LAFCA hands their top prize to a series rather than a film with "Small Axe"
Sunday, December 20, 2020 at 7:28PM by Nathaniel R
The Los Angeles Film Critics have spoken awarding two prizes each to Steve McQueen's series Small Axe (film and cinematography), the new adaptation of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (winning both male acting awards), and the controversial rape revenge comedy Promising Young Woman (actress and screenplay). Because I am something of a purist when it comes to movie awards I have to sigh a bit at their reaction to Small Axe. It's like pick a lane, LA critics. You're obviously trying to make a statement that it's a film rather than tv series (and from our understanding it was pitched and produced as the latter and will definitely be considered television for its awards campaign) but if it is one mammoth film why are you also admitting that it's a series by singling out one "episode" for a runner up Best Score prize? So which is it, LA? Or were you arguing amongst yourselves about this during voting...
It's depressing as movies have been hit so hard this year and it feels like a kicking the artform when it's down to deny the top prize to a movie and give it to a series instead. Even if you believe that Small Axe is not a television anthology series but five separate films by the same filmmaker, it is still in no sense of the definition a singular "film". Anyway, their prizes are as such.
BEST FILM Small Axe
Runner up: Nomadland
BEST DIRECTOR Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Runner up: Steve McQueen, Small Axe
Since they couldn't make up their minds as to whether Small Axe was one giant film or five episodes, perhaps it would have been wiser to give Best Film to Nomadland and Best Director to Steve McQueen because making five indivisual movies that are all the singular best seems like you thought he accomplished something extraordinary five times over?
BEST ACTRESS Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Runner up: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
BEST ACTOR Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Runner up: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Glynn Turman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Runner up: Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
Runner up: Amanda Seyfried, Mank
Interesting that both NYFCC and LAFCA gave both of their male acting prizes to one film, Da 5 Bloods (NYFCC) and Ma Rainey (LAFCA), respectively.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Small Axe, Shabiek Kirchner
Runner up: Nomadland, Joshua James Richards
BEST EDITING The Father, Yorgos Lamprimos
Runner up: Time, Gabriel Rhodes
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Mank, Donald Graham Burt
Runner up: Beanpole, Sergey Ivanov
BEST SCORE: Soul
Runner up: Lovers Rock
BEST SCREENPLAY Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
Runner up: Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always
BEST ANIMATED FILM Wolfwalkers
Runner up: Soul
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM Beanpole
Runner up: Martin Eden
BEST DOCUMENTARY / NON-FICTION FILM Time
Runner up: Collective
Time is really cleaning up so far in precursors.
NEW GENERATION: Radha Blank, The 40 Year Old Version
no runner up announced
Strange that in such a rich year for debuts -- they even gave two prizes to a debut film (Promising Young Woman) they didn't offer a runner up citation.
EXPERIMENTAL FILM John Gianvito, Her Socialist Smile
no runner up announced
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Actor/Singer/Activist Harry Belafonte
LEGACY AWARD (their first such award): Norman Lloyd
What do you think of their prizes this year?
Reader Comments (60)
Who do we need to speak to for Radha Blank to get traction not just for First Film, Breakthrough, Next Gen, etc.? How about Best Picture? Best Actress? Best Screenplay?
Preach!
I'm feeling extra salty about the critics awards this season... There's this at LAFCA and then at NYFCC, it almost is like they gave up on movies released after the pandemic struck. A lot of the big prizes went to films released pre-COVID and the ones that didn't went to streaming titles. It feels as if COVID froze the critical discussion in time and they've been memeing about First Cow ever since.
I say all this because, somewhat ironically given how much COVID has plagued the film industry, I've seen more new films this year than in any prior year, all via virtual film festivals. And American critics are virtually silent on all of those films unless they were already in the awards conversation. It really has felt at times like they gave up in March aside for what they had to do for the Oscar race and then just decided to write another thinkpiece on Happiest Season.
