Oscar Volleys: Best Director Looks Like Baker v Corbet
Friday, February 28, 2025 at 2:00PM The Oscar Volleys are back for some post-nomination talks. Today, Eric Blume and Nick Taylor discuss the Best Actor race...
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN | © Searchlight Pictures
ERIC: Ha! That's a great launch, and congrats on that beautifully structured opening statement!
I think all but Mangold are richly deserving nominees. I'm still not over the shock of his nomination, not because he made a bad film (it's a fine piece of Hollywood entertainment), but rather as you reference, I thought the Director branch had long steered clear of these types of nominations and were into rewarding much more ambitious efforts. In the last years, they've repeatedly gone for the surprise or on-the-bubble brilliant choices of Jonathan Glazer, Justine Triet, Todd Field, Ruben Östlund, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Thomas Vinterberg, Lee Isaac Chung, and Pawel Pawlikoswki. On nomination morning, none of those incredible directors were guaranteed a slot, and the Directors branch repeatedly showed their great taste by picking these artists expertly executing singular visions. Mangold just feels regressive...to your point, more along the lines of Todd Phillips, Mel Gibson, et al, who delivered sturdy Hollywood pictures. It's a bit of a mystery.
I am a huge fan of Jacques Audiard. I think The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, and Rust and Bone are all spectacular films. It's thrilling to see him get this kind of recognition. I'm a big fan of Emilia Pérez, but the last thing the internet needs is further discussion on that movie at this moment. I think that's the only area where we probably agree to disagree, although it seems we do at least agree on Audiard's "sheer ambition". And that's what the Directors branch responded to, obviously. It's what all those other mentioned directors had, too.
EMILIA PÉREZ | © Netflix
Before we get into the Fargeat/Corbet/Baker discussion...agreed, three very exciting filmmakers doing some amazing work in their pictures, who is someone you would have chosen for his slot? My choice would be Mohammad Rasoulof for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I've championed here in other articles. Even if you take out the fact that making his movie cost him his homeland, he delivered a brutal takedown of his own nation in a bold and brave way, directing the four central actors to beautiful natural performances. And it's still nuts to me that Denis Villeneuve has never been nominated for Director to date! Your thoughts?
NICK: I'm with you on Mohammad Rasoulof, who would've been an inspired pick. My personal dream was Payal Kapadia for All We Imagine as Light showing up at the Oscars just like she did with the Golden Globes - that might be my single favorite nomination from this whole awards season. It's such a feat of intimate humanity, situating its three primary story threads amidst a larger poem about the conditions that make a city into a home or a temporary stop, even if that stop lasts for decades. We love a city symphony that's neither cynical nor rose-colored, and the formal ingenuity is just magnificent. Way outside the possibility of Oscar's attention but worth shouting out while I can: Víctor Erice for Close Your Eyes, Vera Drew for The People's Joker, Rose Glass for Love Lies Bleeding, Lois Patiño for Samsara, Mati Diop for Dahomey, Jane Schoenbrun for I Saw the TV Glow, all formidable feats of direction worth all the praise I could heap on them.
But that's enough listing names for now! Among films already recognized by Oscar, I'd have loved to see RaMell Ross's adventurous direction of Nickel Boys recognized, bucking convention so completely to find a new cinematic language. If we’re talking about adored blockbusters that somehow never mustered much heat in this category, I’m genuinely surprised Jon M. Chu was so overlooked this season. Wicked’s not the best-directed movie of the year, but as far as helming a beloved musical property with real momentum, and getting such charismatic performances from its three marquee roles - there's plenty in casting and design to ding it, but nothing this branch hasn't embraced before. If Wicked: Part Two sticks the landing, I hope it gives him an opportunity to get his flowers.
But I am genuinely curious, since you're clearly a much bigger fan of Emilia Pérez than I am: Where would you rank Audiard in this category? Do you feel he should be contending for the win? Do you think he's still contending, despite the recent unpleasantness? I said a lot about my discrepancies with the film in my Split Decision piece with Juan Carlos and Lynn Lee, so I'm not gonna rag on it again here (unless you really want me to). I know you've been pretty tight-lipped about the film, and if you wanna keep damming those floodgates, so be it, but I'm genuinely curious how you feel about Audiard's nomination.
