Now, while I have never thought the Academy Awards are a legitimate barometer of the “best” films of the year (most films that go on to be considered the most important are often films that don’t even get nominated much less win), I must confess that I do get sucked into the chatter over these films every year. And, hey, though kind of silly and though not really having the cache that they once had, the Academy Awards can still cast a spotlight on important films that should be seen by everyone. And I must say that I thought this was an unusually outstanding year for “Best Picture” nominations. For me, there are usually three to five films that I think are worthy of “Best Picture”; this year, I think seven out of the ten are worthy! Here is how I would rank them:
(10) Killers of the Flower Moon
So, I have such mixed feelings about Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese). On the one hand, the story of the “Osage Indian Murders” is just such an important one; apparently, the film largely stays true to what happened, at least 60, perhaps over a hundred Osage Native Americans were murdered. On the other hand, I hate that the film privileged whites in the film over the Osage themselves. Apparently, Martin Scorsese changed the original script to try and give the Osage more of a presence in the film and apparently, he did his best to give the Osage a hand in the making of the film, including hiring Osage advisors, actors and crafts people. However, for me, and I think many Native American scholars, the film still feels like it centers Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest Burkhart, which is strange since he is really an unsympathetic killer. Scorsese seems to want to make Ernest a kind of complicated figure, a man who seems to genuinely love his wife Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) but ends up being the instrument of killing so many beloved family members and friends, not to mention slowly poisoning her. In terms of the latter, the implication seems to be that he is in denial of what he is really injecting Mollie with, but then it seems clear that he knows. Once we realize what Ernest really is, a sociopath, his character becomes utterly secondary, at least for me.
The center of the film should have been Mollie, and while she is given a screen presence, I never felt like she was fully developed and once the poisoning began, she largely becomes lost in the film, just another Osage victim. I would add that I just so badly wanted at least one scene in the film where there were no white people, the Osage given a space where they could tell it like it is, not just that they are being murdered by white people, but how these murders become part of a pattern of settler colonialism and genocide. We do get one moment where a tribal council of Osage do vent (though focusing on the murders at hand) but then even in this moment, we get the intrusion of William King Hale (Robert DeNiro) speaking.
In terms of the latter, Hale really just becomes another Scorsese gangster figure, which, to my mind, at least somewhat negates an important deeper implication, that this story isn’t just about one evil greedy man killing Osage Native Americans but was systemic in America, toxic ideologies (white supremacy, Christianity, manifest destiny/white man’s burden/xenophobia, capitalism, patriarchy) informing a whole self/Other ideology that see Others (in this case Native Americans) as disposable. I don’t think this implication is entirely lost in the film – for one thing, the whole “guardianship” element does inform this point – but because this character is so dominant in the film, this crucial point does get somewhat lost.
The other facet in the film that bothered me was the whole “white savior” element. Yes, the FBI did come to investigate these murders and I was thankful that Scorsese at least had the Osage go to Washington D.C. to petition for help — at least it feels like they are shown being agentic — but as the last quarter of the film is the (white) FBI in effect coming to the rescue of the Osage and Mollie, that thread in the film feels too much like a “white savior” thread. Had Scorsese made the film from the perspective of the Osage – made them the center of the film – this FBI/white savior element in the film would have been at least somewhat negated.
One other thing I want to note. While of course Scorsese is one of our greatest living filmmakers, I really didn’t think this film was one of his better crafted films. At times, the film felt like one of those historical narratives where Scorsese just attached scenes to historical incidents, making the film feel like for me just a series of scenes instead of some coherent and organic whole. Indeed, at times the film feels like just a collage of moments not fluidly put together.
For some important perspectives from Osage/Native Americans, check out these two articles, “Killers of the Flower Moon and who gets to tell an Osage story” (Jason Asenap) and “‘Hollywood doesn’t change overnight’: Indigenous viewers on Killers of the Flower Moon” (David Smith).
