The Five Stages of Grief via Oscar Nominations
Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 11:25AM Though Oscar nomination morning is my Christmas -- the day I anticipate so heavily each year when all the prezzies are ripped open -- it's not all happiness. Oscar also gives out lumps of coal on this day each year. Let us celebrate five big snubs (or omissions if you hate that word) representing each stage of grief so that we can work through it and move on.
Though SELMA got a Best Picture nod, it was ignored in every other category but Song
DENIAL I'm pretending that American Sniper, a conservative leaning (though not unartful) celebration of war heroism didn't crash the party late and win a ton of nominations (which encourages the studios to do that December/January glutting) while the progressive Selma -- which we actually need unlike a film about someone who's good with a gun! -- couldn't muster up more than two nominations.
ANGER Ava DuVernay, who would have been the first woman of color nominated for Best Director, should have been among the five Best Director nominees. She handled a large scale historical film and made it reverberate with danger, grief, inspiration, courage, and immediacy which is more than can be said for most historical epics. And it's only her third film! Can't wait to see what number four is like. As a subset of this stage of grief: anger. The Oscar nominations are just another reminder that Oscar does not value female narratives, not behind the scenes or onscreen. Movies about men trying to find themselves, or redemption or triumph over adversity score. Movies about women or people of color doing the same things do not (see: Wild and Selma, this year and examples in many other years; Oscar is a boys club)
BARGAINING The Lego Movie which I felt would meet more resistance than it initially had because it is basically a 2 hour commercial was nevertheless a surprise omission. I hope this doesn't discourage future filmmakers from going above and beyond because, YES, it was a commercial for toy product but it was like the best long-form commercial ever. So much funnier and more stylish and surprising than it had any right to be really. So next time someone overachieves Oscar, toss them a bone okay?
DEPRESSION All year long we (correctly) heard that it was a super strong year for Best Actor and it was. So why is the actual shortlist so disatisfying? Two answers: you could call Carell (against type / prosthetic nose) without even seeing the picture (and if you see the picture it's a heavily stilted performance and you can label Bradley Cooper a "default" nominee now with three consecutive nominations and though he's definitely under this guy's skin, it's a very unchallenging star turn compared to the snubbed competition.
This year of all years isn't time to lean on gimmicks or default status. Not when you had Ralph Fiennes's gloriously civilized sly performance keeping Grand Budapest Hotel grounded in gravitas and culture and wit when it could theoretically have defaulted to diorama kitsch. Not when Jake Gyllenhaal is doing the best work of his career in Nightcrawler. Not when David Oyelowo is becoming a great Southern orator. Not when... etcetera...
This was very disrespectfulACCEPTANCE Jessica Chastain missed out on a nod for what may well be her best screen performance yet in A Most Violent Year. But the film arrived very late and just didn't catch on quickly enough. And people got hung up on the Pfeiffer/Scarface look and missed the fact that the ubiquitous actress was doing interesting things with a more complicated character than her entrepeneur's wife first appeared to be in clip form. (For what it's worth Pfeiffer also missed a nomination for Scarface, one of her many awful snubbings.) But we know that Chastain, who makes three movies a year and most of them high profile, will be back so we'll let this one slide.
Who and what would represent your five stages this morning?
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Reader Comments (73)
Paul Outlaw: I guess you can count Blue Jasmine, but if I'm not mistaken her character wasn't from new york just moved there. Still there was a nice dichotomy between Jasmine's mentally unstable narcissism and her generous and kind sister. Didn't bother me as much. And they made ultra clear that this woman was unstable on a whole level. Chastain's character felt like a stereotype, which was funny cause the movie was so on point about the hasidic characters. I actually love A Most Violent Year, but i couldn't get past that character. Especially since she seemed to be of no purpose but to be a manipulative wife. Her character only becomes important to the plot in the end of the film.
Y'all, it's ludicrous not to acknowledge that Selma's underwhelming tally is at least partly the fault of the distributor. Paramount and/or the filmmakers should've held it back till 2015 to allow them time to finish the film, work the festival circuit, make screeners widely available and release the film with plenty of time for word-of-mouth to catch up with critical consensus. Sorry, but this was a bad release strategy on their part, and here we are with the end result (no guarantees notwithstanding). Surely Ava and Co. had to be aware of the riskiness of their half-hearted, rushed approach to releasing a film that deserved more TLC? (Even American Sniper made a more concerted effort to make itself available to be seen, within the industry at least.)
