The Power of Jane Campion

by Mark Brinkerhoff

What a wild week it has been, ancillarily, for a certain New Zealand filmmaker. The presumed—and deserved—frontrunner for Best Director at this month’s Academy Awards, Jane Campion had her latest masterpiece unexpectedly shut out at the SAG Awards and herself inexplicably drawn into a ridiculous imbroglio stirred by none other than an apparently sexist and homophobic Sam Elliott. (Bronco Henry could never, y’all.)  

But for those less keen on reading too much into Oscar-adjacent developments or unnecessary, boneheaded statements that go viral, we find ourselves at the glorious height of a hopeful culmination of a brilliant, one-of-a-kind director’s justly lauded year. So what makes Campion such an enduring, singular international filmmaking force?

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Podcast: The Team chats Oscar nods

Nathaniel gathered the team members who were available on Tuesday night for a quickie discussion of the Oscar nominations.  

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify or download the attachment below. And while you're thinking of the Oscars, check out the charts and vote on the polls!

Post Nomination Discussion

Best Director - "How'd They Get Nominated?"

The Best Director Oscar chart is fully revamped with a poll, lots of stats, trivia, and information. If we fused all five directors into one Mecha-Director we'd have a 59 year-old 5'9" Sagittarian living in California who has New Zealand, Irish, and Japanese roots. This fictional Mecha-Director has made 15 movies and been nominated in this category 3 times.

The chart also contains our annual thought experiment: "How'd they get nominated?"...

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New Oscar Trivia via the new set of nominations

Add to this list in the comments if you'd like. Refresh your screen for updates as we find more trivia...

Bradley Cooper scored his 9th nomination, this time for producing Nightmare Alley

PICTURE

-With Nightmare Alley Bradley Cooper received his fourth nomination for producing, tying his Oscar nomination stats for acting. You know who else has four nominations for producing and four for acting? Warren Beatty! Of course Warren Beatty also has multiple writing and directing nods and an actual statue so he's still ahead of Cooper in the stats book.

- With his nomination for producing and writing Belfast, Kenneth Branagh now holds an Oscar record...

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Oscar Volley: Those DGA Nominees (and more) in Best Director

Our Oscar Volleys series is down to our last two categories. Here are Tim Brayton and Eric Blume to talk Best Director. (This volley was recorded before the BAFTA announcement but since those nominations are juried they probably won't have much bearing on Oscar outcomes.)

Eric Blume:  Tim, I'm thrilled to talk shop about the Best Director category. Let's start with Jane Campion, Denis Villeneuve, and Kenneth Branagh who all seem unlikely to miss.  I'm personally thrilled that Campion might ride her crest all the way to a win. Nobody else could have made The Power of the Dog work so layered and subtle, or told that story without it seeming heavy-handed, obvious, or silly. The film gives Campion the chance to do her specialty: embroiling us in a narrative and in character motivations so intensely strange yet fully human that we're transported by our own confusion and curiosity.  She has that special ability to deliver a rare grounded sense of whatthefuckery in her movies. There are moments where so much is happening psychologically, where so many meanings are transpiring simultaneously, that you can't even fully process it until it's passed you by.

I'm also a huge fan of Villeneuve, a natural-born filmmaker if there ever was one...

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