OVP: Best Director (2023)
The Nominees Were...
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
My Thoughts: We are moving toward the tail end of our 2023 conversation today, with the Best Director field. One of the more pronounced side effects of the ten-wide field, and one of the weirder ones for sure, is that people have forgotten how to count. With ten nominees for Best Picture and only five for Best Director, that means that (at least) five films from the Best Picture field will not get into the Best Director field. This is okay (not every good film needs an Oscar nomination), but for some people, this is an invitation to scream about, say, Greta Gerwig missing here for Barbie even if she was nominated for Best Screenplay, as if this is an enormous crime. So, before we begin, I do not think that Gerwig's lack of a nomination was a huge surprise (I didn't guess her), nor do I think her missing was particularly anti-feminist (especially since the one woman in this lineup was likely the one who bumped her).
That woman is Justine Triet, who directed Anatomy of a Fall. Triet's nomination is kind of cool on a solely political front, given that many feel that her film was not chosen for the International Feature race because of her public criticisms of French President Emmanuel Macron during her Cannes acceptance speech. We don't judge based on personal feelings about the nominees, but I will note-she seems like a badass. Her nomination, though, I wasn't a huge fan of-I think that the film feels too overlong, and it runs into too much repetition with its plot. It also doesn't handle the "did she do it?" question well, a problem I put pretty squarely at the feet of the director. The actual title scene is done well, and there are some Hitchcockian flares that I was into, but overall I was disappointed with this and feel like it got a nomination in part because it was so serious.
Yorgos Lanthimos is also a nomination from someone I like, but who didn't need his name listed here. We talked yesterday about how much I loved Emma Stone's performance in Poor Things, but it sometimes feels like I'm liking it in-spite of her director's work. Lanthimos' approach here is too much. He uses too much garishness, and the way that the film's use of a sort of futuristic Victorian style feels, well, it feels undefined; why are we doing this other than it feels odd? I also don't like the way that he can't handle the evolution of Bella in the final thirty minutes without it just being about her fighting yet another man.
Jonathan Glazer, on the opposite end, puts so much into the pacing of The Zone of Interest it reads very much like a director's picture. The way that he moves the camera, using tracking shots and far-away dialogue to give us both the foreground and background of the story in multiple scenes is superb, and I loved the interruptions of color across the movie screen, letting the audience absorb what is happening in the picture. Glazer's mastery of the ending, too, cannot be ignored-I admired the way that it connects to modern day, and the wretching sound that happens when your soul feels like it's vomiting out of your body, you've condoned so much evil.
Quentin Tarantino has spent much of the past five years complaining about how he's only going to make ten pictures, because "directors make their worst stuff toward the end of their lives." Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese, now in his eighties, has made two of his finest films during that time frame. The approach with Killers of the Flower Moon is so awe-inducing, giving us the sort of large, expansive epic that (if your name isn't Martin, Steven, or Ridley) they don't really let you make anymore. I enjoyed the way that he honors not just the Osage people, but also the illumination that can happen from making a movie at all, bringing a story to light that has been kept in darkness. The film's final, solemn moments (where Scorsese takes centerstage) are some of his best.
Christopher Nolan was always going to win an Oscar. All of the fanboys who worried about it for years, the second he made a movie like Dunkirk, should've known it was inevitable. That he won for a movie that combines his blockbuster flare with an Academy-friendly plot (and that made almost $1 billion) is a really incredible testament to his endurance as one of the most exciting mainstream filmmakers of the past couple of decades. I think his approach with Oppenheimer is great, particularly the tricky balance that he strikes between jumping through decades & finding some sort of insight into an enigmatic man. There are problems that I have with Oppenheimer, but those are not an issue of the director (more of the writer and to some degree the actors & composer)...I have nothing bad to say about this nod.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have six nominations now (ruining the only category where we used to have five-wide for all precursors) and they picked Nolan to win against Gerwig, Lanthimos, Scorsese, Bradley Cooper (Maestro), & Celine Song (Past Lives). The BAFTA's also had six nominations (I hate this trend), with Nolan beating Cooper, Glazer, Payne, Triet, and Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers) while the DGA chose Nolan over Gerwig, Lanthimos, Payne, & Scorsese. I'll be real to all of those who led the charge-I don't think Gerwig was in sixth place here...my money is that she was in seventh. Payne is a more traditional choice for the Academy, and they have liked him more in the past. I actually predicted him in favor of Triet, and so he's the one that stands out as the likely just-miss.
Directors I Would Have Nominated: Sofia Coppola got nominated so early in her career, and then the Oscars totally forgot she was still making truly great pictures. This trend continued with Priscilla, which shows the unrest of a young woman finding herself while also falling in love with a domineering man, with a distinct directorial flare that I suspect the Academy would admire from Tarantino or Scorsese.
Oscar's Choice: Christopher Nolan had this Oscar roughly by last August. It was the kind of train you can't stop from coming.
Oscar's Choice: Christopher Nolan had this Oscar roughly by last August. It was the kind of train you can't stop from coming.
My Choice: Glazer, who is in a different league (in general-this is his best movie, and the made Birth and Under the Skin). Scorsese is next, followed by Nolan, but I would've been proud to put either of them in the top spot if Glazer hadn't hit such a home run. Triet, and then Lanthimos close out the category.
Those were my thoughts-how about yours? Are you staying with Oscar and his Nolan coronation, or do you want to sit with me and Jonathan Glazer? At some point Greta Gerwig is winning this-but for what kind of movie? And do we think Scorsese (or his buddy Steven Spielberg) just get nominations for the rest of their careers, or will they get one more statue? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Also in 2023: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023
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