Producers Guild Announce Nominees

Thank you Ryan and others for spirited discussions about American Sniper and Selma.

@ RYan: “… will someone else who has actually SEEN Selma please step up and let me know that I’m not crazy for being INSPIRED by Wilkinson’s portrayal? His final scene, LBJ’s speech before Congress, is one the most uplifting 3 minutes of film I’ve seen all year. It’s soaring.”

This is only my opinion, so here goes: I like Tom Wilkinson in almost every film he’s in. I did not like his portrayal of LBJ. I grew up watching and listening to LBJ on TV and the dozens of exaggerated personas of him by comedians and impressionists. Wilkinson didn’t come close to any of my associations of LBJ. So, I had to just think of that character as “the President” in this film and forget that it was LBJ. That was my one problem with this film. Another slight quibble is that in some of the very dramatic moments, they used a “song” for the background of the film, when I thought scoring would’ve served it better.
Minor quibbles, though, I really liked the film.

I’m glad you saw that version, and I wish I had too. If anything, I’d have enjoyed the movie and I don’t go to the movies to not have fun.

I saw a president who history shows knew that 65-67 were a once-in-a-generation supermajority and passed bill after bill after bill. Louis Menand isn’t wrong (though he’s not the most reliable historian in the world), but the movie shows LBJ digging in his heels rather than what history shows – he offered MLK his opinion, MLK said he didn’t want to go along, so LBJ happily strategized along with him. The scene with George Wallace in the Oval Office is extremely out of context. In history, LBJ and Wallace were both acting like rascals, and talking around the point until LBJ, with a wink, called Wallace’s bluff and said, ‘Let’s go out there and make an announcement saying you’re for voting rights?’ and Wallace essentially folded his cards. In the movie it’s presented with the utmost drama – in real life it was two good ol’ boys playing hours of verbal poker. Again, a missed opportunity for nuance. The film had none, at least in terms of politics (and kind of in terms of everything else too).

re: “A story about King the tactician – which IS the story of the Selma march? What a missed opportunity!”

I mean, this is the Selma film I thought I watched. It’s not a film about MLK, it’s about the events that informed and resulted from the march in Selma. MLK was shown to be the tactician–politically, morally, socially, emotionally, etc.–that orchestrated many of the circumstances surrounding it.

re: “you want to play a flimsy comparative veracity game between Solomon Northop and Chris Kyle in order to chip away at something you can see I care very deeply about? ok, I can do that.”

That’s not what I was doing. In fact, someone else started the comparison and you responded to it with something I disagreed with. I see you care deeply about this issue, but that shouldn’t mean that you react so disproportionately to some of the disagreements that others have with parts of your arguments. I highly doubt that most of the engaging commenters here come to “chip away” at you or Sasha, but the defensiveness and apparent disinterest and abusiveness toward differing opinions is becoming exhausting and nearing discouraging.

But if Johnson did not order the tapes be sent to Coretta King, Nick Kotz argues in “Judgement Days,” his sharp and illuminating book about the Johnson-King relationship, that Johnson was not ordering Hoover to stand down his long-term campaign against King, either.

EXACTLY, great quote! Thank you. This IS PRECISELY WHAT SELMA SHOWS US. It shows Johnson not ordering Hoover to proceed and it never shows Johnson ordering Hoover to stand down.

No, actually the film shows a scene where Hoover comes in and makes LBJ an offer to smear King. LBJ first says no. Then when King refuses to cancel the ‘Selma’ march on LBJ’s wishes (AHISTORICAL!), LBJ says, ‘Get me Hoover’ to his lackey. Either the next scene or the scene after, we have Coretta Scott King hearing the gross phone call.

Yes, LBJ never ordered Hoover to stop spying on King. Again, Hoover was spying on EVERYONE, including JFK, LBJ’s predecessor. So it’s true, LBJ never told Hoover to stand down, nor did he tell him to CALL CORETTA SCOTT KING AND PLAY A VILE PHONE CALL. That’s what I’m asking you to prove. That and the notion that LBJ tried to stop the march on Selma.

Let’s just start with you telling me where in SELMA does LBJ authorize Hoover to commit “vile acts”

Because that never happened in the movie. If you say it did happen in the movie, then you’re all mixed up.

I consider signing off on the FBI’s calling a man’s wife and playing a recording of two people having sex (her husband and his mistress – falsely – Coretta knows it’s ‘not what you sound like’*) a vile act, but I’m old fashioned like that.

* still believe I haven’t seen it? 😉

Ryan, not that it’s your business, but NYC, where I live. I’ve been posting on these boards for a couple years and we’ve debated before so I don’t appreciate the fact that you disbelieve that I’ve seen the movie.

