Despite some semi-shocking results in the major categories, this year's Oscars were relatively surprise-free. Sure, the Best Original Song choice was unexpected, but there are very few precursors for that particular category, leaving it always a bit up in the air. Only one "below the line" or "technical" category managed to shock me. That was the Cinematography race. While David Fincher's Mank had nabbed the ASC prize, I assumed Nomadland would get an easy win on Oscar night. After all, it swept the critics' prizes, won the BAFTA the production went into the ceremony as the Best Picture frontrunner. Nomadland even won that last one. Nevertheless, Joshua James Richards' poetic landscapes were ignored in favor of Erik Messerschmidt's silvery monochrome for Mank...
The conclusion to this specific race is even crazier when one considers that the Fincher flick was Messerschmidt's first feature. That being said, Mank's in black-and-white, making it part of a trend to (over?)reward grayscale cinema at the Oscars. If you want to win a Cinematography Oscar, don't forget to drain the color out of your picture. Would Nomadland have won if it had been shot in black-and-white? Last year, I explored how AMPAS has been infatuated with monochrome cinematography, going so far as to nominate such a hostile, complicated art film as The Lighthouse. Furthermore, because Parasite was re-released in black-and-white, I also made a photo collection examining how each Best Picture nominee would look in glorious black-and-white. Inspired by those past write-ups, here's a collection of screenshots from the other Best Picture nominees, four of which were defeated by Mank in this category...
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JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Cinematography by Sean Bobbitt
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NEWS OF THE WORLD
Cinematography by Dariusz Wolski
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NOMADLAND
Cinematography by Joshua James Richards
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THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
Cinematography by Phedon Papamichael
It's fascinating to examine how crucial color is to Nomadland's aesthetic, its warm landscapes and chilly skies, how The Trial of the Chicago 7 gains potency in monochrome, how News of the World needs the yellow blare of the sun. Because I love taking screenshots, I went a step further than these black-and-white samples of the Cinematography nominees. What would the remaining Best Picture contenders look like in black-and-white? If one of them had made that creative jump, maybe we could have had a radically different race. Who knows? In any case, here's a sampling of the Oscar class of 2020 in black-and-white_
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THE FATHER
Cinematography by Ben Smithard
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MINARI
Cinematography by Lachlan Milne
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PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN
Cinematography by Benjamin Kracun
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SOUND OF METAL
Cinematography by Daniel Bouquet
Do you think any of these films would have been better in black-and-white?