This year’s Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature was a fiercely competitive one. With the strength of the 15-wide finalists list, quite frankly, it would have been hard to give us a truly bad line-up. We particularly weep for the omissions of Cameraperson, Tower, Zero Days and Weiner, but personal grouching aside about a couple of the nominees, this year’s batch is quite something. We have three films about race (one with queer undertones), a foreign language title, and the longest film ever nominated for an Academy Award.
The nominees are:
• Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi, Donatella Palermo)
• I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, Rémi Grellety, Hébert Peck)
• O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman, Caroline Waterlow)
• Life, Animated (Roger Ross Williams, Julie Goldman)
• 13th (Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick, Howard Barish)
We will be looking at the documentary short nominees later (I have one title left to watch, which is proving difficult!), but now we're going to hypothesize how the doc feature nominees did it. Let us break down the imaginary math…
FIRE AT SEA
Gianfranco Rosi’s dual-toned examination of the isle of Lampedusa looks at not just the refugee crisis that is inundating the island, but also the stories of locals as their home becomes a centrepiece in an escalating global crisis.
50% Topicality – Refugee migration and sustainability is one of the biggest issues facing the world right now and Fire at Sea confronts it in a new and no less alarming and impactful light. It was the only of the shortlisted titles to cover the crisis.
20% Craftsmanship – Documentary filmmakers, the very people who vote for these awards, no doubt saw the difficulty in just the pure logistics of making this movie. See also the nomination for 4.1 Miles, about a different island but the same regional crisis.
20% Rosi Reputation – Italian director Gianfranco Rosi is a respected name among documentary. Alongside Michael Haneke and Ken Loach, he is the only filmmaker to win top prize at two of the big three European film festival (Sacro GRA won Venice’s Golden Lion) in the 21st century. It was Italy's foreign language submission, too, a rarity for a documentary.
10% Meryl Approved – Meryl Streep’s jury at Berlin last February awarded the film the prestigious Golden Bear, which set it up for a year of festival play and Hollywood buzz. Having Meryl Streep tout your film all over town can’t hurt!
Jose's interview with director Gianfranco Rosi
Amir's review
Amir's Berlin report
Will be released on iTunes in February
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
Raoul Peck’s elegant and eloquent adaptation of James William Baldwin’s unfinished non-fiction book about the history of race in America is equal parts Baldwin bio and historical document about the inherent racism of his homeland.
40% Topicality – Race is clearly a big factor this year with three nominees featuring it as a pivotal theme. The film isn’t just about race, but it’s hard to deny that after the year we have had it is on a lot of people’s minds and when a film does it as well as this one does…
30% A Voice of Reason – How much do we wish we had James Baldwin’s class, elegance, wit and honesty right now? It is impossible to watch the film now and want to know what he would say about everything that is happening across the country and across the world. His interviews, essays and other works are as relevant today as they were then.
20% The Element of Surprise – I mean, it’s an incredible film inside and out, but coming on the heels of 13th and Made in America, it would have been easy to bypass. It turned out to be stealthily one of the best films of the year.
10% Samuel L. Jackson and Raoul Peck – The Haitian-born Peck is an intelligent man and his words on the campaign trail were sobering and important. Jackson, whose voice is the narration of the film, gives one of his best performances in years and he was no doubt out there stumping hard.
Glenn's review
Will be released theatrically on February 3rd
O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA
Ezra Edelstein’s nearly eight-hour epic (some would say TV mini-series, ahem) covers almost every facet of O.J. Simpson, from his beginnings through to the murder of his wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman as well as his life after acquittal.
48% Size and Scope – Made in America is the second longest film ever nominated for an Oscar, beating Bondarchuk's War and Peace by some 35 minutes but not besting the Polish Nights and Days (although I'm unsure of how long the Oscar-winning version of that film actually was). Much was made of how dense and layered Edelman’s film was, and one would hope so with 467 minutes of runtime. It’s size and its scope is obviously not a hindrance, and the documentary branch clearly respected the effort that went into it.
20% O.J. Zeitgeist – It was smart to release this after the FX mini-series had already gotten audiences into a froth over O.J. Simpson and brought not just his trial back to the public conscious, but also all of the issues that came with it.
20% Black Lives Matter – The brutal attack of Rodney King is a pivotal point in both O.J.’s story and, thus, the documentary. That over 20 years later police brutality is still a focus point in the news only underlines why this story is so important.
10% Cult of Celebrity – We clearly live in a time of celebrity worship and Made in America captures the beginning of this modern iteration phenomenon (lest we forget this is where the Kardashian name was first brought to public attention) with fine details.
2% The Future - I wonder if a few voters saw its inclusion and thought that with television and streaming the big future of documentary production and distribution, that success for O.J. here could mean big potential for eligibilities in the future. It's hard to picture other projects of this type following the pattern.
Glenn's review
Available on iTunes (in five parts) or stream on ESPN
LIFE, ANIMATED
Owen Suskind was diagnosed with autism at an early age and inverted into his own world. However, with the help of Disney animated movies, his family finds a way of drawing him out and setting him on a path to independence.
40% Tears – It’s hard to watch Life, Animated and not shed tears. That doesn’t make it a good movie in my eyes, but the emotional wallop it offers is potent.
30% The Weight of the World - In a year of documentaries covering race, gun control, immigration and other important issues, something a little more heart-warming and less weighed down in anxiety-bruising global concerns likely appealed.
20% Personal Reverence – If you have a child suffering from autism or any other form of neurodevelopmental disorder (and it’s not too hard to assume that many in the Academy have) then this film likely would have spoken to them as much as anything else.
10% A Movie About Movies – The documentary branch has been oddly resistant to documentaries about movies (just look at the likes of Stories We Tell, Cameraperson, Hitchcock/Truffaut, Listen to Me Marlon) when you think they’d be all over them. Maybe there are more Disney fans in the branch than we expect, but the story about a young boy using the power of movies to overcome his troubles and heal is a powerful story to filmmakers of any kind.
Glenn's review
Available on iTunes
13th
Ava DuVernay’s Netflix documentary 13th examines how the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery morphed into the American prison system and the mass-incarceration of African Americans.
50% Topicality – Even more so following the election, it’s impossible to not see the relevance of 13th. Race is clearly the most prominent issue of this year’s awards and following #OscarsSoWhite, the doc branch are surely keen to proving there is space of POC in their ranks.
30% Netflix – They have the money to campaign and are now getting a bigger and bigger slice of respect for what they are doing for documentary filmmakers. That the film is out there ready to be streamed at any moment helps (see also documentary short subject where four of the nominees have been streaming for months).
10% Ava DuVernay – The Academy’s documentary branch snapping up the chance to claim DuVernay’s first nomination for themselves. She is the biggest name among the nominees (and the only female director) and bound to get conversation around the category going in the media.
10% 'Trump;s America' – He’s even featured in the film and it makes it memorable.
Glenn's review
Stream on Netflix
What film are you rooting for this year? I think the statue is a race between O.J. and 13th (the streaming element could help when competing against an eight-hour rival). Would you agree?