ERIC: Personally, I'd include RaMell Ross in the company of artists who did not realize "success at realizing their vision" to use your smart words. He's talented for sure, it's a big swing, and I look forward to his next film, but I thought Nickel Boys just did not work. And I think Wicked is often a *badly* directed movie. I think Chu oversaw some bad design choices, and the pacing of that movie is full-on painful. So bloated, overblown and lumbering...you can drive a truck through some of those scenes. So, we agree to disagree on those two as well!
And, as mentioned, on Emilia Pérez! That's what keeps these discussions so lively and fun. Any expression of support for Emilia Pérez on this site is simply not welcome, so I'll remain tight-lipped once again, other than to say that yes, before Gascongate, I think Audiard was absolutely highly in the running for the Oscar, and I was personally very happy to see him nominated. He's a fantastic director and has made several near masterpieces...he certainly has the strongest filmography of the five. But this won't be his year.
THE SUBSTANCE | © MUBI
So in the Fargeat/Baker/Corbet matchup, do we agree that the least likely of the three to win would probably be Coralie Fargeat? I don't think The Substance is a brilliant film or anything like that, but in terms of direction...of fully realizing a vision...I think Fargeat did an incredibly beautiful job. Every choice she makes from design to framing to costume to directing the actors to stilted, stylized, truly weird performances...adds to creating a very specific world where the horror and comedy can blend perfectly. I truly marveled at her grasp on the comedy in the piece...she establishes her big joke (our obsession with youth and beauty and how colossally stupid it is) so early on (that hilarious ad/poster right outside Demi's apartment), and then each set piece has its own jokes that support the central joke.
The film is so laser-focused on Elisabeth (with an "s"! even that's funny!) and her desperation to remain young that Fargeat leaves you nowhere to go other than to sit in her mind. Then that she grows increasingly ugly and mutilated becomes an increasingly funny joke as it goes on. The scene where Qualley's teeth fall out was one of the all-time great funny/gross moments in cinema, in my opinion. I giggled throughout this entire movie, even though it makes its points within the first 15 minutes and has nowhere to go ideologically. But it's a small-scale triumph for sure. What are your thoughts on Fargeat? And on the Baker/Corbet race?
NICK: As a wise woman once said, I believe light will always conquer the darkness. I’ll be brave and say some nice things about Emilia: We can give Audiard credit for being as audiovisually adventurous as he typically is, even if I found the results disastrous. More than most of the Academy's voting branches, I can see why the directors of all people would respond to Emilia Pérez. May that Split Decision on Emilia Pérez be a model on how to discuss this apparently taboo film, and may the comments we received be a beacon of inspiration for all discourse at TFE going forward.
As far as the big three: I agree on Coralie being the least likely to win, which is a shame given how boldly focused her direction is, for all the reasons you described. The Substance gets away with being so blunt with its themes by having so many tones and diversions to bolster them, building in weird tempos and asides just for the sheer pleasure of throwing the audience off balance. She’s not subtle, but she is varied, and that counts for a lot. I expect if Fargeat wins anything it’ll be in the Screenplay category, making this a full circle moment from when she won the same prize at Cannes this past summer. It would be richly deserved, but still feels like a consolation prize when it’s the direction, editing, sound, makeup, performance, design elements, etc. that vivify The Substance’s script into the sensation it’s become.
Sean Baker reads as being in the opposite position, insofar as he feels more likely to win Director than Original Screenplay. Granted, he’s also the only one of this trio who feels like he could win both, but the general unpredictability of this awards season makes me think/hope/pray for some wealth-sharing among the top dogs. I’d also say he’s inverse to Fargeat in that I probably like the comedic odyssey of Anora more as a script than as he directs it. I really should watch it again before Oscar night, but even with some reservations about the writing, I think a lot of the critiques of the second hour come down to how Baker loses track of Ani’s interiority in the many passages where she’s subordinated to the whims of these Russian gangsters and their lackeys. He deserves credit for managing so many registers of hedonism, camaraderie, rivalry, solidarity, and manipulations within his fairly undemonstrative visual style, and for making Anora such an affecting story even when I didn’t necessarily buy this or that story turn. How do you stand on Baker, and Anora in general?
ANORA | © NEON Rated
ERIC: It's interesting, Nick, I love Sean Baker, and I couldn't be happier for the acclaim he's receiving for Anora. There is so much I admire in Anora, especially his multi-spin on multi-genres (road trip movie, screwball comedy, rom com, hooker with a heart of gold, etc.), which both delivers on what we want from those genres and upends them. But I really struggled with the pacing: the film is so overlong, and I thought he lost control during the *endless* "abduction" scene in the house. It just became so shrill and repetitive, and so while I'll be happy to see Sean Baker join the ranks of Oscar-winning directors, I don't think it's his finest work. Is it weird that I think Tangerine is a better film? But don't get me wrong, I think Anora has so much that's wonderful about it, I really like the film a lot, so much humanity and spirit...it's one of those movie that to me, is so so so good that I wanted it to be perfect.
So, I'm a Corbet champion, in the end. What's funny is that even though The Brutalist is over an hour longer than Anora, I feel like Corbet's film is better paced (comedies are harder to sustain for 2h20m than epic dramas for 3h35m). The first hour of The Brutalist is, to me, the most thrilling hour of cinema this year. It feels like watching footage out of another time...there is no present-day indicator that belies the feel Corbet gets for this first hour. The European characters feel so fully European and the American characters so American. Just the way Adrien Brody and Alessandro Nivola touch each other...it's not in the language of how American males respond to one another.
In that first hour, Corbet transports you not only to the past, but to a specifically textured world that feels foreign and uncomfortable (the only other picture I could think of that does this similarly is There Will Be Blood). "Corbet's America" feels instantly threatening and strange, but also exciting. It's just so fully realized. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on The Brutalist before I go any further, but the one thing I want to say is that one of the reasons I vote for Corbet is that he made *that* film on *that* budget. I still don't think enough has been said about his accomplishment in that department. It's a lot easier to make decisions when you have unlimited money to solve problems. But The Brutalist feels like there are about 200 locations (though there aren't)... but Corbet truly pulls off an epic feel despite the fact that so much of the movie is people in a room talking.
NICK: I’ll quickly cosign everything you said about Anora. I’d even say pacing is a regular issue with Baker’s films, both in the actual edit and in story construction. Tangerine has its own uproarious highs and unsteady momentum, but that bitch juggles even more personalities and affects in 90 minutes. If anyone reading this hasn’t seen Starlet, still my easy pick for Baker’s best film, go check it out.
Look at us, making Brady Corbet our best for last treat! We’re so good at planning. The $10 million budget is a daunting feat, albeit one I’ve felt more bummed about from reading interviews with Corbet where he basically says part of the tight budget came from him basically getting no pay and working on an insane shooting schedule to get the film completed on budget. Who knows how little money anyone got from making this. I hope Corbet gets the proper funding for future endeavors, and that we hear less stories of indie directors having to go broke (or stay broke) to make their passion projects. Artists don't need to be starving to make their monuments. It's a dour context, but it doesn’t diminish The Brutalist as a damn impressive feat of scraping together minimal resources into genuine art.
Part of my appreciation for Corbet comes from how excitingly he utilizes tropes I'm automatically suspicious of as shortcuts to "meaningful" films. Making an art film self-consciously about art and moviemaking, going so heavy on stylization it can arguably be seen as divorced from the subject itself, courting historical tragedies as conceits for your thematic ambitions, building characters atop a dangerously thin line between archetype and stereotype, sexual assault as a literalization of exploitation, all of it is depicted in unexpectedly invigorating ways. Even if I don't think every choice works, the sheer, gratuitous riskiness of these gestures is astonishing. What very much attracts me about Corbet is his recurring interest in making movies about people who have no illusions about the sheer, dumb luck of their survival, and who keep making risky, unpredictable choices with their lives and their art in desperate attempts to keep asserting the fact that they're still alive. This is so completely my shit, and I love how fully he's explored these themes in each of his films across wildly different characters and historical contexts.
THE BRUTALIST | © A24
Ten Oscar nominations makes it hard to say any particular element of craft feels underappreciated, but I'm surprised how much of the film has lingered in my memory. I love how the editing balances such densely-packed montages alongside scene-level cutting very often designed to stretch scenes to unimaginably painful levels, like the awkward meal when Erzabet first dines in the Van Buren household, or her later, final confrontation in the same dining room. The pacing of David Jancso's editing keeps you on your toes, and in symphony with Lol Crawley's long takes and strikingly framed images, we intuit a lot about these characters from the hard surfaces and sinuous movements The Brutalist choreographs around them. Judy Becker's designs are obviously superb, but I'm just as entranced by Kate Forbes' statement ties, perhaps the best gila monster patterning of predatory masculinity since The Irishman's mob digs.
