Deadline Hollywood - Oscar Nominees Part 2 - 02/15/17

PRESENTS

FEBRUARY 15, 2017 OSCAR NOMINEES/PART 2

Nominees’ Gallery LUCAS HEDGES MICHELLE WILLIAMS RYAN GOSLING VIOLA DAVIS AVA DUVERNAY JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE ANDREW GARFIELD VIGGO MORTENSEN

THE ROAD TO

MANCHESTER How John Krasinski, Matt Damon, Kenneth Lonergan and the cast turned a simple idea into a Best Picture contender.

DEADLINE.COM/AWARDSLINE

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A MASTERPIECE

“

WINNER

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW AWARDS I

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BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

WINNER NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS I

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BEST ACTOR

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CASEY AFFLECK

G

WINNER CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARDS I

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BEST ACTOR

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CASEY AFFLECK

G

” .

W I N N E R

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD ® D

R

A

M

A

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

“NO FILM THIS YEAR HAS MOVED ME MORE.” “TOGETHER CASEY AFFLECK AND KENNETH LONERGAN HAVE MADE A DRAMA OF RARE POWER. As an actor, Affleck is terrific at showing his characters’ inner workings without saying a line—you can always see the gears ticking behind his eyes.”

“THE ROLE THAT WILL ONE DAY DEFINE CASEY AFFLECK’S CAREER.” F O R

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Y O U R

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

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CASEY AFFLECK THE MOST HONORED PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK AT L A N TA F I L M C R I T I C S S O C I E TY

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK NEW YORK FILM CRITICS ONLINE

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK LAS VEGAS FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK

DALLAS-FORT WORTH FILM CRITICS ASSN.

BEST ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSN.

BEST ACTOR

BE B ES ES ST T AC CT TOR OR

CA ASEY AFFLECK

SOUTHEASTERN FILM CRITICS ASSN.

BE B ES ST T ACT CTO OR R

CA ASEY AFFLECK

BEST BEST BE ST AC CT TOR OR

CASEY AFFLECK HAWAII FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

BE B E EST ST ACT ST CTOR OR

CASEY AFFLECK

BOSST S T OONN O NL N L IN I N E FI F I LMM C RRIIITI T I CCSS A SSSS NN..

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C H I C AG AGO INDEPENDENT FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

BE B ES ST T ACT CTOR OR

BEST BEST BE ST AC CT TO OR R

CAS SEY AFFLECK PHOENIX CRITICS CIRCLE

BE B EST ST ACT CTOR OR

CASEY AFFLECK DETROIT FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

BES BE ST T AC CT TOR OR

U TA H F I L M C R I T I C S A S S N .

CASEY AFFLECK

AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF CINEMA & TELEVISION ARTS

CA ASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTOR

BE ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

BE EST ST ACT CTO OR R

VANCOUVER FILM CRITICS

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY Y AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTO OR O R

BE B ES EST ST T ACT CTO OR R

ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

A U S T I N F I L M C R I T I C S A S S O C I AATT I O N

G EO R G I A F I L M C R I T I C S A S S O C I AT I O N

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

CASEY AF FFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST BE ST ACT CTOR OR

BEST ACTOR

BEST BE ST AC CT TOR OR

BES BE ST T AC CT TOR OR

I N D I A N A F I L M J O U R N A L I S T S A S S O C I AT I O N

LONDON CRITICS’ CIRCLE

DENVER FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

I OWA F I L M C R I T I C S A SSO C I AT I O N

CASEY AFFLECK K

CASEY AFFLECK OKLAHOMA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WA S H I N G T O N D C A R E A F I L M C R I T I C S A S S N .

