Countdown to the Oscars: Directors and Writers

Welcome to the Last Cinema Standing Countdown to the Oscars for the 2019 movie season! Throughout this series, we will break down all 24 categories with predictions and hopes for the big night. The series continues with the writers and directors.

Best Director

Nominees

Martin Scorsese for The Irishman

Todd Phillips for Joker

Sam Mendes for 1917

Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

Bong Joon-ho for Parasite

The discussion around the Best Director nominees this year has centered on the lack of women represented in the category. Specifically, there has been a lot of hand-wringing over the lack of a nomination for Greta Gerwig. I sympathize. Gerwig’s work is unimpeachable and deserving, though I wish some of that outrage had been saved for selections further afield such as Jennifer Kent for The Nightingale or Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomnir Stefanov for Honeyland.

Still, this is a high-quality group full of interesting and accomplished work. The near-certain winner is Sam Mendes for the one-shot war film 1917, a feat of filmmaking style that both resonates thematically within the film and cries out for recognition. Director of photography Roger Deakins has gotten a lot of the credit for the craft of the film, but Mendes was there every step of the way, putting together the pieces for a film that is more of a puzzle than it would first appear.

At the beginning of the season, it appeared this awards run would be a coronation for Tarantino, who has made a film that is equal parts impressive and beloved. Tarantino has never won a Best Director Oscar, and he has made no secret of desiring the award. The season has not gone his way, and if he really intends to retire after his next film, he will have just one more shot at the prize. Likewise, Scorsese by now is used to the bridesmaid role at the Academy Awards, and Todd Phillips’ thorough Scorsese homage will not win him the award any more than it ever did Marty.

The spoiler in all of this is director Bong for Parasite, a masterpiece of a thriller that manages to balance tone, story, and character in ways that are above and beyond any other film this year. As we will talk about more in Best Picture, the night comes down to a traditional Academy pick like 1917 vs. the more outre choice, Parasite. As we know, change does not happen all at once, and 1917 and Mendes are likely to triumph. If it goes any other way, it will be a shocking bellwether for things to come at the Oscars.

Will win: Sam Mendes for 1917

Should win: Bong Joon-ho for Parasite

Should have been here: Greta Gerwig for Little Women

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees

Knives Out, written by Rian Johnson

Marriage Story, written by Noah Baumbach

1917, written by Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, written by Quentin Tarantino

Parasite, written by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won

Throw a dart. Johnson is a highly deserving nominee, and it is fun to see one of my favorite directors with the “Oscar-nominated” brand in front of his name. But as intricate and impressive as his Agatha Christie-style whodunnit is, he is running in fifth place after the four Best Picture nominees, any of which could take this award. Baumbach’s intimate divorce drama is likely to be an also ran as Marriage Story has lost steam throughout the season, though there was a version of this awards race in which Tarantino won Best Director and Baumbach got Screenplay as a consolation prize. Obviously, that is not the reality in which we live.

So, what you have are three films that could realistically take down Best Original Screenplay. First, there is 1917, the Best Picture front-runner that will win this award if we are looking at a year with a historic sweep. Though I think we are looking at a big night for Mendes’ war picture, I think the love for the film carried it to this nomination but will carry it no further here. The 1917 crowd will have plenty else to celebrate Sunday night.

Second, you have Tarantino, a writer’s writer from the beginning of his career who has won this award twice before. He has joked the award should be named for him if he wins again, though three-time winner and 16-time nominee Woody Allen might have something to say about it. On the other hand, Allen has never bothered to show up for any of his four Academy Awards, so he probably would not care one way or the other. Once Upon a Time is superlative work from Tarantino that stands out in his filmography as something more graceful, empathetic and elegiac than anything he has done before.

Finally, there is Parasite, the critical darling that could sneak up on everyone on the big night. Bong and Han have won the screenplay award at both the Writers Guild Awards (where Tarantino was ineligible) and the British Academy awards (where they beat Tarantino). The love for Parasite is real, as evidenced by the six nominations across multiple categories, and the previous wins are reason for optimism for fans of the film. While I got burned in 2012 predicting Michael Haneke’s Amour (also a foreign language Best Picture nominee) in this category against a winning Tarantino script (Django Unchained), I am going back to the well and predicting Parasite

Will win: Parasite

Should win: Parasite

Should have been here: Pain and Glory

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees

The Irishman, written by Steven Zaillian

Jojo Rabbit, written by Taika Waititi

Joker, written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver

Little Women, written by Greta Gerwig

The Two Popes, written by Anthony McCarten

Let’s get this out of the way: Little Women is a masterpiece of adaptation, and in a just world, Gerwig would win this award going away. It is the definition of a great adaptation. Gerwig takes a well-known, oft-explored piece of classic literature and finds a new way to approach it and new themes to parse from its text. She updates the story without losing its soul, making it feel real and alive for a new generation of moviegoers and a new era of filmmaking. Anything else winning would be a travesty, which is not to say I do not like some of the other films or scripts in contention. They just are not Little Women.

Zaillian is an obviously brilliant writer who has been in this game a long time, though he has always been choosy about the projects he takes on. In fact, The Irishman is his first produced feature script since Exodus: Gods and Kings in 2014. That is a long break for one of Hollywood’s preeminent wordsmiths, but it was worth the wait, as Zaillian brings the sprawling “I Heard You Pain Houses” to vivid life in the epic Irishman.

Phillips and Silver are getting credit for putting a new spin on a classic character with their Joker origin story. It is interesting work that is sometimes heavy-handed, and the film is more of a directing and acting showcase than a feat of screenwriting. This is a weird nomination for McCarten, who adapted his own play, which was developed in conjunction with the film script. The Academy’s rule for eligibility are sometimes byzantine, though, and the film is deserving of recognition in one of the writing categories. It is just a little surprising it ended up being this one.

The late-breaking favorite, though, is Jojo Rabbit, and I have to say: That bums me out. Not solely because a win for Waititi’s World War II “satire” would come at the expense of Little Women but because it is the least accomplished in this group of nominees. I found the humor in Jojo Rabbit grating and its attempts at pathos maudlin. It was not a film for me and feels like the kind of middle-of-the-road pick that would seem edgy to a certain type of voter. It is not edgy. It is not particularly clever. And it sure ain’t the best adapted screenplay of the year. But sometimes, these things happen.

Will win: Jojo Rabbit

Should win: Little Women

Should have been here: Blinded by the Light