Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actor

Casey Affleck is nominated for Best Actor for his role in Manchester by the Sea.

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 leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Actor

The nominees are:

Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea

Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge

Ryan Gosling for La La Land

Viggo Mortenson for Captain Fantastic

Denzel Washington for Fences

In the past three years, 12 of the 15 Best Actor nominees have been for characters based on real people. Each of the last four winners has played an historical figure. Some assumptions about the Academy’s tastes are demonstrably false and used only as a satirical baton to swing at the organization. However, in this realm, the cliché has absolutely been true. This year, however, expect the Academy to break free from the mold.

In some ways, voters already have by nominating four performances that portray fictional characters. The frontrunners sprang entirely from the minds of two of America’s preeminent playwrights. Real or imagined, though, every one of these characters is brought to vibrant life by the five nominated actors. They are war heroes and everyday heroes, artists and philosophers, fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. For everything else they are, fictional or not, they are deeply moving portraits of the human experience.

Denzel Washington for Fences – I am already well on the record as calling Fences one of the best films of the year, the play one of the best things ever written, and Washington’s performance the single best of 2016. Mick LaSalle, film reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, called it one of the best self-directed performances of all time, and I would certainly put it up there with Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, Laurence Olivier in Hamlet, and Charlie Chaplin in City Lights.

While I would not quite place Washington on the same level as those directors, it is time, if we have not already, to start calling him one of the greatest actors of all time. If this sounds to you like hyperbole, consider the facts, which are titled: A Soldier’s Story, Glory, Cry Freedom, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Training Day, American Gangster, Flight, and Fences. Put those 10 performances up against 10 performances on any other actor’s résumé in this era or any other. You will not find many comparable.

Troy Maxson is a perfect character for Washington, and the actor never missteps in bringing one of August Wilson’s greatest creations to life. He is a bitter, broken down old drunk who holds a grudge for the failings of a racist nation, but he is also a hard-working man who deserved a better hand in life than the one he was dealt. About that much he is correct, but the way he allows his resentment to curdle is what makes him the man he becomes. In a career of great roles, Washington has never had one like the retired baseball player turned garbage man Troy. It is a perfect performance that belongs in the history books of cinema.

Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea – By my estimation, Affleck should already be an Oscar winner for his nominated work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. That was the first time I really remember seeing him deliver the kind of insightful, contemplative work that has come to define his career. Since then, I have followed everything he has done, and he has never been anything less than stupendous in movies such as The Killer Inside Me, Gone Baby Gone, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and Out of the Furnace. Manchester by the Sea is not Affleck’s greatest performance, but it is of a piece with the great work he turns in consistently.

He portrays Lee Chandler as a tower of grief just waiting to implode. Lee has done his best to hide himself away from the pain and anguish of his past only to have it brought into full view by the death of his brother. As much as he wants to be a stronger person, more resilient, more capable of confronting the deep sorrow he has experienced, the despair is often too much for him to take. The beauty of Affleck’s performance is in the way he portrays grief, not as an expressive burst of roiling emotions but as a chilling numbness. It is too much to feel, so he feels nothing.

Two days ago, we spoke in depth about the trespasses of Hacksaw Ridge director Mel Gibson, and it would be disingenuous not now to mention the allegations of sexual harassment leveled against Affleck by the female crew members of films he has worked on. If the allegations are true – and I think we owe it to the potential victims of harassment to believe them first – then Affleck’s actions are despicable and indefensible. If true, it means Affleck has been an amazing performer in his career, but he has not been even a passable citizen. I do not believe these allegations will have any bearing on the Oscars, but hopefully, a conversation can begin in the industry to address these very important, very real concerns.

Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge – For my money, Garfield is nominated here for the wrong performance this year, not because he is not excellent in Hacksaw Ridge but because his work in Martin Scorsese’s Silence is the more nuanced, all-encompassing performance. The role of Desmond Doss has only one mode through most of Hacksaw Ridge, quiet heroism, and Garfield plays it for everything it is worth. In Silence, Garfield is able to portray a much wider range of experiences and emotions, but Scorsese’s film was underappreciated by the Academy, while Hacksaw Ridge caught on. Such is the way it goes sometimes.

Garfield is a magnificent young performer who burst onto the scene in David Fincher’s The Social Network but quickly thereafter became mired in superhero land, playing Spider-man in a pair of not highly regarded films. One hates to say it, but the failure of the Spider-man reboot was probably the best thing that could have happened to Garfield. Since his last time portraying the web-slinging crime fighter, Garfield has appeared in three remarkable films (99 Homes, Hacksaw Ridge, and Silence) and delivered three remarkable performances of great depth and understanding.

He portrays Desmond as quiet, solemn, and devoted. He wishes to serve his country’s military during World War II because he believes he has a moral obligation to do so, but he refuses to kill or even carry a weapon, also in keeping with his moral obligations. When the film hits the battlefield, Garfield’s performance turns wondrously physical as we watch Desmond endure the bodily torment and emotional exhaustion of the war. Regardless of what film Garfield should have been nominated for, his status as an Oscar nominee is unimpeachable, and I cannot wait to see what he does next.

