BAFTA Contest and Preview

How do you solve a problem like the BAFTAS? It’s not a secret that they were not very inclusive in their nominations over the years. Unlike the HFPA, who actually have been quite inclusive and diverse in their nominations, the BAFTA had a long history of shutouts that were inexplicable. For instance, although Denzel Washington was a Brittania winner at the BAFTA he’s never been nominated for any role. Not even once. That, to me, is like the Halle Berry stat that still stands at the Oscars with only one black woman ever winning Best Actress, 20 years ago. That’s over a span of nearly 100 years, folks. It is a thing that can’t be excused as just the way things are, especially not after 2020. Yet, we’re probably looking at another year with all five Best Actress contenders at the Oscars being white. It is what it is.

The opportunities for black women has always been too narrow and unfortunately, the recent activism seems to have made that even more narrow. There is less complexity on offer and too many of them have to carry the entire legacy of the black community on their shoulders every time they take a role. That means the types of roles they are offered, or allowed to play are limited to what people will accept. These strict requirements are not put on white actors who have the luxury of playing anything or anyone without having to be responsible for an entire community. So they get the better roles. For black women, the great roles are few and far between.

There have been conversations over the years about why the BAFTA seemed to exclude American stories that involved race or racism. One of the excuses is that they weren’t as obsessed with racial issues as Americans were. But that changed in 2020. There were no more excuses to be accepted – it was decided if they (and everyone else) didn’t make immediate changes they would be considered by many to be racists. To subvert that, and to show they aren’t, and to prove they are willing to be inclusive, the BAFTA brought in selected juries to weigh in on several of their categories, like Best Director and the acting categories. They are replacing “equality of opportunity” with “equality of outcome. No matter what range of films are in competition, the jury will select an equal number of men and women for the directing long list. That means that they either don’t trust their voters to select women in the directing category, or they simply want to make sure women are selected. Here is their Best Directing long list:

Men
After Love
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
The Hand of God
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

Women:
CODA
First Cow
Happening
The Lost Daughter
Passing
Petite Maman
The Power of the Dog
The Souvenir Part II
Titane
Zola

It seems to some observers that the committee will select the directing nominees with the idea that they know better what should be named best of the year since the voters can’t be trusted to make that call. To me, it is unfair to women to do it this way. I would find it personally insulting to be treated like that. I would want my movie to be good enough to get in on its own merit and to not assume people have “baked-in” bias. As you can see by how this year has unfolded that the best films are, as usual, with a few exceptions, directed by men.

But it is what it is. So your job in predicting these is to figure out what the committee will do. Voters are allowed to select two names and the committee selects the other three. So if it’s me and I’m a BAFTA voters I will make sure I only vote for the men since we figure the committee will “select” the other three and they’ll probably pick women, I imagine, with an eye on diversity, equity, inclusion, and intersectionality. You have to figure out how that will go down.

Ordinarily the top two would be:

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

But if they pick Campion then they are, I think, doubling up on a female name. They should pick Steven Spielberg or Paul Thomas Anderson to ensure they get in. Otherwise they might miss. Here is how that looked last year with the committee in play:

Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Sarah Gavron, Rocks
Shannon Murphy, Babyteeth
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round
Jasmila Žbanić, Quo Vadis, Aida?

And the Academy’s Best Director looked like:
Chloé Zhao, Nomadland Award
Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
David Fincher, Mank
Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round

Three matched and three didn’t. I would be more on board with these if 1) it actually helped the hand-picked nominees (it doesn’t because it is not exactly earned on merit and there is no time to build any kind of consensus, which is why awards matter to careers) and 2) it wasn’t put in place to get the BAFTA out of a jam. I like to know who they think is the best in a given year. Otherwise, what is the point.

Here is last year’s Best Actress with their committee choices:

Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Bukky Bakray, Rocks
Radha Blank, The Forty-Year-Old Version
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Wunmi Mosaku, His House
Alfre Woodard, Clemency

And Oscar’s Best Actress
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

So even with their committee, they still managed to knock out any momentum for Davis heading into the Oscars. They picked McDormand and so did the Oscars. What was the point of their committee picks? To show different choices? When you are nominated for an award you build momentum as you go along. That helps your career. I suppose they could put down “BAFTA nominee” on their resume but otherwise, they can’t really get much of a bump for being hand-picked like that without being cited anywhere else.

Here is the long list for this year’s Best Actress:
Jessica Chastain The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman The Lost Daughter
Lady Gaga House of Gucci
Alana Haim Licorice Pizza
Jennifer Hudson Respect
Emilia Jones CODA
Nicole Kidman Being The Ricardos
Jennifer Lawrence Don’t Look Up
Frances McDormand The Tragedy of Macbeth
Renate Reinsve The Worst Person in the World
Claire Rushbrook Ali & Ava
Joanna Scanlan After Love
Kristen Stewart Spencer
Tessa Thompson Passing
Rachel Zegler West Side Story

If you look at Wikipedia, someone has put in the Best Actress contenders for BAFTA. Is it a hoax? Some crazed fan? Or is it a “mistake.”

Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World
Joanna Scanlan, After Love
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Tessa Thompson, Passing

It looks not unlike how it might end up and I certainly would not put it past them to not choose Jennifer Hudson, as they did with Viola Davis last year. Film Twitter and film critics have been cool on Hudson all year and, as far as I know, their selection committee is very Film Twitter-ish and this list is very Film Twitter-ish. Maybe it will turn out to have been a leak. Maybe not. I don’t know. You can predict on our contest below.

The final category that is “committee selected” is Best Actor. Here is their Best Actor from last year:

Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman (posthumous), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Adarsh Gourav, The White Tiger
Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round
Tahar Rahim, The Mauritanian

And for the Oscars:
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman (posthumous, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari

Three matched, three didn’t. This year’s long list for Best Actor:
Riz Ahmed, Encounter
Adeel Akhtar, Ali & Ava
Mahershala Ali, Swan Song
Javier Bardem, Being The Ricardos
Daniel Craig, No Time To Die
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Leonardo DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up
Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Adam Driver, House of Gucci
Andrew Garfield, tick tick…BOOM!
Stephen Graham, Boiling Point
Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza
Joaquin Phoenix, C’mon C’mon
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

You can decide how you think that will go.

Best Picture and Best British Picture will likely go to the films that did well on the BAFTA long list.

Here is the chart Marshall made for the BAFTA longlist:

We didn’t make one of these for last year but Chicago 7 and Mank both had a great many nominations on the long list. That didn’t have much to do with what ended up in Best Picture. If Mank had 14 on the longlist but didn’t land in Best Picture that is kind of odd in terms of parsing the long list and might not mean anything in the end:

Nomadland
The Father
The Mauritanian
Promising Young Woman
The Trial of the Chicago 7

This told us that The Father was extremely popular and was a good indicator that Hopkins was going to win. But to me, that’s all it says. We read a lot into it back then, though, thinking Trial might pull it out, for instance. But no. Didn’t move the needle and in fact only one of the Best Director nominees matches the Best Picture category, which is highly bizarre.

But it is what it is and it’s all happening on Thursday.

To that end, I think I will predict Best Picture to go something like:

Belfast
Westside Story
The Power of the Dog
Dune
Licorice Pizza

That’s probably not going to be how it ends up because God only knows how it will end up. Anyway, do your worst Oscarwatchers if you so dare: