Amour
Nominated Producer(s): Margaret Ménégoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz
Director: Michael Haneke
Writer: Michael Haneke
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, and Isabelle Huppert
Plot: Retired music teachers, octogenarians Georges and Anne live quietly and happily in their apartment until Anne suddenly experiences the onset of small strokes because of a blockage that surgery fails to fix. Grimly determined to honor Anne’s wishes never to be taken back to the hospital or put into a home, Georges cares for her as she slowly dies, becoming increasingly dependent and diminished as her few remaining days drag on.
Why It Should Win
Having only nine Best Picture nominees seems insulting since so many worthy films could have filled that tenth slot (e.g., Skyfall, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Moonrise Kingdom, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Looper, The Impossible to name just a few. Personally—and very much against the grain—I loved Cloud Atlas).
Still, the nine nominees we do have well represent the diversity of excellent films in 2012. How in the world will Oscar voters decide which of these motion pictures is the best? All of them have completely different goals, visions, things to offer. This has actually the most exciting year for film I can remember for a long time.
Amour is about as far from a traditional Hollywood love story as you can get. This isn’t Hollywood love. It’s real love. And real love isn’t always glamorous or fun.
Of all the films nominated for Best Picture, Amour is the one I think of most often (though that may be simply because I saw it last). As I say in my Best Actress write-up, the recent BAFTA winner Emmanuelle Riva gives a gripping performance that must have been emotionally draining (and could win her an Oscar). Still I prefer Jean-Louis Trintignant as Georges. I love the way he sighs out, “Anne,” filling the name with so many powerful, conflicting emotions. Watching the film, I thought, “I wish I were named Anne,” because he says it like she’s the only other person in the world. For Georges, perhaps she is.
And—about ninety-five percent of the time, anyway—she’s definitely the only other person in the apartment. Both leads give powerful and commanding performances, and they have to because they’re the whole show. There’s not even any background music (despite—and surely in artistic terms because of—the fact that the protagonists are retired music teachers).
The anecdote Georges tells about being moved to tears by a film he saw as a child seems to be the heart of Amour. He doesn’t remember the plot, only how it made him feel. Amour seems designed to work like this memory. What we get out of it depends on what we bring in with us.
As I said in my review, Amour is “a story about the central concerns of humanity—love, life, death. Georges and Anne could be anyone. We all die. If we’re fortunate, someone cares.”
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Amour already won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, so it’s in that scarcely populated and rarely mentioned category, films not mainstream enough to win an Oscar.
People calling themselves average Americans grumble tirelessly about popular blockbusters like The Avengers and The Dark Knight getting overlooked by the “elitist” Oscars, but they completely ignore the equally true corollary. Just as the Oscars don’t reward movies that are too popular, they also withhold big prizes from films that are truly experimental, avant-garde, European, intellectual, or artistic. Basically, the Academy’s choices aren’t actually elitist, they’re just irritating. That’s not really the same thing.
(In other words, the Academy is not trying to select sublime films to fill an elite group. They’re selecting whatever films they want as an elite group. The unfairness of that goes without saying, but artists will keep complaints to themselves if they hope to win an Oscar. And despite what people say, watch at least fifty films a year, and you’ll soon see that the Academy actually does a pretty good job most of the time.)
Amour is not a very American movie. And it’s definitely not a crowd pleaser. Despite the fact that some people connect with it—and even more people loudly insist that it’s great simply because it’s hard to watch—Amour is not for everybody. For every one person who loves this film, there are at least fifty more who will refuse to sit through it.
Riva may win an Oscar (though Lawrence and Chastain seem to be standing in her way), but the film definitely won’t. By nominating it, the Academy is acknowledging that it’s not the only judge of excellence in film. But Amour isn’t going to win Best Picture. Those who grumble that The Dark Knight didn’t win an Oscar for Best Picture can at least take satisfaction in the fact that this Palm d’ Or winner isn’t going to get a Best Picture Oscar either.
Argo
Nominated Producer(s): Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
Director: Ben Affleck
Writer: Chris Terrio, Joshuah Bearman (article)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston
Plot: During the Iran Hostage Crisis, six U.S. citizens escape from the American Embassy before it falls and seek refuge with the Canadian ambassador while they wait for our government to rescue them. Finally, CIA operative Tony Mendez comes up with a plan to make a fake movie called Argo: A Space Fantasy. Supported by Hollywood insiders, Mendez travels to Iran, ostensibly to scout locations, but actually to extract the six Americans who are still hiding at the Canadian Embassy.