Ryan Gosling for La La Land – I think Gosling is wonderful actor, but I also think sometimes performers get swept up in the Academy love for their films and land nominations that otherwise would have seemed unlikely. Gosling’s performance in La La Land is not among the five best lead actor performances of the year, not while work by the likes of Colin Farrell (The Lobster), Michael Fassbender (The Light Between Oceans), Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann), and David Johns (I, Daniel Blake) is out there. This is not meant as a knock on Gosling but more on the Academy.

As jazz pianist Sebastian Wilder, who dreams of opening his own music club someday, Gosling nails the smugness he has in previous efforts while providing just enough softness to make the audience root for this guy. He is fantastic musician, but when we meet him, he refuses to budge even an inch on his artistry, even if to do so would allow him to pay his bills. Many of us have known people like this, and certainly members of the Academy have – or they have been people like this.

Gosling, who is a weaker singer than co-star Emma Stone, excels at playing the film’s romantic elements, deploying his weathered charm and delightful excitability to great effect. However, because the movie revolves around Stone’s character, Gosling is used more like a plot device. Of course, leading women have been playing plot devices in male-driven films for 120 years, but it still leaves Gosling with little to play and little depth to explore. Gosling, who was previously nominated in 2006 for Half-Nelson, will almost certainly return to the show again soon with a performance more indicative of his many talents.

Viggo Mortenson for Captain Fantastic – As a person who tends to see everything, or at least as much of everything as I can, I hesitate to say I studiously avoided this movie. Even in the trailers, its tone felt off, its story treading familiar territory in a manner I would find irksome. For this piece, though, I watched it, and I can say, now having seen it, I found it worse than irksome. It is condescending, mean-spirited, and self-satisfied. The plot is inert and the story structure inept. I found it offensive on every possible level – human, artistic, political, cultural, etc.

Mortenson plays Ben Cash, the leader of a cult – sorry, father of a family – that lives outside of society in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. They read books by firelight and kill deer with their bare hands. They self-righteously declaim American society while doing nothing to change what they correctly identify as systemic inequality and the corrupting influence of big business. Instead, they stand apart from it, above it, looking down on everyone else, identifying problems without offering solutions, which is the worst kind of moral superiority.

Is Mortenson good in the role? Sure, he is fine. Previously nominated for his role as a Russian gangster in Eastern Promises, Mortenson brings to the role the right combination of end-times survivalist crazy and university lit professor sanctimony. Like the film in which he appears, the character is mostly insufferable, but that has nothing to do with Mortenson’s performance and everything to do with writer-director Matt Ross’ script. Ben is also dealing with the death of his wife and the possibility his children will be taken away from him. In these rare human moments, when Ben is more than just a sketch of a person, Mortenson shines.

The final analysis

I want to believe Washington will win this award, and his triumph with the Screen Actors Guild offers some hope. However, that is not the way the season has looked like it would go. Affleck was the critical darling. He beat Washington to the Golden Globe and won the BAFTA, where Washington was not nominated. Washington is also a two-time winner already, while Affleck’s consistent brilliance is of the kind the Academy likes to reward when a performance such as this comes along. I will root for Washington, but Affleck’s win will not be undeserving.

Will win: Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea

Should win: Denzel Washington for Fences

Should have been here: Colin Farrell for The Lobster

Tomorrow: Best Picture

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actress

Emma Stone is nominated for Best Actress for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land.

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 leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Actress

The nominees are:

Isabelle Huppert for Elle

Ruth Negga for Loving

Natalie Portman for Jackie

Emma Stone for La La Land

Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins

One woman wants to act, and another just to sing. One is burdened by the shattered dreams of a nation, while another is held down by that nation’s history of prejudice and injustice. Another seeks to explore her deeper self after a brutal act uncovers hidden desires she never knew. In a Hollywood system that often marginalizes women and trivializes their stories and experiences, it is refreshing to celebrate a list of films that put their female performances front and center. 

Among this group are five wonderful performers all at different stages in their careers. Streep is of course a living legend with three Oscars to her name and an inspiration to anyone who dreams of acting. Portman is the Oscar winner and former child star who has grown up before our eyes and now delivers the performance of her career in the role of a lifetime.

Huppert and Negga are both first-time nominees, but while Huppert is already a goddess of world cinema, Negga is only now beginning to garner the recognition she deserves. Finally, there is the ingénue, Stone, who is just 28 but made her feature film debut a decade ago and has an Oscar nod under her belt already. It is a remarkable group, among the best the Academy has ever put together, and the only shame is that one must be declared the winner above the others.

Emma Stone for La La Land – For whatever else the Academy looks for in performances, members really love to see themselves on screen, or rather, their ideal selves. The character of actress Mia Dolan is nothing if not an actor’s ideal self. She is young, pretty, talented, motivated, and devoted. She dreams big and chases those dreams with the kind of tenacity we all wish we possessed. She tries and fails, tries and fails, and tries again because for her, there is little else but the dream.

How perfect then that the character is portrayed by Stone, who is about as close to those ideals as a real person could comfortably come. She has been magnificent before in films like Irrational Man or Birdman, for which she received her first nomination, but this is a more challenging and abstract role than she has ever been asked to play. In many ways, Mia is hope come to life, optimism incarnate. Her experience is what we imagine it is like to dream so big. We know it cannot be easy, or always fun or rewarding, but if we dream for the right reasons, then we do so because it is necessary.

