OVP: Best Director (2003)
The Nominees Were...
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Fernando Meirelles, City of God
Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
My Thoughts: We're going to be moving into the final two races of 2003 this weekend. I'm not entirely sure what pace I'll be doing this at after this (we likely won't do them daily, though I will be honest that I'm going to be doing them at a sharper speed than two-a-week as part of a still-secret project I'm trying to accomplish for later in the year). Today, we're going to move into a pretty solid Best Director lineup. It is not often that I can say that I'd give a "thumbs up" to all five of the movies in a list, but here I definitely would. Of course, if you're competing for an Oscar nomination, you should be able to do better than just a thumbs up, and a few of these filmmakers don't quite get far enough, in my opinion.
One of them is Clint Eastwood, who was using Mystic River as a way to tee up a comeback in 2004 for Best Director, followed by a decade of major successes, both artistic & (increasingly more importantly to Eastwood) commercial. Mystic River is the rare one of these movies that he didn't star in, but you've got the Sean Penn character taking on the obvious Eastwood trope of "man against the law." Mystic River is a good movie that sometimes feels a bit lost in the middle stretch, coasting off of what is a dynamite ending by not focusing enough on where some of the characters (specifically Tim Robbins' Dave) needs to go. Eastwood is a bit of a lightning rod amongst progressive cinephiles these days due to his conservative politics, but I'll admit that isn't really the problem with Mystic River in the way that it would be years later with American Sniper (which for the first two-thirds is about as strong of a "conservative vantage point" to a political issue as I've seen in a movie, and then totally derails in the final forty minutes). It's more that it becomes just a film of a few great moments, without enough substance in-between. If he weren't competing for an Oscar, I wouldn't complain (it's a good movie), but when you're trying to be the best of the year, details matter.
This is also my problem with Fernando Meirelles' City of God-it's too reliant on big moments. Meirelles has some key sequences that are jaw-dropping, and though this film was mimicked ad nauseam in the years that followed (including by Meirelles), it deserves credit for being the first of this style/visual palette of filmmaking. City of God, though, relies too often on increasing shock value to get its point across, and that's a problem when the story is as repetitive as it is. You understand as the film continues which characters are going to escape & which ones won't, and while it's jaw-dropping to see this group of violent teenagers put in unspeakable situations, Meirelles uses the same types of stories repeatedly to the point where it feels like the movie needed editing. Picky, I know, but again-it's for an Oscar.
Sofia Coppola knows how to make her time judicious. Even from the opening moments of Lost in Translation, time hangs over the story as a way for us to understand that everything between Bob & Charlotte is precious (but also, that all of life should be treated as precious). Coppola achieves a sort of "cinematic" approach to Lost in Translation (I'm not entirely sure that's a descriptive enough adjective, but hopefully it comes across), making it feel warm & like this complete vision (she used film, rather than digital, to make the movie, and I wonder if that helps make it look a bit softer onscreen). Everything about the way that she resists certain romantic impulses, making sure that the framing is perfect in key moments (especially the karaoke scene)-it all just works beautifully. It was her breakthrough film, and while she's made great ones since, it's still her best.
Oscar-winner Sydney Pollack once said Hollywood's view of the director's job is "less an artist, more a damage containment expert." This might explain why so many directors get cited for epics, including our final two nominees-both are trying to make sure a gigantic sequence is kept onscreen without sprawling too badly. Both men pull this off, though. Peter Weir's film occasionally veers too much into the "handsome, but not enough character development" column for my taste, but it looks great & I think the battle sequences are gorgeous. Master and Commander also, as we've mentioned a few times, seamlessly combines sound stage, CGI, & real world sequences all into the same film without ever feeling like you can tell them apart, which is certainly a credit to its director.
Peter Jackson won this Oscar nominally for Return of the King but really for his entire brilliant Lord of the Rings series. I can only count it for Return of the King, though, so I will admit that I have to dock a point or two off for the slightly repetitive nature of the film's endings. That being said, the rest of the film is such a treasure you won't care. Particularly strong points for the way that Jackson manages to make the anticlimax of some of the battles (there are very few major character deaths in LOTR, certainly compared to something like Game of Thrones, which makes the stakes feel less high) by giving such detailed emotional sendoffs to each of the primary characters. Return of the King represents not just a high point for Jackson & 2003, but also for movies in general-few films stand apart quite in the same way that Lord of the Rings does.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes preferred Jackson (singling how easily he'd win the rest of the season, as the Globes are pretty genre averse) against Coppola, Eastwood, Weir, & Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain), while the DGA went with Jackson as well against Coppola, Eastwood, Weir, & Gary Ross (Seabiscuit). BAFTA favored Weir as their winner, the only blip in Jackson's run (Return of the King did win Best Picture there, for the record), against Jackson, Minghella, Coppola, & Tim Burton (Big Fish). In terms of sixth place, it's between Minghella & Ross, and while Ross hit more of the hallmarks we associate with Best Director (i.e. Seabiscuit is up for Picture, Screenplay, & Editing), I feel like it was slightly more Minghella, as I think that Cold Mountain feels more like a directing branch preference than what Ross is doing.
Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'll have my My Ballot out tomorrow, so I won't spoil the contenders quite yet. Suffice it to say, this is a good list...that I plan on totally upending.
Oscar's Choice: After two years of misses across all of the categories he was cited in, Peter Jackson was inevitable. Not even Academy favorite Clint Eastwood could give him a race.
Oscar's Choice: After two years of misses across all of the categories he was cited in, Peter Jackson was inevitable. Not even Academy favorite Clint Eastwood could give him a race.
My Choice: I'm a bit closer than AMPAS both because I'm not giving this award for the full series and because I do think that Return of the King is the weakest of the three Lord of the Rings films AND it's competing against a movie as flawless as Lost in Translation. But Jackson wins this-he manages to make it 3/3 in Grade A quality for a film series which is next to impossible to do, and I will argue that Lost in Translation is slightly more a writer's/actor's triumph than it is a directing one (it's close though-both are being mentioned tomorrow). Behind them would be Weir, Eastwood, & Meirelles, in that order.
Those were my thoughts-how about yours? Does everyone cosign the Peter Jackson gravy train or does someone want to stand apart? Do we think that Sofia Coppola, whose filmmaking style has slightly fallen out of favor with Oscar, will ever get back into this lineup again? And was it Ross or Minghella who was just out-of-reach in sixth place? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Also in 2003: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003
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