For the first week back, and seeing how this blog is called auteurfan, I figured I would start with this year's Best Director race (which you can vote on at the poll to the left). Frankly, this year's Best Director race is just as much about who is not there as who is. In particular, for the second time in three years, the director's branch of the Academy somehow managed to leave out one of the leading auteurs in the business today, Mr. Christopher Nolan. Now I am not totally in love with Nolan's "Inception" like some are, I found it to rely too heavily on it's concept to do the heavy lifting, but even though it did not quite live up to my lofty expectations, it is still one of the better films of the year and Nolan deserved to be part of this group. You would think that, after the travesty of leaving him out of the Best Director's race in 2008 for the masterpiece that was "The Dark Knight" (which along with a Best Picture snub, caused the Academy to change it's nominating process and the amount of nominees in the Best Picture category), they might throw Nolan a bone and give him a nomination this time. Apparently not though, as the members of the director's branch of the Academy clearly have something about Nolan or his films that they can't embrace. I don't know if Nolan's films are too populace and not artistic enough for this crowd (they did manage to leave out Steven Spielberg of the Best Director's race in 1975 when he broke on to the scene with the all-time classic "Jaws"), but whatever it is, I sure don't understand it. At least Nolan is in good company this year though. Danny Boyle, who just received an Oscar for his last effort, "Slumdog Millionaire" (an overrated film in my opinion), was left out for his excellent work in one of my favorite films of the year, "127 Hours". Meanwhile, one of the all-time greats, Martin Scorsese, is also absent from this year's list for his under-appreciated "Shutter Island". Of course, there were many deserving nominated directors as well though, as this year's nominees read as a playlist of some of the most influential auteurs working in the business today. The question is then, out of all the big names, who is the most deserving of the award?
5. Tom Hooper for "The King's Speech"
If you have been reading this blog regularly, then this ranking will come as no surprise to you, as I have been fairly vocal about my disappointment over the anticipatory victory for "The King's Speech" in the Best Picture category, and what looks more and more certain to be a Best Director Oscar for Mr. Hooper. To be perfectly clear, it's not that I dislike the movie, it's a typical meat-and-potatoes film that tells its story and calls it a day, and I am not taking it out on the movie that it stealing the Oscar from a much more worthy opponent ("The Social Network", which was the only film I have seen from this year to make my Top 100 list), unlike some bloggers online who seemed to very much resent "The Social Network"'s sweep of the critics awards. The fact is, apparently contrary to many members of the Academy, I just did not really respond to the film. Hooper adds some nice touches hear and there though. For instance, in a montage of unorthodox speech therapy exercises, the camera focuses in on a sofa in the room and zooms in and out, hiding the cuts and letting the characters come in and out of the shot almost as peripheral objects in the room. It's a fun and playful technique that gives the film that certain cinematic quality. Hooper also does a good job in the scenes were Bertie (King George VI) must speak in public, of making the audience feel the isolation and fear that is clearly racing through George's mind. Where Hooper falls short though, is making us feel for the characters other than how we might feel bad when a child forgets his or her lines in a school play, and for a movie to really connect for me, I need to feel for the characters a bit more than that. It's not all Hooper's fault, but the fact of the matter is that we simply don't get to know much about the film's characters other then there very surface level problems (or maybe there simply just "surface level" people). I couldn't help feeling the slight disappointment I felt as a kid whenever I rode a roller coaster that was much more tame than it looked. I know that Hooper can delve deep into characters and their motivations, as he proved with his excellent and fascinating mini-series "John Adams", but maybe not fully adjusting to the confines of the two-hour time limit of a film, for some reason it just didn't transfer over to "The King's Speech", which is why he is ranked last on my 2010 Best Director rankings.
4. David O. Russell for "The Fighter"
I have not seen much of the filmography of David O. Russell, but of the two films of his I have seen ("Three Kings" and "The Fighter", which you can read my review of by clicking here), I wouldn't quite call myself a fan. For instance, in "Three Kings", which has a pretty decent fanbase, there are scenes in the movie where someone gets shot and we follow the bullet through and into the body, watching its effect on the internal organs. The whole thing comes off as trying way too hard to be edgy, self-consciously "deep" or "real", and the film as a whole smells of this smug attitude. In "The Fighter", some of the same problems emerge, but to a much less extent than in "Three Kings". The film's beginning in particular, suffers from over use of close-ups and semi-documentarian camera work. My guess is the decision was made in order to give the audience an intimate relationship with the characters, but instead it ends up suffocating them. The result turns the characters into more of caricatures than necessary, creating a distancing from the audience and the film's characters (similar to how I feel watching people on reality TV), which was the exact opposite effect of what was intended in the first place. Russell does make some wise choices though, in particular in the boxing scenes. Instead of going the for the drawn-out, slow-motion bouts for the umpteenth time, Russell plays it low-key and in real time, just like a real life sporting event. He goes so far as to include television graphics and film quality for much of the fights, a unique decision that I much enjoyed. Russell also must get some credit for drawing out good performances from his actors. Out of the main players, with the exception of Amy Adams who I felt missed the mark somewhat, the other three major performances (Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Melissa Leo) all hit their targets, so kudos to Mr. Russell for working effectively with his cast. Similar to Tom Hooper, David O. Russell's direction is a mix bag, some good, some bad, but not the champion like his film's protagonist.
