OVP: Best Adapted Screenplay (2012)
The Nominees Were...
Chris Terrio, Argo
Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
David Magee, Life of Pi
Tony Kushner, Lincoln
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
My Thoughts: So, yes, I have been super late on finishing off 2012's OVP, and largely neglecting our great goal on the blog, so I'm going to take this week, when I've been in a hyper-vigilant mode with my writing (I'm trying for two a day-here's to hoping I succeed!), to rectify a huge wrong and finally finish off the 2012 OVP.
With the expansion of the Best Picture lineup, Adapted Screenplay is the category, even more than Film Editing, that matches up with Best Picture nominations, and so it is not a shock that all five of the nominees in this category also made it into the top category. The first of these five nominees that we'll get to is Lincoln.
Tony Kushner is one of the greatest playwrights of the past 25 years, writing the masterwork Angels in America, a man who enjoyed his second Oscar nomination with Lincoln (he had previously been cited for his work with Spielberg in Munich). This time, he had the tough task of taking on a very long, drawn-out subject and making it both interesting and encased in the gravitas that Spielberg was hoping to infuse into his subject. Kushner largely succeeds on this front, capturing a lushness in the sixteenth president's soliloquies and random stories that few others could encase. I frequently complain about the dryness of the film, but that comes more from some of Spielberg's directorial decisions and the overall structure of the film. I will admit that the script isn't perfect (Kushner seems to be gaining a lot of strength from the larger, more speech-driven scenes than the quieter moments, like Lincoln's conversations with his son, and you can tell that this would have been epic, and a better fit, on the stage), but there's definitely a great deal of worth in his writing.
Chris Terrio was Kushner's biggest rival for the Oscar, and so we'll get to his Argo script next. Like I've mentioned before, my initial love for Argo has subsided as time has gone by, but that doesn't mean that I hate it (not by a long stretch-I still find it quite enjoyable) and I do want to call out that a good chunk of the dialogue, particularly the one-liners in Hollywood, are pleasurable because of Terrio's quickness with dialogue. That said, however, I feel like most of the film's atmosphere is coming from the sharp editing and Affleck's decisions with the pacing, and not with the script, and some good one-liners and a great catchphrase don't make an Oscar-winning script.
Some of you may also feel that David O. Russell's latest Silver Linings Playbook was also in the running, though I suspect pretty strongly that it was Kushner who was making a silver medal go at the actual trophy rather than the multiply-nominated Russell. His script suffers from the highs and lows that the film itself suffers from. You get some really great lines and conversations between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (particularly the dinner scene and their date in the restaurant), but the film's disregard for the truths of mental illness toward the end of the film, which I'm sharing the blame for across the production team board, is most the fault of Russell himself as the writer, who should have known better than to give the film both a serious subject like mental illness and a fairy tale, romantic-comedy ending (both of these things are fine, separately, but disrespectful when not handled with care together).
One of the benefits of spreading these write-ups over the summer is that, as I finish off the last eight categories, I get a bit more time to focus on certain films, which is a blessing and a curse for our final two films. In the case of Life of Pi, the film's many shortcomings continue to be pulled into view, and the script, and particularly the ending, are an absolute travesty. I have never read the book that this is based on (though I did over the past week discover that I own it and it'd been hiding in my library, so eventually I should be getting to it), but I will say that the ending ruined the film for me, almost completely. The film sets up this magical world, and then it completely takes it away-there is no lesson to be learned from Pi giving a choice between the two endings, since clearly David Magee has not given the audience any room to believe the story of a tiger on a raft. The fact that we've heard a fairy tale, rather than something of fact within the film, is so poorly handled that the script is not remotely forgiven.
The final film in our rundown, however, is a delight that just keeps giving. There's a number of problems in Beasts of the Southern (the sentimentality, Dwight Henry's performance), but the magical realism on display is a true winner. Like any good author of magical realism, you don't 100% know what is true and what is imagined but you find that you can believe both stories (are you hearing me, Life of Pi?). In addition, Alibar and Zeitlin manage to find some glorious lines for Quvenzhane Wallis, precocious but never unbelievable, to spout, including about the Hushpuppy who lived in the bathtub.
With the expansion of the Best Picture lineup, Adapted Screenplay is the category, even more than Film Editing, that matches up with Best Picture nominations, and so it is not a shock that all five of the nominees in this category also made it into the top category. The first of these five nominees that we'll get to is Lincoln.
