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| Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directs Leonardo DiCaprio in Best Picture frontrunner The Revenant. |
Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the
Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check
back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.
A quick programming note: Yesterday, I said we would
cover Best Foreign Language Film today. However, instead, we will look at Best
Director. Best Foreign Language Film will follow Wednesday with Best Animated
Feature on Thursday and finally Best Picture on Friday.
Best Director
The nominees are:
Lenny Abrahamson for Room
Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant
Thomas McCarthy for Spotlight
George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road
Adam McKay for The Big Short
Four of these directors have never been nominated for Best
Director before. The last time that happened in this category was 2007. In that
year, interestingly enough, there were six nominated directors, and five had
never been nominated. Joel Coen was the only previous nominee, and he shared
the award win with his brother, Ethan Coen, for No Country for Old Men. This year, Iñárritu is the only previous
nominee, having won just last year for Birdman.
Another bit of trivia: It has been 65 years since a director
has won this award in back-to-back years. In fact, it has happened only twice.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz won in 1949 for A
Letter to Three Wives and in 1950 for All
About Eve, while John Ford won in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath and in 1941 for How Green Was My Valley. Iñárritu has a very real shot this year of
becoming the third name on that list.
How about this? Though Best Picture and Best Director are
strongly correlated – both awards have gone to the same film 63 of 87 times –
no director has ever directed back-to-back Best Picture winners. Even when Ford
and Mankiewicz won Best Director twice in a row, only in the second years did
their films win Best Picture. Well, Iñárritu directed last year’s Best Picture
winner and helmed one of this year’s frontrunners. The feat would be
unprecedented.
Finally, since 1990, only four times has the winner of the
Directors Guild Award not gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director. Iñárritu has
already made history by becoming the first back-to-back winner of the Directors
Guild Award. In that same span, the Directors Guild winner has directed the
Best Picture winner all but five times. All of this means we could be set up
for a historic night at the Academy Awards, but the other four nominees might
have something to say about that.
Alejandro González Iñárritu
for The Revenant – If it were up
to me, this would not even be a question. The
Revenant is not only the most beautiful film this year, but it is among the
most beautiful films ever made. In scope, ambition, and execution, there is no
film that comes close in this lineup, and I say that with all due respect to
the other nominees. The magic that Iñárritu captured is unparalleled.
Working from a fairly bare-bones script, Iñárritu turns the
film into a meditation on god, nature, and man’s place in the universe. By
allowing the narrative to drift freely through memory and dreams, then back to
the harshness of life, Iñárritu crafts a wholly sensory experience that engulfs
viewers in its mélange of sights, sounds, and emotions. This is to say nothing
of the hardships the production faced in even filming such an epic tale of
survival.
When taking this all into account, Iñárritu’s achievement is
just stunning. So much so it boggles the mind. It is high art depicting a
brutal reality on the largest canvas imaginable. There is nothing to which it
compares, and if Iñárritu makes history, it will be a hard-earned, richly
deserved distinction, coming on the back of the most majestic film of the year
and a true masterpiece.
George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road – Perhaps I have
dipped into hyperbole, making the case too strongly for my preferred winner. The
truth is Miller’s work is awe-inspiring in a completely different way. Mad Max: Fury Road is a big, bold
statement, a referendum on the action genre while being an almost perfect
exemplar of the genre. For a film that feels so wild, so out of control, like
it might fly off the rails at any time, Miller’s precision in the writing,
choreographing, shooting, and editing is what makes everything click into place.
Miller is a living legend with a small but beloved body of
work. Since 1979, he has directed just nine feature films, four of them in the Mad Max series. Somehow, the same man
responsible for Max Rockatansky, Imperator Furiosa, and Immortan Joe is also
largely responsible for giving us Babe the pig and Happy Feet.
He is a six-time nominee across four different categories and
won his only Oscar for Best Animated Feature as the director of Happy Feet – when you watch Mad Max: Fury Road, try to wrap your
mind around that. However, this is his first nomination for directing, and with
Iñárritu already a winner, there could be a push to award Miller for his
distinguished career and his remarkable achievement this year.