Why It Should Win
The prevailing wisdom—everybody complains about it; successful film makers adhere to it—seems to be that some motion pictures are for selling tickets (popcorn movies) and some are for winning awards (Oscar films). Some movies are entertaining; others are important.
But why can’t one movie fulfill both of these requirements? Why can’t a film entertain and inform an audience? Is this idea just too medieval to work in Hollywood today? Ben Affleck doesn’t think so. In Argo he delivers a movie that’s fun to watch while we eat our popcorn and important to think about/discuss on the drive home.
That’s why I think Argo should win Best Picture this year. It delivers a product everybody keeps clamoring for but nobody honestly believes exists. (Saying, “I wish the same movie could satisfy general audiences and Academy voters,” is like saying, “I wish I had a unicorn.” Every year, Oscar producers keep trying to improve the broadcast’s waning ratings numbers, but the audience the TV producers want won’t tune in because the Academy’s preferences are so out of synch with the preferences of most movie goers. And the Academy doesn’t care. Neither do the movie goers.)
But in a perfect world, the best picture should be the one that manages to entertain us with serious content. And Argo does that. I remember when Ben Affleck turned down the chance to helm some great comic book movies, and now I see why. He’s made a serious film about historical events and world politics just as entertaining as the average comic book movie (more so if you ask people who hate comic book movies).
Even better, unlike other Best Picture nominees this year, Argo doesn’t pretend to be transparently factual or definitively authentic. Instead, it helpfully drives home the point that in Hollywood and in world politics, more often than not, things are more complicated than they appear on the surface. You watch the movie thinking, “What a great story!” You don’t think, “Okay, now I know everything about political relations between Iran and the United States.”
The night before nominations were announced, I started going through all the likely Oscar contenders of the year, trying to come up with my personal pick for Best Picture. After several minutes of deliberation, I settled on Argo because it has everything—action, excitement, thrills, relevant political/historical content, genuinely tough questions, humor, heroism, suspense, complicated antagonists, the good sense to admit that it’s a
fictional version of events too complicated for a two hour movie, and pacing that’s quick and consistent. Not only that, but anyone can enjoy it. Even children as young as ten could probably enjoy the movie (with their parents, though some parents might hesitate because of the profanity).
Why aren’t more movies like this? They could be. They should be.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
There’s a reason airplanes don’t compete in NASCAR or Formula-1 racing. You see—brace yourself because this is a little known fact!—as it turns out, airplanes go much, much faster than cars (even when the cars in question are in a hurry). What does this have to do with Argo?
If you’ve seen the movie, you know.
The chase down the airstrip didn’t bother me simply because the film built and sustained suspense so effectively. I was on the edge of my seat biting my nails the entire time. The suspense was palpable, so it didn’t have to make sense. Argo gives us enough cues to let us know that we’re watching a movie based on true events, not a documentary grounded in fact. It’s not pretending that everything you see on screen is one-hundred percent real and accurate. I actually think that’s a tremendous strength of the film, but some people prefer gritty realism. (The joke, of course, is that movies purporting to bring you the unvarnished truth are almost certainly lying and definitely have an agenda they’re not admitting.)
I was, however, slightly disappointed to learn that one of the film’s most heroic and likable characters, Lester Siegal, is actually a fictionalized composite based on several characters (and screenwriter Chris Terrio’s imagination). The story is a bit more compelling when you believe that this character actually existed (as one person) and never received recognition for his heroics at the time.
Honestly, though, coming up with legitimate reasons that Argo shouldn’t win is difficult for me because I think it should win. The only reason I’m nervous about it actually winning is that it’s won everything up to this point. I would feel more comfortable if Lincoln were still the predicted winner and Argo were the charming dark horse poised to sneak in and steal the Oscar at the last second. (Do horses sneak? Maybe just dark horses (because it’s already harder to see them)?)
