The Golden Globes were a great big FYC ad for Greta Gerwig and Lady Bird. Who wouldn’t want to see her and her movie soar this year? If Oscar ballots had been turned in before the Golden Globes, she might have missed a directing nomination, as some are predicting she will. After the Golden Globes? She’s in, no question about it. The combination of Natalie Portman shaming the audience, the Globes, and all nominated directors (who wants to see a repeat of that a month from now?) and the stream of activism demanding fair treatment for women, topped off by Barbara Streisand giving a mini speech about no women directors, and there is zero chance Gerwig will be left off the list because they’re filling out their ballots RIGHT NOW. Even if some voters don’t like Lady Bird as much as some others, even if they think she didn’t deserve it, they will write her name down. That’s a prediction you can pretty much take to the bank.
Why, because the only thing that matters is what’s happening right now
I once explained to my good friend David Carr, formerly the Carpetbagger (who is no longer with us – RIP), that the Oscar nomination zone is like female ovulation. You have a lot of time to get to know each other, but pregnancy comes down to just a few days when fertility is at its peak. That’s what this next week is: ovulation for Oscar voters. An entire year of campaigning, of film festivals, of parties, of screenings, of critics praising or condemning, of whisper campaigns, of buzz, of hashtags and super fans. It all comes down to the next five days because what nominations a film gets, how many nominations it gets will decide whether it wins in its chosen categories or not. When La La Land won a record number of Golden Globes last year, it did so right in this zone, with ballots still outstanding. That might be why it ended up with a whopping 14 nominations, and now remains the only film to get that many nominations and not win best Picture, as you can see over at FilmSite.org.
However, La La Land’s rise at the Globes and subsequently with Oscar nominations set into motion a backlash, which is a problem in the days of Twitter, when a hashtag can drive the narrative in one direction or another. There was no way for it to fly under the radar after Telluride because pundits placed it right at the top instantly. The only way to play it was big, and that’s what they did. But the film was light and breezy, with a killer ending that wasn’t exactly upbeat: people were expecting happy ending but they didn’t get that. Ultimately, that ending (and the preferential ballot) probably hurt La La Land even more than the so-called backlash — most Best Picture winners (with the possible exception of The Hurt Locker and MAYBE Birdman) have satisfying endings. It didn’t earn a SAG ensemble nod, which was mostly ignored or brushed off by pundits, but since it was about the industry of acting you’d think the actors would have been wowed by it. They went for Captain Fantastic instead. La La Land was never meant to really be an Oscar juggernaut because it was something to be seen and enjoyed, not picked apart and analyzed. Well, welcome to Oscars in the age of the algorithm.
What was set in motion last night, and may or may not be confirmed tonight when the BAFTAs are announced, is that this is an industry that wants to award a woman in 2018. So Greta Gerwig is in a really great position coming out of last night because she just needs the key nominations: DGA and an Oscar nomination for Director. And, as Mark Harris pointed out last night on Twitter, even if Gerwig doesn’t get a nomination, that perceived “snub” will propel her towards a win (the Argo effect).
Now voters know that there are two possible narratives for how the Oscars are going to play out. Ironically, both have something to do with what happened last night. The first is there is no question that Three Billboards, even though told through the eyes of someone who isn’t American, sizzles with what we’re going through in terms of our anger at Trump, anger at how America has turned out, anger at inaction against police brutality, anger at the status quo. By contrast, Lady Bird offers a different kind of view of right now, one that exists outside the anger paradigm except in the way that many are angry women are still left behind in terms of parity in the film industry. Heed Barbra’s mini speech.
For all of the brilliant films we’ve seen this year that tell us who we are and in all the ways they tell us who we are, so many of them — maybe even all of them — have some aspects of a collective response to not just Donald Trump, but what his presidency has meant to so many of us who suddenly saw how fast nationalism and bigotry could rise to power dressed up as populism:
The Big Sick — a counter example of the dangerous and ignorant nonsense spewed not just by Trump every time there is a terrorist incident, but all of his minions who think that stoking fear and hatred against anyone from a Muslim country is the way forward for America. The Big Sick is as sweet of a love story as imaginable but there is no question this movie lives in an America where half of which is shaped those who put Trump in power.
Get Out — a truthful examination of the internalized world of what it feels like to be “the other” around people who either don’t see it or pretend not to. Some want to call it a black comedy, others insist it’s a horror film, Spike Lee calls it a documentary. It is all of those things and it is none of those things because it exists in a genre that has yet to be defined but has been newly introduced by Jordan Peele and this film. At some point in the future there will be a name for it. His is just the beginning. The reason it’s hard to categorize Get Out, though so many want it to be written off as “genre movie,” is it lives outside of that definition the same way The Big Sick lives outside of the definition of romantic comedy. Why? Because for many years now storytelling has been in the hands of the white male perspective. That’s it. Most genres have been defined by that perspective so that anything that involves a different perspective must somehow be stuffed in what has been previously defined. I am comfortable with radical adaptations, so I welcome these new avenues of storytelling and genre bending films.
Dunkirk — the BAFTA nominations will likely give Dunkirk a big boost when they are announced later tonight. It’s a great year, in fact, for UK filmmakers with Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards, Joe Wright for Darkest Hour (could see a boost for that as well), but especially Christopher Nolan. Both Darkest Hour and Dunkirk celebrate the modern world’s most beloved hero, Winston Churchill, who led the resistance against Hitler after he brought Europe to its knees. Trump wants to appropriate Churchill. He can’t have him. We’re not going to let him have him. Both of these films about Britain’s darkest hour are about standing up to Hitler, who believed that white Christians were the superior race. We’ll be damned if we allow our country to fall under such an evil wave of white supremacy. It is still possible Dunkirk can rise via the BAFTA to become a formidable contender. What’s happening RIGHT NOW is what matters and the BAFTAs are happening tonight.
The Shape of Water is Guillermo del Toro’s beautiful rendering of cinema, love, and monster movies, but it is also a searing indictment of Trump and of Trump’s America in the character of Michael Shannon. Homophobia, racism, oppression, an outmoded brand of alpha males in America we’ve happily left behind, but one that Steve Bannon and Trump would not mind returning to. The Shape of Water is also driven by a strong female performance — a couple of subversives who upend the rules to do what is morally right. Though the politics have taken a back seat to a collective patriarchal freak out to the idea of a woman and a sea creature having sex, they are there for anyone who wants to look for them.
The Post is doing as well as its doing now because of how Trump has tried and failed to delegitimize the press. Journalists are in particular enamored with it, but it too is driven by a subversive female who steps outside the status quo to bring the truth to the people, which is the job of the press, in case you couldn’t remember that in the midst of non-stop clickbait nonsense that dominates journalism today. In any other year The Post would be a non-starter, but it is fueled and propelled by all of its stars and its director to send a strong message to the highest office in the land. That has to count for something.
Those films that exist outside the world of Trump, like Call Me By Your Name, The Florida Project, I, Tonya, Molly’s Game, and of course, Lady Bird — they all do have an aspect of the America we are as opposed to what Trump wants us to be. Some dwell in poverty and in women’s rights and/or women trying to break through in a man’s world. Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name stand out for being the least overtly political of all of the nominees, but that might work in their favor. Someone once told me that to win Best Picture, you have to be the one thing every other movie isn’t.
What to watch: Original Screenplay wins and SAG ensemble win. Another thing Mark Harris said on Twitter was that Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, and Dunkirk went home empty handed at the Globes but that it would not repeat at the Oscars. Call Me By Your Name will win at least Adapted Screenplay. Dunkirk will win at least a few of the major crafts nods if not Best Director. But Get Out? Are voters really going to leave what has to be the best (or at least one of the best films of the year) going home without a single Oscar win? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.