(9) Oppenheimer
I know, I know, how in the world can I rank Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) so low when it has been so universally acclaimed by so many?!? And, yes, this acclaim will almost certainly include a “Best Picture” win for the film (if it loses, it would be a huge upset) though I would add that I suspect that as years go by, this will be one of the many “Best Picture” wins (think The Green Book) that doesn’t age well.
For me, I must confess that I did not love the film and found one facet of it reprehensible.
Before I get to why I didn’t like the film, I will say that I did like one aspect of the film, the film’s attempt to get at the complexity of the man, Robert J. Oppenheimer. The film did a great job of getting at the moral complexity of what Oppenheimer wrought. Initially, Oppenheimer had a passionate zeal in creating the atom bomb. A key thread in the film is this idea of “theory” versus praxis, e.g., while creating the atom bomb, Oppenheimer’s cognitive dissonance was in effect, him never letting what this bomb would do to human beings be the REAL of it, instead seeing the creation of it as more of an extension of his love of physics. Since the bomb hadn’t been dropped yet, unlike us who know what it would do, there is something inexplicably human in being fascinated with bringing such a scientific achievement to fruition.
Later, of course, after this horrifying weapon of mass destruction kills tens of thousands of Japanese, does Oppenheimer see what he has wrought. Part of the moral complexity for him is in understanding that he had to create it – since it was inevitable that it would be created and that in his mind at the time, America had to create it first – and so that seems to be his reason for never apologizing for its creation, nor offering any regret at creating it. Still, the film gets at just how complex Oppenheimer’s cognition is after the bomb drops by stressing his extreme guilt over the mass annihilation of so many Japanese people. In this, we can see how he tries to make amends by fighting for a nuclear proliferation treaty to contain a weapon of mass annihilation of humanity.
Along these lines, as a simple biography of this key moment in Oppenheimer’s life, I think the film succeeds even if I must confess to finding the whole Communist witch hunt thread in the film uninteresting, e.g., to my mind, I’ve seen that thread done so much better in so many other films.
Where the film utterly fails for me is on two fronts:
First, as so many scholars have noted, to not show what actually happened to the Japanese people is truly reprehensible. If Nolan was true to his convictions of revealing the madness of creating such a heinous weapon of mass destruction, it is absolutely essential to show what it actually did to human beings. Just seeing Oppenheimer’s reaction is not enough, not nearly enough.
Second, what was truly disturbing to me is in how Nolan filmed the segment on the bomb getting created. There was a weird feeling of almost rooting for Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists to succeed!! In this, Nolan loses what must be, that no matter how inevitable creating the bomb is, we should never lose sight of the fact that its creation was pure madness, some symptom of some deeper pathology in the human species.
Finally, I just must note one other pet peeve of filmmaking for me that drives me nuts. I hate it when filmmakers just manipulatively layer music over scenes that should not have it. We get this big time in Oppenheimer, especially in the personal scenes of Oppenheimer’s life, when we just need to hear the interaction of characters, without some intrusive sound track in the background telling us how to feel about it.
(8) Maestro
Maestro (Bradley Cooper) is another film I have mixed feelings about. Overall, I really liked the film but there are some aspects of the film that I have issues with as well. In terms of the former, I was impressed with Bradley Cooper’s use of the cinematic apparatus – e.g., the film is just so beautifully shot and lit and composed for the most part and he refreshingly gives us long takes (that opening segment when Bernstein learns he is going to conduct was just tremendous) and less intrusive editing – and of course the acting by Cooper and Carey Mulligan was truly stellar. In terms of latter (my issues with the film), I thought the film didn’t flow all that well – Cooper just gives us vignettes of Leonard Bernstein’s life – was overwritten at times (there were some strange uses of dialogue that I couldn’t even understand!) – and most important, like so many others’ criticism, I never really felt connected to Leonard Bernstein himself. Excepting for the heartbreaking moment of his wife dying, the film always felt like it was keeping me at a distance, and so I never felt emotionally invested in Bernstein himself. Still, I appreciate bringing this biopic of Bernstein to life, since I knew very little about the genius of Bernstein. And I must say, the segment where Bernstein re-creates a famous 1976 performance with the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral (the piece is Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 or the “Resurrection Symphony”) is truly breathtaking.
