Will "Anatomy of a Fall" sweep the Césars?

by Nathaniel R

a snapshot from "Anatomy of a Fall"

The nominations for the 49th annual César Awards came out nearly simultaneously to the Oscar nominations so we accidentally missed them. Je suis désolé. As you would surely expect, Justine Triet's Oscar nominated Anatomy of a Fall is also a big deal across the pond. But it didn't top the nominations. That honor went to Thomas Cailley's mutant adventure The Animal Kingdom. Perhaps the biggest surprise / disconnect for those of us viewing from overseas is that France's unfortunately not-nominated Oscar submission The Taste of Things shows up in only two craft categories; if it wasn't well-loved at home, why did they submit it? But also: why didn't they love it? It's exquisite.

The ceremony will be held on February 23rd this year in Paris. The nominations, some trivia, and a few comments are after the jump...

BEST FILM

"Animal Kingdom" leads the nominations

• All Your Faces (9 nominations)
  A drama about victims and preperators of violent crime in a restorative justice group.
  
  
• Anatomy of a Fall (11 nominations)
  The Palme D'Or winning courtroom drama about a woman suspected of killing her husband. Also up for 7 BAFTAs and 5 Oscars this season. It swept the European Film Awards and won two Golden Globes. Are the Césars next in its victory tour?  
  
  
• The Animal Kingdom (12 nominations)
  Sci-fi fantasy about a world where humans have started to mutate into animals. It's still waiting on a US release.
  
  
• The Goldman Case (8 nominations) 
  Another courtroom drama. This one is about a French left-wing revolutionary convicted of robberies. 
  
  
• Junkyard Dog (7 nominations)
  The only comedy in the mix (albeit a very dark comedy). A love triangle. There's a dog in it but the protagonist is also named "Dog". 

Sadly only Anatomy of a Fall has any US presence though The Animal Kingdom will play at the annual "Rendezvous with French Cinema" here in NYC soon. They were two of the five finalists for France's Oscar submission this year. Sadly, The Taste of Things (the film they submitted) didn't land in either country in terms of big nominations. Strange. The other two finalists for the submission --  On the Wandering Paths and Sons of Ramses --  received zero nominations at the Césars, which only serves to remind us that "timing" is everything with awards seasons all over the world. Films, no matter their quality, only have windows of time when voters are interested in honoring them. Vote in a different month, see different results! 

BEST DIRECTOR
(stats from all categories) 

"Last Summer" from director Catherine Breillat

• Jeanne Henry (6 nominations)  - All Your Faces
• Justine Triet (5 nominations) - Anatomy of a Fall
• Thomas Cailley (6 nominations, 1 previous win) - The Animal Kingdom
• Cédric Kahn (2 nominations*) - The Goldman Case
• Catherine Breillat (2 nominations*) - Last Summer

A majority female Best Director list this year. Cailley previously won "Best First Film"

* The ever controversial Breillat, of Fat Girl, Romance, and Anatomy of  Hell fame, scores her very first (and second) nominations at home for writing and directing Last Summer which is about a sexual relationship between a woman and her step-son.  The less famous Cédric Kahn is also a first time nominee that's double-dipping this year. His previous films include The Prayer, Wild Life, and Too Much Happiness.

BEST ACTRESS

"Just the Two of Us" scores Virginie Efira a fourth consecutive Best Actress nomination

• Marion Cotillard (8th nom, 2 previous wins) - Little Girl Blue
• Léa Drucker (2nd nom, 1 previous win) - Last Summer
• Virginie Efira (7th nom, 1 previous win) - Just the Two of Us
• Hafsia Herzi (2nd nom, 1 previous win) - The Rapture
• Sandra Hüller (first nomination) - Anatomy of a Fall

Interesting trivia bits in this category: Marion Cotillard's nomination comes from a documentary (!!!) about the French writer and photographer Carole Achache. She plays Achache; This is Virginie Efira's 4th consecutive nomination (she won last year). We're obsessed with her and we wish more people would catch on outside of France; Hafsia Herzi was nominated for "Most Promising Actress" back in 2008, and she finally joins the top category; And of course freshly Oscar nominated actress Sandra Hüller is the sole first time nominee. Which makes sense she's a German movie star. At home in Germany, Hüller is an awards season regular with 7 nominations / 3 wins at the German Film Awards. 