CAS SEY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTOR

BE B BES ES ST T ACT CTO OR R

BE B ES ST T AC CT TO OR R

GOTHAM AWARDS

CASE EY AFFLECK

CASEY AFFLECK S E AT T L E F I L M C R I T I C S SO C I E TY

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

B ST ACT BE CTOR OR

BE B ES ST T ACT CTO OR R

B ST BE T ACT CTOR OR

SAN DIEGO FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CA ASEY AFF FL E CK

CASEY AFFLECK

KANSAS CITY FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

N O RRTT H CA NO C A RO R O LI L I NAA F IL I M CCRR IT I T IC ITIC I C S ASSO A S SSOO CCII AT AS A T IOO N

BES BE ST T ACTOR CTOR CT O

BE EST ST AC CT TOR OR

CASEY AFFLECK ST. LO U I S F I L M C R I T I C S A SS N .

CASEY AFFLECK

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HOUSTON FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CASEY AFFLECK N AT I O N A L S O C I E TY O F F I L M C R I T I C S

CASEY AFFLECK HAWAII FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CASEY AFFLECK N E VA VADA FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

TUNE IN TO

”

“Manchester By The Sea: Emotional Lives” on KCBS (channel 2) Wednesday, February 15th at 7:30pm and KTLA (channel 5) Saturday, February 18th at 4pm

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CONTENTS

F E B RUA RY 15 , 2 0 17 OSCA R NOMINE ES / PA RT 2

G EN ERAL M AN AG ER & C H IEF R EVEN UE OF F IC ER

7-13

ED ITOR

FIRST TAKE Isabelle Huppert in Elle; Documentary contenders square off

14

COVER STORY The long road to Oscar nods for Manchester by the Sea

Stacey Farish Joe Utichi

C R EAT IVE D IR ECTOR

Craig Edwards

ASSISTAN T ED ITOR

Matt Grobar

D EAD L IN E CO- ED ITORS- IN - C H IEF

Nellie Andreeva Mike Fleming Jr.

AWAR D S ED ITOR & COLUM N IST

Pete Hammond

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D EAD L IN E CON T R IB UTORS

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VID EO P ROD UC ER

THE DIALOGUE: NOMINEES’ GALLERY Lucas Hedges Michelle Williams Ryan Gosling Viola Davis Ava DuVernay Justin Timberlake Andrew Garfield Viggo Mortensen

HANDICAPS Pete Hammond on the Best Picture and Best Director races, plus predictions on the rest of the field

Peter Bart Anita Busch Anthony D’Alessandro Lisa de Moraes Patrick Hipes David Lieberman Ross Lincoln Diana Lodderhose Amanda N’Duka Dominic Patten Erik Pedersen Denise Petski David Robb Nancy Tartaglione David Janove

C H AIR M AN & C EO

Jay Penske

VIC E C H AIR M AN

Gerry Byrne

C H IEF OP ERAT IN G OF F IC ER

George Grobar

SEN IOR VIC E P R ESID EN T, B USIN ESS D EVELOP M EN T

Craig Perreault

G EN ERAL COUN SEL & S.V. P. , H UM AN R ESOURC ES

Todd Greene

VIC E P R ESID EN T, C R EAT IVE

Nelson Anderson

VIC E P R ESID EN T, F IN AN C E

Ken DelAlcazar

VIC E P R ESID EN T, T V EN T ERTAIN M EN T SAL ES

Laura Lubrano

VIC E P R ESID EN T, F IL M

Carra Fenton

SEN IOR ACCOUN T EXEC UT IVES, T EL EVISION

Brianna Hamburger Tiffany Windju ON THE COVER Kimberly Steward, Casey Affleck, Kenneth Lonergan, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams and Matt Damon photographed for Deadline by Michael Buckner THIS PAGE Viggo Mortensen photographed for Deadline by Mark Mann

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AD SAL ES COOR D IN ATORS

​Kristina Mazzeo Malik Simmons

P ROD UCT ION D IR ECTOR

Natalie Longman

D IST R IB UT ION D IR ECTOR

Michael Petre

ADVERT ISIN G IN QUIR IES

Stacey Farish 310-484-2553 sfarish@pmc.com

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A.O. SCOTT

14 BEST PICTURE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS ®

INCLUDING

LionsgateAwards.com

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CONSIDER THIS

When was the last time a movie made your heart soar?

