OVP: Best Picture (2002)
The Nominees Were...
Martin Richards, Chicago
Alberto Grimaldi & Harvey Weinstein, Gangs of New York
Scott Rudin & Robert Fox, The Hours
Barrie M. Osborne, Fran Walsh, & Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, & Alain Sarde, The Pianist
My Thoughts: We are officially at the end point here! After possibly our longest Oscar Viewing Project season, we've cruised through the past month for most of these articles, and will continue on that pace, starting our next set of nominees as early as next week. If you're new to the blog, or to the series, welcome, and check out the links below for past Best Picture races, as well as past 2002 contests. Tomorrow, we'll conclude with which films I would've nominated and awarded in 2002, but let's not hold you in suspense any longer-here are my thoughts on the five films nominated for Best Picture by Oscar, and my pick for who should've won.
Chicago is a film that's hard to dislike. It's a winning score (one of the best in the history of musical theater), and has some splendid performances, particularly from Catherine Zeta-Jones. It's also a film that kind of jump-started the musical trend. While Moulin Rouge! was the catalyst, this mammoth hit & the awards that came after honestly were the real reason we ended up with Dreamgirls, Les Miserables, and La La Land in the years that followed. It's not a perfect film (the direction is sloppy, I don't think Gere is a good choice for Billy Flynn), but it's the top of the heap of the Broadway transfers that would follow, and it's a lot of fun. A nomination that ages well.
The same can be said for The Pianist, which is the film on this list that is most in Oscar's wheelhouse. Polanski's film opus (despite steadily working in the twenty years since, this is his last "great" movie) shows us a jarring, horrifying look at what it was like in the Warsaw Ghetto's first hand (something that Polanski, who grew up in Poland during the Holocaust, lived through). Aided by a spectacular performance from Adrien Brody, this is a truly mesmerizing, large piece of film, and one of the best films ever made about World War II.
The Hours is also jaw-dropping in the way it handles three separate but interwoven narratives. The thing that I always come back to with this film is that the filmmakers do a marvelous job of making it feel necessary. Like every conversation could be the last one we have with a character, the last time they'll interact with each other. There's a giant ticking clock over a movie where we announce that a major character will die within the film's opening minutes, and must wait to find out who will have the Sword of Damocles falling on their shoulders. It's also gorgeously shot, costumed, and acted, and I'll admit it, one of my all-time favorite movies.
The Two Towers also numbers among my favorite movies, and is to me the best part of Peter Jackson's miraculous six-part look at the world of JRR Tolkien. In the same way that Zeta-Jones makes Chicago and Adrien Brody is the heart of The Pianist, here we have an unlikely magnet in our film, keeping us at the edge of our seats: a spindly creature named Gollum, perfectly played by Andy Serkis. Everything about this movie works-the confidence it starts out with, and maintains the whole film, and a gorgeous cast, set design, & cinematography. But if you think about The Two Towers, you cannot help but focus on Serkis, finding humanity in pixels in a way that no other actor, before or since, has been able to achieve.
Which brings us back to Gangs of New York. Every season, there's at least one film that Oscar loved that I didn't, and it becomes something of a punching bag. There are elements of Gangs that I enjoyed-I think Daniel Day-Lewis is stupendous in this movie, and I think the set design is really incredible. But overall, it left me cold. The central tension between the two leads feels underwhelming with DiCaprio over his head, and the romance with Cameron Diaz...it doesn't work. This isn't a bad movie in the traditional sense, but it is by any metric you'd use to measure "Best" Picture, or the filmography of Martin Scorsese.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy, so you have The Hours beating the Drama list that included About Schmidt, Gangs of New York, The Two Towers, and The Pianist, while Comedy/Musical gave it to Chicago against About a Boy, Adaptation, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Nicholas Nickleby. BAFTA gave their Best Picture to The Pianist, atop the entire Oscar lineup, and Chicago won the PGA, with Adaptation, Gangs of New York, The Two Towers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Road to Perdition as the nominees. In terms of sixth place, I honestly think these five were very set, and so it's hard to guess who was closest as I don't think they were very close. People will say "it's Talk to Her" simply because of the directing/writing nominations, but there was very little buzz for this film for the top prize, and I think that's a stretch. I'm guessing it's between Road to Perdition and Far from Heaven, both of which had a lot of support in the tech & acting branches...though if you told me it was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I wouldn't have totally been blind sided (pun intended).
Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!
Oscar’s Choice: Chicago went into the night the frontrunner, and though it lost key contests for Director & Actress before the night was over, it did end up winning, likely over The Pianist.
My Choice: The Hours beats The Return of the King, but against The Two Towers, my favorite installment in the Tolkien sextet...I just can't do it. Jackson beats Daldry, with The Pianist, Chicago, and Gangs of New York following them.
And there you have it-another OVP in the books. Is everyone siding with the flappers of Chicago, or do you want to focus on the ents & orks of The Two Towers? In a very established field, what do you think was the sixth place contender? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2002? Share your comments below!
Also in 2002: Director, 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, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002
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