BEST ACTOR

"Yannick" scored nominations for both Pio Marmaï (left) and Raphaël Quenard (right)

• Romain Duris (7th nom)  - The Animal Kingdom
• Benjamin Lavernhe (4th nom) - Abbé Pierre, A Century of Devotion
• Melvil Poupaud (5th nom)  - Just the Two of Us
• Raphaël Quenard (first nomination*) - Yannick
• Arieh Worthalter (first nomination)- The Goldman Case

Exciting category since none of them have ever won and the first three are major stars in France. You might remember Worthalter as the kind father in the Belgian trans drama Girl (2018).

* Raphaël Quenard is double nominated this year since he also shows up in "Most Promising Actor" for a different film. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Miou-Miou and Leîla Bekthi in "All Your Faces"

• Leïla Bekhti (5th nom) - All Your Faces
• Galatea Bellugi (2nd nom) - Junkyard Dog
• Élodie Bouchez (4th nom, 2 previous wins) - All Your Faces
• Adèle Exarchopoulos (4th nom, 1 previous win) - All Your Faces
• Miou-Miou (11th nom, 1 previous win) - All Your Faces

All Your Faces just shot to the top of our "Must-See" list if it's worthy of 80% of the Supporting Actress category. Also Miou-Miou is here! She was Isabelle Huppert's other half in the Oscar nominated Entre Nous (1984), and she took the César for Best Actress for  Memoirs of a French Whore (1979) 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Swann Arlaud in "Anatomy of a Fall"

• Swann Arlaud (4th nom, 2 previous wins) - Anatomy of a Fall
• Anthony Bajon (3rd nom)  - Junkyard Dog
• Arthur Harari (first acting nomination*)- The Goldman Case
• Pio Marmaï (6th nom) - Yannick
• Antoine Reinartz (2nd nom) - Anatomy of a Fall

Arlaud & Reinartz are enemies in the courtroom in Anatomy of a Fall. If the prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) looked familiar to you, it might be because he was part of the brilliant ensemble of the masterful AIDS/Act Up drama 120 BPM (2017).

* Harari is an Oscar nominee this year for co-writing Anatomy of a Fall with his life partner Justine Triet (also a writer/director of course). He has 5 other César nominations and 1 win (writing/director categories). 

MOST PROMISING ACTRESS

Ella Rumpf in "Marguerite's Theorem"

• Céleste Brunnquell (2nd nom in this category) - No Love Lost
• Kim Higelin (feature debut)  - Consent
• Suzanne Jouannet (second feature) - The Royal Way
• Rebecca Marder (lots of movies / 2nd consecutive nom in this category) - Grand Expectations
• Ella Rumpf (several movies) - Marguerite's Theorem

The youngest competitor here is Brunnquell who is a tv/stage/film actress. She's just 21. (Her co-star in No Love Lost is the wonderful multilingual international actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart who plays her young father). You might remember Ella Rumpf for the cannibalism drama Raw (2016) which made small waves. Rebecca Marder's nominations lead us to ask "when do people age out of this category?" She's 28. Made her feature debut at 6 years old and has been working regularly on TV since 2010 and regularly in feature films since 2018.

MOST PROMISING ACTOR

• Julien Frison (several movies, first nomination) - Marguerite's Theorem
• Paul Kircher (4th feature, 2nd consecutive nom in this category) - The Animal Kingdom
• Samuel Kircher (feature debut) - Last Summer
• Milo Machado Graner (3rd feature) - Anatomy of a Fall
• Raphaël Quenard (several movies, double-nominated this year)- Junkyard Dog

This category skews a bit newer/younger than the parallel actress category but not by much. Frison is a 30 year old Belgian and has been a professional actor since he was 14. Paul (age 22) and Samuel Kircher (age 19), nominated for different movies, are the sons of 90s movie star  Irène Jacob (of Three Colors: Red, The Double Life of Veronica fame) and actor Jérôme Kircher. And of course you know 15 year old Milo Machado Graner, the youngest in the category, from his riveting performance as the blind son in the international hit Anatomy of a Fall.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• All Your Faces
• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Animal Kingdom
• The Goldman Cases
• Junkyard Dog

It's the Best Film list in its entirety

 BEST ADAPTATION

• Consent
• Just the Two of Us
• Last Summer

All three of these films are about inappropriate relationships; France is going through something!   Consent is about a relationship between a teenage girl and a writer in his 50s. Last Summer is about a woman in a relationship with her step-son. Just the Two of Us, is a thriller about a toxic relationship.

BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM

• Bernadette
• Junkyard Dog
• The Rapture
• Vermin
• Vincent Must Die

Bernadette is about the former First Lady of France and stars Catherine Deneuve. Vincent Must Die sounds fun. It's a dark comedy about a man everyone suddenly wants to kill for inexplicable reasons. The Rapture is a drama about a midwife who passes off someone else's baby as her own. And Vermin is a horror film about spiders infesting an apartment building. 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Eva Green in "The Three Musketeers - Part II: Milady"

• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Animal Kingdom
• The Goldman Cases
• The Taste of Things
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady

César apparently allows two films to compete as one film. Two installments of a new Three Musketeers trilogy are nominated in multiple crafts category as one film. So what do they do when the third part arrives? Does it count as its own film? This kind of complication will eventually affect the Oscars, too, since so many movies try to be franchises now.

The Three Musketeers is filled with Francophone stars if you're into that: François Civil (D'Artagnan), Vincent Cassel (Athos), Romain Duris (Aramis), Pio Marmaï (Porthos) are the four Musketeers. Then there's Eva Green (Milady), Louis Garrel (Louis XIII), Vicky Krieps (Anne d'Autriche), Lyna Khoudri (Constance), Jacob Fortune Lloyd (Duke of Buckingham), Eric Ruf (Cardinal of Richelieu), Julien Frison (Gaston) and more...

BEST EDITING

• All Your Faces
• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Animal Kingdom
• The Goldman Case
• Little Girl Blue

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• The Animal Kingdom
• The Crime is Mine
• Jeanne Du Barry
• The Taste of Things
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

"Jeanne Du Barry"

• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Animal Kingdom
• Jeanne Du Barry
• The Taste of Things
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady

You may recall Jeanne Du Barry briefly made headlines around Cannes time since Johnny Depp co-stars with the director Maiwenn. Now it has two César nominations.

BEST SOUND

• All Your Faces
• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Animal Kingdom
• The Goldman Cases
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady

BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC

• The Animal Kingdom
• Disco Boy
• Junkyard Dog
• Just the Two of Us
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady

Disco Boy, which opens in the US next week, stars ubiquitous German actor Franz Rogowski (Passages, Great Freedom, etc). Since his breakout film (In Transit) a handful of years ago he's made 14 movies. 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Acid
• The Animal Kingom
• The Mountain
• The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan / The Three Musketeers: Milady
• Vermin

BEST FOREIGN FILM

"Oppenheimer"

• Fallen Leaves (Finland)
• Kidnapped (Italy)
• The Nature of Love (Canada)
• Oppenheimer (US/UK)
• Perfect Days (Japan)

Considering they're giving the Honorary César to Chris Nolan this year, this category is probably easy to predict. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

• Atlantic Bar
• Four Daughters
• Little Girl Blue
• Our Body
• On the Adamant

This category has existed since 2007 at the Césars. Four Daughters does not mark the first time that a documentary has been nominated for both the César and the Oscar but it's still a fun and not that regular occurence over the past 17 years. Only five films have done it so far: The Salt of the Earth, Fire At Sea, I Am Not Your Negro, Faces Places, and now Four Daughters. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• L'Acteur, ou la surprenante vertu de l'incompréhension
• L'Effect de mis rides
• La méchanique des fluides

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Chicken for Linda!
• Mars Express
• No Dogs or Italians Allowed

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

• Drôles d'oiseaux
• Été 96
• La forêt de mademoiselle Tang

BEST SHORT

• L'Attente
• Bolero
• Rapide
• Les Silencieux

HONORARY CÉSAR

• Agnes Jaoui
• Christopher Nolan

Chris Nolan? When it comes to awards season, when it's your year, it's your year. 

