Can Documentaries Break Free From Their Own Category?

Amir here.  When it comes to the Oscars, one of the things I love to complain about each year is the Foreign Language category. That’s hardly a surprise since the category gets so much flak from everyone, but my concern this time is about something more specific than the usual “shocking” snubs.

Looking over past lists of nominees, you'll notice that the Foreign Language Film category has failed to showcase a documentary before. Like... EVER! (Unless you count Waltz With Bashir, which some do and some don't). The reverse has happened many times: the documentary branch has nominated and awarded foreign documentaries.

To be fair to the Academy, not many documentaries are submitted to begin with in foreign film. But even when they are submitted and happen to be as deserving as say, Finland’s Steam of Life in 2010, they still get ignored. So I did a little research and came to the conclusion that this problem is not really limited to the foreign category. Documentaries have always had a hard time breaking out of their box. Admittedly, the voters’ hands are tied when it comes to some categories (acting, costume design, etcetera.) but there’s no reasonable explanation for the absence of documentaries in editing, cinematography and even the sound categories.

Which brings me to my main point: the Academy has at least four shots at righting this wrong come January. It’s highly unlikely that any of these nominations will come to fruition but staying silent about them won’t help the cause, so here we go: these are my suggestions for documentary nominations in non-documentary categories. From my mouth to cinema god’s ears.   

Pina (Foreign Film Category)
Several pundits (including Nathaniel) think the German entry has what it takes to make it to the top five. I’m not as high on the film as some critics seem to be, but considering what a delightful and remarkably unique nomination this would be should it happen, I can fully get behind it.

Jose & Pilar (Foreign Film Category)
Not quite as buzzy but even more deserving than the German submission is this Portuguese gem. This documentary is about one of my personal favourite writers, the Nobel Prize winning Jose Saramago, in the last years of his life with his wife Pilar. The film is rooted in Saramago’s ideology but also steps away to observe him from an external perspective. It succeeds both as an intimate portrayal of love between an older couple, and as a compelling character study of a man whose life is an endless source of fascinating political and literary ideas. I’ve only seen 12 of the submissions so far, but I have a hard time believing there are five better films among the rest. Nevertheless, I won’t get my hopes up. When there are films about children and WWII available to Oscar voters, what are Saramago’s chances?

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Cinematography)
Herzog’s film and Pina are the only two films I've seen recently that had me thinking “I’m glad I saw that in 3D” when exiting the theatre. In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Peter Zeitlinger’s cinematography brings Chauvet Cave to the big screen without losing any of its magic. Zeitlinger’s poetic vision conveys the experience of visiting the cave and etches an array of mesmerizing images in our minds. 

Senna (Editing)
Is there a chance of this happening? If Senna is nominated in the best documentary category, that will be a beautiful achievement, but Chris King SO deserves a nomination all his one. Snubbed just last year for his intricate work on Exit through the Gift Shop, he’s back with an explosive blend of F1 action and personal drama. Transitioning between racing footage, family videos and adding only sound clips (without the talking heads) Senna is an eclectic mix that gets our adrenaline going but leaves us in tears at the end. It owes so much to King’s editing. It’s been 17 years since the Editor's branch nominated Hoop Dreams and it’s about time they embraced another documentary film.

Your turn! Which documentaries would you like to see nominated? Do you believe in miracles that it could happen for any of them in an extra category?

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Clutch Magazine Occupy Hollywood
Aint It Cool Looks like it's more crime dramas for director Ben Affleck rather than another filmed version of Stephen King's The Stand.
Fashion Telegraph a clothing line based on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? Make it stop! I think Joanna at Pajiba said it best when she said... 

I’ve always wanted to dress as a mentally unstable, violent victim of abuse."

Animation Kung Fu Panda becomes an animated TV series next month. 
Self Styled Siren on James Wolcott, Pauline Kael and critic wars
Indie Wire has a list of the Cinema Eye nominees, honoring documentary filmmaking the top category goes like so.

The Arbor (Clio Barnard)
Senna (Asif Kapadia)
Project NIM (James Marsh)
Position Among the Stars (Leonard Retel Heimrich)
Nostalgia For the Light (Patricio Guzmán) 
The Interrupters (Steve James) 

 I keep meaning to write about The Arbor. So fascinatingly heavy and interesting.

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8 Short Docs & 63 Foreign Films Advance Toward Oscar

Ethan McCord's request to see a mental health professional after a terrible scene of carnage from which he rescued two children, was ridiculed by his superior officer. "Incident in New Baghdad"AMPAS has announced the documentary short finalists, eight of them to be precise which will then be whittled down to five, four or three lucky nominees, so as to make either three, four, or five of these finalists feel like absolute shite on Tuesday January 24th.

THE FINALISTS (links go to official sites if we could find)

• The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement 
  (civil rights doc about a barber and barbershop which was a civil rights hub)
• God Is the Bigger Elvis
  (37 minutes)
• In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution
  (38 minutes)
• Incident in New Baghdad
  (Iraq War and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
• Pipe Dreams
  (Environmental doc about a tar pipeline set to cross the largest fresh water resource) 
• Saving Face
  (About a plastic surgeon helping acid attack victims in Pakistan. Strangely the company's site has not been updated since March despite this big Oscar news!?!) 
• The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
  (Described as "a stunning visual poem about the ephemeral nature of life and the healing power of Japan's most beloved flower") 
• Witness

It is my humble opinion that "finalist" lists should always be at least double the amount of actual nominees, so that misery can love its company and not feel like the only girl in the room not invited to the dance.

Who can convince the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to change their unstable cruel ways? Categories should be set in stone: five nominees or three. Finalist lists, when necessary, ought to be double that. Five or Three should be the only Two options for shortlists for the great good of spreadsheets, statistical percentages, charts and the mental health of pundits everywhere or at least this pundit right here.

Nevertheless AMPAS continues with their "we might do this / we might do that" keep-you-on-your-toes ways. 

In much bigger news Oscar has also finally released the Official List of Best Foreign Language Film contenders. It's sixty-three wide this year. If you or anyone you know cares about this category, you'll want to check out The Film Experience's Beautiful Foreign Film Oscar Charts and please do share them with your friends. You can peruse the entire category visually instead of just reading this boring list of as-yet-meaningless names.

But we'll include the list here as well for SEO purposes. If the titles are in bold they're rather high profile as these things go, but keep in mind that high profile doesn't always equate with "future nominee" status.

Click to read more ...

10 Word Reviews: The Ides of Miss Pina Bala's March of Shame

I think you'll agree that we've had our best festival coverage ever with our NYFF write-ups (thanks to Kurt & Michael for their continued input) but even with the speedy pace of full reviews that we've been hitting, it's all too easy to fall behind. So here are super short notes on films seen recently during the festival and outside of it since we can't get to full reviews yet (or ever probably in some cases). After the ten word reviews I'm adding Oscar Thoughts since all four of these films have golden dreams.

Shame (Steve McQueen)
Fucked up siblings Michael Fassbender & Carey Mulligan self-destruct in New York through sex & despair.
10 WR: Brilliant sense of ghostly city, personal demons. But too obvious. B+ (B?)
Oscar?: Frighteningly committed acting but will voters see it? It'll surely be NC-17

Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)
A beauty pageant contestant falls prey to drug cartel in escalating war.
10 WR: Easy indulgent nihilism elevated by smart construction and thematic visualizations. B-
Oscar?: The things it does very well are easy to see/love (or overpraise depending on how you see it). Will almost certainly make the pre-nomination finals in Best Foreign Language Film.
P.S. Michael reviewed this one and liked it much more than I did it. 

Pina (Wim Wenders)
A performed documentary on Pina Bausch, the late legendary German choreographer.
10 WR: 3D amplifies choreography's spatial genius. Bit noncommittal: Performance? Doc? Decide! B
Oscar?: Unless you count Waltz With Bashir, Oscar's foreign committee has never nominated a documentary. But this one is very very easy to enjoy (the dancing is like heaven) and could be a novelty exception to "rule". 

Ides of March (George Clooney)
Clooney adapts the stage play about dirty politics and betrayals of spirit, body, and ideals
10 WR: Involving and handsome but few great scenes. Weird "scene-change" pacing. B
Oscar?: Seems very likely on several fronts but particularly Supporting Actor (Clooney, Giamatti or Hoffman, though?) and score (Desplat's work gets a lot of "air time" if you will.) Though Evan Rachel Wood (major role) and Marisa Tomei (minor role) are both marvelous, Supporting Actress seems less likely for a wide variety of reasons.

Quick takes. Finis! In short it's been a good run of super enjoyable or at least interesting movies lately. Other than that Abduction fluke. Your turn in the comments.