If the award were called, Best Factual Representation of a Political Event, then Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty would have the upper hand. The thing is, both of those films purport to show us the actual truth, but do they really? At least Argo acknowledges that it is using standard Hollywood showmanship to enhance the story and make a movie that keeps us on the edge of our seats.
Beats of the Southern Wild
Nominated Producer(s): Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, Michael Gottwald
Director: Ben Zeitlin
Writer: Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin
Cast: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper, Gina Montana, Amber Henry
Plot: Six-year-old Hushpuppy lives with her tempestuous father Wink in the “Bathtub,” a secluded, impoverished community in Southern Louisiana (past the levee) that floods easily and has a precarious future. When a hurricane hits and Hushpuppy becomes aware of her father’s grave medical condition, she must find the courage within herself to survive in the face of so many drastic changes to her world.
Why It Should Win
How often does a truly different film actually get nominated for Best Picture? Beasts of the Southern Wild is a remarkable movie because it’s genuinely different from everything else out there.
Newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis was just five years old when she read for the part of Hushpuppy and six when she appeared in the film. Dwight Henry who co-stars as her father Wink is new to acting, too. A survivor of hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, Henry owned a bakery in New Orleans before being cast as Wink. Maybe every movie should be cast with first time actors from the area where the film is set because these two give magnificent performances and make the movie something truly special.
Beasts amazed me because as it progressed, we came to understand Hushpuppy’s world more and more. Initially, her situation seemed a little sad, potentially abusive. But the more we see of Hushpuppy and the Bathtub community, the more we appreciate it. Seen from the inside, the Bathtub is bright and full of life and wonder. To thrive there takes rare courage, a virtue Wink is desperate to cultivate in his young daughter because her survival depends on it. In the end, the world beyond the levee seems more threatening than any danger posed by the Bathtub. When Hurricane Katrina happened, I kept wondering why some people refused to evacuate, but Beasts of the Southern Wild makes such behavior perfectly comprehensible, sensible even, by its own internal logic.
The story is beautiful, moving, genuinely different, and superbly well-acted.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
As we experience it, Beasts of the Southern Wild seems less like a great film than like the early work of a promising director who will go on to achieve cinematic greatness.
Watching Hushpuppy’s life unfold is legitimately exciting because we honestly do not know exactly what is going to happen. This film is anything but formulaic and is presented from a perspective that is completely alien to most Americans. But I still think that there are moments (particularly as the movie goes on) that feel a little clunky.
It’s not so much that the first half is better than the second half and that the film degrades in quality. That’s not true because we really don’t understand the truth about Hushpuppy and Wink’s powerful relationship until we’ve seen the entire thing.
But near the very end of the movie, the pacing slows, and some scenes seem almost too ambiguous and awkwardly inserted into the otherwise compelling and fast-moving narrative. Granted, the whole idea of the film is that we’re experiencing Hushpuppy’s world from her perspective, but that doesn’t change the fact that some scenes don’t feel as effective as others.
What’s troubling is the thought that Benh Zeitlin’s future efforts might “improve” by becoming more mainstream and formulaic. I hope that’s not the way things go for him because he has a unique and compelling vision. I hope that his success does not hinder him from continuing to grow as an artist. Recognition ought to be enabling, but that’s not always the way it works out.
Still, while this movie deserves recognition, it’s not truly the best of the year. It’s not even the best that it could be. I expect Benh Zeitlin to produce even better work in the future. And I’m positive that Wallis and Henry will go on to give more mind-blowing performances.
Django Unchained
Nominated Producer(s): Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, Michael Gottwald
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Ato Essandoh,
Don Johnson
Plot: Dr. King Schultz, a law-abiding German bounty hunter (and former dentist), teams up with a freed slave named Django to track down some wanted men and rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda who has been sold to brutal sociopath Calvin Candie, a slaveholding plantation owner who gives slaveholding plantation owners a bad name.
Why It Should Win
Like Argo, Django Unchained is actually an entertaining movie. I saw it in a packed house, and the very responsive audience seemed to love every minute of it. If you’re not put off by graphic violence and explicit language, it’s immensely watchable, and that ought to count for something.
Also practically every performance in the film is worthy of an Oscar nomination. Christoph Waltz actually got a nomination (and may win like he did at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs). Doing some of the finest (and most against type) work of his career, Leonardo DiCaprio deserves a nomination, but he didn’t get one, of course. (He never does when he really deserves it.) Samuel L. Jackson gives a fantastic performance, too, playing a crotchety house slave at moments even more vile and conniving than his sadistic master. And let’s not forget moving and intense performances by Kerry Washington and Ato Essandoh whose work doesn’t get much recognition because they have comparatively few lines.
Besides high caliber performances from almost everyone in the enormous cast, Django also features a compelling soundtrack, great cinematography, and a snappy script that’s both extremely funny and wonderfully thought-provoking.
Personally, I preferred Inglorious Basterds (because of Christoph Waltz’s brilliant performance and the sheer ludicrous audacity of the ending), but Django Unchained provides a solid companion piece. (It’s quite interesting to see Waltz move from the despicable/terrifying Nazi to the law-abiding German who has an epiphany. I’ve heard Tarantino’s making another historical revenge fantasy, so in the next installment, I expect Waltz to play the victim.)
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Revenge fantasy is a strange sub-genre. Because what we’re watching here is a fantasy, the revenge depicted didn’t actually happen. But atrocities similar to the ones motivating the revenge did happen.
People sometimes get very touchy when films incorporate genuine historical atrocities into their plots, and with good reason. What right does Quentin Tarantino have to exploit real human suffering to create fiction that’s cool and exciting?
I loved watching Django Unchained. But I never could have written it. One (large) problem is that Quentin Tarantino (who certainly doesn’t give the impression of being personally hurt by slavery) can make the audience condone (or at least support) Django’s extremely brutal acts of revenge only by first showing us acts of such immense depravity that nothing short of brutality would suffice to avenge them. That means Tarantino gets to create horrific villains and have them gleefully spout racial slurs and revel in dishing out demoralizing (and extreme) physical and psychological tortures. Then if people are offended, he can say, “I didn’t say or do that horrible thing. It was my bad, bad, bad character. I’m on the side of the guys who murder him.”
If I were descended from a slave (or even a survivor of severe abuse), I might also be offended by the film’s whole sensibility. Some might argue that the brutality of Django’s revenge makes him no better than those who hurt him. Is seeing an abused person become an abuser empowering or tragic?
One of the most astonishing aspects of the Civil Rights Movement in this country was that some of its greatest successes were achieved through deliberate
non-violence. (Inglorious Basterds is similarly problematic. What the Nazis did was unconscionably evil. Responding to evil with evil—is that really the way to go? And if it didn’t really go that way, is pretending that it did a bit insulting to those who suffered?)
Now complaints like this really aren’t fair to Quentin Tarantino because in literary terms, the revenge fantasy subgenre is doing a work of its own. It’s not pretending to be reality. I’ll give Tarantino the benefit of the doubt. He’s a good writer, a great filmmaker. He doesn’t just enjoy showing brutality (note the word just. Clearly, he does enjoy it, but that’s not the only reason he makes movies like this. Besides being entertaining, his films are genuinely thought provoking and lend themselves nicely to critical analysis).
But the uncomfortable fact remains that while we’re all excited to have something intellectually stimulating and viscerally exciting to talk about, our discussion is made possible by the suffering of a woman thrown naked in the hot box as punishment for attempting to escape from an abusive sociopath.
Kerry Washington’s Broomhilda isn’t supposed to be a real person, but there were certainly plenty of real people like her. Was the purpose of their suffering to provide entertainment for future popcorn munching movie goers?
Les Misérables
Nominated Producer(s): Director: Tom Hooper
Writer(s): Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boubil, Victor Hugo (novel), Herbert Kretzmer, Jean-Marc Natel, James Fenton, William Nicholson
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron
Tveit, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, Colm Wilkinson
Plot: After being imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing bread to feed his sister’s starving child, Jean Valjean is let out on parole. In a gross violation of the terms of his parole, he steals from a church, but the bishop’s stunning act of mercy causes Valjean to reevaluate his life and sets him on a different course. He becomes a hero to the desperate Fauntine, a savior to her orphaned child Cosette, and a source of great frustration to Javert, an officer obsessed with following the letter of the law. While Valjean works toward redemption, everyone sings continuously, and lots of French students die pointlessly in the June Rebellion (or Paris Uprising) of 1832.
Why It Should Win
I’ve never seen a better version of Les Misérables.