“Best Picture” Worthy!
From here on, in my view, the films nominated are all exceptional films. When I get to this year for my blog and watch them all again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the order changed. I would be fine with any of these films winning the Academy Award for “Best Picture.”
(7) Anatomy of a Fall
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) won Cannes’ coveted Palme d’Or, one of the few film awards that is usually legitimate. And I can see why it won. Anatomy of a Fall is indeed just such a well-made film. If one wants to watch an almost perfectly crafted film, this is the film to watch. And, by the way, though a French film, for those who don’t like to read subtitles, the film is largely in English, an interesting choice in itself. The reason the film isn’t higher on my list is only because I don’t think the film is quite as deep as the films above it. Having said that, there is a deep point that the film makes.
The film’s premise is whether the husband of our main character, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), fell to his death, committed suicide or was killed by Sandra. The “fell to his death” possibility is quickly dismissed, which leaves us with a “trial” where we get contradicting (subjective) perspectives that lead to a difficulty in determining the “truth” of what happened, suicide or murder. And that is the profound deeper implication the film explores, the difficulty in sometimes determining a simple truth. During the trial we get contradictory perspectives on evidence that make us think one way and then think the opposing view. In this way, we can see how when the truth is not clear, subjective perspectives are all we have, and, in that, we are forced to concede that the “truth” is sometimes elusive. In a world where too many people are duplicitous, this difficulty in determining the “truth” happens too often. In my view, the conclusion of the film is this message, that instead of making a determination of a “truth” when we can’t be sure of it, we just have to accept that determining a “truth” is sometimes not possible.
My only qualm with the film – or maybe it is a qualm, I’ll have to watch the film again to be sure – is that I’m not sure if the film makes the son’s trajectory one that tilts our perspective to a likely truth or if the film really goes for it and if even the son’s testimony and perspective can be doubted, whether in terms of intentionally influencing the outcome of the trial – now that would be a very interesting element – or unintentionally.
(6) The Holdovers
I must say that I loved The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)! The Holdovers is one of those crowd pleaser films, a film about three “broken” individuals who, through bonding with each other, help each other heal. That really is the power of cinema, to give spectators characters who become like mirrors that reflect how we are all “broken” to one degree or another, and then via relating to characters we come to love, that helps all of us heal. But less I make the film seem too serious, the film is also very entertaining, funny and joyful.
The other thing that struck me about this film is how it made me think about the importance of people who we meet during our lives. Of course, we all have those profound connections to close family members and friends, but I don’t think we consider just how important people are who we meet in passing. In that moment when we interact with them, such people often have an enormous and profound impact on our lives. That’s what we get in The Holdovers, three people who are not close at the beginning of the film, bond over the course of the film and in that bonding, shape each other’s lives in profound ways. Most particularly, we get Paul (Paul Giamatti), who is a kind of Scrooge character – appropriate too since the film largely takes place over the Christmas season – and who, via becoming a kind of surrogate father figure to Angus (Dominic Sessa), finds his humanity again. In this way, the film is about unconnected people connecting through unconditional understanding and love and nurturing support, and boy do we need reminding of that right now.
One other tidbit that I loved about the film. The film is set in 1970, and the filmmaker (the underrated Alexander Payne) does something remarkable, uses cinematography (film lens, film stock, film emulsion, color grading) that makes it feel like we are watching a 1970s film. This adds to the feeling of an organic sensibility, gives the film that uncommon feeling of realness and authenticity.
(5) American Fiction
American Fiction (Cord Jefferson) is both a biting and provocative satire and thoughtful and engaging comedy-drama. In terms of the former, the film satirically focuses on how Black writers are actually expected to participate in their own diminishment, writing “Black” narratives that both inform the stereotypes that limit African Americans self-actualization as human beings AND panders to white audiences who then expect such stereotypes, both from “Black narratives” and from real world African Americans. On top of this, the film also importantly explores how in a capitalist society, when one needs money or wants money, that can inform what Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht called “social prostitution,” flushing one’s ethics or morality for one’s own self-interest.