Tony Kushner is one of the greatest playwrights of the past 25 years, writing the masterwork Angels in America, a man who enjoyed his second Oscar nomination with Lincoln (he had previously been cited for his work with Spielberg in Munich). This time, he had the tough task of taking on a very long, drawn-out subject and making it both interesting and encased in the gravitas that Spielberg was hoping to infuse into his subject. Kushner largely succeeds on this front, capturing a lushness in the sixteenth president's soliloquies and random stories that few others could encase. I frequently complain about the dryness of the film, but that comes more from some of Spielberg's directorial decisions and the overall structure of the film. I will admit that the script isn't perfect (Kushner seems to be gaining a lot of strength from the larger, more speech-driven scenes than the quieter moments, like Lincoln's conversations with his son, and you can tell that this would have been epic, and a better fit, on the stage), but there's definitely a great deal of worth in his writing.
Chris Terrio was Kushner's biggest rival for the Oscar, and so we'll get to his Argo script next. Like I've mentioned before, my initial love for Argo has subsided as time has gone by, but that doesn't mean that I hate it (not by a long stretch-I still find it quite enjoyable) and I do want to call out that a good chunk of the dialogue, particularly the one-liners in Hollywood, are pleasurable because of Terrio's quickness with dialogue. That said, however, I feel like most of the film's atmosphere is coming from the sharp editing and Affleck's decisions with the pacing, and not with the script, and some good one-liners and a great catchphrase don't make an Oscar-winning script.
Some of you may also feel that David O. Russell's latest Silver Linings Playbook was also in the running, though I suspect pretty strongly that it was Kushner who was making a silver medal go at the actual trophy rather than the multiply-nominated Russell. His script suffers from the highs and lows that the film itself suffers from. You get some really great lines and conversations between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (particularly the dinner scene and their date in the restaurant), but the film's disregard for the truths of mental illness toward the end of the film, which I'm sharing the blame for across the production team board, is most the fault of Russell himself as the writer, who should have known better than to give the film both a serious subject like mental illness and a fairy tale, romantic-comedy ending (both of these things are fine, separately, but disrespectful when not handled with care together).
One of the benefits of spreading these write-ups over the summer is that, as I finish off the last eight categories, I get a bit more time to focus on certain films, which is a blessing and a curse for our final two films. In the case of Life of Pi, the film's many shortcomings continue to be pulled into view, and the script, and particularly the ending, are an absolute travesty. I have never read the book that this is based on (though I did over the past week discover that I own it and it'd been hiding in my library, so eventually I should be getting to it), but I will say that the ending ruined the film for me, almost completely. The film sets up this magical world, and then it completely takes it away-there is no lesson to be learned from Pi giving a choice between the two endings, since clearly David Magee has not given the audience any room to believe the story of a tiger on a raft. The fact that we've heard a fairy tale, rather than something of fact within the film, is so poorly handled that the script is not remotely forgiven.
The final film in our rundown, however, is a delight that just keeps giving. There's a number of problems in Beasts of the Southern (the sentimentality, Dwight Henry's performance), but the magical realism on display is a true winner. Like any good author of magical realism, you don't 100% know what is true and what is imagined but you find that you can believe both stories (are you hearing me, Life of Pi?). In addition, Alibar and Zeitlin manage to find some glorious lines for Quvenzhane Wallis, precocious but never unbelievable, to spout, including about the Hushpuppy who lived in the bathtub.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes keep their category melded together, so it's not really a fair fight, though Argo, Lincoln, and Silver Linings Playbook all three made it into the running (the original Django Unchained won the award). At the BAFTA Awards, we saw a 5/5 lineup with the Oscar nominees, though in this case David O. Russell won the top prize. The WGA Awards had a little bit of differentiation, with Perks of Being a Wallflower (let me believe this was in sixth place, even though it could have been something like Les Miz instead) was able to trump Beasts of the Southern Wild for the fifth nomination (Argo won the trophy).
Films I Would Have Nominated: Perks of Being a Wallflower, quite easily. It's so hard to find a quality film about high school without totally falling into cliche, and in this case, you not only get ace performances from the film's three stars, you also get a difficult, complicated script that seems to actually be about teenager and not just a thirtysomething writer looking at his experience through rose-colored glasses.
Oscar’s Choice: Argo managed to land another trophy in its quest for the Best Picture trophy, depriving Tony Kushner of an Oscar to go with his Tonys.
My Choice: I kind of want to toss caution to the wind and give it to Beasts, but objectively Kushner's quality speeches deserves the victory. Beasts comes in second, followed by Argo, SLP, and finally Life of Pi.
There is another category-seven more to go! What did you think of the Adapted Screenplays? Were you Team Argo or Team Lincoln (or Team One of the Other Three)? Do you think Tony Kushner will ever pick up an Oscar? And why does Best Picture line up more with Adapted Screenplay instead of Original?
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