We've both gone long on the beauty of Brody's performance in other pieces for this site, so I won't repeat it here, but god damn is it hard to imagine a better center for this film. The Brutalist is the rare film to feel as great as the sum of its parts, yet each part has its own host of intricacies and assertions. Pound for pound, frame for frame, this might be the most Movie of any nominated film this year, and I can't imagine how any other director could have carried off this vision like Corbet.
ERIC: Nick, that's an astonishing reply, and I'm not going to say anything that offers sharper, more interesting insight than that. Well, I'd like to try, but we're running long.
The only other thing I'll add is just an emotional response to Corbet's work. One of the things I loved about the film, and the cumulative choices Corbet made in presenting the story to me, was that I never fully knew how I felt while watching it. And months later, I still don't know how I feel about everything. The film is so complex, and gives you opposing palettes of feeling and expression throughout, that I was constantly scrambling to keep up with it. Nothing fit quite into a mold, and nothing was easy to process. It felt sensual but also intellectual, and it washed over me while keeping me alert and feeling prickly. Anora did not stir this kind of complexity in me. I ultimately feel like Corbet had more ideas on his mind than Baker did. Baker's sharp, fascinating spin on genre is just not as personally compelling to me as Corbet's assay of such a large array of big ideas.
And am I being naive that I still think Corbet is going to win that Best Director Oscar? Perhaps, but I still think he is going to take it. I certainly won't be surprised to see Baker walk up to the podium, but I think he's going to be awarded for his screenplay, and I just don't feel enough overwhelming love for Anora like people had for Everything Everywhere or Parasite. But I'm certainly been wrong many times before (something we're not allowed to admit in America anymore). I'm gonna predict Corbet for the win. Any final thoughts on your end? And who is your pick to win?
NICK: I think Corbet will take it. This year’s crazy enough to have any kind of nonsense happen on Sunday, which could mean he leaves empty-handed, but I’m choosing to interpret that madness as a rare opportunity to make sure the night’s big names all win something. There’s a world where all the Best Director nominees go home from the Oscars with some new hardware, should Audiard win Best Song over Diane Warren. That’s a whole other story we can’t get into, so I’ll just end things saying what a good conversation this has been, Eric. We really get a good rhythm going for these chats! Imagine what'd happen if we really put our minds together.
THE BRUTALIST | © A24
Previous Oscar Volleys:
- BEST ACTOR, with Eric Blume & Eurocheese
- BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, with Cláudio Alves & Nathaniel Rogers
- BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, with Eric Blume & Nick Taylor
- BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, with Abe Friedtanzer & Eurocheese
- BEST ANIMATED FEATURE, with Cláudio Alves & Nathaniel Rogers
- BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, with Cláudio Alves & Ben Miller
- BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM, with Eric Blume & Nathaniel Rogers
- BEST COSTUME DESIGN, with Cláudio Alves & Nick Taylor
- BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING, with Cláudio Alves & Eurocheese
Reader Comments (5)
Except Mangold evey nominee would be a deserful winner.
Villeneuve has been nominated before, just not for Dune, BTW.
And co-sign that anyone who hasn't seen Starlet should fix that immediately. I love every movie Baker's made since, but there's a special place in my heart for Starlet.
Whether Baker wins, or Fargeat or Corbet, this category will deliver.
You are both brilliant. What an enjoyable and fascinating conversation. I agree with so much of what was said but you revealed things to me that I hadn't quite sussed up about why these achievements are impressive.
as for Sean Baker, I think Tangerine is his best film but Anora comes in second! Also a huge fan of Florida Project and Starlet. I think he's pretty consistent overall in delivering in a big way despite 'losing control' on ocassion as was mentioned in the convo.
I think Director's will admire Corbet's vision more than Anora's which will help it win Best Picture and Anora Editing and Screenplay it's strongest points.
The Brutalist Best Picture,Best Director,Score and Actor
Conclave Best Adapated Screenplay
The Substance Best Actress and Make Up
Anora Editing and Original Screenplay
E Perez Supporting Actress
A Real Pain Supporting Actor
Wicked most of the technical categories like Costumes and Art Direction.
Either Corbet or Fargeat would be amazing winners.
The next best thing would be Baker. Solid director. Not a huge fan of Anora but I do love Tangerine and Florida Project.
Audiard...honestly, I'll take him over Mangold.