Stone is tasked with portraying all of this, and while the ups and downs of being an actor must be very close to her heart, she must also be all things to all people in this role. She is not only what we think of the character but what we think of ourselves. It is truly an unfair burden to place on a performer, to ask that she embody the character and the audience, but Stone is up to the task. She encounters hope and despair; she loves, and she loses; she laughs, and she cries; she sings, and she dances; but most of all, she dreams.

Natalie Portman for Jackie – As an actress portraying a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, Portman carries the weight of history on hers. There is no easy way to step into the shoes of one of the 20th century’s most famous and influential figures. It requires the actor to disappear, as all great performances do, but it also requires the subject to emerge. It is not enough for the actor to hide behind a costume or an accent or a physicality. Oh, all of these are parts of the performance, but it takes a special act to embody the full nature of someone like Jacqueline Kennedy. If there is one thing Portman is and always has been as a performer, it is special.

I have written at length about Portman’s performance, which is one of the great screen portrayals of a historical figure. I will not go on much here, then, except to say that for an hour and 40 minutes, Jackie becomes a living, breathing person again, and that is all thanks to Portman’s performance. This is not some dryly historical interpretation of a famous person but rather a complete abstraction, as Portman removes the associations and clichés and cultural baggage, beginning anew with the raw portrait of a grieving woman who summons the strength to persevere and to thrive.

Portman earned her first Oscar nomination in 2004 at the age of 23 for Closer, but she was thereafter mostly associated either with her role in the Star Wars prequels or as cinema’s preeminent manic pixie dream girl in Garden State. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010 for Black Swan and has remained mostly out of the public eye since, apart from a few choice roles and her supporting appearances in Marvel’s blockbuster Thor movies. Jackie, then, marks a triumphant return to the Oscars for Portman and serves as a reminder she is one of the most talented performers working today.

Isabelle Huppert for Elle – Some nominations inspire spontaneous cheers in my home when they are announced, like Charlotte Rampling last year for Best Actress for 45 Years, Inherent Vice for Best Costumes, In Bruges for Best Original Screenplay, and so on. Add Huppert to that list. For all the complaints – an annual tradition around the Oscars – about the Academy not casting a wide enough net and failing to look outside a certain subset of films, nominations like this serve as proof of the Academy’s willingness to reward brilliant work, no matter where it must be found.

Huppert’s work in Elle is undeniably brilliant. It is also brave, dangerous, and compelling. Huppert plays Michèle Leblanc. When the film opens, Michèle is brutally attacked and raped by a masked intruder in her home, but Huppert never portrays the character as a victim. She is the master of her fate, taking control of a situation that would be permanently scarring for most. This is an attitude she carries in both her personal and professional life, and in her uncomfortable interactions even with friends and family, Huppert shows us how difficult it must be to be this person all the time.

Director Paul Verhoeven’s film gives the character license to be mean, to be angry, to be petty, and Huppert seizes that license and runs with it. Huppert plays Michèle like a woman ready to chew up anything and anyone in her path, despite dealing with the aftereffects of her attack, which are not what the audience expects nor what Michèle likely imagined. It is a supremely confident, consistently surprising performance from one of the best actresses of her generation.

Ruth Negga for Loving – How wonderful would it be to live in a world where such stories needed no telling because such atrocities never occurred? What a beautiful dream that is. The truth, however, cannot be denied that at one time in this country, marriage between people of different races was outlawed. The dastardly things this says about the nation are too many to count. Mildred Loving never wanted to make history by ending this hideous practice. She just wanted to marry the man she loved and live in the state she chose.

Negga’s performance beautifully captures the irony that one need not be a radical person to change the world when simply living your life is a radical act. Negga’s work is more subdued and unassuming than her nominated peers, but it is no less powerful. Mildred is not a meek figure but rather quiet and resolute, which is how Negga portrays her. She knows what she wants, and with righteousness on her side, she sees a path to attain it. These stories need telling because these atrocities occurred, but how wonderful it is that people like Mildred Loving exist to stand up and declare what is right when so many others were so afraid.

The Ethiopian-born, Irish-raised Negga is a celebrated stage actress and is a prominent performer on UK television, and while she has cropped up in films like World War Z and Warcraft, she is probably best known to American audiences for her role on the TV show Preacher. It is my sincere hope this recognition and this performance allow her to scale the highest peaks of the industry and bring her the kind of prominence she deserves.

Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins – Sitting on the coffee table in front of me as I type this is the latest book on Streep, covering her early years in Hollywood. Written by Michael Schulman, it is aptly, and cheekily, called Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep. In accepting her Best Actress Oscar for 2011’s The Iron Lady, her third Academy Award, Streep mused half of America must be thinking, “Oh, no. Her. Again.” Whether that assessment was correct then, America has had many more chances to think such things with Streep picking up another three nominations since, including this one. That brings her record total to a nice, round 20.

