Driving Miss Daisy | |
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Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
Screenplay by | Alfred Uhry |
Based on | Driving Miss Daisy 1987 play by Alfred Uhry |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Peter James |
Edited by | Mark Warner |
Music by | Hans Zimmer |
Production company | |
Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $7.5 million [2] |
Box office | $145.8 million [4] |
Driving Miss Daisy is a 1989 American comedy drama film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Alfred Uhry, based on his 1987 play. The film stars Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, and Dan Aykroyd. Freeman reprised his role from the original Off-Broadway production.
The story defines Daisy and her point of view through a network of relationships and emotions by focusing on her home life, synagogue, friends, family, fears, and concerns over a twenty-five-year period.
Driving Miss Daisy was a critical and commercial success upon its release and at the 62nd Academy Awards received nine nominations, and won four: Best Picture, Best Actress (for Tandy), Best Makeup, and Best Adapted Screenplay. [5] As of 2024 [update] , it is the most recent PG-rated film to have won Best Picture.
In 1948, Daisy Werthan, or Miss Daisy, a 72-year-old wealthy, Jewish, widowed, retired schoolteacher, lives alone in Atlanta, Georgia, except for a black housekeeper, Idella. When Miss Daisy accidentally drives her 1946 Chrysler Windsor into her neighbor's yard, her 40-year-old son, Boolie, buys her a Hudson Commodore and hires 60-year-old Hoke Colburn, a black chauffeur, as Miss Daisy can no longer drive anymore due to her being a high risk with the insurance company. Boolie tells Hoke that Miss Daisy may not appreciate his efforts, but she cannot fire him, because Boolie is his employer. At first, Miss Daisy refuses to let anyone drive her, but Hoke's patience pays off, and she reluctantly accepts the first two trips; one to the Piggly Wiggly supermarket, the other to her synagogue. Then she tries to get Boolie to fire Hoke after discovering a can of salmon missing from her pantry. However, Hoke, unprompted, admits to eating the salmon, and offers a replacement.
As Miss Daisy and Hoke spend time together, she comes to appreciate his many skills. She teaches him to read for the first time using her teaching skills and resources. After Idella dies in the spring of 1963, rather than hire a new housekeeper, Miss Daisy decides to care for her own house and have Hoke do the cooking and the driving. Meanwhile, Hoke buys the cars in which he drives Miss Daisy, after they are traded in for newer models, and he negotiates a higher salary with Boolie.
The film explores racism against African Americans and antisemitism in the South. After her synagogue is bombed, Miss Daisy realizes that she is also a victim of prejudice. American society is undergoing radical changes, and Miss Daisy attends a dinner at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech.
Boolie declines when she invites him to the dinner, suggesting that Miss Daisy invite Hoke. She waits until the last moment, asking Hoke to be her guest during the car ride to the event. She attends the dinner alone while Hoke, who is insulted by the manner of the invitation, listens to the speech on the car radio, outside.
One morning in 1971, Hoke arrives at the house to find Miss Daisy agitated and showing signs of dementia: she believes that she is a young teacher again. Hoke calms her down. In that conversation, she calls Hoke her "best friend." Boolie arranges for Miss Daisy to enter a retirement home.
In 1973, Hoke, now 85 and rapidly losing his eyesight, retires. Boolie, now 65, drives Hoke to the retirement home to visit Miss Daisy, now 97. [6] The two catch up, and Hoke gently feeds her Thanksgiving pie. The final scene is an image of the black Cadillac driving on a road.
Driving Miss Daisy was given a limited release on December 15, 1989, earning $73,745 in three theaters. The film was given a wide release on January 26, 1990, earning $5,705,721 over its opening weekend in 895 theaters, becoming the number one film in the United States. It remained at number 1 the following week but was knocked off the top spot in its third weekend of wide release by Hard to Kill . It returned to number one the next weekend and remained there for a fourth week. The film ultimately grossed $106,593,296 in North America, and $39,200,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $145,793,296. [4] The film was released in the United Kingdom on February 23, 1990. [7]
Driving Miss Daisy was well received by critics, with particular praise for the screenplay and performances by Freeman, Tandy and Aykroyd. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 85% rating based on reviews from 104 critics, with an average score of 7.70/10. The website's critical consensus states: "While it's fueled in part by outdated stereotypes, Driving Miss Daisy takes audiences on a heartwarming journey with a pair of outstanding actors." [8] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the film has a score of 81 based on 17 reviews. [9] CinemaScore similarly reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade. [10]
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune declared Driving Miss Daisy one of the best films of 1989. [11] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a film of great love and patience" and wrote, "It is an immensely subtle film, in which hardly any of the most important information is carried in the dialogue and in which body language, tone of voice or the look in an eye can be the most important thing in a scene. After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart." [12]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a positive review, calling Tandy's performance "glorious" and opining, "This is Tandy's finest two hours onscreen in a film career that goes back to 1932." [13] The performances of Tandy and Freeman were also praised by Vincent Canby of The New York Times , who observed, "The two actors manage to be highly theatrical without breaking out of the realistic frame of the film." [14]
On the other hand, the film has been criticized for its handling of the issue of racism. Candice Russell of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel described Freeman's character as having a "toadying manner" which was "painful to see", and said that the film was ultimately "one scene after another of a pompous old lady issuing orders and a servant trying to comply by saying 'yassum.'" [15] The film's nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards over Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was controversial. Lee later reflected on the controversial decision by saying that Driving Miss Daisy was "not being taught in film schools all across the world like Do the Right Thing is." [16] [17]
Driving Miss Daisy received 9 Academy Award nominations and also achieved the following distinctions in Oscar history:
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter polled hundreds of Academy members, asking them to re-vote on past close run decisions. Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the 1990 Oscar for Best Picture to My Left Foot instead. [36]
The film's score was composed by Hans Zimmer, who won a BMI Film Music Award and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television for his work. The score was performed entirely by Zimmer, done electronically using samplers and synthesizers, and did not feature a single live instrument. There is a scene, however, in which the "Song to the Moon" from the opera Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák is heard on a radio as sung by slovak sopranist Gabriela Beňačková.