It would've been in A Most Violent Year's and Selma's interests to give them early fall releases, even if that meant holding them till fall 2015 (like Sony Pictures Classics did this year with Foxcatcher last year).
I weep for Nightcrawler -- Gyllenhaal and Russo are my avatars -- and Channing Tatum, who was simply best in show, Team Foxcatcher, and its one major player *not* recognized sadly enough. The actress side is a much better bumper crop of nominations this year!
I LOVE this post. Thanks so much for writing so well and passionately.
Trust me, Josh, many of those money-grabbing wives are not native New Yorkers. ;-) But I know what you mean.
Dear boy, I love you too! I think we should have some chocolate & comfort food and re-watch something we really loved today. Take care.
I love him as an actor but I agree with you on Carell, the biggest piece of award bait performance of 2014. It's such an obvious one-level performance. Then again, that awful and simplistic script totally lets him down.
And he's not even Foxcatcher's best actor. But we can't nominate Tatum because he looks good in singlet and actually shaded his character with so much more than one or two colors.
I don't even wanna talk about Selma, so depressing. They just should've snubbed the whole thing if they were gonna go there.
I think Chastain really deserved a nom for cumulative effort more so than one film. She was amazing in the little-seen mess that was Eleanor Rigby. So much so that Harvey Weinstein wanted to do a late lead actress push for her, which never happened. Oh well, I hope she gets in another time. But as someone said, she doesn't have any Oscar-worthy films coming out anytime soon. :-(
Off topic Nat, but I'm supposedly signed up for the email notifications but none are coming through. Checked spam and no joy. Any ideas?
anger. happy for certain actors/actresses but actors/actresses always have another shot. films don't.
Angela, I share your love for Chastain in Eleanor Rigby! I can't believe she didn't factor into the critics awards at all. She would be a strong contender for a Best Actress win if I ran things. ;)
I'm with the guy who mentioned Streep. I like her as much as anyone but honestly, enough already. At this point her practically annual Guaranteed Nomination is only taking away from others who could really benefit from some deserved recognition.
Also wish the AMPAAS would get over the Eastwood love too. Does anyone really actually enjoy his films?
There's a problem when a movie like Selma, which elicits an intense and honest emotional response from an audience, earns two nominations, and The Imitation Game, a bloodless, mind-numbingly dull film, gets eight. And in what world does Kiera Knightly give a better performance than Jessica Chastain. The drowsy Foxcatcher awakens from its slumber to five nods, and A Most Violent Year gets rubbed out. Still, Cotillard and Anderson's nominations give me hope that some in the Academy have not lost their minds. My love/hate relationship with Oscar endures. Luckily, realistic me finally realizes that AMPAS is celebrating cinema and not acting as the true arbiter of taste.
I am looking forward to a rerun of the Derns making the rounds on the Red Carpet. That will be so cool.
You're right about the Academy and female narratives, and you only have to look at the ten female acting nominees to see it. If it's centred on a female journey, then the film doesn't get a look in other major categories (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, STILL ALICE, GONE GIRL, WILD, even INTO THE WOODS), but if it's a female supporting a male story, the film gets big nominations elsewhere (THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, BOYHOOD, THE IMITATION GAME, BIRDMAN). Bechdel and Oscar just don't mix. Damn!
Henry - i haven't sent the welcome thing out yet. waiting to see how many people we got and once this crazy day is over.
@Richie, since 1990 and Jessica Tandy's win, 7 women have not received ANY nominations after receiving their Best Actress Oscar:
Jessica Lange
Susan Sarandon
Gwenyth Paltrow
Halle Berry
Hilary Swank's second win
Kate Winslet
Natalie Portman
I'm not even going to count Cate Blanchett, since she'll get another nom in a year.
That list was at 9 yesterday, so a reason to celebrate. 16 actresses from the last 25 years have been recognized after their win. It seems that the Academy has taken an interest in validating the careers of this women. It makes sense that you would want to show that the actors you gave the highest honor to continue to do quality work.
@Richie-Compare those 7 women to the 12 Best Actor winners yet to receive a second nomination after they took the prize.
When Cotillard won her Oscar I was very upset. But she's one of a very very few actresses that grew on me over the years. I've yet to see her in a bad film ( that is, since La Vie En Rose ) and she's growing with every role she takes on. Good job AMPAS for nominating her though I suspect it was not because they saw the film but because of all those backdoor politics I don't care to know about.
On the other hand, how can Birdman not get a editing nomination?? This is simply ridiculous and it means that it won't win BP. I liked Boyhood, but imho it's nothing compared to Birdman. I guess Linklater needed to be recognized after the whole pathetic snubbing he got for his masterpice, the trilogy. And I'm fine with that, though the film that will be remembered 100 years from now it's Birdman.
Oh, and what a relief that Anniston wasn't nominated! That actually made my day :-)
All y'all "weeping for poor Jakey-poo" can suck it. Or talking bout what Rosamund Pike gonna wear or whatever the f. F all yall superficial ass ppl. Don't you realize it's all about Selma missing out? Guess not.Whatever Im done with yall. Nathaniel, you've lost one long-term reader. Peace
Mareko, I couldn't agree with you more.
Selma's underwhelming performance lays right at the feet of Paramount. Many can scream about implicit racism and basically treat Selma as a quota to be filled rather than the great piece of work that it is, but its absence from director, actor, editing, etc., could be seen coming a mile away and it is due to the very, VERY late release and shuffled, unfocused "campaign" Paramount threw together at the last minute. You are very right in that movies like Birdman, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, etc., had a huge advantage in going the festival route (Toronto, Telluride, Venice, etc.) and building up buzz and steam from there. Paramount SHOULD HAVE waited till next year if the film was being rushed to completion in late December and they were having issues sending out screeners, etc., etc. Not to mention unflattering LBJ buzz which I believe could have mellowed down if it had come out in 2015 and the filmmakers had had ample time to intelligently defend themselves.
A Most Violent Year too. WHY THE LATE RELEASE? Considering how much they loved Mr. Turner in the tech categories, if they had released it earlier who knows how much else it could have gotten. I could easily have seen it get groundswell performance from actors for Spall's performance and directing for Leigh.
<I>BUT, all I have to do is remind myself that Marion Cotillard was nominated for what is easily the best performance by an actress this year, and all those quibbles fade away.</I>
I share your sentiment...even though I'm happy that Julianne Moore is finally going to get her Oscar, I also recognise that Marion gave a performance that's far superior to Moore's. If Moore had already gotten her Oscar prior to Still Alice, I would have been furious that she's the frontrunner.
Anyway, I don't feel any excitement about this year's Oscar...the winners are almost sewn up (Moore, Keaton, Patricia, Simmons) in terms of the acting categories.
I see all these people dissing American Sniper for its politics and all I can hear are echoes of the people who derailed Zero Dark Thirty from Best Picture contention. Art doesn't have to kowtow to politics, on either side of the spectrum. When a majority of people decide that their political sensitivities rise above artistic merit, you end up with things like the Hays Code.
Clint Eastwood is one of the very few outspoken conservatives in Hollywood and he won't be around for too long. I am personally very glad that he found his mojo back and, at 84 years of age, after a string of really poor outings, delivered a tight, exciting movie, well suited to his unique artistic style.
I also see no difference between the people who want to shun Eastwood for the diversity of THOUGHT he brings to the table from the assholes in the Academy who shunned Selma and its makers for the diversity of COLOR they contribute. It's all disgusting to me!
I am equally glad that Ava Duvernay, a progressive black woman, and Clint Eastwood, a conservative elderly gentleman, have graced the silver screen with their renditions of American Heroism, I love that they can co-exist, that we can see how distinct they are and also how similar they can be. I love the passion behind them, that they mean something to their makers, how they represent something other than shameful awards-hogging, overproduced, paint-by-numbers Oscar-bait movies. I happily take both films over the straight-washed-not-to-kill-awards-chances of the Imitation Game, or A Beautiful Mind 2: With Added Physical Paralysis for Extra Awards Bait.
Of course I decry the Academy for not honoring Selma the way it deserved, but I have more beef with the films handlers/distributors, who dropped the ball by rushing its release. Had it been given one year to be properly finished and released, it would not have missed all the fall festivals, and it would have built the needed momentum to be a true contender on the 2015 Season.
As lame as these nominations be, I'm just happy that Marion Cotillard finally gets her well deserved nomination and boot Jennifer Anniston out of the competition. Her work in 2 days 1 night is easily one of the best in years! while Anniston got into the conversation purely by interviews, magazine covers, dinner parties......