It becomes easier with each one to dismiss the work. Streep is something of a Hollywood institution and an Academy Awards fixture. Since her first nomination – in 1978 for The Deer Hunter – there have been more years in which she has been nominated than in which she has not. On its face, that seems absurd, and I am sure we will get all the familiar jokes about it at this year’s ceremony. The fact is sometimes the Academy really does seem to nominate her just for doing work and being Meryl Streep, as I complained on this site two years ago. Happily, I can report this is not a case such as that.

Now, Florence Foster Jenkins is by no means a good movie, nor is it worthy of the performance Streep delivers in the title role. Florence is a wealthy music patron with dreams of singing opera. She has no vocal ability to speak of but uses her money and influence to give performances to her friends and hangers-on. If you will pardon the expression, Streep gives a full-throated performance here, diving into Florence’s character as a woman who lacks talent but is gifted with deep wells of breathless enthusiasm and confidence. The movie’s message is objectionable – it wants to say, “Pursue your dreams no matter what,” but instead says, “Rich white people can have anything they want.” However, Streep’s performance is golden and this nomination hard-earned.

The final analysis

It initially seemed like this would be a competitive year in this category with Portman and Huppert earning most of the critical plaudits while Stone carried nearly every scene of the popular Best Picture frontrunner. Right around the time Huppert beat out Portman for the Golden Globe, though, Stone began building steam. She picked up her own Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the SAG award. She will also be rewarded for providing the heart and soul of the likely Best Picture winner. Huppert could play spoiler, but expect this to be Stone’s night.

Will win: Emma Stone for La La Land

Should win: Natalie Portman for Jackie

Should have been here: Viola Davis for Fences

Tomorrow: Best Actor

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Director

Best Director nominee Denis Villeneuve (left), with Amy Adams, on the set of Arrival.

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 leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Director

The nominees are:

Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival

More than any other award, Best Director feels like a coronation. It is the honor that says: Welcome to the club, you are one of us. Four of these men – and once again, they are all men, for the 85th time in 89 years – are first-time nominees in this category. An Oscar is the greatest encouragement the Academy can give, a promise from members they find value in your work and wish to support it.

For the fifth nominee, though, the only one in this group who is an Oscar winner already, a victory here would mean something far different. Gibson’s exile from the Hollywood mainstream was entirely of his own making. We are all familiar with the multiple vile, racist, misogynist outbursts that made him a pariah in cinema circles. His name will forever be attached to that ugliness, and even now, more than a decade later, the question remains whether we can forgive his trespasses. This nomination suggests an answer, but an Oscar win would be the definitive statement of forgiveness from a town that once loved him so.

Damien Chazelle for La La Land – The “it” director of the moment is Chazelle, whose blockbuster musical drama has taken Hollywood by storm and enchanted the movie-going public at a time in our culture when enchantment is in short supply. In some ways, this has felt preordained since Chazelle hit the scene with his Oscar-winning triumph Whiplash two years ago. Once that film took home three trophies, it was clear Chazelle was working firmly in the Academy’s wheelhouse. Fast forward to today, and that assessment looks as on point as ever.

None of the adulation is undeserved, as the 32-year-old wunderkind has demonstrated a remarkable facility for devising ingenious individual sequences and cobbling those moments into a wonderful whole. This is the biggest canvas he has had to paint on yet, and the result is, to borrow a word from the film’s advertising, magic. Combining technically masterful long-take musical numbers that leave audiences gaping in wonder with a story that is as much an ode to the artistic process as it is a romance, Chazelle crafts a film that feels both utterly original and achingly familiar. It is like a half-remembered dream to which you always wished to return, and Chazelle possesses the wizardry to take you there.

La La Land amazes with the sheer audacity of producing an old-school Hollywood movie musical for today’s world. It works because it plays equally well to dreamers and cynics, offering validation to the hopeful and disaffected alike. Chazelle puts his heart, soul, and every ounce of talent into this thing, and as long as Hollywood does not steal him away to make the next big superhero movie, it seems like he has much more of himself to give.

Barry Jenkins for Moonlight – If anyone were to challenge Chazelle for the prize, it would be Jenkins for a film that could not be more different from La La Land. You have never seen a movie like Moonlight. It is a coming-of-age tale that asks you to see yourself in someone who likely could not be more different from you. Few of us know firsthand the trials Little/Chiron/Black faces in his life, but Jenkins does, and through him, we are able to empathize with the character’s experience.

One would not think a moody, contemplative film about a world so far removed from most of us could be this engaging, this enthralling, and this magnificent. Moonlight, which is ultimately a film about subverting expectations, subverts the expectations of the audience. Perhaps you have heard it is sad or slow, or perhaps you believe it will not appeal to you. Well, it is not sad; on the contrary, it is quietly triumphant. Slow is a matter of patience and willingness, and no film is slow that is guided by as sure and steady hands as these. Whether it will appeal to you is simply a question of whether you are able to feel sympathy and understanding for someone not like yourself.

All of this is to say Jenkins has made a perfect film, and his greatest success is forcing the audience to meet him where he wants to go. This is not an easy film – no great art is – but it is a necessary, poignant reminder of the joys and sorrows of people we never see. Everything flows from Jenkins, who guides Moonlight along a path that is sometimes shocking in its honesty, often aching in its beauty, and always leading toward transcendence.

Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea – Lonergan earned his master of fine arts degree in dramatic writing. He is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright. He is a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay, including this year for this film. It is safe to safe Lonergan is best known as a writer and, more than that, a writer of deeply humanistic dramas about finding connections in those closest to us. On this account, Manchester by the Sea is firmly within his wheelhouse.

What is not often spoken of is Lonergan the director, particularly as a guider of performances. Manchester by the Sea is the only film this year with three acting nominations to its credit, and yes, the performers are wonderful and talented, but it takes a specific kind of director to coax such tremendous work from a cast. Whatever that specific skill is, Lonergan is clearly possessed of it. This is most evidenced by the performance he draws out of young actor Lucas Hedges, who at 19 years old and in just his ninth big-screen appearance, sets a bar that will be hard to clear for his young peers.

The direction of the film is what one might call unfussy. Lonergan mostly hangs back and lets the words and performances do the heavy lifting, which is of course the right call for the material. When it comes time to show off, Lonergan and his able crew, including cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes, are more than game. But in a film about repressed emotions, it is Lonergan’s restraint as a director that reveals his ultimate strength.

Denis Villeneuve for Arrival – The Quebecois director has been making films for more than 20 years, but he has rocketed to fame in the last six or seven. After directing the Best Foreign Language Film nominee Incendies in 2010, he made the jump to big Hollywood features with Prisoners, which though I found it tiresome was highly regarded. He also made the critically adored mindbender Enemy and the popular, Oscar-nominated Sicario, which was released last year.

I have been in the minority on his films, finding them self-conscious, macho, and didactic – at least, his most recent few features. For me, Arrival is his first English-language feature truly worthy of the praise heaped upon it. Villeneuve directs the science-fiction epic like a low-key character study, letting the audience become invested in the plot through the people, not the action. There is some self-conscious flashiness here, but it feels of a piece with the story and the drama. Nothing is done simply for the sake of appearances.

Villeneuve, like Chazelle, is on his way up in the directing world, and he is already in post-production on the high-profile Blade Runner sequel Blade Runner 2049. He does not necessarily need the support or encouragement of the Academy, though I doubt he would reject it. Rather, this is an acknowledgement a filmmaker the Academy has had its eye on for a while now has made a film members simply adored.

Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge – Finally, we arrive back at Gibson – Mel, to his fans and supporters – and the question of whether forgiveness is possible, necessary, or just. I am of two minds, though I have the luxury of so being since I was not among the many targets of Gibson’s hate-filled invectives. My belief as a fan of cinema and art in general is that great art is great art, regardless of who produced it. If we agree the populace votes with its wallets, I think I am in the majority here, considering the record sales for someone like Michael Jackson, among other examples. If Gibson has produced work worthy of praise, we should praise it, though that should in no way be construed as forgetfulness or forgiveness.

On the other hand, in the world today, perhaps the last thing we need is to reward a rich, white racist and misogynist. Just because this describes well the leader of the free(ish) world does not mean we must celebrate such traits elsewhere. No one can know what is in Gibson’s heart, whether it has truly changed or if he feels no genuine remorse whatsoever. What we can know is what he has said in the past, words which are well documented and unavoidable. I do not know the answer, and I do not believe anyone else does or even can. I am saying I cannot judge you for what you feel, whatever it may be.

My feelings are thus: As a director, Gibson’s work on dark, gritty action-thrillers – among which let us count The Passion of the Christ for simplicity’s sake – has always been superb. He has a brilliant instinct for where to place the camera for maximum tension and effect, and his sense of pace and energy is astounding. Hacksaw Ridge is wobbly in its opening passages, where Gibson seems unsteady in setting up his war story, but once the war story hits and Gibson is in his element, the action is unparalleled. I will not tell anyone what to feel about the actions of the man, but I must say the actions of the director are tremendous.

The final analysis

The La La Land train really does feel unstoppable at this point, and as the conductor of that speeding locomotive, Chazelle is likely to pick up this award. He would be the youngest Best Director winner in Academy history, edging out Norman Taurog, who was 32 years and 9 months when he won for Skippy in 1931. Of all the history La La Land can make on Oscar night, this bit seems most assured.

Will win: Damien Chazelle for La La Land

Should win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight

Should have been here: Pablo Larraín for Jackie

Tomorrow: Best Actress

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Documentary Short

Director Daphne Matziaraki's 4.1 Miles is nominated for Best Documentary Short.

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 leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Documentary Short

The nominees are:

4.1 Miles

Extremis

Joe’s Violin

Watani: My Homeland

The White Helmets

The political winds of the nation are unavoidable in many of this year’s categories, but they seem particularly foregrounded here. One imagines at least four of these five nominees as a direct affront to the anti-immigrant, anti-art, anti-intellectual presidential administration. What all five of these films share, however – and what may be the biggest offense to the orange man in the White House – is that they are all resolutely pro-human.

These films celebrate the basic humanity that connects us all, and as these subjects face unimaginable but very real tragedy and pain, they serve as a reminder of our responsibility to each other. This world does not belong, if it even belongs to anyone, to just one nation or just one people. The house is on fire, and if it goes down in flames, we all burn with it. While those in power light their matches, these films remind us to hold up our end of the hose so maybe we can salvage something.

4.1 Miles (directed by Daphne Matziaraki) – At one time or another, most people have wondered if they have what it takes to save a life. Few are ever confronted with that prospect. Greek Coast Guard captain Kyriakos Papadopoulos always wanted to be a commercial fisherman. Instead, he joined the Coast Guard, once a peaceful profession for him before the migrant crisis. Now, he is tasked with saving hundreds of lives every day, a duty for which he did not sign up but which he holds sacred no less.

Matziaraki, who won the Student Academy Award for 4.1 Miles, follows Papadopoulos as he is called out to rescue stranded boat after stranded boat, filled with men, women, and children fleeing violence and oppression. He sees the faces – the anguish, the desperation, the despair – every day, but he goes back out every single time. These migrants had no choice but escape, and Papadopoulos has no choice but to help them.

The film is a wonderful companion piece to Gianfranco Rosi’s also Oscar-nominated feature documentary Fire at Sea. 4.1 Miles is more focused and intimate, while Fire at Sea is a more all-encompassing experience, differences mostly attributable to runtime and reflecting not at all the quality of the endeavors. Matziaraki, who is Greek but lives in the Bay Area, has a wonderful feel for life in this town, and in just 26 minutes, she uncovers a disquieting rhythm of events as it becomes clear these stranded boats are becoming more and more a part of daily life.

Watani: My Homeland (directed by Marcel Mettelsiefen) – When filming a documentary on current events, watching history unfold before your camera, you can never be certain where the story will lead you. The courage and dedication to follow along its winding path is part of what makes a great documentarian and why films like Steve James’ Hoop Dreams and Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA represent two of the peaks of the form. So, when German filmmaker Mettelsiefen began filming Syrian freedom fighter Abu Ali and his family, he could not have known the journey he was about to capture.

Mettelsiefen first filmed the Ali family in 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, for a PBS Frontline documentary. He returned the next year and the next for a follow-up doc, finally visiting the family once more in 2016 to shoot footage for this film. We are privileged to watch the Ali family’s four children grow and develop and mature over the course of years. We see how the conflict shapes and molds them, but we also get to see how the people they are is within them.

The oldest daughter, whether she knows it or not, is a poet, the middle daughter is irrepressible, while the only son is mature beyond his years. It should go without saying but bears repeating this family is not so different from any of ours but for the dire circumstances under which it lives. Dropped into a quiet American suburb, these children would still be poetic, irrepressible, and mature. If not for geography, they would be our neighbors and friends, though Mettelsiefen argues, in very real ways, they already are our neighbors and friends.

The White Helmets (directed by Orlando von Einsiedel) – Von Einsiedel and nominated producer Joanna Natasegara previously were nominated for Best Documentary two years ago for Virunga, which follows a team of volunteers fighting to save the last members of an endangered species. Both films concern heroes who are ordinary people but put themselves at great risk to make the world a better place.

Here, we follow the eponymous White Helmets, a well-organized collective of ordinary Syrian citizens who have dedicated themselves to helping the victims of the Syrian and Russian bombing campaigns. When a bomb strikes, these men don their helmets and rush into the destruction, putting out fires, pulling people out of the rubble, and administering medical aid. These men are carpenters and accountants and chefs, but when crisis strikes, as it so often does in Syria, they are the first responders, the people on whom the community counts.

It is, however, no tale of easy heroism. Von Einsiedel shows us the toll this work takes on the men, both physically and emotionally. The buildings bombed are their neighborhoods. The victims are their friends and family. They are always at risk and always targets. There is no safety in this place but what these brave men offer each other and their communities. We see this is not much but that it is better to have something, someone, than nothing at all and no one.

Joe’s Violin (directed by Kahane Cooperman) – There are no ordinary circumstances under which Joe Feingold and Brianna Perez would meet. Feingold is a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor, and Perez is a 12-year-old student in The Bronx. Cooperman’s film shows us the bond they form over the title instruments and how small acts of charity can ripple through lifetimes.

After Feingold was liberated from a forced-labor camp at the end of World War II, he traded a carton of cigarettes for a violin, an instrument he had played since he was a child. It would be nearly 70 years before Perez came into his life. After hearing about an instrument drive on the radio, Feingold decided he no longer played his violin and perhaps someone else could get some use out of it. The instrument ended up in The Bronx at a school for underprivileged children, where learning violin is part of the curriculum. Given the violin’s storied past, the school determines to give it to a student who will cherish its history and create more of her own. This is Perez.

Cooperman mostly stays out of the way of the material, smartly recognizing she has a story that needs no embellishment. Her camera’s presence is all we require, and when Feingold and Perez meet and she plays for him, we are like a fly on the wall, witnessing something extraordinary. Yes, these are the kind of moments music makes, but more than that, these moments happen when we reach out, in however small a way, to connect to another person.

Extremis (directed by Dan Krauss) – Conservative religious groups and certain members of the government would like us to spend a lot of time wondering when life begins. Extremis asks when life ends. Krauss’ camera takes us inside an intensive care unit, where doctors must help families make among the toughest decisions they ever will – whether to take their loved ones off life support or whether to extend their lives, and perhaps their suffering, by any means necessary.

The film is undoubtedly emotionally charged as we see families wrestle with grief, guilt, faith, and hope, but it is never clear what the audience’s takeaway from any of this should be. Extremis feels like a Rorschach test, which is perhaps what was intended by Krauss, a previous nominee in this category 11 years ago. It is impossible to watch the film without wondering what we would do for our loved ones as they near death or what we would want done for us under similar circumstances. Whatever you bring to the movie, though, will be what you take from it. This makes for compelling viewing, but it is not particularly enlightening.

The final analysis

Any could win, and except for Extremis, which is the weakest of these nominees, though by no means a bad film, any would be a worthy winner. It will be interesting to see what kind of night we are in for at the Academy Awards. The likely historic success of La La Land suggests this is the year of escapism, of turning to the movies to forget that the world is falling apart around us. However, in little ways, all across the ceremony, Academy members have the chance to lodge their protest.

Under normal circumstances, or even just circumstances when the Doomsday Clock felt closer to 11:59 than midnight, I would predict Joe’s Violin without a second thought. However, these are not normal circumstances, and midnight is fast approaching. While the uplifting music documentary about the Holocaust survivor would seem to check all the boxes of a usual winner, I cannot imagine the Academy would pass up the opportunity to address the concerns of the moment, if only because these concerns are everyone’s concerns.

This leaves us with three possibilities: Watani, The White Helmets, and 4.1 Miles. It is possible the two Syrian-set films will split the vote and open the door for 4.1 Miles. For emotional resonance, though, not to mention the dedication of the filmmakers and the global relevance of its topic, it seems Watani may be the film to beat.

Will win: Watani: My Homeland

Should win: 4.1 Miles

Tomorrow: Best Director

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Documentary

O.J.: Made in America is the best film of the year and is nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars.

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 leading up to the ceremony for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories and more.

Best Documentary

The nominees are:

13th

Fire at Sea

I Am Not Your Negro

Life, Animated

O.J.: Made in America

The first thing that sticks out right away about this group is the presence of three nominees dealing directly with the issue of racial inequality in America. Coming off of last year’s #Oscarssowhite controversy the Academy seems to have course-corrected in a big way, not only here but with three films about the black experience in America nominated for Best Picture and with six black performers nominated in the acting categories. One year does not mean all is well on this front, and there is much more work to be done, but this wonderful group of nominees suggests that work can get done.

This is not to suggest these films are simply token nominations, far from it. O.J.: Made in America of course was my No. 1 film of the year, while both 13th and I Am Not Your Negro appeared on my list of honorable mentions. Each is a magnificent portrait of black life in America, and each comes from a distinct and memorable point of view. In addition, with Life, Animated, four of the five nominated filmmakers this year are black. I cannot confirm quickly this has never happened, but I would go so far as to guess it is incredibly rare. So, due kudos to the Academy. Keep it up. We’ll be watching.

O.J.: Made in America (directed by Ezra Edelman) – With a runtime of seven hours, 47 minutes, this is the longest film ever nominated for an Academy Award. I have seen it twice and would watch it again in a heartbeat. It is absolutely riveting from its first to its final moments. After the smashing success of the Serial podcast and the Making a Murderer documentary series, true-crime stores are more popular than ever, with everyone racing to get theirs out the door.

We have seen The Jinx from HBO already, and my understanding is there is a JonBenét Ramsey docuseries and a Menendez Brothers docuseries in the pipeline. All of these projects have had or will have varying degrees of critical or popular success. O.J.: Made in America is part of this boom but also stands apart from it, as Edelman raises true crime to the level of high art, like Truman Capote with a video camera.

No stone is left unturned, no detail is too small, and no person is above reproach in the recounting of one of the most famous crimes in American history. But this is not solely the story of O.J. Simpson and the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. That story we know well. This is the definitive statement on the racial climate in America that created Simpson and led to the Trial of the Century. Never before have the pieces been laid out so clearly, so thoroughly and so brilliantly.

The myriad feats of this film – from the mountains of research to the gargantuan editing task – make it remarkable this film was even made. That the finished product is one of the most engrossing, fascinating, rewarding documentaries ever produced is an absolute miracle. The resurgence in popularity of the Simpson trial, with this film and the fictionalized TV series, should spur Academy members to watch this despite its daunting runtime. They will not be disappointed, and I cannot see how they could vote for anything else.

13th (directed by Ava DuVernay) – It starts with one clause in the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed slavery “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” It was so easy for all of us to miss, but it was always there, staring us in the face: Slavery shall not exist, except … How dastardly! How insidious! How perfect a way for the powerful to remain powerful by keeping the enemies to their power in chains.

DuVernay, the magnificent director who gave us Selma and Middle of Nowhere, does not miss the importance of this clause and uses her film to trace it step by step to the world we find ourselves in today. Every presidential administration, every congress, and indeed every corporate leader has in some way contributed knowingly and willfully to the widening gap between black and white life in America. From the cinema to the schools to the halls of government, no institution is without blood on its hands.

