The Maria Schrader film She Said has just screened at the New York Film Festival (I will be seeing it this AM). The reviews are good if not great, and that will certainly help the film as it launches into the ecosphere of the Oscar race. The revolting Weinstein scandal are partly what launched the “Me Too” movement, although that really was born out of a hashtag on Twitter started by Tarana Burke, says Wikipedia, back in 2006. That matters only because it’s the reason the two reporters who broke the Weinstein story can’t claim credit for having launched the “Me Too” movement.
But really, the Weinstein revelations kicked into gear a kind of mass moral panic that we’re still living through today. In fact, our whole world has changed almost overnight. This film won’t be able to separate itself from that, or from the legacy of Harvey Weinstein. But I’ll write more about that after I actually see the film.
The main point here is to parse a few macro concepts in our minds, like the considering which female director of two films about sexual assault is more likely to land in the Best Director race.
The Los Angeles Film Critics have decided to go “gender neutral” for the acting categories (insert eyeroll here). They will now face the additional self-inflicted worry about how to be fair, as they will have to twist themselves into pretzels to ensure their awards are equal and equitable across the board. Two white men, for instance, winning in their acting categories is a big nonstarter. They will make sure that doesn’t happen, while also making it seem like all things are neutral where gender is concerned. But they aren’t now, they never have been, they never will be. Not in nature, not in society.
All other categories besides acting have always gender neutral, and it has been traditionally difficult for women to get in to them, especially directing. Even if their movie isn’t widely considered to be among the five best of the year, many people will still demand that a woman is at least represented. Then voters have to align around one name to make that happen. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes it’s not so easy. It depends, as always, on the competition.
No one wants now, or ever, for there to be no women in the Best Director race. That’s true any year. It’s been especially true since the Me Too movement began. There came a time, though, when voters made a decision to make it happen sooner rather than later. So, for the past two years, we’ve had two universally admired films directed by women winning Best Picture and two extraordinary women winning Best Director.
So here’s the problem this year. There are already three women vying for the Best Director race as far as I can tell:
Sarah Polley, Women Talking
Maria Schrader, She Said
Chinonye Chukwu, Till
And for their male counterparts — these are the strongest names in the mix right now.
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Todd Field TÁR
The Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Damien Chazelle, Babylon
Jim Cameron, Avatar The Way of Water
And that’s all before you get to:
Sam Mendes, Empire of Light
Rian Johnson, Glass Onion
Joseph Kozinski, Top Gun: Maverick
Baz Luhrman, Elvis
Luca Guadagnino, Bones and All
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front
As you can see, the visionary movies are directed by men, and the social justice-oriented films, at least in this year’s slate, are directed by women. For a variety of complex reasons, men have cornered the market the big canvas movies, the kinds of movies the Oscar voters — mostly male — tend to award in the Best Directing category. This is, simply, the reality.
Add to that, in my humble (and often hated) opinion, there is always a kind of handicapping that goes on where women are concerned. Many critics and industry voters pull punches when it comes to their work, as though women aren’t even capable of making great films at all so let’s just call it even and give them a pass. Patronizing, that’s the word. But the problem is, no one can ever be a great director if expectations are already set so low. They can only be great if they are expected to meet the level of the greatest directors like men are.
When Spielberg, Damien Chazelle, or Jim Cameron makes a movie, they are measured against the greatest directors of all time. But when women direct movies, some of us feel that opinions are softened somewhat because, in general, everyone wants to be encouraging and “fair.” It comes from a good place. But once you start pretending something good that isn’t actually good, what’s the point of handing out awards at all?
Either way, it’s still harder for women to place in the Best Director category, no matter what. Women can break through if they are well-liked, or have a high profile or are the toast of the town. Right now, the closest thing we have to that is Sarah Polley for Women Talking, who will likely win the Adapted Screenplay award, at the very least.
But if she does get in the race, I think she has a great chance to win in the Best Director category because we’ve decoupled Best Picture from Best Director and because we’re still riding a wave of wanting to award women, and because voters now, with the expanded ballot, like to spread the wealth, with the Best Director award often going to the person they think “deserves” to win, as opposed to, say, the movie they like best. Sometimes it’s both.
Women Talking was liked well enough to be the second-place People’s Choice winner in Toronto, right after The Fabelmans, which seems to indicate it has a strong chance of being a major player in the Oscar race.
It’s only October. Oscar voting doesn’t even start until after Christmas. We are still so conditioned to measure this race right now, because we did that for so long. But think about all that could be coming to shift things around a lot:
The mid-term elections in November — Hollywood has become fused with politics now, so most casual observers can’t even tell the difference anymore. Trades like Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline all report on Democratic politicians as though they were the celebrities — the ones who have crossed over, like the Obamas and Hillary Clinton. They also obsess about Trump because that has become the national pastime on the Left overall. They seem unable to see anyone else or think about anyone else.
I see Trump looming large over Hollywood, the Oscars, and American culture for quite some time, which means whatever madness we’re locked into right now isn’t going away any time soon. Ordinarily, none of this would have much of an impact on the Oscars, but since the Oscar race, like almost all of the American culture, has migrated online. That means it’s one big small town. It is unfortunate since it has simultaneously locked out a good majority of the American public. But that’s the reality.
Legitimate Concerns about World War or Russian Nuclear Attack — Like, right? Who knew this is where we’d be two years into the Biden administration? But it is a possibility. And it’s something to consider as we dance on the edge of a volcano and pretend like Rome isn’t burning.
Inflation/Recession — yes, this too is our coming fate in the next several months. Hollywood will eventually have to reconfigure itself — aka, stop gazing at its own naval — to start being a force for entertainment rather than an epicenter of activism or else the peasants are going to revolt, loudly and dramatically by throwing tomatoes at them. It will be worse than people not showing up. They will be hated, like all aristocrats. We haven’t gone through a double whammy of a pandemic and an economic catastrophe in a while. It didn’t turn out well 100 years ago and it won’t now. But Hollywood and the Oscars do have the option of remembering their entire point of existing: to entertain. That is always an option.
All Eyes on Avatar and Wakanda Forever – these two movies are aimed squarely at the end of the year and everyone is going to be watching to see whether they can blow it out at the box office. We are all expecting and hoping that they will, otherwise the only really profitable film this year will have been Top Gun: Maverick, as it barrels towards $750 million
At any rate, predicting the Oscars right now is tricky because of the times we’re living through. They will change how people think and how they vote. For now, though, here are my own predictions, to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Best Picture
The Fabelmans
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Babylon
TÁR
Women Talking
Avatar: The Way of Water
She Said
Elvis
Glass Onion
Alts: Top Gun: Maverick, The Son, The Whale, Emancipation, Empire of Light, The Woman King
Best Director
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Sarah Polley, Women Talking
Damien Chazelle, Babylon
Jim Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water
Best Actor
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Austin Butler, Elvis
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Will Smith, Emancipation
Bill Nighy, Living
Best Actress
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Cate Blanchett, TÁR
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Olivia Colman, Empire of Light
Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, Women Talking
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Claire Foy, Women Talking
Margot Robbie, Babylon (unless lead)
Janelle Monáe, Glass Onion
Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans
Micheal Ward, Empire of Light
Brad Pitt, Babylon
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Babylon
Empire of Light
Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking
She Said
Glass Onion
The Whale
The Son
And that was all she wrote. Next time, we’ll look at the contenders for SAG Ensemble.