Tom Hooper’s innovative approach of letting the actors sing as they perform and control the pacing of the accompaniment really works for me. That way, the passion of the characters comes across on the screen (which requires a different type of acting than the stage).
Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway both give raw and powerful performances. (And Hathaway’s looking like a sure thing for Best Supporting Actress at this point.)
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are fantastic as the Thénardiers. (And I don’t even like Sacha Baron Cohen.) I’ve heard people call that lazy casting, but I don’t think casting actors obvious for the roles is necessarily lazy. Sometimes, it’s just logical. (Casting Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried as the Thénardiers and SBC and HBC as Marius and Cosette would definitely have been unexpected. Would that have been a better choice?) Casting Russell Crowe as Javert was certainly an unexpected move, and look how well that worked out for Tom Hooper (though, personally, I think Crowe’s performance helps to humanize Javert who always seemed like a walking piece of allegory before. Let’s not forget, this Les Mis is a movie, not a show.)
In my review of the movie, I called Amanda Seyfried a passable singer and a passable actress. Why did I say that? She’s a good actress with a lovely voice who sings some very difficult songs here. (I feel better now.) And though I wasn’t in love with Eddie Redmayne’s Marius, he really nailed “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”
I was also surprised by powerful performances from Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, and Aaron Tveit, actors I’d never even heard of before.
Something else I love is Hooper’s choice to surround the actors with realistic locations. On stage, the dizzying action of Les Mis can be kind of tough to follow. But when you can actually see the city streets, the barricades, the sewers, suddenly knowing what’s going on
becomes much easier.
If you believe in God, Les Misérables is a beautiful movie with an amazingly powerful ending, and this version really punches that powerful ending. (Even if you don’t believe in God, there’s plenty to love about the message of living for others.)
Also, casting the original (English language) Jean Valjean, Colm Wilkinson as the bishop is a stroke of genius. The bishop is one of the most lovable characters no matter who plays him, and Wilkinson has such winning charisma and a voice that the angels must envy.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Les Mis is one of those love-it or hate-it kinds of things. If you’ve never been able to stand the self-important melodrama (and hours of singing) of Les Misérables before, then you’re definitely not going to like this movie. And you probably represent at least a fourth of the movie-going public. (That’s being very generous to Les Mis fans, I think.)
Unfortunately for Tom Hooper and company, even some die-hard fans of Les Misérables didn’t care for this particular incarnation. Where is the ethereally lovely, angelic singing? Why is Russell Crowe playing Javert like he’s starring in a small budget art film about heroin addiction?
Scratch the surface, and you find an unending litany of entirely reasonable complaints such as, “Why were Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen cast as the Thénardiers when they were such a clichéd choice and brought nothing special to the roles?” and “Why weren’t Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen given more screen time as the Thénardiers since they were the only good ones in the whole movie?”
The bottom line is, a lot of people flat out didn’t like Les Misérables. Either they hated the show to begin with, or they love the show so much they didn’t think this version did it justice (for a variety of self-contradictory reasons). Les Mis fans can be loud and melodramatic, and Les Mis detractors, apparently, can’t help being even louder and more melodramatic.
Tom Hooper didn’t even get nominated for Best Director (and unlike Ben Affleck, he hasn’t been snatching up all the precursor awards in spite of his snub). Much as I loved this Les Mis, I don’t think there’s enough support for it to win Best Picture. In fact, despite the fact that I did love it, not even I would vote for it for Best Picture. So I don’t expect it to win.
Life of Pi
Nominated Producer(s): Gil Netter, Ang Lee, David Womark
Director: Ang Lee
Writer: David Magee, Yan Martel (novel)
Cast: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu
Plot: The lone human survivor of a shipwreck, an Indian teen tries to cope with his bleak situation while sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker and wondering how they will survive. Then they find land, and things get really complicated.
Why It Should Win
My whole family (ages sixty to three) enjoyed watching Life of Pi.
Visually, the film is stunning. The feats of cinematography and effective use of CGI alone deserve a hundred Oscars. (Perhaps that seems tad hyperbolic, but could you tell when they were using real tigers, and when they were using CGI Richard Parkers? I couldn’t.)
So much of Pi’s journey is beautiful, wondrous, gorgeous. And the nominated song “Pi’s Lullaby” is also lovely and gets stuck in your head for days on end.
Ang Lee (who seems fixated on beautiful, doomed relationships) so skillfully presents a story that focuses mainly on a boy and a tiger trapped on a lifeboat that we never want to look away. I don’t recall feeling bored or disconnected from the central character even once.
Most of the nominated films this year deal spend a great deal of time focusing on brutality. Refreshingly, Life of Pi encourages us to turn away from brutality, to look instead on the beauty of the world.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
Life of Pi is almost flawlessly executed, but the one thing it doesn’t do is make the viewer believe in God. At least, it didn’t have this effect on me. (Granted, I already believe in God, so perhaps I can’t judge this objectively.) To me, the movie seems more about the importance of narrative as a tool for creating meaning from the overwhelming chaos of reality. If anything, that line of thinking might lure people away from believing in God. (A nihilist could argue that people of faith choose to believe in things they know not to be true because they require some kind of sustaining delusion in order to continue to function, i.e., “I choose to believe in God because the alternative is really depressing.”)
As I see it, Life of Pi’s major shortcoming is its ambition. The story purports to be about boundless topics like God, human existence, how man copes when faced with the vastness of the ocean and the endlessness of the starry sky. But it’s in its smaller moments that the film actually succeeds—the scene around the family dinner table, the boy’s interactions with the tiger on the lifeboat.
Granted, that may be part of what the movie wants us to realize—life (and faith) is about the small stuff. The small stuff is the biggest stuff, in point of fact.
For what it is, Life of Pi is very nice, but it’s not anything as big as what it purports to be. It’s a beautiful and compelling story (no matter what actually happened), and makes a great argument for the complexity of reality and the need for some organized way of mediating it. But the film isn’t life changing, earth-shattering, or compelling for any other reason than that we find the protagonist and the tiger engaging on screen.
Lincoln
Nominated Producer(s): Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Tony Kushner, Doris Kearns Goodwin (book)
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris, Lee Pace
Plot: In the start of his second term as president, Abraham Lincoln struggles to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to ensure that slavery will remain illegal even after the South acknowledges defeat and pro-slavery Southern politicians are readmitted to Congress.
Why It Should Win
When Steven Spielberg gets Tony Kushner to write a movie about Abraham Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis, the Academy had better pay attention. Early on, Lincoln was a favorite for the Best Picture Oscar.
Now Argo looks more like the frontrunner, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lincoln actually pulled off the win on Oscar night.
When someone makes a high profile film about the man almost universally regarded as our greatest president—historians may have different, informed opinions, but your average Joe on the street almost always picks Lincoln—it’s bound to be either an immense success or a total disaster. Presidential biopics don’t always do well. In fact, they’re usually disappointing. This one is not.
Lincoln succeeds largely because of its tight focus on one particular period of the president’s professional life. Tony Kushner wisely refrains from the kind of wild flights of speculation and romanticized hero worship that would destroy the movie.
Instead, his screenplay is ruthlessly grounded in historicity. It focuses entirely on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. This cogent retelling of actual facts is one saving grace of the movie.
Daniel Day-Lewis’s brilliant lead performance is another soaring strength. At this point, a Best Actor win for Day-Lewis is a virtual certainty. He will become the first person ever to win three Best Actor Oscars. And that means that no matter how the other categories go, the film and all of its participants will be immortalized in Oscar history forever. Even if Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones do not receive Oscars for their extraordinary supporting
work, their legacies will still benefit because of their co-star’s historic win.
And the film itself could win right along with him.
Certainly, it has some incredibly memorable moments—most of them involving Thaddeus Stevens in some way. And honestly, I’ve never seen a movie with such creative casting. Yes, a lot of well-known names pop up in the cast, but the way these actors are used is always fresh and unexpected. Steven Spielberg probably should win Best Director. With no nominations for Affleck, Bigelow, and Hooper, the odds certainly seem to be in his favor. Then again, he’s Steven Spielberg, and he’s only won twice, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. So who knows what will happen on Oscar night.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
The careful historicity that saves Lincoln from becoming a nostalgic mess also dooms it to being a pretty boring movie. The pace is glacial. The characters are legion. The speeches are rambling. The whole thing is awfully stagey and grand and clearly very impressed with itself.