Similarities have been noted between the main theme and the "plantation" folk song "Shortnin' Bread". [37] The soundtrack was issued on Varèse Sarabande.
The film was also successful on home video. [38] It was released on DVD in the United States on April 30, 1997, and the special edition was released on February 4, 2003. The movie was first released on Blu-ray disc in Germany, and was finally released on Blu-ray in the United States in a special edition digibook in January 2013 by Warner Bros.
In the UK, Warner Home Video released Driving Miss Daisy on VHS in 1989. Driving Miss Daisy was then released on DVD in 2005 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and then in 2008 by Pathé through 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, producer, and narrator. Throughout a career spanning five decades, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award. He was honored with the Kennedy Center Honor in 2008, an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2011, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2012, and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2018. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time.
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2015.
Jessie Alice Tandy was a British actress. She appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, also winning for The Gin Game and Foxfire. Her films included Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Cocoon, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Nobody's Fool. At 80, she became the oldest actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Driving Miss Daisy.
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is a 1989 biographical comedy-drama film directed by Jim Sheridan adapted by Sheridan and Shane Connaughton from the 1954 memoir by Christy Brown. A co-production of Ireland and the United Kingdom, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Brown, an Irish man born with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Brown grew up in a poor working-class family, and became a writer and artist. Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Hugh O'Conor, Fiona Shaw, and Cyril Cusack are featured in supporting roles.
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director, opera director, screenwriter, and producer. He began his career during the Australian New Wave, and has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee, and a four-time AACTA/AFI Awards winner out of 10 total nominations
The Fabulous Baker Boys is a 1989 American romantic comedy drama musical film written and directed by Steve Kloves. The film follows a piano act consisting of two brothers, who hire an attractive female singer to help revive their waning career. After a period of success, complications ensue when the younger brother develops romantic feelings for the singer. Brothers Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges star as the eponymous Baker Boys, while Michelle Pfeiffer plays lounge singer Susie Diamond.
Richard Darryl Zanuck was an American film producer. His 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He was also instrumental in launching the career of director Steven Spielberg, who described Zanuck as a "director's producer" and "one of the most honorable and loyal men of our profession."
David Brown was an American film and theatre producer and writer who was best known for producing the 1975 film Jaws based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley.
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1989 and took place on March 26, 1990, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates and directed by Jeff Margolis. Actor Billy Crystal hosted the show for the first time. Three weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on March 3, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by hosts Richard Dysart and Diane Ladd.
The 61st National Board of Review Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 1989, were announced on 13 December 1989 and given on 26 February 1990.
The 5th Academy Awards were held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on November 18, 1932, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, hosted by Conrad Nagel. Films screened in Los Angeles between August 1, 1931, and July 31, 1932, were eligible to receive awards. Walt Disney created a short animated film for the banquet, Parade of the Award Nominees.
The 10th Boston Society of Film Critics Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1989. The awards were given in 1990.
The 55th New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1989. The winners were announced on 18 December 1989 and the awards were given on 14 January 1990.
Driving Miss Daisy is a play by American playwright Alfred Uhry, about the relationship of an elderly Southern Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan, and her African-American chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, from 1948 to 1973. The play was the first in Uhry's Atlanta Trilogy, which deals with Jewish residents of that city in the early 20th century. The play won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The 24th National Society of Film Critics Awards, given on 8 January 1990, honored the best filmmaking of 1989.
Driving Miss Daisy is a filmed performance of the 2013 Australian theatrical production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 play of the same name by Alfred Uhry starring Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines. It was produced as a 2014 film by Broadway Near You in association with Umbrella Entertainment (Australia).
Susie Diamond is a fictional character who appears in the romantic musical comedy-drama film The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer, Susie is a former escort who becomes a professional lounge singer when she is hired to help revitalize the career of The Fabulous Baker Boys, a waning piano duo consisting of brothers Jack and Frank Baker. Susie's addition to the group benefits both the trio's career and her own, but she also inadvertently generates conflict between the two brothers as Frank strongly disapproves of Jack's romantic interest in Susie, ultimately jeopardizing both the brothers' relationship with each other and the trio's future as a musical act.
Lili Fini Zanuck is an American film producer and director.
The Zanuck Company is an American motion picture production company. It is responsible for such blockbusters as Jaws, The Sting, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland.