Putting the SAG Nominations into Perspective

With each new twist in the Oscar race there is the assumption that all of the same people are voting for the same awards. They aren’t. This is true of the critics awards, the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice and the Screen Actors, Producers and Directors Guilds. The Academy voters often reflect a slightly different perspective because the various branches, those who have been invited to join, or are Oscar winners themselves, do the voting. Best Picture is the only category where everyone votes. The actors branch is roughly 1200 members, not so different from the SAG nominating committee. But it is worth noting that the SAG voters are randomly selected, as opposed to being a group of members who have reached high points in their careers. I think that makes them slightly different.

The match-up between Academy and SAG is secure enough to make them one of the most important of the precursors but it isn’t 100%. These SAG nominations are coming very early, it feels like, compared to how the rest of the race might play out, but it feels that way every year, particularly when there is a last minute rally for a handful of films.

Her, Fruitvale Station, American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street were all capturing the buzz before this morning’s announcement. But the SAG nominations have flipped it back to the earlier favorites, Captain Phillips, The Butler, August: Osage County, and most importantly, 12 Years a Slave. This is why having your film out there early, like around Telluride and Toronto or even EARLIER, like Cannes, is important now. The race happens too quickly. When a film can withstand the gauntlet from Cannes to now? You know you have a film that can go the distance. Inside Llewyn Davis and Nebraska are two that are still sitting pretty in the Oscar race, headed for, at the very least, Best Picture nominations, but perhaps Best Director nods. Much of this has to do with two hard core publicity machines keeping the films, and their spirits, alive. Bruce Dern almost single handedly for Nebraska, and T Bone Burnett and Oscar Isaac keeping the music alive, with an upcoming film about the New York concert even.

Not doing so well is JC Chandor’s All is Lost, which delivered the morning’s biggest surprise with the omission of Robert Redford. What I think happened is that no one wanted to watch the movie. If they did watch it, they would be mesmerized by Redford. But the SAG voters differ from the Academy in this regard – first, I think the Academy members will watch All is Lost. I also think they have reverence for a man who has been acting since the 1950s, who made Ordinary People and Quiz Show. Most of the Academy members grew up under Redford’s shadow. What hurts him, and what hurts all of the contenders in Best Actor, is that it is just too damned competitive. There are so many great performances that when you think you have the top five there are at least five more deserving. Each time a new performance comes along it will have be pushed into the Best Actor category. This time, it was easier for voters who probably didn’t watch All is Lost. Add to that, Redford’s reluctance to hump the circuit like all contenders have to do to get in. This will also hurt Christian Bale, incidentally. In a competitive year the public appearances mean everything. But to my mind I’m thinking: wow, Redford is a man of integrity. He believes that the work should stand for itself. But this is a game. If you want to win you have to play.

I think the Academy will recognize Redford, but that will mean one of SAG’s nominees today will have to be pushed out. And how do you do that? It’s an impossible category.

Meanwhile, Best Actress still looks to be locked in with five: Streep, Blanchett, Dench, Bullock, Thompson. There really isn’t a frontrunner among them – any of them could win. But Blanchett has the early lead.

That American Hustle only got ensemble and one other acting nomination for Jennifer Lawrence but no Actor or Actress — that speaks more to the competition than it does those performances. It has crazy momentum right now and will be a strong Best Picture contender, inexplicably; coming out of the early screenings people, including Anne Thompson, were saying that it was entertaining but not an awards film – it is turning out to be just that – a very strong contender.

The absence of Wolf of Wall Street can be explained by voters maybe not having seen the movie in time. Hardly anyone has seen it. We’ll have to wait to see what the Golden Globes do when we flip the pancake tomorrow morning.

Finally, 12 Years a Slave gains momentum here by being able to lay claim to an ensemble nod where Gravity can’t. Gravity has two actors in it. That, and it being 3D, are the film’s major strikes against it; no 3D film, nor any film with so few actors has ever won Best Picture. 12 Years heads into the SAGs with 4. It could win. But so could American Hustle or August: Osage County – you never know with the SAGs. Only one film in all of SAG’s history has ever won Best Picture without an ensemble nod and that was Braveheart. The Mel Gibson film gained momentum late in the race once Ron Howard was snubbed for director for Apollo 13. And so it goes.

We won’t know whether the SAGs are too early to be indicative of this year’s race or not until we’re long passed it. And tomorrow, the Golden Globes will stir up the dust once again.

Screen Actors Guild

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Won SAG | Won Oscar

2002