Maybe I'm being unfair. I know there are fewer releases this year and that many of them are on streaming sites. But it has felt repeatedly like if you were a small-time (or maybe international) filmmaker who sent your film to a festival or a distributor who took a chance on the online theaters, your film was virtually ignored.
WC, someone needs to buy you a 2020 calendar before it's too late.
I think the point they're making is not that it's a film, but that it's cinema and that they didn't care about the technicalities of distribution, especially in 2020. And I agree. (Doesn't hurt that Small Axe was one of the best things I watched this year.)
Yikes. Yeah had they singled out one entry of Small Axe I don't think I'd be as annoyed (although I'd still consider that to be just one part of an anthology series) but this is just...what? It feels likes the whole OJ: Made in America debate again but now it's spread to narrative film as opposed to documentary.
Excellent choices especially rewarding Small Axe for best picture. Bravo LAFCA.
Such an asinine provocation. I can't stand all these "what is a film anyways" debates people constantly insist on having. I get that theater lockdowns do unavoidably blur things a little but at least some sort of good faith effort to separate film from the TV things would be nice.
Is Chadwick Boseman the first actor to receive critics awards for two different films in different categories in the same year?
I know it’s considered “very important” but Ma Rainey was quite boring. I didn’t believe for a second that Viola was Ma Rainey. Her Juilliard diction overwhelmed and her lip syncing was terrible.
Alright! NIN wins again!!!! Best Score. I always liked the L.A. critics and I'm happy to see that Amanda Seyfried at least got a runner-up mention.
This is not serious. Worse, it is so pretentious! Oh, this is too good to call it TV, let's say it's a movie even though it has chapters (see also Twin Peaks).
Might they be thinking of it like Krzysztof Kieślowski's Dekalog?
Lovers Rock is the best film of 2020, by my estimation. But I tend to think of Steve McQueen's five films as discrete entries. I would not put Education or Alex Wheatle (the weakest of the five) on the same level.
We are approaching a point now where everything is content. In some ways, that's terrifying. In others, it's liberating.
I think McQueen once said he considered Small Axe a long film just like how Lynch saw Twin Peaks:The Return as a movie. Lines are blurring and that is not a bad thing when the quality is this excellent.
This is a dumb award. Small Axe is a tv show. It's almost as though they've missed the past 20 years of tv history and do not realize that tv is home to plenty of exceptionally well-made, thoughtful entertainment.
It was always discussed as Steve McQueen TV-Project. Let's not chance narratives here.
Next year is gonna be controversial in terms of movie awards.
I also agree that a series of films cannot be considered as a whole movie but I think that the real controversy is gonna be the medium in which the films was released.
Many films that was produced by Netflix was planned to be released also in movie theatres but because of the pandemic many titles just was a streaming release and I bet a lot of people including myself watched many titles in TV format but that titles are not gonna be considered because it weren't released in movie theatres.
What gonna happen to films like Nobody Knows I'm Here (which i love, by the way) that was in the line-up from the Tribeca film festival but it released was streaming? It gonna be considered a film or just a TV movie?
Is very unfair that the films considered to awards were just the ones that were a theatre release because this pandemic change the way we watched movies this year.
It was always a mistake to consider Fassbinder's BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ a film (blame Susan Sontag for that) as well as DEKALOG. But they were made by film autuers and they were so much better than what counted as television at the time, that they became honorary members of the Club Cinema. Now we're seeing the results of that: People claiming TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN was a film even though Lynch was pretty clear that it was television (he wouldn't allow every episode to drop at once. He stipulated it had to go out an hour a week.) People pick and choose things that are functionally identical and call one a TV movie (UNCLE FRANK) and the other a film (THE BOYS IN THE BAND). In some ways, those two seem like they should be reversed. It's sad that the victim will be SMALL AXE, since the controversy seems like it's swallowing up the positive PR it might have gotten as an LAFCC winner.