The film carefully connects the dots for the audience, constructing a richly detailed timeline of oppression. DuVernay once again proves herself to be a master filmmaker, here putting her gifts to use in crafting a visually arresting work of montage that draws direct parallels to the overt segregation of the mid-1900s to the covert segregation still in place today. If 13th has a flaw, it is that it covers too much material in too short a runtime. Another 45 minutes to an hour would have given the film more room to breathe and the audience more time to soak in its message. In truth, though, I would watch a 10-hour film from DuVernay on this subject, such is the magnitude of her talent.

I Am Not Your Negro (directed by Raoul Peck) – If O.J.: Made in America plays like a grand opera and 13th like a piercing cry of protest, I Am Not Your Negro is closer to a fireside chat with one of the smartest, most eloquent, and most important figures in the Civil Rights Era. Author and activist James Baldwin died in 1987, outliving his most famous friends by nearly two decades and leaving behind a body of work that adds up to an essential truth about this country.

Peck bases his film on Baldwin’s final, unfinished work, Remember This House, which was meant to cover the lives and assassinations of his friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Peck gives voice to Baldwin’s remarkable prose and employs a jazzy, fluid style that brings Baldwin’s ideas fully to life.

I Am Not Your Negro is unique and beautiful because it could only come from Baldwin, and Peck wisely does not impose too much directorial will on the film, allowing Baldwin to be the star. The ideas are universal and wide ranging, but their power comes from Baldwin, who saw it all, wrote it down, and had the foresight to know what it meant. It is disheartening to see how little has changed from the era when change was the order of the day. In fact, we are slipping backward. If Baldwin were here today, though, the film seems to argue, he would tell us not to lose heart but rather to steel ourselves for the fight to come.

Fire at Sea (directed by Gianfranco Rosi) – Rosi’s sumptuous film is a cinema vérité look at the European migrant crisis seen through eyes of the people on the small Italian island of Lampedusa. While their little island is one of the frontlines in the migrant crisis, the inhabitants of Lampedusa seem generally unaffected, though not unperturbed, by the international emergency taking place on their shores. They go about their lives, making lunch, listening to the radio, taking out their boats, and wandering the island much as if no migrant ever were to land there.

Rosi’s camera simply watches, though in simply watching he produces some of the most beautiful cinematography of the year in any film. The power comes from the repetition and the slowly dawning realization the people on this island stand in for all of us. There are few countries in the world untouched by the migrant crisis, yet we go about our daily routines generally unmoved. With everything going on in this nation and the world over, who has the energy to be so emotionally involved anymore?

Then, Rosi unveils his greatest coup, and we are left wondering how we cannot be involved. He tags along with a patrol sent to rescue a stranded migrant boat, and for 20 or so uninterrupted minutes, the full depth of this crisis is laid bare. Dozens dead, dozens more sick or dying, they crammed onto a boat not suited for this trip and risked everything because no matter what was on the other end of their journey – homelessness, poverty, prison, or deportation among the likeliest outcomes – it would be better than what they left behind. Yet, here we sit, here we know, and here we do nothing.

Life, Animated (directed by Roger Ross Williams) – If we were going to play a game of “One of these things is not like the other things …” this would be the one not like the others in this group. Against three vitally important, energizing films about race and one about the European migrant crisis, the story of a family’s struggle to understand autism certainly feels low stakes. That may be true for the rest of us, but for the Suskind Family at the film’s center, the stakes could not be much higher.

Based on journalist Ron Suskind’s book of the same name, Williams’ film charts the highs and lows of having a son with autism, dealing honestly and openly with a subject few people fully comprehend. The crux of the story is that Owen Suskind learns to communicate by watching Disney animated films, most of which he has memorized. We are told the exaggerated emotions and facial features of the characters in an animated film are easier to interpret for a person with autism.

The obvious problem here is the sense the whole film is some kind of pro-Disney propaganda piece, and there are times when it feels that way. However, the film does not shy away from showing us all the life events such as finding a job and navigating sexuality that have no cognate storylines in Disney. Life, Animated does not rise to the level of the other films in this category – its story is too personal and too specific to be universal – but as a wonderful piece of documentary filmmaking, it is not so out of place.

The final analysis

In all likelihood, this comes down to the three films about race in America, though I would never underestimate a film about the power of film, particularly Disney. But to confine our analysis, O.J.: Made in America has the gravitas to win and has picked up almost every major award out there. 13th has on its side timeliness, relevance, and DuVernay, whose snub for Selma stands as one of the more stinging omissions in recent Oscar history. I Am Not Your Negro meanwhile has captured the zeitgeist and set box-office records in the theaters where it is showing.

Any of the three would make a deserving winner of which the Academy could be proud. All represent the kind of achievement this category is made to recognize. In some ways, though, apart from its length, O.J.: Made in America is the most traditional of the three in its form and presentation, something that could make it more palatable to voters. I am obviously biased here by my love for the film, but I genuinely do not see how the others, as wonderful as they are, stack up, and I hope and believe the Academy will see it the same way.

Will win: O.J.: Made in America

Should win: O.J.: Made in America

Should have been here: Weiner

Tomorrow: Best Documentary Short