Brenda Flicker, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) and a handful of others providing support and, more importantly, respect.
Rain Man is currently available on Amazon Prime. My Left Foot will be available at the Enoch Pratt Public Library as soon as I return the DVD.
