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| David Oyelowo is a strong Best Actor contender, for his work as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (Paramount) |
Selma
is soaring right now, but can it win Best Picture?
The
Civil Rights Movement docudrama from Ava DuVernay continues to build in buzz, earn
standing ovations and receive rave
reviews. It’s played exceptionally well to a diversity of crowds, and has
created a firestorm of enthusiasm on Twitter and in the blogosphere in a way
very few films have been able to this awards season. In fact, unless Anjelina
Jolie’s Unbroken launches perfectly
well – and, according to insiders, word is tentatively mixed right now – Selma holds all the qualities of a
frontrunner. It’s big as Boyhood is
small; mainstream and accessible as Birdman is odd and niche; and critically-beloved
as The Imitation Game is, well, not. It’s also
extremely prescient, artistically reigniting a conversation about the voting
rights violations and racial segregation still permeating through American
communities. If that’s not enough, it’s got A-listers behind it – Brad Pitt and
Oprah Winfrey are credited producers, while the cast comprises several
well-known actors, just as 12 Years a Slave
did last year – and is reportedly a technical marvel, from DuVernay’s intimate direction
to Bradford Young’s gorgeous cinematography.
For
whatever reason – relative-unknown DuVernay behind the camera, late release
date, lack of movie-stars on-screen – Selma
had been severely underwritten about in regards to this awards season. In fact,
totally-unwarranted negative
buzz started to creep in, in the days leading up to its premiere at the AFI
Festival. But with DuVernay, already with a Sundance Directing Award and
several smaller prizes under her belt, and its epic, surprisingly-unexplored
(cinematically, at least) subject matter, you’d think Selma
would have been vaulted into the conversation much earlier. For comparison’s
sake, Anjelina Jolie’s Unbroken had
been ranked
at or near the top of top pundits’ prediction lists from day one – its
cast is even less-well-known, and Ms. Jolie, while certainly a bigger name, has
just one directorial effort under her belt, which was poorly-received.
Oh, and pundits are still waiting on Unbroken
to be a game-changer even after a rather underwhelming premiere in Australia a
few days ago (Variety described the reaction as one with “warm
applause,” which compared to the initial
reaction to Selma, may as well be
utter silence). So what am I missing?
In
his column from a few weeks ago, bestselling author and Oscar expert Mark
Harris wrote that “For reasons
too depressing to make explicit by typing them, [Selma might] be slightly hobbled by 12 Years a Slave’s
win last year.” Considering everything that Selma had on the table even before its premiere – Harris wrote this
before the film was finished, and hasn’t written on it since – this makes a lot
of sense. But it’s also incredibly disconcerting: do we really have so little
faith in the Oscars – the principal peer-decided award for film – that, because
a film with a black cast from a black director won in the previous year, the
chances of another doing it is next-to-impossible? It’s an uncomfortable
consideration that many pundits have, perhaps rightly, taken very seriously.
But where does that leave Selma, now with all of its momentum? Ms. DuVernay would be the
first black woman ever nominated for Best Director, and still, no black person
has actually won the thing (last year, Steve McQueen lost to Alfonso Cuaron,
who became the first Latino director to win it) – there are still some
milestones for voters to consider, if they must to justify voting for the film.
Really, last year’s win for 12 Years
was a rare case of critics, voters and the industry at large agreeing on the
best film of the year. In Metacritic’s weighted aggregate of top 10 lists from
film critics, 12 Years a Slave placed
first. Argo, our 2012 winner, was way
down in seventh (Zero Dark Thirty was
the runaway choice that year, but it was plagued by controversy); in 2011, The Artist came in second, but that year
was so divisive and close that it actually accounted for only 7% of first-place
choices; and in 2010, The King’s Speech
ranked a mild eighth (the clear winner being The Social Network). The last time voters and critics agreed was on
2009’s The Hurt Locker – but, like 12 Years a Slave’s historic win, it did
represent the opportunity for Hollywood to present the first-ever Best Director
win to a woman, Ms. Kathryn Bigelow. [Full disclosure: Hurt Locker and 12 Years
were my favorite movies of their respective years; I’m not saying they didn’t deserve
to win, but that alternate considerations very likely were in place.]
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| 12 Years a Slave is the first Best Picture winner to come from a black director (Fox Searchlight) |
So is that what it takes, and, given Harris’
arguments and DuVernay’s unique potential place in Oscar history, is that
enough for Selma? It’s downright
depressing to think that for a critical favorite to actually win the Oscar,
there needs to be that secondary, historical element – but it’s a compelling
argument to make, one that pundits will begin writing on – “Will Ava DuVernay
become the first black director to win the Oscar?” and so on – before long. To be in
consideration, Selma will need to
continue to play especially well with critics (both 12 Years and Hurt Locker
scored Metascores in the mid-90s); maintain the hot word-of-mouth it has been
steadily generating; and do respectable business come box office time. Given
that it’s had two screenings since its premiere that have gone equally-well, there’s
sound evidence to believe that Selma
will be a critical juggernaut and a substantial conversation-starter.
My own underestimating of Selma resulted in some harsh introspection post-AFI: why wasn’t I
giving it enough credit, unlike Unbroken
or Interstellar (don’t get me started
on all that “It’s going to win!” chatter that officially dissipated within the
past week) or even American Sniper? I
had high hopes for the film creatively, but I wasn’t taking it that seriously
as an awards player. Truthfully, it was – is – because 12 Years a Slave won last year. The top contenders to win in 2014 have
long been The Imitation Game, a
schmaltzy, glossy period piece earning middling reviews, and that
aforementioned Unbroken (Maybe Boyhood can win, but it’s such an uphill
climb). In other words, the year after 12 Years a Slave’s,
potential winners have looked especially traditional, even by Oscar’s
standards. DuVernay, a UCLA African American history major, is
academic in the best sense of the word; she’s approached her work with a
nuanced understanding of racial identity and of gender identity –
and anyone that reads between the lines knows that at core of Selma is the unrest in Ferguson, MO, the
gradual stripping away of the Voting Rights Act, and the racial injustices and ignorance
still so prevalent in American society. That approach and those ideas combine
into an artistic expression that I want to see recognized – but until last
year, it’s something that never even came close.
And again, to qualify: it has to maintain what's been started. Festival hype – and pundits looking for that new frontrunner – is very
real, and it’s quite possible that Selma isn’t
all that it’s being cracked up to be right now. But what I’m writing doesn’t
concern that possibility, real as it may be. The question here is: what if Selma really is that good, really
pulls through in these next few months? It’s a fascinating inquiry, one that
might seriously dictate whether the Oscars have taken a substantial, necessary step in
terms of what they deem essential, and what they rule to be worthy.