Becoming a Best Picture frontrunner means fighting off continual attacks that will either sink it (Boyhood) or fail to sink it (12 Years a Slave). The season is currently enjoying the exceptional brief moment of talking about how good the movies are as opposed to whether or not they can or will win an Oscar. Those outside the normative circle include Son of Saul, a Hungarian film; Anomalisa, a puppet sex movie; Beasts of No Nation; distributed by Netflix. Just because they don’t fit the Oscar norm isn’t stopping people talking about them and that’s pretty great.
Coming out of Cannes, there was no frontrunner. Coming out of Venice, still no frontrunner. Coming out of Telluride it looks like maybe two to beat launched there: Spotlight and Steve Jobs. But calling either of them frontrunners is premature. Spotlight has the advantage of being the film nobody hated and everyone liked. Steve Jobs was the one people reacted to more ecstatically. Beasts of No Nation hit big among those of us who love it, but not in the consensus building “everybody loved it” kind of way. Truth is the new highlight launched out of Toronto. If it wins, it will be the first time since The Hurt Locker that a Toronto Fest film won Best Picture. Most are saying, though, that the frontrunner, if there is one, has not yet been seen.
The 2016 Oscars already seem more competitive and livelier than last year’s, with films coming from wide and far, encompassing diverse subjects, from a woman saving mankind from extinction during the apocalypse, gay rights in the 1950s, the Catholic Church covering up sex abuse in the 1990s, a man who changed the way Americans used computers and phones, a child soldier somewhere in Africa trying to cling to what remains of his humanity, a young girl entering adulthood in Brooklyn, women risking everything to fight for the right to vote, a madman in the Irish mob in Boston who evades the authorities for decades, and the way our very own government silenced our press, and our freedom of speech.
All of this before we even get to the Big Oscar Movies in a matter of weeks. A major one is about to drop when the New York Film Festival rolls out its selections on September 25th. After that, we’ll await the characters and subjects we have coming — which include a man fighting for survival in the deep snow-choked woods, a woman inventing the Miracle Mop, a crew of lost souls with guns fighting it out in a cabin in a blizzard, an unlikely hero caught up in machinations to free an American pilot during the Cold War, a couple who may or may not have lost their love for each other.
When looking at Best Director, this year is driven by some well-known names and some who aren’t well known. The best directors this year are visionaries, no doubt about it. Some have the good fortune to be able to make the kind of films they want every year. Some are just breaking through. A well-known director can often be the difference between which film eventually becomes the frontrunner. It isn’t just a matter of whether they “like” the movie or not. They have to admire, like and in some cases, remain in awe of the director.
Let’s take a look at this year’s slate of directors and their films and/or Oscar backgrounds. These names may very well be among those strongly considered for Best Director. (A word on women and other minorities — of course, breaking through is near impossible. In the case of a film like Suffragette, the name of the director isn’t going to mean as much, at least not yet.) Other directors will share the same problem. Room’s Lenny Abrahamson, Black Mass’ Scott Cooper, Truth’s James Vanderbilt, Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy, Brooklyn’s John Crowley. They are building a name for themselves and, with the help of the best publicists in the business, will be quite well known by the end of the season. Women are going to have it much harder, always. That goes without saying.
Still, here are the directors we think have the most heat heading into the season.
Alejandro G. Inarritu for The Revenant. No pressure, just the most highly-anticipated film of the year. Inarritu had The Revenant in mind before making Birdman and just happened to win Best Picture in the interim, much to his complete surprise. Whatever is behind his drive to make this film translates to an artist whose Oscar win certainly didn’t quell his desire to reach higher and farther. Inarritu won three Oscars last year for Birdman — for writing, producing and directing. He was previously nominated for Picture and Director for Babel. He set the world on fire with his debut, Amores Perros. He’s not a director who seems to care about commercial success. He’s an artist, all the way. He’s been given a lot of money to make The Revenant. The pressure is unbelievably high this time around. The expectations are off the charts. The buzz is already palpable. The only question that remains is whether the film can manage to live up to those heightened expectations. It’s coming in under the wire and will have to be that good to catch up to whatever the winning film already is heading into the Producers Guild awards. If it hits, it hits big.
Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies. You can’t ignore a man who has been nominated seven times for Best Director, and Best Picture eight times. Both of his last two films were nominated for Best Picture using the current system for balloting in that category. Spielberg is an American treasure who shows no signs of slowing down. His enthusiasm for film has a wide reach. He makes art films, general audience films, children’s films, war films — he loves making movies and his love is contagious. Spielberg has less to prove now in the autumn of his career and is enjoying himself more. His films always make money and he always brings them in under budget. If he wins one more Oscar for directing, he will join the very elite group of film directors to win more than two — John Ford, William Wyler and Frank Capra. The pressure on Spielberg is less than others on this list because he has such a strong fan base even if the film isn’t a typical “Oscar movie” we know it’s going to be a fine film anyway because he just flat out knows how to direct. He’s been doing it long enough and well enough that he is just a master at the top of his game.