In the case of the film, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a struggling writer who has had the care of his mother thrust on him, making it extremely difficult to say no to a work he has created that is the antithesis of what he believes in, a book that does exactly what I describe above, panders to white audiences and perpetuates degrading and diminishing Black stereotypes. The other great thing about the film is how it doesn’t just want to be a satire but rather also gives us “realistic” and relatable characters we care about, a feat I’ve seldom seen — or seen successfully — in satires. The film isn’t just deep and serious, it is also warm and thoughtful.
My only qualm is that perhaps – and I’m not being rhetorical here, I’m really not sure – the film isn’t quite as pertinent as it would have been even just a decade ago. Again, I’m not sure about this but as a casual observer, it does seem as if Black narratives have expanded greatly, with many Black writers and filmmakers and artists giving a very diverse range of works that have allowed Black artists to self-actualize themselves in ways that they couldn’t in previous decades. Still, even if that’s true, the film’s message still resonates as we continue to get degrading and diminishing stereotypes or just Black narratives that seem too limiting, such as slave narratives, a sub-genre that the film touches on.
(4) Past Lives
Past Lives (Celine Song) seems like a simple film, but it is actually quite deep and profound. Most profoundly, the film explores the “what ifs” in our lives, how our lives could have gone in completely different directions if we had made different choices (there is a moment when Hae Sung could have probably gotten his greatest desire – to be with Na Young/Nora Moon – had he made the choice to come to New York sooner) or taken different paths.
The latter idea stems from Na Young/Nora Moon (Greta Lee) immigrating from South Korea to New York, the film suggesting that this creates in Na Young/Nora Moon a kind of bifurcation of the self, what we could call a Korean identity and an American one. That becomes the second profound point of the film, how through her childhood (Korean) sweetheart, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), coming to see her and her being with her present (American) husband, Arthur Zaturansky (John Magaro), they act as two forces reflecting her duel identity. The third deep point is a simple one, how, like I discuss in The Holdovers, we don’t put enough importance in the people who we meet in our lives but don’t sustain a relationship. Some people have a powerful resonance for us that impacts who we are. This is clearly the case for Hae Sung, who projects onto his childhood crush Na Young — ostensibly just a memory for him later – so much of what he most desires, the kind of perfect love that can only be sustained via a projected desire. I think there is yet another layer to the film via that interesting framing device filmmaker Celine Song uses, the film opening with bystanders guessing at the relationships between Hae, Nora, and Arthur (the top image). We become sutured into their perspective and thus also guess what the relationship of these characters are. By then giving us their story, our guess is inverted and we can then see that impressions are more often then not wrong or at least not as simple as they seem.
I won’t give away the ending. Suffice it to say, Song makes such a refreshing choice; I just love so much how this films wraps up its storyline. And that choice gives us yet another deep layer, how narratives are usually created to satisfy our desires not for what is real and more complicated. I’ve just scratched the surface of this great film. For a nice analysis of it, check out this great video essay on the film, “Past Lives-How Love Lingers….”
(3) Barbie
So I understand why some people can’t fathom how Barbie (Greta Gerwig), a film that is ostensibly about a commodity product, and one that hasn’t always been a positive influence on girls (blonde, blue-eyed white; unnatural body image), can possibly be a good film. For those who can’t get past this idea, I would pose this way of thinking about Barbie: There is a theory that one can inject a revolutionary “virus” into mainstream texts that offer up a radical progressive message, a way to influence the masses that otherwise would not be exposed to such progressive messaging. I would strongly argue that is the case with Barbie.
More succinctly, Barbie is a crazy film, part mainstream blockbuster, part art house cinema. I can’t say that everything in it worked for me, but overall, I thought it was a brilliant film and a radical one at that. It somehow pulls off – at least for me it did – being a straightforward fun and entertaining summer blockbuster AND a deep and complex satire and political film.
