For my money, the '90s didn't really begin until 1993; nothing before that stands up to what came after. It was a phenomenal year, and may attain some significance in film history as the year when the voices that emerged in the '70s reclaimed their former brilliance, before the new brood took over and changed absolutely everything. Martin Scorsese paid provocative tribute to Italian director Luchino Visconti and broke new visual ground in "The Age of Innocence," an engrossing evocation of time and place - and a beautifully acted love story - that I believe eclipses all his work except "Raging Bull."
And Robert Altman, after regaining commercial viability with "The Player," tapped the stylistic genius of his 1975 masterpiece, "Nashville," for "Short Cuts," a sprawling look at 22 intersecting lives in the Los Angeles area. Altman bridges their lives with what might be called a God's-eye-view style, but the power of a deity is replaced by the authority of the director to chronicle the cruel coincidences of human life.
Then came 1994. Or did it? This was the year that time went splintery. In what will probably be considered as the hallmark stylistic innovation of the '90s, time became so malleable in filmmakers' hands that we are now willing to accept that the end can be the beginning, if it suits dramatic and aesthetic purposes. Largely responsible for this was "Pulp Fiction," Quentin Tarantino's bravura expression of what it means to have grown up watching movies.
And on its coattails came a far more sophisticated treatment of time in Atom Egoyan's "Exotica," a provocative exploration of loss and need, obsessive patterns of behavior and, finally, the ravages of incest. Film historians are likely to look back on Egoyan's formal innovations as an integral component of the decade.
"Heat" is my most debatable pick, but time and multiple viewings have only increased my admiration for Michael Mann's multifaceted crime drama. As narrative, it's so solid that every scene of the nearly three-hour film feels necessary, and through its spectacular visualization of the detritus of L.A., it develops a vision of the cruel anonymity of the city that mingles seamlessly with the story.
The only one of the decade's Best Picture winners I agree with is one that has attracted a noticeable - and, in my opinion, inexplicable - backlash, "The English Patient." This film is utter perfection: a poetic, wrenching depiction of love and loss, memory and desire. Time again is fractured brilliantly, following the meandering mind of the protagonist.
I would be loath not to include a comedy, though "Fargo" is so much more. The Coen brothers' Minnesota-set mystery maintains such a delicate balance deadpan hilarity with macabre violence - and remains so utterly engrossing throughout - that on each subsequent viewing it's still a revelation.
Egoyan again: The man is a genius, and "The Sweet Hereafter" is a disarmingly subtle masterpiece. The Canadian auteur slips through several time periods with a level of grace and sophistication even more astonishing than his achievements in "Exotica." An unflinching examination of grief, loss and, eventually, personal triumph, it charts the transformation of a small town after a devastating school bus crash.
Far more than a war movie, Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" transcends its genre to become a tribute to an entire generation of men, who allowed their bodies to be wrecked and their souls to be drained fighting for God and country - even when both seemed conspicuously absent on the beaches of Normandy. Spielberg uses his supreme narrative and technical gifts to immerse you in combat, creating a film of compelling ugliness.
At odds with Spielberg - but in its own way raising the same questions about our fragile existence - is this year's addition to the canon, "American Beauty." Kevin Spacey's blistering yet vulnerable portrayal of discontented suburbanite Lester Burnham is easily one of the best performances of the decade, and his bittersweet story reaches poetic dimensions.
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