Predictions Friday: When Musicals Win Best Picture

I heard someone recently compare La La Land’s rise to the popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. While La La Land fits into the overall popularity of musicals currently, it isn’t really fair to compare it with Hamilton, which seeks to re-envision American history as inclusive, melding cultures and our shared past. In other words, America’s story is not  just the white man’s story. It’s the story of immigrants and African Americans, just as music’s history can’t be told without hip hop. It’s a densely written cerebral exercise that takes a degree of foreknowledge about our history to fully appreciate. La La Land isn’t that and it isn’t meant to be. It’s closer to autobiographical than anything, and is mainly a story of one youngish white male’s and youngish woman’s coming of age. More than that, La La Land is about its style. And when it comes to musicals and the Oscars, style is everything.

La La land is better compared to the musicals with a nod to French culture (Chazelle’s father was born in Paris and grew up there), like Gigi or An American in Paris or even The Artist. That perspective celebrates the American Francophile and Parisian fantasy ideal.

The two musicals that won that dealt with more hard-hitting subject matter were Robert Wise’s West Side Story, which is a reworking of Romeo and Juliet, with a culture clash of white vs. Puerto Rican , and Oliver! which was about a starving orphan surviving the streets of London, “Please sir, can I have another?” [Setting a record for the most awards won by any film that did not win Best Picture, Cabaret confronts Nazi Germany just before WWII and won eight Oscars.]

Then there is Chicago, which deals with the roots of tabloid culture and justice in the corrupt 1920s, but is mostly just very entertaining, wickedly dark with a lot of great dancing.

When it comes to Hollywood musicals now it’s more about how to fit the right stars to do the singing and dancing whereas, while in the heyday of early Hollywood song and dance it was about how to build a movie around singing and dancing stars. It used to be, “How do we get Leslie Caron into a movie, or Gene Kelly into a movie that can showcase their talents? How do we build a movie around Fred Astaire?” Now it’s, “Which star can we get who can sing well enough to make it through this movie?” Turned out Renee Zellweger could. And Nicole Kidman could. And Emma Stone most assuredly can.

Only one movie musical has won under the preferential ballot system and that’s The Great Ziegfeld back in 1936 which won Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Dance Direction — in a 1937 crop of 10 BP nominees. The big hauls for musicals would come when the Best Picture category shrunk down to five and there was no preferential ballot in place. With more nominees, voters tend to want to spread the wealth a bit more than they do with only five, where bigger sweeps tend to be more likely.

So keep in mind that many this year are expecting voters to make something to happen at the Oscars that has never happened before. Gone with the Wind currently holds the record with 8 wins in a competitive year but no film under the current system has ever won more than six.

2009 – The Hurt Locker-6 (Avatar-3)
2010 – The King’s Speech-4
2011 – The Artist-5 (Hugo-5)
2012 – Argo-3 (Life of Pi-4)
2013 – 12 Years a Slave-3 (Gravity-7)
2014 – Birdman-4 (Grand Budapest-4)
2015 – Spotlight-2 (The Revenant-3, Mad Max-6)

The closest we’ve come to a sweep was The Hurt Locker which surprised everyone by taking the two sound categories away from Avatar. If not for that, it would have won 4 to Avatar’s 5, which would be more in keeping with what you see in later years – one movie wins the hearts and minds vote, and one movie wins the design, craft, and/or the tech vote.

Last year most were betting on a Revenant sweep and not a split vote. After that they’d go with The Revenant winning the techs, but no one really counted on Mad Max: Fury Road taking the most Oscars last year. That was a fluke in a year that was full of flukes.

It could be argued that La La Land has both sides covered. It has the hearts and minds (winning for writing and directing at the Globes), and the techs as well. Ergo, a sweep. But they thought that about The Revenant last year too. Mad Max had 10 nominations heading into the race. The Revenant had 12, that’s one reason people assumed the latter would win more. But Mad Max had more goodwill heading into the race and The Revenant was facing a bit of a backlash for being the frontrunner, perhaps, and as people began discussing it in earnest, a good number were saying it wasn’t very good, had a lot of negative reviews, etc. La La Land might have some backlash in recent days but it has rave reviews across the board. So – as we watch this weekend and next weekend – keep an eye on whether or not any film is surging in unexpected ways that might snag some of La La Land’s wins in other categories.