In terms of the latter, the film is very much a feminist film, one for our time. For one thing (I will do a longer blog post on the film at some point), it interrogates and deconstructs patriarchy as well as any film I’ve ever seen. Further, it inverts gender roles and forces men to inhabit the place that women have inhabited for centuries, as subservient objects for men’s needs and desires. But, then, after trying patriarchy on for size, Ken and some of the other men see that this grab for power does not give them the fulfillment they so desire and so they reject patriarchy! One profound part of Gerwig’s final message (along with how no human being should be Othered) is a profound one, that only by rejecting toxic masculinity ideologies can men gain the full spectrum of what it means to be a human being, and in that, they can then self-actualize themselves. I can see why the right wing – especially toxic masculinity men – are losing their mind over the film! We are hearing a lot of right wingers say that this film is left wing “wokeness” and it IS, it is progressivism, or “wokeness,” in all its glorious progression of society!
(2) Poor Things
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos) is just such a sublime work of art. The filmmaker, Yorgos Lanthimos, is a true artist even if I don’t always love his work (I wasn’t a fan of The Lobster). His use of color, production design, cinematography, compositions, and especially his mastery of the wide angle lens, was truly something to behold in this film. In terms of his use of the wide angle lens, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a filmmaker use this underused tool so well.
Second, the film is just so deep and complex, especially in terms of its interrogation and deconstruction of phallocentrism and patriarchy though that only begins to get at the complex focuses of the film. I should add that the film is just so deliciously weird, a kind of adult fairy tale (and fresh take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Monster narrative). Taken together, Lanthimos radically creates his own “creation” myth, where “man” or God (Bella’s “creator” is called Godwin Baxter and Bella calls him “God”) creates Bella (Emma Stone in a brave and brilliant performance) though in this (progressive) creation scenario, Bella soon breaks from her “God” (equating to a break from a patriarchal and phallocentric God/ideology, a not too subtle dig at Christianity) and begins her journey of self-discovery, self-actualization, and self-determination. In this way, we can see how all of us, though especially women, have been constrained by the (patriarchal, phallocentric, Christian) norms that dictate our/their being. Poor Things is truly a special film and one I will come back to for a deeper analysis.
(1) The Zone of Interest
After The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) quit rolling, the thought that immediately came to mind was the film was just a brilliant devastating work of art. It is a Holocaust film but for those who can’t watch Holocaust films, I would suggest this might be the Holocaust film you can watch. The angle the film takes is a unique one, focusing solely on a German family living adjacent to one of the most notorious concentration/extermination camps, Auschwitz (see the jarring image above). The father of the family, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), is the camp commander and so he and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), create a bizarre “paradisal” space for them next to one of the worst horrors or “Hells” humanity has ever manifested.
This unfathomable cognitive dissonance of the family is both fascinating and horrifying. That is where the work of art/brilliance of the film is most felt, director Jonathan Glazer using sound and compositions to create an incredibly complex experience, where we feel the palpable presence of the Holocaust happening as this family seems to live their lives “normally,” albeit with the privilege that comes with having so much wealth and power. But what Glazer does is subtly show us that even when trying to create a vacuum of “paradise,” the inhuman dehumanization going on right next door can’t but impact their lives.
In short, the film’s deepness stems from two elements. First, as I say, it explores how our species’ brains are, well, deeply flawed, e.g., that if humans can cognitively compartmentalize one of the worst horrors in human history, humans can compartmentalize anything. Second, the film is also allegorical, the family living disconnected from the horrors happening right next to them speaking to how this sadly is a way of being for people, too many people (like this family) dissociating themselves from the heinous crimes against humanity that they SHOULD be interconnected to, instead living just for themselves.
I just want to add here that the timing of this film is also resonating, since we are experiencing a genocide right now in Gaza and that too many people are this family, in effect living right next to it and carrying on with their lives as if nothing is happening.
I have so much to say about this film – for one thing, Glazer uses the cinematic apparatus in other powerful and ingenious ways (!) – but I’ll leave it at that for now. (I’ll come back to this film for sure.) A must see film.