It’s a great film about a great man with great ideas, but in terms of an afternoon at the movies, it’s just okay. Yes there are some wonderful applause moments of high drama—usually provided by Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. Yes you run a real risk of nodding off and falling asleep in your popcorn before you ever get to any of those.
There’s a reason why nobody’s made a successful reality TV show following the deliberations of Congress. Legislation is respectable, but not very sexy.
If Argo doesn’t win, Lincoln is probably most likely to swoop in and steal the Oscar, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s slow, intricate, and sometimes rather dull.
Silver Linings Playbook
Nominated Producer(s): Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen, Jonathan Gordon
Director: David O. Russell
Writer: David O. Russell, Matthew Quick (novel)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Ker, John Ortiz, Julia Stiles, Shea Whigham, Paul Herman, Dash Mihok,
Plot: After an angry outburst provoked by his wife’s infidelity, thirty-something Pat Solitano finds out for the first time that he has bipolar disorder. When his mother checks him out of inpatient care early so that he can recuperate at home, Pat struggles to make sense of his diagnosis and win back his estranged wife while his parents watch and worry. But everything begins to change when he meets Tiffany, a young widow who has mental health issues and an agenda of her own.
Why It Should Win
Silver Linings Playbook deserves points for verisimilitude. It begins with a frantic, desperate energy—some might call it manic—and proceeds to jump around all over the place, an emotional jumble of highs and lows, comedy and near tragedy, as protagonist Pat Solitano struggles to make sense of his new bipolar diagnosis and balks at the idea of taking medication. Then once Pat starts taking his meds and accepting his actual situation (instead of trying to force a preferred outcome), the movie slows down quite a bit, and the stakes become more scaled back and personal. It’s a very authentic portrayal of how someone coming to grips with bipolar disorder experiences life.
David O. Russell is fast becoming one of my favorite directors because his movies always seem to present a message that’s present here—just because you’re crazy, doesn’t mean you have to stop trying to have a good life. We all have problems. Being bipolar is an aspect of a person, not that person’s destiny. Between Pat’s bipolar disorder, and his father’s OCD issues, the Solitano family is far from perfect, but that’s okay. You can still laugh, love, live. There’s still a place in the world for you even if you’re slightly damaged.
Some people (rather obtusely in my opinion) have missed the point of this movie, suggesting that it presents an oversimplified Hollywood ending, the idea that romantic love can fix mental illness. But Silver Linings Playbook isn’t saying that true love will cure your bipolar disorder. The message is that even though you’re not perfect, you’re still allowed to pursue a meaningful life with other people. Of course, love won’t fix all your problems. But love doesn’t hurt. Medication may make life bearable, but that’s not what makes life meaningful—supportive friends and family are key ingredients to anyone’s overall wellness. And Tiffany isn’t the right girl for Pat because she’s also crazy. She’s the right person because she’s the one who wants and appreciates him. (Remove “crazy” from the equation, and it’s obvious that you should pursue the person who values and shows interest in you, rather than the one who got a restraining order.)
Jennifer Lawrence deserves all the acclaim she’s gotten, and Bradley Cooper amazed me with his practically perfect performance. The acting from everyone is solid. (There’s a reason the film is nominated in all four acting categories.)
This may not be a film focusing on important world events, but it is a movie that many people can relate to (especially, I would imagine, the creative types in the Academy). I don’t expect it to win Best Picture, but if it does upset, I won’t be shocked. Silver Linings Playbook has that quality seen all too rarely in an Oscar nominated film—it’s fun to watch.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
I’m stunned (pleased, but stunned) that this movie has racked up as many nominations as it has. At the Oscars, romantic comedies don’t usually fare so well, and at the end of the day, that’s what Silver Linings Playbook is. It’s just a romantic comedy with intensely dramatic protagonists.
It has wonderful humor and one of the best portrayals of bipolar disorder I’ve seen in a major release, but still, compared to some of the other nominees this year, the actual stakes are objectively low. Will the guy get the right girl? Will they win the dance competition?
Will the father win his bet? Just surviving, just living an ordinary life—that’s not really a big deal.