For instance, I’m wondering about Arrival. Here is how La La land and Arrival shake down. Both have a grip on these impressive categories:

Picture
Director
Screenplay
Cinematography
Editing
Sound
Sound Editing

If we don’t have a sweep of La La Land, which is most likely, some of these categories might flip to Arrival. Arrival has the second-highest number of nominations heading into the race and therefore could very well snag some of the techs, I would imagine. Or not.

Our predictions are fairly predictable at the moment because as of yet there have been no big surprises except Hidden Figures becoming a legit threat to win Best Picture. I would still keep an eye on Moonlight as that’s the one that keeps popping up in conversations as a the film people say “I love that movie best but it won’t win.” Always watch out for those.

I’m sticking with my prediction that La La Land will win 8 in a sweep, as far as it goes, with an expanded list of Best Picture nominees. But if there is a split and some other movie wins, La La Land might end up with 6 or 7. However you slice it, it’s going home with a lot of hardware.

Best Picture 
Frontrunner: La La Land (record breaking 7 Golden Globe wins, Ace Eddie, PGA) (1)
Challenger: Hidden Figures (SAG ensemble)
Darkhorse winner: Moonlight (Globe drama)
Manchester by the Sea
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Lion
Hell or High Water
Fences

Best Actor
Frontrunner: Denzel Washington, Fences (SAG)
Challenger: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (Globe)
Darkhorse winner in a sweep: Ryan Gosling, La La Land (Globe)
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic

Best Actress
Frontrunner: Emma Stone, La La Land (SAG, Globe) (2)
Challenger: Natalie Portman, Jackie
Dark horse winner:Isabelle Huppert (Globe)
Ruth Negga, Loving
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Supporting Actor
Frontrunner: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (SAG)
Challenger: Dev Patel, Lion
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea

Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences (Globe, SAG)
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures

Best Director
Frontrunner: Damien Chazelle, La La Land (Globe) (3)
Challenger: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge

Original Screenplay
Frontrunner: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Challenger: Damien Chazelle, La La Land (Globe)
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water
Yorgos Lanthimos/Efthimis Filippou, The Lobster
Mike Mills, 20th Century Women

Adapted Screenplay
Frontrunner: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Challenger: Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures
Eric Heisserer, Arrival
August Wilson, Fences
Luke Davies, Lion

Editing
Frontrunner: La La Land (ACE) (4)
Challenger: Arrival (ACE)
Darkhorse winner: Hell or High Water
Moonlight
Hacksaw Ridge

Cinematography
Frontrunner: La La Land (5)
Challenger: Arrival
Lion
Moonlight
Silence

Production Design
I’m switching this right now to keep my La La Land count under control
Frontrunner: Arrival
Challenger in a sweep: La La Land
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail Caesar
Passengers

Sound Mixing
La La Land (6)
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Rogue One
13 Hours

Sound Editing
Hacksaw Ridge
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
La La Land
Sully

Costume Design
Jackie
La La Land
Fantastic Beasts
Florence Foster Jenkins
Allied

Original Score
La La Land (7)
Jackie
Moonlight
Lion
Passengers

Original Song
City of Stars (8)
How Far I’ll Go
Audition
Can’t Stop the Feeling
The Empty Chair

Foreign Language Feature
The Salesman (Iran)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)
Tanna (Australia)
Land of Mine
A Man Called ove (Sweden)

Documentary Feature
OJ: Made in America
13th
I’m not Your Negro
Life, Animated
Fire at Sea

Animated feature
Zootopia
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
The Red Turtle
My Life as a Zucchini

Visual Effects
Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Deepwater Horizon
Rogue One
Doctor Strange

Makeup and Hair
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad

Live Action Short
Sing (Mindenki)
Ennemis Intérieurs
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Timecode

Animated Short
Piper
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Blind Vaysha
Pearl

Documentary Short
4.1 Miles
Joe’s Violin
The White Helmets
Extremis
Watani: My Homeland

Obviously if they LOVE La La Land so deeply as to forsake all others, which they might do – it could pick up Sound Editing to give it 9, and Production Design to give it 10 and screenplay to give it 11.

I don’t think it will win 11 Oscars but then again I didn’t think it would 7 Golden Globes either. If it sweeps BAFTA and breaks a record there I might rethink my caution on this. But I will say this about La La Land: it has both the core groups of categories covered: the top-tier glam categories (with nominees whose faces we recognize) and the tech categories (whose creatives are just as essential but more anonymous) so that sort of across-the-board strength does seem to indicate a sweep. I still think there are some movies that could potentially pose a threat in significant areas – Hidden Figures, Moonlight and Arrival for the various reasons I’ve indicated.