@WC
Guy Lodge said something similar. There was a lot of film this year released in a challenging environment, but critical discussion didn't really accumulate for many of them. It's telling that LA went for Small Axe, given that part of the discussion has to do with "is it film/TV." Literally, the form it's in allows it to increase it's profile (also worth pointing out that in the year of VOD/simultaenous releases, it has the type of release it was always going to have). But it's such a double edged sword. If you take a look at Sight and Sound's top 40/50 list, it contains slightly over half it's usual foreign language film entries this year as compared to years past. Critics as curators struggled more this year than I ever recalled. I'm looking at top ten lists to really see what I should attempt to see but I'm less enthuiastic about doing so.
@ Peggy Sue
Yeah, agreed. I'm not someone who needs discrete rules or anything. I'll put things on consecutive top ten lists. I'll increase the number of nominees I have in any given category if I feel. And frankly, the lines will blur now with streaming being a first run mode of delivery for so many works. That said, I'll remind myself of Nick Davis' words and just try not to emphasize this debate over the actual work(s) themselves.
@StephenM
Jessica Lange in 1982 comes closest, with some separate citations for Frances in lead but no wins.
Unpopular Opinion: if you made a movie that is intended to stream on a platform, its in line for the Emmys not Oscars regardless of limited theater runs.
STEVE MCQUEEN HIMSELF considers all of Small Axe five feature films. How Amazon is choosing to campaign them is unimportant if the director considers them films. Are you going to tell McQueen that he is wrong? LAFCA made the right call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhxc0IhTCyo
Watch starting at around 20:50 for McQueen's own discussion on the topic. Given that all the cinema I've seen this year has been at home, the hand-wringing of today's the awards for Small Axe is frankly exhausting and condescending. Especially when the outcome of these awards encourages more people to watch the films.
Nathaniel, I love it when you get snarky. 😊
Well, maybe this is the conversation they wanted us to be having.
@Seeking Amy That only goes so far. Directors aren't the final judge of their work. The audience (including critics) is. Jordan Peele said GET OUT was a documentary. I don't think he would have gotten very far if he had tried to get it classified as one for the "best documentary" Oscar a few years ago.
The Emmys committee has stated that if a film is submitted for consideration for the Oscars, it will automatically be inelligible for the Emmys. What will McQueen do? What award will he choose and shoot for?
Void99,
What does NIN stand for ?
@Dan Humphrey
I don't think Peele literally meant "Get Out" was a documentary. They reality of many Black people having to navigate both explicit and implicit racism, including from supposed is very real just going down better in fictional form.
Also the reality is, if LAFCC found a film they liked better, they would have voted for it, so clearly they did not.
What Dan Humphrey Said! Perfect Logic!
@Dan Humphrey - That comparison doesn’t work. This is not a matter of a director saying what genre a film is, this is a classification. A classification that yes is incredibly /blurry but arbitrary especially given the very limited theatrical releases this year. As far audiences being the final judge, sure they can judge whether or not they think it’s good but straight up basically calling a director a liar because they say their work is a film is a whole other ball game. It’s arrogant, and uncomfortably oppressive especially when talking about a black director whose LAFCA-winning work revolves around black lives.
@ Marshako
Exactly. Peele's remark was dripping with sarcasm.
@Brandon: it is not so much unpopular as it is obsolete.
I thought the Best Picture award was an excellent choice. Adequately controversial for these disruptive times.
Feel kinda sad tt Small Axe controversial win is sucking all the oxygen in the room, thr r still other winners we shld rally around! 😔
I'm so happy for the wins o Promising Young Woman Minari!! Go Carey Go!! 😚😘
I found the LAFCA and NYFCC choices this year quite obvious and disappointing. I also expected some support for Mads Mikkelsen, who should definitely be nominated for Best Actor this year.
NIN = Nine Inch Nails
Great news for Mulligan and Turman!