Cary Fukunaga, Beasts of No Nation. If an auteur has emerged this season it has to be Fukanaga who has surprised everyone with his fearsome war epic. Seen by some as a tough sit, passed over by every studio until Netflix picked it up, Beasts is the kind of exceptional cinema that comes along once in a decade maybe. Whether Hollywood is going to put him on top of the A List or not is still a question mark. There should be little doubt of what he can do after True Detective and now, Beasts of No Nation. They should be throwing money and contracts at the guy. Either way, from where I sit, Beasts towers over every other film I’ve seen this year, though I haven’t seen many and certainly not the films coming up. The degree of Beasts popularity will rest entirely on Fukunaga’s growing cred. He’s good. Really good.
Danny Boyle, Steve Jobs. Boyle has only won a single Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire, and it took him a while to get there. He’s always been known for dazzling and bizarrely dark films like Trainspotting and Shallow Grave. He does not limit himself to a genre, however, and is a nimble director who took on 127 Hours, Millions, Sunshine and even Trance. It’s always interesting to see what he’s chosen to do with each new project he takes on. With Steve Jobs, it’s high theater of the Sorkin kind. Primarily taking place in surreal backstage setups, Boyle pins Fassbender down for every flicker of the eyebrow. He seems more willing in this film to give his actors free reign over the territory in service of that off-the-charts mind-blowing Aaron Sorkin screenplay. The challenge for Steve Jobs will be getting Boyle’s style to stand out amid all of that dialogue. It’s hard to watch the film and not think: Sorkin. But if you look close enough you’ll see the Boyle flourishes throughout.
Todd Haynes, Carol – Haynes is the best director working in Hollywood who has so far gone completely unrecognized by the Academy. They did not acknowledge him for I’m Not There — his impressionist’s take on Bob Dylan; nor for Far From Heaven, the story of a woman married to a gay man who finds true love with a black man; nor for Safe, starring Julianne Moore as a woman physically and emotionally overwhelmed by modern life. With Carol, he has probably made his most Academy friendly film to date, one that will reach beyond “queer cinema” to general audiences. Carol involves two women falling in love at a time when they were forbidden from living openly as lesbians. It is more than that, though. It is a coming-of-age film for both characters for different reasons. Haynes is at his best working with strong, complicated, broken heroines. His work with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara gracefully illustrates that.
Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight – Tarantino has invented his own film language by drawing upon his own love and immersion in genre films throughout his life and his ever-growing talent behind the camera. Tarantino’s writing is one thing. It is the dead giveaway to whose film you’re watching. But where he really soars is as a director. Therefore, a reading of the script for The Hateful Eight simply won’t do. Why we return to Tarantino again and again are those beautiful shots, the building of suspense, the unpredictable twists and turns of the characters involved. There is a reason why Tarantino’s films get nominated for Best Picture. He’s been to the big show only twice as a director but three times as a writer, and winning two out of three of those. Tarantino and Kurt Russell though? What a match made in heaven. Whatever people think they’re going to see with The Hateful Eight, history tells us two thing. 1) it’s more likely to get nominated than not, and 2) it’s going to be better than anyone expects it to be.
David O. Russell, Joy – here is probably the director most overdue for a win of the bunch. David O. Russell has been nominated for directing three times and writing twice from 2011 to 2014. He has yet to win a single Oscar. He has found his good luck charm in Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in two of those films. Now, she’s finally earned enough clout to have the whole movie be about her. With a long and expansive career behind him, Russell has keyed in to the thing he does best with Lawrence as his muse: working with actresses like her who can be funny and tragic all at once. He’s due for a win and Joy could be the movie that at last that puts him over.
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight – McCarthy is one of those hard working indie directors who emerge without much fanfare. His films, like The Visitor and Win Win, have been appreciated but not widely seen nor Oscar nominated. Spotlight should put him on the map.
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road – George Miller won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature with Happy Feet. He was also nominated for writing and producing Babe. Before that, he was nominated for writing Lorenzo’s Oil. That tells us the Academy likes Miller best when he’s softer, not as hard core as he is with Mad Max. On the other hand, everyone loves a comeback and no one expected this film to become one of the best films of the year. Miller’s name lends the cred to get both him and the film nominated. It will just depend on what’s coming next.
Tom Hooper, The Danish Girl. Hooper has only made a handful of features but his last two have been Best Picture nominated and one of them beat The Social Network. Clearly, this is a guy the Academy and the industry really like. The reviews for the Danish Girl have been mixed out of Venice and Toronto, with the film inspiring a love it/hate it reaction. But Hooper’ stature is enough to get the film seen and could be enough to get it in for Best Picture, no matter what the critics think of it. Time will tell how the film plays with industry voters, but one thing we know for sure — they aren’t critics.
Other directors to watch out for include Laszlo Nemes
Son of Saul, Lenny Abramson for Room, Angelina Jolie for Beyond the Sea, Paolo Sorrentino for Youth, Sarah Gavron for Suffragette, Robert Zemeckis for The Walk, Ridley Scott for The Martian, Scott Cooper for Black Mass.
We know that, all things considered, Best Picture is still director driven, whether that leads to a win or not. Because there are more than five Best Picture nominees, films that aren’t director-driven can make it into the race because of the actors branch, for instance, or the producers or whomever it was that rammed Selma through last year with less apparent support from the major core branches. Still, when we talk about Best Picture we are still talking about Best Director, Ben Affleck not withstanding.
Russell is most likely in, if the movie is good, and he is the most overdue, seriously now. Haynes is in. I think Ridley Scott may be in. McArthy is in. That leaves one spot, which will go to a veteran/past winner, Tarantino, Speilberg, or Miller.