The COVID-19 pandemic left no part of society and culture unaffected. The movie industry and Academy Awards were no exception. Movie theaters closed, releases were pushed back by months or in some cases a full year. Studios sold some movies to streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+, or Amazon Prime. Warner Bros. boldly released their films in theaters and on their streaming service, HBOmax, simultaneously. The movie industry did its best to adapt to pandemic times and the Academy Awards did the same. The date of the ceremony was pushed back by two months and the eligibility period for qualifying films extended beyond the calendar year. The last time the eligibility period was longer than 12 months or covered more than a single year was at the 6th Academy Awards for films released between August 1st 1932-December 31st, 1933. The following year the Oscars moved from a seasonal schedule to a normal calendar year, until 2020.
The 93rd Academy Awards for films released in theaters or on streaming platforms between January 1st, 2020-February 28th, 2021 was held on April 25th, 2021. The venue was Union Station in Los Angeles, instead of a traditional theater and the set up had the look and feel of a casual lounge with nominees at tables spread out across the room. To those familiar with Academy history, it was a reminder that the awards ceremony began as a hotel banquet. The number of attendees were limited to ensure safe social distancing, with some nominees making appearances from all over the world. There was once again no host, but actress-director Regina King opened the ceremony in style.
Some of the changes were good (letting all the winners speak until they finished without the threat of being played off), others were not (no clips at all from the nominated films, except for Best Picture). The most drastic change was announcing Best Picture before the end of the night. Chloe Zhao's Nomadland won the big award with Best Actress going to Nomadland's star, Frances McDormand, her third Best Actress Oscar win, afterwards. Paradoxically, the night ended anticlimactically with the biggest upset of the ceremony. Anthony Hopkins won his second Best Actor Oscar for The Father, over the frontrunner and presumed winner, the late Chadwick Boseman. Hopkins was not in attendance so the award was accepted very briefly on his behalf by the presenter, Joaquin Phoenix, and the ceremony ended rather unceremoniously. Hopkins indeed gave an incredible and deeply affecting performance (in a movie I did not particularly care for), and the 83 year-old cannot be blamed for not wanting to travel during a pandemic. It is clear that the producers of the broadcast expected the show to end with a win and tribute to Boseman, but instead we got a speechless, unusual ending to an already unusual Oscars. It was a big gamble on the part of the broadcast producers and it did not pay off.
There were important milestones at the 93rd Academy Awards. Nine of the twenty acting nominations went to performers of color and a record number of women (70) were nominated across the 23 categories. Steven Yeun became the first East Asian actor nominated for Best Actor for Minari. For the first time ever, two women were nominated for Best Director: Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and Chloe Zhao for Nomadland. Perhaps the most significant win of the night was Chloe Zhao for Best Director, becoming the first woman of color, and only the second woman ever, to win the award. Yuh-jung Youn became the first Korean actress to win Best Supporting Actress for her outstanding performance in Minari.
The diversity of the nominees reflects the diverse collection of films nominated for Best Picture. At first glance, they may seem like a dour bunch. They deal with hearing loss, memory loss, job & home loss, the murder of an activist, a quest for retribution, the struggles of immigrant farmers, the trial of protesters falsely accused of inciting a riot, and a washed up writer dealing with his past. However, I think there is something to be gained from nearly all of the nominees and they prove Roger Ebert's claim that "no good movie is depressing" (though The Father really challenges this). They speak to socio-political issues being dealt with today or show that after our personal or emotional hardships, a catharsis is possible. They did what movies are supposed to do: they showed us what it is like to be someone else. For better and/or worse, they capture what we were feeling and dealing with in 2020.