@Seeking Amy So if the director of the 2014 argentinian anthology film "Wild Tales" had said that he considered his film a mini series, he should have competed at the EMMYs even though the film was shown in cinemas? i don't think that it would be oppressive if they denied his claim.
It’s exciting seeing Mulligan here and her gaining buzz. Pre-pandemic her film was slated for an April release and didn’t seem Like a best actress player at all - more like it was headed to be a modest box office hit. However, she’s now positioned as a real contender.
@Seeking Amy. The Peele example is of course an extreme one (with Peele obviously making his point tongue in cheek) but the point stands. Artists are too close to their own work, Black or white, to be objective. To listen to Hitchcock after 1958, Vertigo was a failure. To listen to Woody Allen Manhattan was a failure (and Stardust Memories was his best film.) You say it's a matter of classification. Yes. In this case you're right. But classifications are based on objective criteria, not simply what a director says about their own work. A director can say his film is a short, but if it's over so many minutes long, the MPAAS can say, "not to us." In the past, a film would count as a film if it played in theaters. This year that's off. Does anyone really think Small Axe would have opened in theaters in a normal year? And bringing the specter of racism into the discussion, as if anyone who disagrees with McQueen on whether or not Small Axe is a film or TV, is an incredibly cheap ploy not worthy of this discussion board.
Isn't Carey Mulligan too white for critics awards?
This is a tiring discussion. Haven't the lines been blurring for years now?
Many "television" series like Louie, Master of None, High Maintenance, Better Things, Random Acts of Flyness, Little America, are essentially a collection of short films.
Is the distinction about the content or the distribution? If it's about distribution, well, with theaters closed, nothing would be considered a film this year. If it's about the content, then many works that air on television would be considered films.
I just don't get where people want to draw the line. If we're going to be theater purists and say that every single release has to play in a theater to be considered a film, you're discounting plenty of straight to demand releases, including some Netflix originals that DON'T get a theatrical release. The great film 'Tramps' from 2016 comes to mind. It played at Toronto, was bought by Netflix, and then was given a straight to streaming release. Is that not a film because it was only released on Netflix?
Small Axe is not a television series. It is a collection of short films. You don't need to watch one to understand the other. There is no continuing story. Sounds like LA Film Critics wanted to honor them all. If there's any controversy, it's just that they didn't rename their category to "Best Pictures" instead of "Best Picture."
Filmmakers are able to experiment now more than ever, and the plethora of distribution platforms give them leeway to make whatever they want. To suggest that some should stay in the television lane, and others stay in the film lane, is becoming increasingly arbitrary.
No, they haven't
"It is a collection of short films" No, they're not. The first episode is 127 minutes.
Interesting that Critics still like to give design kudos to the fanciest Mank, which does look great
rather than Small Axe which while gritty is brilliantly designed
Glad to see Glynn Turman get some recognition. Hope it translates to an Oscar nomination.
Hope Boseman wins supporting so Hopkins can win lead as he should despite being white and alive.
Turman is such a fantastic and inspired choice. Not sure it bodes well for Davis Oscar win-wise if she couldn't triumph with both he and Boseman prevailing here but we'll see.
I agree 100% that LAFCA’s choice for Best Picture is ludicrous. Miniseries now eligible? What’s next, reality television? How about Donald Trump’s 2020 news conferences individually or collectively?
Peggy -- i was talking about this to someone else offline too. It's almost like these provocations are based on the belief that TV is inferior therefore if it's great it's cinema. And that is so cheap and so wrong about television, which has its own masterpieces. (i can't believe *I* am the one who has to keep pointing this out since i've been criticized for years for people thinking that i think of television as "lesser than" simply because i'm a movie guy. Believing they are two separate artforms is not degrading one of them. It's just pointing out that there are differences. And If something made for television is great, there are awards for that and you can win them!