CB, I really have to wonder if you even SAW Selma if you think LBJ is portrayed a “coward”

“Coward?” yeesh, I’m speechless, that’s such a bizarre thing to say.

Ryan, I have seen ‘Selma’ and I must say I’m a little miffed that you’d doubt that. I wouldn’t cite the weakness of writing and directing all over this if I couldn’t substantiate it.

But you want evidence showing LBJ acting cowardly? How about how he’s portrayed by the second half of the movie – hunched over, sad. Resigned. (Even though this is early 1965 when he’d just enjoyed a huge victory over Goldwater and was passing bills left and right.) When he says ‘Get me Hoover’ in that quaking voice. When MLK comes to the White House for a final face-to-face and the famously cocky LBJ is essentially talked over by King and left looking at the floor. He was totally portrayed as a coward who, when King refused to capitulate to his demands, asked for Hoover in an act of pathetic last resort. Come on. The performance and depiction speak for themselves. Even the announcement of the Voting Rights Act is depicted as an act of giving up and giving in to King’s demands. Give me a break.

Ryan, please please please for the sake of our respect for each other, stop prescribing beliefs to my statements that are just NOT THERE. My response was only to your assertion that no claims against the truth of Northrup’s accounts have ever been made. They have. I read his and many narratives years before 12 Years a Slave the film was even imagined, so don’t try it with me. I’m a huge fan of the story in both its written and cinematic forms. I know next to nothing about Chris Kyle or American Sniper so I really am not interested in furthering this topic with you–once again, I was just making my own observation on the topic.

ME:‘Selma’ depicts LBJ ordering J. Edgar Hoover to commit vile illegal acts against MLK, which, as we all do know, never happened?

RYAN: Can you remind me how we all know that never happened?

Authorization to Hoover was given by RFK during his brother’s administration, not during the Johnson Administration: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/20/martin-luther-king-fbi_n_4631112.html

In an effort to prove he was under Communist influence, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover spent significant resources monitoring King’s movements and eavesdropping on his communications. Attorney General Robert Kennedy gave consent, allowing the organization to break into King’s office and home installing phone taps and bugs to track the leader’s movements and conversations as well as those of his associates. Although the recordings did not reveal any association with the Communist Party, they did reveal extensive details about his extramarital affairs.

Then there’s this in the Washington Post today – remember, I’m addressing your question of ‘Can you remind me how we all know that never happened?’ – http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/01/05/the-questions-we-should-be-asking-about-selma/

The case of the triangular relationship between Johnson, King and Hoover is more complicated. My colleague, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, in a long piece on the tendency to fact-check films, writes: “I especially regret that an edit in the film erroneously suggests that Johnson ordered FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to send incriminating tapes of King’s alleged infidelities to the activist’s wife, Coretta. If I had a wish for ‘Selma,’ it would be that DuVernay could have found another way to solve a structural problem — getting from the White House to the King residence and the tapes — without inviting that inference.”

But if Johnson did not order the tapes be sent to Coretta King, Nick Kotz argues in “Judgement Days,” his sharp and illuminating book about the Johnson-King relationship, that Johnson was not ordering Hoover to stand down his long-term campaign against King, either. After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, “One of Johnson’s first calls after returning from Dallas was to J. Edgar Hoover [his long-time neighbor]. ‘You’re more than the head of the bureau,’ Johnson told Hoover. ‘You’re my brother and personal friend.’” Kotz explains. “Hoover answered Johnson’s flatter with a flurry of activity” focused at furthering his surveillance of King and keeping Johnson apprised of the results.

So Johnson did not order Hoover to stop spying on King (though to be fair, to have done so would’ve seemed insane – Hoover spied on EVERYONE and was feared by everyone as well, and the FBI routinely spied on anyone who opposed US policy – even John Kerry when he was a Vietnam Vet for Truth, my point being, it would be shocking if the FBI HADN’T spied on King, though the intimidation using that info was never used by LBJ).

So you asked: ‘Can you remind me how we all know that never happened?’

All evidence in history shows that it didn’t happen. The only thing that’s saying it did happen is a movie whose director is hiding behind the ‘it’s not a documentary’ excuse. Okay, so let me put the burden of proof on you – prove to me it did happen.

It’s actually a great personification of the sickness of any society that brainwashes men into thinking they’re saving the world with bullets, when all they’re really doing is making the Top 20 Filthy Rich families in the world even filthier and even richer.

Not so sure about that – though I’m with you in hating the top of the 1% – whenever I feel myself leaning the slightest bit to the right, I read about the Waltons and am restored with my inner socialist Democrat 😉

Having said that, there is a place for knowing – and effective – jingoism, and I dare say ‘American Sniper’ earns its keep as an effective movie. I think you’re upset mostly that ‘Selma’ was shut out of the PGA and not getting loved despite its subject matter (MLK) by a tiny minority of viewers and, admittedly, by the PGA. I understand the feeling, when you love a movie AND its message (I felt bad when ‘Fruitvale’ got ignored last year – I thought it was one of the year’s best; I was also upset when ‘All Is Lost’ was shut out – its message was lovely and the film was a masterpiece), but that doesn’t mean ‘American Sniper’ was bad.

re: “Solomon Northup has never been shown to be a bald-faced self-agrandizing liar”

Well, actually, that’s not true. There were/are quite a few allegations that his narrative was financed and manipulated by white men who had the agenda of showing free black men as intelligent and heroic. While none of us would ever argue against such a POV, we can’t actually say that his story doesn’t include manufactured events and/or lies. It might, it might not. Hard to say.

The FILM however sits outside this type of dialogue now, but also I AM SO LOST ON THIS TOPIC OF AMERICAN SNIPER AND HOW 12 YEARS A SLAVE EVEN CAME INTO IT, but it was fun to read other people get heated for once 😉 lol

I wholly support what Julian has said and would never support censorship on any level, for any reason, but filmmakers must accept the fact that if they incorporate politics in the framing of their stories, those ideas are as open to debate as the acting, direction, and production values.

What makes the war film so popular and lasting is the extreme circumstances into which the protagonist is tossed. This has been the case since the days of silent film. The brilliance of the best of the genre (The Hurt Locker, Letter/Iwo Jima, Das Boot, All Quiet/Western Front, Joyeux Noel, Gallipoli, Stalingrad (’93), Platoon, Thin Red Line, Battle of Algiers, much of Cold Mountain) is the ability of the storyteller to remove any political stance and focus on the situation at hand, which is the struggle of individuals in difficult moral and physical conditions.

In each of the films I listed above, the main characters are come from a variety of political situations, some of which are unsupportable, even horrific, but because the filmmaker chose to focus on character and not politics, we, the audience, can submerse ourselves in their struggle. Imagine how differently you would view their respective films if Captain in Das Boot or Inman in Cold Mountain espoused the beliefs of the powers that put them ito battle.

So this brings us to American Sniper. If Eastwood has chosen for his character to represent issues beyond those that are personal, those choices are open season for debate. Freedom of expression must be practiced on both sides of the screen.

Some small consolation for people upset about Selma’s snub. Take a stroll over to Steve Pond’s site and look at the comment section there after Drudge linked to it. Literally thousands of bloodthirsty racists venting their spleens at the film, Oprah, and black people on general. Really sickening stuff. So while people here may get in each other’s grills about socially conscious films, this site has never degenerated into the freak show I witnessed over there today.

After all, Sasha keeps saying each year that the director is the most important…

“Unforgiven is my favorite Western of all time.”

Mine too, and easily one of my top 10 all-time in any genre. Also, I think Letters from Iwo Jima probably should have won Best Picture (definitely over The Departed), even though, personally, I like Little Miss Sunshine even more (it’s just my kind of movie, though, and I realize most might not get as much out of it as I do, even though they should probably at least admit that it’s quite good). But Letters is a masterpiece, no question about it… Mystic River (since we’re discussing Eastwood) or Million Dollar Baby I don’t like nearly as much, though they’re both OK-to-good.

“He just shoots whatever is on the page — and if the script it brilliant then the movie is brilliant. Pity most of the scripts he tackles are far from brilliant.”

But surely there are countless ways to mess that up, even. I don’t think just anybody can do it as well as he does it. 🙂 There are still tons of important choices that he has to make, as the director, I’d imagine (I say this not knowing nearly as much about this stuff as you, Ryan). Is it impossible to mess up a great screenplay just with bad direction?

Julian, I was referring mainly to the fact that voters rarely pick the best films. They pick the films they feel the most affection for out of a small group of titles that has been vetted for them and deemed worthy of awards consideration. If it was about best, then Under the Skin might have stood a chance. But does anyone think A24 sent out screeners of that film to PGA members? Fuck no. Did Universal send out screeners of the infinitely inferior The Theory of Everything to PGA members? You fucking bet they did.

Still, everything you just wrote. Like, everything. Like, fucking yes mate, everything.

(P.S. dunno if your comment at all hinges on my perspective as an American and yours as a European, but I’m not American. I’m British.)