3. Ethan and Joel Coen for "True Grit"
If you followed my "Top 100 Favorite Films" countdown, then you know I am a huge fan of the Coen Brothers. Three of their films ("A Serious Man", "Barton Fink", and "No Country for Old Men") made my list, and many of their other films ("The Big Lebowski" and "Fargo" for instance) were very close to making my list. After Quentin Tarantino, the Brothers Coen are probably my favorite auteurs working consistently today. Given this, it was with much anticipation that I saw their adaption of the Charles Portis novel "True Grit", and while it definitely surpassed the original 1969 Henry Hathaway film, it still was somewhat of a disappointment for me and it is definitely towards the back of the Coen canon in my view. It is still a good film mind you, but it is a surprisingly conservative adaptation that lacks that certain style the Coen's are known for (but apparently don't acknowledge). It is not totally devoid of those trade-marked Coen moments though, especially when it comes to some of the camera work and dark imagery that they have done to perfection with long-time collaborator and director of photography Roger Deakins. Two scenes especially stand out as classic Coen moments. One is towards the beginning of Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross' journey to find her father's killer, when they come across a man hung from a high tree. This random foreboding moment is classic Coen's, and the cinematography of the scene is really beautiful in a creepy sort of way. The other scene is where they find two hideaways in a cabin out in the prairie, and after smoking them out, interrogate the two men. Just the lightening alone bares the unmistakably Coen feel, and when you compare the version of this scene with the 1969 film's version, you definitely know who is calling the shots behind the camera. It may not be their best work, but it is still the Coen Brothers, and as always, they earn the term auteur.
2. Darren Aronofsky for "Black Swan"
For only directing five feature films in his career, Darren Aronofsky has built a pretty good name and reputation for himself, and out of the 40% of his filmography that I have seen ("The Wrestler" and "Black Swan"), I count myself as a fan. In "Black Swan", Aronofsky does a great job into getting into the head of his conflicted protagonist, the ballerina Nina, and mirroring the emotions she goes through with the camerawork, pacing, and visual style, giving the film a very "first-person" feel (much as with his 2008 film, "The Wrester"). Sometimes this is done in a very literal fashion such as using circular camera motions during dance sequences to convey the feeling of movement. Other times it is done by the heavy use of scenes with mirrors to symbolize the split nature within Nina. Then there are times he goes for the exciting visual flair route, such as the scene in which Nina and Lily are dancing in a night club to pounding techno music, while the images flash on and off to the audience thanks to the strobe lightening (probably my favorite scene of the film). The overall product is a very effective journey down the rabbit hole for an artist who struggling with the tradeoff of artistic sincerity and sanity. She knows to be the great ballerina she wants to be, she must let her inhibitions go and embrace the dark nature buried inside, but it's a tough choice and one that Aronofsky always keeps intriguing and illuminating. My one criticism of Aronofsky though, and this true for both of his films that I have seen, is that he takes the whole "mirroring" thing a bit too far when it comes to the endings of his films. The world of wrestling and ballet is filled with over-dramatic grand themes, almost like a Greek tragedy. They are worlds full of heros and witches, and while it makes 100% rational sense to use the traditions of the worlds in which he is studying, the weaknesses of ballet and wrestling as art can't help but seep through a bit, hitting it squarely on the nose just a tad too much for my taste. Overall though, Aronofsky has much to be proud of, and he is one director who will definitely be on my radar for the coming years.
1. David Fincher for "The Social Network"
Given my constant praise of the film, you probably saw this coming, but I really can't say enough about the amazing job David Fincher did with "The Social Network". Over the last ten or so years, with incredible films such as "Fight Club" and "Zodiac", David Fincher has slowly established himself as one of the most influential auteurs of his generation, and now with "The Social Network", he has made it official. Fincher has become a household name, and along with Christopher Nolan, he is one of the few directors that an average cinema goer gets excited about. The reason for Fincher's success, and why he is one of my favorite directors in the business today, is that he totally embraces the medium of cinema. His films make no bones about be larger-than-life, without the slightest hint of an apology for not being more "realistic" (just the way I like them). For instance, I recently read someone complain about the scene in "The Social Network" where Eduardo writes an algorithm on Mark Zuckerberg's dorm room window because, "Who does that?". No one, and that's the point. Writing the formula on a window pane is highly unrealistic, and I extremely doubt that is how it happened in real life, but it creates the emotional excitement that the scene calls for. It doesn't matter that none of them at the time knew what they where creating, because the audience knows that something exciting is going to happen, and by embracing the emotion of the moment and time instead of the minute realistic details, the film has a much more powerful effect. This is exactly what Fincher understands and what makes his work so brilliant. Films are not documentaries, and what Fincher is going for, and what the film captures so beautifully, is the motivations of a generation at a certain time and space in history, and how they lead to invention of what is now Facebook. The result, a technically "unrealistic"film, that is much more "real" though in the category that really counts: emotion. I will be sad if Fincher does not win the award come Oscar night, but either way, he has nothing to be down about, as he oversaw an all-time classic that will be remembered for years to come.
That's my opinion on this year's Best Director race, now let me hear what you think by either leaving a message in the comments section below, or by voting in the poll in the upper left-hand corner.
I liked The Kings
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