But even if you, unlike me, think of SMALL AXE as five films it should in no way be eligilbe for a singular best film prize. That's so unfair to every other single film. It's like giving saying THREE COLORS was the best film of 1994... totally unfair to compare 3 separate movies by Kieslowski to like Pulp Fiction or Shawshank Redemption or Heavenly Creatures or whatever other movies came out that year.
Seeking Amy -- it's not "oppressive" to say that SMALL AXE should be rewarded Emmys rather than Oscars when in fact that's what it's campaigning for (the Emmys) -- so to say so is to support its award dreasm -- especially when the whole thing was designed and funded as a tv anthology series. The fact that McQueen decided at some point that he had more material than he thought (and the installments became feature-length) does not change the origins of the project. I love McQueen for what it's worth and would be happy if he won an Emmy to go with his Oscar. I've been nominating his stuff for years here at TFE right from his debut film. But i feel no need to pretend that something he pitched as an anthology series in multiple installments is now suddenly a singular film merely because film critics like it and a couple of the installments premiered at Cannes (most film festivals now show a few tv projects nodding to the blurring of the lines).
Joseph -- i get that you believe that it's arbitrary (i can see that argument) but then what would you propose awards bodies do? self-disband? not focus on the artform they built themselves around? just have a free for all and vote however they like with no rules? I'm genuinely curious as to what people who feel this way want the future to look like in terms of awards.
This reeks of television bias, and that kind of thinking in 2020 sickens me. It's only "film" b/c a world-class British auteur did it. Otherwise, back to the second-class labeling of calling it the "boob tube" and all the negative connotations associated with that. Television and streaming has been where the heat is at for years now eclipsing film. The lines blurred long before covid and will continue to blur whether people like it or not, but let's play fair and clearly define the parameters. "Small Axe" is no more a "film" than "Watchmen" is. LAFCA tried to be cute, I'll give them that, but just saying "that's 2020 for ya!" doesn't quite cut it. It also unfairly overshadows some other outstanding winners no one's talking about like Chadwick Boseman and GLYNN TURMAN! Come on, guys!!!
And Peele clearly was talking tongue-in-cheek about "Get Out" being a documentary. He fully knows the difference between fictive works of art and nonfiction. "Social horror" genre as a construct is still fiction in this case. Don't be disingenuous and daft.
@Nathaniel -- I think that's an interesting question and I don't know if I have an answer. The awards bodies themselves have been trying to grapple with this by consistently changing their rules, and the Emmys in particular, by changing the names of categories to reflect the reality of the content they're evaluating.
On a more micro level, it's the same argument with Best International Film. Let's put aside the rules that are in place, for a moment, and think about it more broadly. Should what qualify be a film that's not in the English language, a film that simply hails from another country that isn't the United States? In an increasingly global world where content is shared and spread across borders, and in a country like the US that is becoming more diverse, what defines International? Foreign?
There's plenty of English in Bacurau, a film set in Brazil by a Brazilian filmmaker, but also a French co-production. Not uncommon. Most people would say it's a Brazilian film because the filmmaker is Brazilian, but what if the filmmaker lived in the United States or Europe?
It's all so fluid.
I guess awards bodies might have to be more flexible with their thinking, as the Oscars clearly did this year by finally acknowledging films that aren't released in theaters.
One solution? The Emmys do away with the Outstanding Television Movie category, and the Oscars expand their scope to recognize any film made and released, regardless of distribution. Would that solve all the problems? No. But it could be a start in the right direction.
So depressing they did this with Small Axe,it's not even that good.
The film vs television debate is obnoxious, precisely because none of this is all that confusing. Small Axe was released in installments on a weekly basis and is being marketed as the "Small Axe miniseries." That makes it television. That makes it an anthology miniseries. That's all there is to it.
Doesn't matter that each chapter is feature length. UK shows have a habit of producing 90 minute episodes sometimes (see Sherlock). Does that make them movies? No.
The differences between film and television are plainly obvious, and attempts to conflate the two or debate the difference are intellectually disingenuous.