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| Joel Edgerton and Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty |
Final balloting is underway! Oscar voters have eleven days
to cast their votes and determine the winners. As explained over on Gold
Derby, the process is again by mail and online ballot. Most of the
guilds have spoken and they’ve done so in unison for Argo, which took the top prize from the actors, the producers, and
the actors. The Writers’ Guild will be the biggest tip-off whether Argo has the race all wrapped-up: if Argo topples Lincoln’s Tony Kushner, who still seems like a heavy favourite,
then all the top branches will have endorsed it. It’s a close race in most
categories and with very few awards to be handed out in this period (the BAFTAs
are the main prize left), there’s bound to be some final Hail Marys thrown into
the mix. Voters have seen the films (hopefully) and they’ve heard many pleas,
but let’s send one final memo to the Academy to consider some of the year’s
best work.
Best Picture: Zero Dark Thirty
For every cry of “poor Ben Affleck,” I plead “Kathryn
Bigelow.” Zero Dark Thirty seemed
like the film to beat in December, but it fell victim to a bizarre controversy
and smear campaign. Fans of intelligent, risk-taking cinema, however, should
stand tall behind Bigelow’s film. Zero Dark Thirty is simply a phenomenal achievement.
The filmmaking team behind Zero Dark Thirty bravely chose to dramatize a recent turning point
in history, and they did so in a manner that interrogates the way it unfolded. It’s
like a feat of investigative journalism, as well as a provocative essay on the
pros and cons of American mythmaking. A recent video portrait of star Jessica
Chastain underscores the beautiful ambiguity of the film quite smartly. As
Chastain notes,
the film ends with the question, “Where do you want to go?” Rather than take
sides in Maya’s investigation, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal leave the
question of the CIA’s methodology for the audience to debate. The question
deserves to be asked once again to viewers of Zero Dark Thirty. Where do you want to go? Do you want Hollywood to
take shy away from bold, relevant cinema, or do you want to reward the
risk-takers so that filmmakers are inspired to make intelligent, thought-provoking
cinema? It’s an easy answer, if you ask me.
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| David O. Russell with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence |
Best Director: David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
One of the silver linings of the Bigelow snub is that I can split my support for two great films.
Russell might have had me in his corner regardless because I truly admire the
life, vibrancy, and energy he injected into Silver
Linings Playbook. Silver Linings
Playbook is, for lack of a better word, a film that “works.” Pulling off a
romantic comedy is not easy, and doing so with an originality of vision is even
harder. Silver Linings Playbook,
however, is a unique and lively pic. It’s a throwback to a classic era of
comedy that fuses physical comedy with ample emotion.
There’s a unique beat, rhythm,
and jive to the banter between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, almost
like an Abbott and Costello back-and-forth gag or a dance between Fred and
Ginger. Eliciting uniformly excellent work from the ensemble cast, David O.
Russell delivers another hilariously zany dysfunctional family comedy. What
makes the film unique, aside from its ability to pull off a dance contest
finale without a hitch, is how the madcap energy of Russell’s direction serves
the film’s portrait of mental illness. Everyone is a little bit crazy in Silver Linings Playbook, so the film
erases the stigma that is often associated with mental illness. There’s nothing
“normal” to be found in the Solitano household and there’s something
unabashedly appealing about the film’s celebration of these eccentric
underdogs.
Best Supporting Actress: Helen Hunt in The Sessions
I was at a party on New Year’s
where my friends and I discussed our favourite films and performances of the
year. When someone brought up The
Sessions, I observed somewhat dismissively that one could watch the film on
an iPod without diminishing the film’s effect. “But it’s a great film,” I was
quick to add in defense of a film that I’ve been recommending since TIFF.
It seems unfair to criticize the
style of director Ben Lewin as I look back on The Sessions. The film is well suited to the small screen, but it’s
extremely powerful regardless of the plane on which you see it. A film needs little
cinematic flourish when it contains so much strong, authentic emotion. Why manipulate
film form when one has two strong performers like John Hawkes and Helen Hunt
doing the work for you already?
Hunt is especially good in making
The Sessions a poignant,
life-affirming drama. Let’s watch a clip of her work before extolling the
virtues of her performance.
Look at how confidently Hunt
carries herself. As Cheryl, sex surrogate to Mark (Hawkes), Hunt conveys an
incandescent poise and self-awareness with her body. Incorporating her costume
into the physicality of her performance, Hunt uses Cheryl’s appearance to
convey the character opening up to Mark, assuming authority, and eventually creating
a distance, as she does later in the scene. The way Hunt holds herself and uses
her body as a display of her self-confidence underscores the emotional conflict
Cheryl seeks to cure in Mark. Acceptance of one’s own body is at the
heart of Mark’s quest – sex is simply the chosen route.