It’s not like you’re ending slavery, or smuggling Americans out of Iran during the Hostage Crisis, or hunting down Osama bin Laden, or surviving a demoralizing shipwreck with faith intact, or facing the death of a loved one, or trying to rescue your wife from a sociopathic amateur phrenologist, or finding the courage to survive on your own in an impoverished world facing annihilation by natural disaster. All you have to do is get a 5 out of 10 in one dance competition. It’s not like you’re one of the leads in Les Misérables!
Usually Oscar movies are a lot more serious and depressing. Romantic comedies hardly ever win Best Picture.
Zero Dark Thirty
Nominated Producer(s): Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer: Mark Boal
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Jennifer Ehle, Reda Kateb, Kyle Chandler, Harold Perrineau, Jeremy Strong
Plot: Young, driven CIA operative Maya devotes nearly ten years to hunting down Osama bin Laden and convincing the government to take action once she finds him.
Why It Should Win
The Hurt Locker won in 2010, and Zero Dark Thirty is a better movie. It’s fast-paced and intense. It covers recent historical events that should matter to American movie-goers. It features strong performances—particularly by Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke—a solid screenplay—wow, I love that stuff with the monkeys!—and a memorable score—even if it didn’t get nominated.
Also—I probably shouldn’t admit this, but— I found the controversial torture scenes fascinating and truly compelling. On the news, we hear so much about waterboarding and about the degradation of detainees. I enjoyed (intellectually) being able to see how this might play out. Torture is one of those “obscene” things that is usually done off screen, behind closed doors. When we put it center stage, we’re forced to address what it actually looks like and to think about how it must feel. We can’t just dismiss it as words we take for granted in a newscast. If we maintain that torture is necessary, then we ought to have an understanding of what torture is, what it truly is. If, on the other hand, we’re opposed to torture, we ought to at least appreciate what we’re opposing and why others might deem it essential.
As Zero Dark Thirty passes in a colorful blur of intensity, it feels so real. We get a sense of immediacy and authenticity that makes us, as an audience, feel important enough to know what’s actually going on in our world. We’re on the edge of our seats the entire time, even if we’re not entirely sure why we find what we see so compelling.
Why It Shouldn’t Win
But how authentic is Zero Dark Thirty really?
The torture controversy has died down a bit, but it’s far from dead. Too many people see Zero Dark Thirty as propaganda, sacrificing both truth and artistic integrity to push its own radical agenda.
What’s funny, of course, is that nobody can seem to agree what that radical agenda is.
Some—like the very vocal David Clennon who took the unusual step of issuing a statement asking fellow Academy members not to vote for the film—denounce Zero Dark Thirty for its frank depiction and seeming endorsement of torture as a method of extracting information. These anti-torture crusaders view the film as a brutal, jingoistic puff piece exalting the C.I.A.’s methods and celebrating our nation’s jubilation in humiliating those we (perhaps cavalierly) label enemies of freedom.
Others—like the C.I.A. itself—denounce the film for its subversive agenda (i.e. pretending to be all for truth, justice, torture, and the American way, when in fact, Bigelow hopes to undermine the views expressed by the film’s protagonists). In fact, the agency’s acting director took the surprising step of speaking out against the film directly, saying that the events in Bigelow’s movie don’t match the reality of what happened. Not only were enhanced interrogation techniques not an essential part of finding bin Laden, he says, but, in actuality, torture was never used to learn new information. Instead, as a breaking technique, detainees were asked questions with known answers, punished only when lying, and led to believe their interrogators had god-like omniscience.
In the wake of the controversy, Bigelow has said repeatedly that she’s a pacifist. The anti-torture people are quick to point out that your personal pacifism hardly matters if your movie inspires people to feel good about harming others. Maybe the C.I.A. is reading the situation correctly and Bigelow has shady, subversive motives (of which the anti-torture crowd would probably approve). The problem is, the audience responsible for the film’s healthy take at the box office may not have understood her true motives. They may be responding positively to material she actually intended as a negative. And how are we to believe that the movie represents what actually happened when the C.I.A. (who supposedly provided the filmmakers with unprecedented access to information) keeps distancing itself from the finished product? Even if that’s just a defensive tactic, and the C.I.A. actually did tell Bigelow and Boals the story as they presented it, why does the C.I.A. want this story to get out?
Just how true is Zero Dark Thirty, anyway?