My Pick for Best Picture of 2020/21: Sound of Metal
Sound of Metal took home two Oscars for Best Sound and Best Editing and I would have given it at least one more award: Best Picture of 2020/21. Movies about addicts and addiction are tricky. They can slip into melodrama and unearned sentiment or serve as a pretense for a performer to show off their range. The same goes movies about a character losing a sense or ability. This is not the case with Sound of Metal. If the main character is an addict in recovery, the movie pretty much requires a scene where, after doing well, they hit rock bottom or relapse. These moments happen in real life but they often feel contrived in movies because dramatic structure requires them to happen at the end of the second act. I was so invested in Ruben’s adjusting to his new life that I was dreading this obligatory scene. What Sound of Metal delivers instead is something unique to its characters and story and is all the more moving because of it. I suppose what I responded to most in Sound of Metal, aside from Riz Ahmed's performance, is that it never did what I expected, especially at the end, which is a big treat. The filmmakers know what Ahmed's Ruben discovers: our most significant realizations and epiphanies come from unlikely places at unexpected times.
Best Pictures #65: 2020
(93rd) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee Nomadland
“I’ve met hundreds of people out there and I don’t ever say
a final goodbye. Let’s just say, ‘I’ll see you down the road.’ And I do. I see
them again.”
Nomadland opens with text explaining that after 80
years the gypsum mine in Empire, Nevada closed and the town quickly ceased to
exist. Fern, a 60ish former resident of Empire, now travels the American West
living out of her modified van moving from town to town, campsite to campsite,
taking odd jobs here and there. Frances McDormand gives a wonderful performance
as Fern. She is far more understated than her characters in Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, or even Almost Famous, but, no matter how broad or
intimate the role, her great talent as an actress is to make any character that
she plays feel very real. It is no surprise that McDormand has earned a Best Actress
Oscar nomination for her work here. There is a wistful, bittersweetness to Fern
and her nomadic lifestyle and also to the movie itself.
As both writer (adapting Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book of
the same name) and director, Chloe Zhao gives her film the look and feel of a
documentary. This approach helps Nomadland in some ways and hurts it in
others. It will come as no surprise that many of the fellow travelers and
nomads Fern encounters and befriends are real life nomads. They do a fine job
in their scenes with a two-time Academy Award winner because the movie only requires them
to be themselves. A gathering of nomads in Arizona where they trade stories,
supplies, and tips and advice for living on the road is
the most interesting segment of the film. That scene along with the scenes of
the real people sharing their stories and insights made part of me wish that
Zhao had made a documentary instead of a dramatization.
Seeing the beautifully photographed landscapes of the
American West from the Nevada desert to Arizona to the Dakota badlands is a
treat. The Oscar nominated cinematography by Joshua James Richards captures the quiet, enchanting beauty in what seems like a desolate landscape.
Many scenes in Nomadland are short, giving us only snippets
of the lives Fern encounters and her own life as well. David Strathairn has a
small but great performance as a fellow wanderer debating if he should settle
down again. Their scenes together are touching moments and we want them to last
and hope they meet each other again. We get a brief scene of Fern visiting her
sister and an argument about the real estate market begins to brew but stops
short. She moves from place to place so the film cannot help feeling episodic
but it is still well-paced. Nomadland is about a wanderer, but it is never
aimless.
There is not much that feels contrived in Nomadland
but at a certain point I knew what would happen in the final scene. We spend a
lot of quiet moments with Fern but we also feel kept at a distance from her,
not unlike the distance she keeps from those that try to get close to her. We
begin the film thinking that her life as a nomad is purely out of necessity but then it seems it is by choice. Perhaps the real answer for Fern and the real
life nomads is somewhere in between. Nomadland is worth watching for the
glimpse at this quasi-off-the-grid lifestyle but to learn more about it I
suppose I will have to read the book.
Nominees: Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey (producer), Chloé Zhao, producers
Director: Chloe Zhao
Screenplay: Chloe Zhao, based on the book by Jessica Bruder
Cast:Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Swankie
Production Companies: Highwayman Films, Hear/Say Productions, Cor Cordium Productions
Distributor: Searchlight Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Release Date: February 19th, 2021
Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Actress-Frances McDormand; Director-Chloe Zhao; Adapted Screenplay-Chloe Zhao; Editing-Chloe Zhao; Cinematography-Joshua James Richards