Comments

[Cláudio Alves]

There have been some recent updates in the French press about how the selection of TASTE OF THINGS happened, including a split committee vote between it and ANATOMY OF A FALL. I'll write something on that and Justine Triet's questionable reactions as a follow-up to this announcement, maybe tomorrow.

Especially since Tran Anh Hung's film is about to enjoy a limited release in American theaters. It doesn't deserve the vitriol and dismissals it's been getting. It feels like its makers are being punished for a decision that wasn't up to them.

[Cláudio Alves]

That said, I'm pleased about many of these nominations. LAST SUMMER deserves all this and more. How it won nothing at Cannes is beyond me.

But there are also some confounding choices. Whoever voted JEANNE DU BARRY for Costume Design needs to have their eyes checked.

[Frank Zappa]

Worthalter is the youngest nominee [in Best Actor] this year at 38.

Quennard (pictured) is 32.

[Jason Cooper]

I can’t stand Catherine Breillat. Massive surprise to see her new film is about a woman getting it on with her stepson. Shock of this young year, that. 🙄

[Fabio Dantas Flappers]

All I know is that Raphaël Quenard is HOT!!! ❤️❤️🔥🔥

[Cláudio Alves]

Of course genre, as everything in art, is subjective, but I must say that JUNKYARD DOG doesn't strike me as a comedy. It feels closer to social realist drama, almost like a Gallic spin on the kitchen sinks of British tradition. At least, to me, ANATOMY OF A FALL feels more deliberately comedic than the Quenard-starring character study. I guess there are a lot of "jokes" in the so-called comedy, but they are almost all manifest as acts of cruelty from one man against his friend.

I should also warn people who might watch it expecting light fare: It dramatizes animal cruelty, including an emotionally gushing scene near the end, complete with some visceral sound effects.

[Mr Ripley79]

I only have one thing to say Sandra Huller.

[Owl]

Glad to see Miou-Miou nominated -- my family loves this actress through the years.

Surprised that two roles of Isabelle Huppert did not land nominations -- La Syndicaliste (lead) and Mon Crime (supporting). I remember watching Mon Crime in a tiny Quad theatre and people were laughing out loud at certain scenes involving Odette Chaumette (Huppert).

[Wae Mest]

The Kircher brothers are sooo cute!!!

[Thomas Frovin]

LAST SUMMER is a remake of May elToukhy's QUEEN OF HEARTS with Trine Dyrholm (2019). It was Denmark's shortlisted Oscar bid that year.

[César Gaytán]

What are exactly the rules or the purpose of the Promising Actor categories?

I find so weird that Ella Rumpf have been nominated when her breaktrough performance was 8 years ago, and to read that Céleste Brunnquell have a SECOND nomination makes me wonder: how many nominations you can have as "promising" before to make the jump to the "official" categories?

You can be an eternal promise?

[Frank Zappa]

...how many nominations you can have as "promising" before to make the jump to the "official" categories?

You can be nominated in Promising and "official" at the same time. See Quennard this year.

[Joe G.]

I find it so strange that Romain Duris has never won. He's a great leading man and has given fairly interesting performances throughout his career. I haven't seen his film so I don't know what his chances are, but at least it's also nominated for the top prize. Maybe he'll finally get his award. He's also been snubbed multiple times when his films have been strong contenders (e.g., Paris, The Spanish Apartment), so he just has an odd relationship.

Although Huller is German, I think it's hard to see her losing. Every actress who was nominated for a French Language role this century ended up winning the top prize at the Cesars.