Silence is golden

The only male to win (or be nominated for) an Oscar for a mute performance was Sir John Mills, who won the 1971 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Ryan's Daughter. The film was also nominated for Best Actress, for Sarah Miles' performance in the titular role. Mills did not limit his muteness to the movie role - he holds an unbreakable record for shortest Oscar acceptance speech. When he won the award, he walked on stage, took the statue, gave a nod of appreciation, and left.

This three-and-a-half hour epic, set in a small village in western Ireland during World War I, begins with Rosy Ryan (Miles), the spoiled, sheltered daughter of the local pub-owner, convincing the town schoolteacher, Charles Shaughnessey (Robert Mitchum) to marry her. She believes that she truly loves him. But, more importantly, she believes that she will be somehow transformed by him, that the act of marriage or the act of physical love will somehow add meaning and excitement to her boring, unfulfilling life. She soon finds, however, that married life in a small Irish village is still just life in a small Irish village, and that sex is just sex, not a life-changing experience.

Enter Major Doryan (Christopher Jones), a British soldier traumatized bt his experiences on the front lines of World War I, who is stationed in the village, ostensibly to aid in the suppression of the Irish rebellion, but actually (as the town is expected to be too quiet for any rebellious activity) to give him a chance to recover from his shell-shock. Rosy is instantly attracted to him, and the two have an affair. Her fellow townspeople soon find reason to suspect the affair, though, doing grievous damage to Rosy's reputation. ("There's loose women, there's whores, and then there's British soldiers' whores," says a shopkeeper after refusing to sell Rosy any goods.)

John Mills plays Michael, the town fool, a slack-jawed imbecile with a mouthful of horrid teeth and a limp, a man who sees much, understands little, and takes a lot of abuse at the hands of his fellow townpeople in the name of humor. His performance, though it won the Oscar, is very dated, and a bit embarrassing by modern standards. Drifting well into the realm of caricature, Mills' portrayal is heavy on affectation (overwrought facial expressions and gestures, limping, etc.), and light on substance or subtlety. By modern standards, the role would be more likely today to win a Razzie than an Oscar.

Despite the Oscar win and nomination that the film scored, it was not well-received critically at the time. In fact, that is a rather drastic understatement. Ryan's Daughter was so poorly received by critics in general, and so harshly torn apart by Pauline Kael specifically, that its director, David Lean, went into exile for 14 years before redeeming himself with his final film, 1984's Oscar winning A Passage to India. There seem to be two main criticisms against this film. One is that it is too opulent, that the story is not strong enough to sustain the epic length, and that the film falls back on lush visuals to hold the audience's interest. This may be true, but it is irrelevant. Are these critics new to epic filmmaking? Gone with the Wind was much longer than the story really needed, and it was heavy on lush visuals. So was Lawrence of Arabia. And Ben Hur. And Dances With Wolves. And Titanic. And so on, and so on. It's epic filmmaking, and that, in and of itself, should not be held against the film. I watched the entire duration of the film in a single sitting, and I was never bored with it, even if there were scenes that were not entirely necessary to the plot. The other main criticism against Ryan's Daughter is that it simply is not as good as David Lean's previous films. Again, this may be true, but it is irrelevant. Considering the fact that Lean's previous films included Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Dr. Zhivago, to say that Ryan's Daughter is a bad film because it is not as good as his previous work is like saying that a perfectly prepared strip steak is a bad meal because it is not filet mignon. Retrospect has been much kinder to this film than its contemporary critics were, and while it may not be seen as a classic, it is at least not reviled now. But it saddens me to think about what classic films the world may have missed out on, what great masterpieces David Lean may have gone on to direct after this one, if not for the fact that Pauline Kael nitpicked this one to the point of driving its director into exile.

Movie trivia question: A frequent collaborator with David Lean was actor Alec Guinness. For what film, an Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, was Guinness given his first Oscar nomination?