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)
I was disappointed in this selection, too, though it doesn't diminish my wish to see Small Axe once the Oscar season is over. (I don't remember how "Carlos" was distributed, but they gave their Actor prize to Edgar Ramirez some years ago.) But I agree that, in a tumultuous year for theaters/cinema spaces, this was such an opportunity to honor smaller films that weren't going to have the luxury or option of doing much more than substituting a small theater run with streaming. The lines are blurry, for sure, but some of them were much clearer than others. (I didn't know the terrific Sound of Metal, which I saw only last night, was part of the 2019 Toronto festival but didn't get distribution until this year--Paul Raci higher on the Supporting chart, please!) Bottom line, though, is how AMPAS looks at it and those lines look pretty solid for this year.
@Tony Ruggio -- No disrespect, but this sounds like you want a simple way of looking at something that is becoming more complex. "The differences between film and television are plainly obvious, and attempts to conflate the two or debate the difference are intellectually disingenuous." Clearly they aren't, or we wouldn't be having the discussion. Why are they so obvious? Small Axe isn't technically television, if you want to go that route, because it was released on a streaming platform.
Well, that's condescending. (And false.)
@Working Stiff. I'm with Dan on this one. Have you ever even read an interview with a filmmaker? More than two or three? They're often the first to say they can't be objective about their work.
Some of you really need to stop hero worshiping artists and realize they're human beings like the rest of us. If some filmmaker came along and said "A.O. Scott is an idiot. My new film is an f***ing masterpiece," would you just nod and go, "well he directed it. He would know."
@ Mikko
As an artist myself, I can be objective about my work—at least objective enough to characterize it and talk about it intelligently. I leave the critique and enjoyment of it to others, of course. And yes, I have read interviews with more than three filmmakers. I've even conducted a few, fancy that.
Here's what it comes down to for me: If J.J. Abrams came along and said, "I really think of LOST as a 118 hour film," would David Bordwell be expected to add it to his textbook, FILM HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION, and would we take it out of the textbooks about television history? I think the answer is pretty clear.
Every time I teach a film analysis class, at some point, a student, rolling his eyes at "reading too much into everything," points out that Robert Frost once said (supposedly, I've never found the reference) that his poems don't have any deep meaning. "He said 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' is just about a guy walking home."
As if that settles it.
@Joseph
Silly discussions and debates occur on Film Twitter every day. The existence of the debate does not lend it any credence. Small Axe is television by virtue of it being released chapter by chapter under a single moniker and theme i.e. an anthology miniseries. The streaming platform has nothing to do with it. That being said, if Small Axe had been released simultaneously in theaters, that would complicate things.
Hmm, I just saw LAFCA's decision being of a piece with the many, many *film* critics' "best of 2020" lists that include SMALL AXE (with LOVERS ROCK usually, but not always, singled out). I was actually thinking I'd probably do something similar with my own top 10 list, whenever I'm able to make it, but also fully cognizant that I'd be kind of cheating by lumping all five films together when they really are discrete entries, and not all of equal strength, though they also all benefit by being seen close together. (If I had to choose one of the five, I'd actually pick MANGROVE over LOVERS ROCK.)
The category question is complicated, I think, and not just because of the pandemic factor and how it's impacted theatrical releases, since I assume McQueen and Amazon were never planning a regular theatrical release anyway. But I disagree with Tony R that "the differences between film and television are plainly obvious," especially when it comes to this series. Wasn't there just a post about this topic? Would you say FANNY AND ALEXANDER was "clearly" TV if that's how it had been released first?
If anything, it feels like McQueen's created a new genre here. Both the individual installments and the collective total of SA *feel* cinematic in a way that other limited and anthology series I've seen do not, and I think that's what critics and LAFCA are responding to. It's not reflective of "TV" having second-class status - that is so very 20th century.
zig -- i'm where you are. I really want to see SMALL AXE (as i've loved every film McQueen has made) but during Oscar season i simply have to prioritize and i always fall very behind on television. I catch up with TV in the spring before the Emmys.
The "seasons" are another reason I think this discussion is disingenousness. Had Small Axe been released in the spring it would have been nominated for a bunch of Emmys and not a single critic would be like "IT'S THE BEST FILM OF 2020" -- I mean you didn't hear any of them arguing that for any of the GREAT Emmy contenders from the summer (like, say, Unorthodox which is brilliant). It's only because the five telefilms emerged right when the Oscars contenders are arriving that people are making this argument. well, that and the fact that Steve McQueen is known best as a film artist.
It should be noted that Small Axe is also airing on one of the BBC networks in the UK. It's television.
I'm more interested in the lines blurred between cinema and "made-for-TV" movies. Earlier this year HBO's Bad Education was nominated for Emmys, but for me it's a movie-movie. Cory Finley intended it for theatrical release, but they ended up taking HBO's high offer instead.