Hunt, 48 at time of filming, is
to be commended for tackling such a stripped-down and vulnerable performance.
Away from the spotlight for several years and moving past the demographic that
Hollywood favours for leading ladies, Hunt makes a bona fide comeback by
commanding the screen in a role that celebrates her age, her body, and her
confidence. Hunt displays impressive range in The Sessions – even in this clip we see Hunt switch from subtle
comedy to compassionate drama. Open, warm, honest, and heartbreaking, Hunt’s
performance serves as a surrogate not for Mark’s self-acceptance, but for
the audience’s ability to look deep within themselves. Let’s watch one more
clip and marvel at what Hunt can do:
Best Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina
I’ve spent ample time trumpeting
the brilliance of Joe Wright’s Anna
Karenina, but I haven’t given enough credit to one of its four Oscar
nominees. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey might be the unsung hero of Anna Karenina’s masterful execution.
Shooting the drama on a soundstage and faced with the task of making the film
look like a stage production without succumbing to the dramatic inertia of a
fixed stage, McGarvey uses an ever-moving camera to inject cinematic life into
the staged drama. Extravagant flourishes with zooms, pans, and crane shots make
this viewer swoon just as easily as do the sumptuous costume by Jacqueline
Durran and the ingenious production design by Sarah Greenwood. Including
another signature long take, which ranks with the Dunkirk shot in Atonement, McGarvey captures the
farcical dance of Russian high society in an extended moment that allows the
audience to linger in the opulent beauty of the affair, plus the sinful sense
of voyeurism enjoyed by audience within the film.
The effect of the shadows
accentuates two crucial themes percolating in the scene. First, the key light
on Anna and Vronsky celebrates their love, which radiates a divine pleasure
that remains dimmed for the remainder of the film, Secondly, and most
intriguingly, the contrast reveals how Anna lives her life in the spotlight.
All her actions are a public affair to be seen from the players waltzing in the
shadows. Anna Karenina both honours
its literary source and elevates it with one smart stroke of cinema. DP Seamus
McGarvey’s accomplished work in Anna
Karenina is bold, visionary brilliance.
Would you like to add a post-script
to this memo to The Academy?
Updated Oscar predictions:
My feel for most of these predictions hasn’t
changed, aside from Jennifer Lawrence, but I'm teetering on a few. Best
Director seems to be the hardest to pick: I can’t see Spielberg winning if Lincoln’s not going to take the top
prize, but Life of Pi almost seems
like an afterthought in the race. Lee seems like a default choice, though,
since the tech-heavy Pi is
consistently garnering reports of sustained applause for the director at
industry functions even if the film is winning little hardware itself. Reports
differ, though, on the level of support the nominees received at the Academy’s
Nominees Luncheon, which serves as a helpful bellwether of favour: Anne
Thompson reports that Ang Lee won the applause-metre, but Scott Feinberg says
that Spielberg scored the highest decibel for directors. Can Ben Affleck please
just endorse one of the nominees?
★Predicted winner
Best Picture
Best Director
Michael Haneke, Amour
★ Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
★ Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
★ Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
★ Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
★ Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Original Screenplay
Flight, John
Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty,
Mark Boal
Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo, Chris
Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh
Zeitlin & Lucy Alibar
Silver Linings Playbook,
David O. Russell
Life of Pi, Tim
Squyres
Lincoln, Michael
Kahn
Silver Linings Playbook,
Jay Cassidy
Zero Dark Thirty, William Goldenberg and
Dylan Tichenor
Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina, Seamus
McGarvey
Les Misérables,
Paco Delgado
Lincoln, Joanna
Johnston
Mirror Mirror,
Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the
Hunstman, Colleen Atwood
Best Score
Argo, Alexandre
Desplat
Lincoln, John
Williams
Skyfall, Thomas
Newman
Best Foreign Language Film
★ Amour – Austria
Kon-tiki – Norway
A Royal Affair –
Denmark
No – Chile
No – Chile
Rebelle – Canada
Best Documentary
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a
Plague
“Pi’s Lullaby” from Life of Pi
★ “Skyfall”
from Skyfall“Suddenly” from Les Misérables
Best Sound Editing
★Argo
Zero Dark Thirty
Best Sound Mixing
Argo
★ Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Best Hair and Make-up
Best Visual Effects
Best Animated Feature
★ Brave
Pirates: Band of Misfits
Wreck it Ralph
Wreck it Ralph
Best Short Film - Live Action
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow
Henry
Best Short Film - Animated
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole (watch)
Head Over Heels
Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare'
Paperman (watch)
Best Documentary Short
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption