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