Adam McKay for The Big Short – Now, if it seems odd
Miller would have directed multiple animated children’s hits and the decidedly
not-for-children Mad Max films, try
on this bit of cognitive dissonance: The director of Anchorman and Step Brothers
is now a multiple Oscar nominee. Here is the thing about that, though, you do
not get to where McKay has gotten in his career without being a bright, savvy,
talented filmmaker.
McKay had already proven all those things throughout his
career, but with The Big Short, he
has proved he is engaged, engaging, and passionate about the state of the
nation. That is a lot more than can be said for many other artists. McKay’s
stamp is all over The Big Short with
its smart editing, unfussy camera setups, and snot-nosed attitude. Not
everything works all the time in this film, but McKay’s willingness to step
outside the box and look at the financial crisis and world banking collapse
from a skewed view is always an asset.
Thomas McCarthy for Spotlight – McCarthy has been
rightly lauded for his and Josh Singer’s work in piecing together the
screenplay for Spotlight; however,
some have also taken the opportunity to deride McCarthy’s direction of the film
as flat or uninspired. Such charges could not be further off base. These
commenters seem to believe if a film is not flashy or does not call attention
to itself, the direction must not be that special. This belief is so obviously
wrong it is laughable, but here we are, having to defend one of the best films of the year as well directed.
Anyone watching closely will see the care and thought that
has gone into every frame of Spotlight,
from the strategic positioning of the camera when the reporters are going
through the archives – wide enough to show us the enormity of the undertaking –
to the scattering of churches throughout the background, a subtle reminder of
the church’s influence over everyday life in Boston.
The film’s bravura closing passage, set to a children’s
choir performing “Silent Night,” is among the most memorable and effective
sequences of the year, thrilling, cathartic, and utterly haunting. If voters
cannot see the artistry in McCarthy’s accomplishment, they probably should not
have a vote. McCarthy may not win this award against his flashier competition,
but his inclusion is without a doubt merited.
Lenny Abrahamson for Room – Most pundits, yours truly included, had predicted the other four nominees in this field, being as they
directed the four frontrunners for Best Picture. The fifth slot we had chalked
up for Ridley Scott for The Martian
or maybe Todd Haynes for Carol or
Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies.
However, when Room showed up in four
major categories – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Adapted
Screenplay – it was clear the Academy had fallen hard for this brutal,
beautiful little movie.
Abrahamson deftly blends an impressionistic art-house film
with a pulpy thriller to deliver one of the truly unique viewing experiences of
the year. With the story confined for the first hour to a single room,
Abrahamson opens up the characters’ world with an array of carefully employed
camera angles and selective edits. He shows us a tragic situation through the
eyes of a child who does not yet know enough about life to understand the
tragedy, and in doing so, Abrahamson turns a difficult viewing experience into
one of the must-see films of the year.
The final analysis
Abrahamson’s is the only name on this list it would be an
out-and-out shock to hear called out on Oscar night. Any of the other four
could win, and each would tell us something different about where the night is
headed. If either McKay or McCarthy wins, that would be the clincher for their
respective films. The Academy showing its love in that way would be the
ultimate indication one of those films will win Best Picture.
If Miller wins, we would have to question the love for The Revenant, and because Mad Max: Fury Road at this point is a
highly unlikely winner, the door would be open for either Spotlight or The Big Short
to claim the top prize. If Iñárritu wins – and all signs are pointing that way –
anything could still happen. A split has not been uncommon in recent years
between Best Picture and Best Director, but Iñárritu clutching his second directing
Oscar in a row would invite the possibility that history is about to unfold.
Will win:
Alejandro González Iñárritu for The
Revenant
Should win:
Alejandro González Iñárritu for The
Revenant
Should have been
here: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky for The Tribe
Tomorrow: Best Foreign
Language Film
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