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DISRUPT

alex

ORS2017 ARE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW A DISRUPTOR?

At the Cannes Film Festival 2016, Deadline presented its inaugural list of industry DISRUPTORS; individuals and organizations that have fundamentally shaped the landscape of film and television, past and present. They included Ted Sarandos, Ang Lee, Roy Price and Peter Jackson.

The list will return for 2017, with Deadline choosing a total of 30 DISRUPTORS to represent the maverick spirit required to deliver fresh ways of thinking that empower the industry to evolve. And for the first time, we are welcoming submissions on behalf of creative individuals or companies that you believe deserve to be recognized as disruptive forces. Deadline co-editors-in-chief Mike Fleming Jr. and Nellie Andreeva will determine the final list of DISRUPTORS, which will be printed in Deadline’s Cannes Film Festival special magazine in May. The list will include a profile about what the DISRUPTORS selected did to change the landscape of their industry.

Each DISRUPTOR featured will receive an award and will be invited to a celebration at the Cannes Film Festival in May. One DISRUPTOR will be invited to join Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. on stage at Cannes Lions in June 2017.

S U B M I T N O M I N E E S F O R D E A D L I N E D I S R U P T O R S B E F O R E M A R C H 7 AT :

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BITTERSWEET REFUGEE TALES p. 10

THIS YEAR’S DOCUMENTARY CONTENDERS p. 12

ELLE’S BELLE

Despite a Foreign Language snub for the film, Isabelle Huppert lands her first Oscar nomination for Elle.

BY NA N C Y TA RTAG L I O N E

ACTING IN FILMS since her teens, Isabelle Huppert is one of France’s most established talents, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Almost unbelievably, for the muse of Michael Haneke and the late Claude Chabrol, this is the first time she has been nominated for an Oscar. From the moment it premiered in Cannes in May, Paul Verhoeven’s provocative Elle seemed destined to set Huppert on the awards circuit—she now sports a Golden Globe and myriad Best Actress prizes from major critics bodies. Huppert plays an emotionally complex businesswoman who is raped in her home by a masked assailant and then tracks him down, both drawn into

PHOTOGRAPH BY

Chris Chapman

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CHASED Isabelle Huppert engages in a dangerous game with her attacker in Elle.

of the time it’s still the film that they

like I was acting. I felt like I was being

were deeply touched by.

myself the whole time.

Did it provoke conversation

Thanks to this freedom that he

around you?

gave you?

Yes, but very little, really. I’ve had

Yes, but also because of his intelligence,

innumerable meetings with audiences

because it was clear it had to be done

and I almost never had an embarrass-

that way. It couldn’t be done otherwise

ing question that consisted of saying

and I wasn’t surprised. He is a great

to me, “How could you do this film?”

director and the great directors know

Now that doesn’t stop people bring-

that you have to leave actors very free

ing up the provocative and disturb-

while giving them a frame. Directing an

ing aspect of the film, but really not

actor is not to restrain an actor, it’s to

because it bothers them. It’s almost

leave them the freest possible.

like there is a pleasure in liking the film a curious and thrilling game. I caught

Was the fact that the film did

despite what happens that is pro-

So you’d be happy to work together

up with her recently to talk about the

not make the Oscars Best For-

foundly disturbing and provocative.

again?

whirlwind of the last nine months, the

eign Language shortlist a big

freedom of working with Verhoeven,

disappointment?

In Paris, someone asked if you find

derful director. I have always adored

and why there ultimately was no

Yes, it was a big disappointment but it

it difficult to shed a character at

his films and how he likes to be on the

controversy for what might have been

was very quickly erased by the Golden

the end of a shooting day and you

razor’s edge.

a controversial film.

Globes, which honored not only me

said no. Is that something that

Oh, yes, immediately. He’s really a won-

but also the film. That’s how it is. You

you’ve learned over the years or

Given what is happening now in the

When I last saw you a few weeks

can’t comment on the subjectivity of

were you always that way?

U.S., do you think politics has its

ago in Paris you were about to

a decision.

When people ask me that question I

place in awards season? Particu-

don’t even understand it—the idea that

larly with the situation of Asghar

start shooting Eva with Benoît Jacquot. You’ve always been a

After working so closely and fre-

we can be encumbered. Rather, I’d say

Farhadi and other people who may

busy actress, but since Cannes

quently with directors like Claude

I make no difference between the fact

not be able to travel to the Oscars?

this year, with all the traveling for

Chabrol and Michael Haneke, were

of being encumbered by a character

Everyone has the right to express

different awards, did that have an

you surprised that this kind of

or not. It’s not something I feel like a

themselves. It’s not because you’re an

impact on your work schedule?

reaction came for your first film

burden.

actor or a director that you can’t say

It didn’t impact this film because the

with Verhoeven?

shoot came at the last minute. Every-

We never had any doubt about the

What was it that you found with

to react as a citizen and say what they

thing is normal. But since the Golden

depth of the subject matter; if we had,

Verhoeven that made you two

think. What is politics? It’s life together,

Globe and the Oscar nomination, it’s

I wouldn’t have done it. But of course

work so well together?

so it’s completely normal that people

certainly true that a lot of things are

we’re not naïve and knew that a film

Firstly, it was the absolute freedom

express themselves on the subject.

going on for me. It’s not at all usual, not

that talks about the relationship a

that he gave me. It was a wonderful

for anyone—whoever you are, it’s never

woman begins with her rapist... The

feeling because I felt made for this role

At the end of this whole story, after

usual. Maybe a bit less for a French

film had all the predictable elements

and this material. I got to do abso-

February 26, do you think this is an

actress, because it’s the Golden

to have it confronted by controversy,

lutely what I wanted to do. He never

experience you’d like to have again?

Globes and the Oscars too. So for a

which would have excluded it. But

intervened in my work. He left me in

It’s a little early to say. Your question is

French actress it’s a bit less common

rather than excluding it, it made it

peace for 12 weeks. He never said a

very sweet. I’m right in the middle of it

than for an American actress.

included in the acceptance of the film

word about the character and that

so I’m enjoying every second. I’m really

which is surprising. That proves the

was wonderful. He made his film and I

happy for everything that’s happen-

Has anything shocked you during

depth and integrity of the film, and I’d

did mine and everyone was happy with

ing to me. It’s really extraordinary and

this whole experience?

almost say something at the base of

what I was doing and it clearly became

it’s too early to want to live it again; I

Actually, there’s not a lot that has

it which touches people—something

a method. He quickly said “Voilà, she’s

haven’t even finished the first time.

shocked me because we were so hap-

I never doubted—that there’s enough

doing it maybe better than me.” Maybe

pily surprised at the reaction to the

there to reach people.

not better, but I only reacted to dif-

Is it like being a bride—you have

ferent situations every day that were

to remember to concentrate on

film. Even if people continued telling

what you think. Everyone has the right

us that the film was disturbing and

At Cannes, there was a moment

proposed and if he had come into it, it

everything so you remember the

provocative, that apparently didn’t

where it seemed like a move-

would have created a fiction: “No the

wedding?

stop it getting over all the obstacles

ment was afoot to render the film

character would do this, not that.” I did

Well, we know that everything that’s

that we might have feared. Because

controversial. But at the end of the

it like it happened in all of these situ-

happening is ephemeral and goes very

if not, we wouldn’t have had two

day, it was embraced.

ations, so there was a documentary

fast. I think it changes everything and

Golden Globes for the film and count-

Yes absolutely. There were maybe sug-

aspect because I don’t at all feel like

changes nothing in the sense that

less other prizes. I’ve never received

gestions of that but I didn’t see them.

I acted in this film. Of course there is

what I want to do is continue to make

as many prizes for a film. What’s hap-

What I mean is in the press, if there

a fiction and there is the film, and it’s

movies, to be curious of a lot of things.

pened around this film is absolutely

were all these critics associations that

the story that imposes its own force

It’s not going to change the way I want

incredible.

gave me prizes as Best Actress, most

and logic on the viewer, but I didn’t feel

to do films. ★

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

THIS IS WHY ‘LION’ IS THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR “AS A REFUGEE, AN IMMIGRANT, AND A MOTHER, LION RESONATED DEEPLY WITH ME. IT IS A REMARKABLE FILM AND A TESTAMENT TO THE INDOMITABLE HUMAN SPIRIT.”

“IN A WORLD THAT SEEMS TO BE BROKEN APART BY DIVISIVENESS, LION ROARS WITH THE KIND OF HOPE WE ARE ALL LOOKING FOR.”

- MADELEINE ALBRIGHT,

- GLOBAL CITIZEN

F O RMER SE CRE TA R Y O F S TAT E

“IN A DARK AND TREMULOUS TIME, LION IS THE PERFECT ANTIDOTE: UPLIFTING AND INSPIRATIONAL, BRIMMING WITH PERFORMANCES – ESPECIALLY THAT OF THE INSANELY PRECOCIOUS SUNNY PAWAR – THAT TAKE THE BREATH AWAY. FOR THOSE (LIKE ME) WHO ARE ADOPTED AND FOR THOSE WHO AREN’T BUT HAVE EXPERIENCED THE PROFOUND NEED TO CONNECT TO AN ELUSIVE PAST, THE MOVIE IS AT ONCE A REVELATION AND A MIRACLE.”

“A TIMELESS FILM ABOUT FAMILY, IDENTITY AND HUMANITY IN THE 21ST-CENTURY. BEAUTIFULLY ACTED AND BEAUTIFULLY TOLD – AN ASTONISHING AND TRUE STORY SPANNING CONTINENTS AND CULTURES.” - MARK HALPERIN, AU T H O R A N D SEN I O R P O L I T I C A L A N A LY S T, M S N B C

- JOHN HEILEMANN,

C O - M A N AG I N G ED I TO R , B LO O M B ERG P O L I T I C S

“LION IS A BEAUTIFUL FILM. IT MOVED ME DEEPLY. SUNNY PAWAR AND DEV PATEL ARE BOTH OUTSTANDING AS THE CHILD AND ADULT SAROO, AND NICOLE KIDMAN GIVES AN EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE. A TERRIFIC PIECE OF WORK.” - SALMAN RUSHDIE, AWA RD - W IN NIN G AU T H O R

“LION IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT A GREAT FILM CAN ACCOMPLISH.” - JEFF KOONS, A R T IS T

REMEMBER WHERE YOU CAME FROM

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CHARTED TERRITORY

Gold Derby’s Oscar Odds At press time, here is how Gold Derby’s experts ranked the Oscar chances in the Best Picture, Directing, Animation and Documentary races. Get up-todate rankings and make your own predictions at GoldDerby.com

This Land Isn’t My Land Marcel Mettelsiefen details the bittersweet ends to refugee journeys with Oscar nominated short, Watani: My Homeland.

continuation with the same subjects of a prior film, Syria: Children on the Frontline, Watani was a difficult film to make, not only due to the financial costs, or the daily, imminent threat of danger.

The most difficult part for Mettelsiefen came in exploring his own narrative’s conclusion.

As bittersweet as anything, the doc reveals a hard fact: while families may find safety for their children in a new land, there is no guarantee of a

A DOCUMENTARIAN AND WAR CORRE-

happily-ever-after, and no one is entirely better

SPONDENT covering the Syrian Civil War since

off for what they’ve left behind.

the time of the Arab Spring, Marcel Mettelsiefen

“I hope that the audience understands—if

has made a name for himself with a series of

this family would have been able to choose, they

shorts about children coming of age in the war-

never would have left,” the director says. “For

torn country.

me, as a German, the most important message

Shot over the course of three years, Watani:

for a German audience is to say that there’s

My Homeland documents a Syrian family’s flight

almost a million refugees who are in Germany.

from their homeland to the safety of small-town

If they would have been able to choose, they

Germany in the pursuit of a better, safer life. A

would have stayed.

DANCING QUEENS

Sound editors Mildred Iatrou Morgan and Ai-Ling Lee worked to the beat on Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.

La La lovers’ dancing shoes.

“All those sounds have to be in perfect rhythm to the music—in pitch and tone, too, so it doesn’t clash with the music of the film,”

RECEIVING THEIR FIRST

specific homage—something they

Lee explains. “[Choreographer]

NOTICES from the Academy for La

regarded as a riskier prospect.

Mandy Moore came in with her

La Land, sound editors Ai-Ling Lee

Beginning their work on a

dancer to redo the [dancing] feet.

and Mildred Iatrou Morgan helped

rough cut back in January, Morgan

We tried many different kinds of

the film tie the all-time Oscar

handled ADR and dialogue, leaving

shoes and surfaces to get the clas-

record, becoming the first female

Lee to focus on sound design—per

sic Fred and Ginger sound.”

team ever to be nominated in their

their usual arrangement. Morgan

category.

was challenged to navigate transi-

Working together previously

tions between dialogue and the

on Adam Shankman’s Broadway-

film’s musical moments—with the

based Rock of Ages, the sound edi-

same microphones used both on

tors were inspired this time around

set and in the studio, providing

to see the enthusiastic response

continuity—while Lee was tasked

to an original music grounded in

with naturalistically managing the

10

BEST PICTURE

ODDS

1

La La Land

2/11

2

Moonlight

16/1

3

Manchester by the Sea

50/1

4

Hidden Figures

66/1

5

Arrival

66/1

BEST DIRECTOR

ODDS

1

Damien Chazelle La La Land

2/7

2

Barry Jenkins Moonlight

5/1

3

Kenneth Lonergan Manchester by the Sea

50/1

4

Denis Villeneuve Arrival

66/1

5

Mel Gibson Hacksaw Ridge

80/1

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

ODDS

1

Zootopia

1/10

2

Kubo and the Two Strings

33/1

3

Moana

50/1

4

The Red Turtle

66/1

5

My Life as a Zucchini

80/1

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

ODDS

1

O.J.: Made in America

2/9

2

13th

9/1

3

I Am Not Your Negro

16/1

4

Fire at Sea

66/1

5

Life, Animated

80/1

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE B E S T D O C U M E N T A R Y F E AT U R E WINNER

WINNER

WINNER

Golden Bear Berlinale

Best Cinematography IDA Documentary Award

Documentary of the Year London Film Critics Circle

WINNER Best Documentary European Film Awards

“A MASTERLY AND MOVING LOOK AT THE MIGRANT CRISIS THE FILM DOES NOT TAKE A VIEW; IT DOES NOT DEMAND ACTION. IT SIMPLY SHOWS US THE DETAILS AND I FELT LIKE I LEARNED MORE FROM THIS FILM THAN FROM THE NIGHTLY TV NEWS.’’ PETER BRADSHAW,

“INTENSELY ABSORBING. ROSI OBSERVES, WITH HUMILITY AND PRECISION. INSTEAD OF RAISING AWARENESS, HE CULTIVATES ALERTNESS.’’ A.O. SCOTT,

“PROFOUNDLY MOVING. REVELATORY. A SHINING EXAMPLE OF JOURNALISM FUELED BY OUTRAGE AND SHAPED BY FREERANGING CURIOSITY.’’ JOE MORGENSTERN,

“MASTERFUL...

GOES ABOUT ITS BUSINESS IN A QUIET WAY, WITH UNOBTRUSIVE YET POWERFUL SIMPLICITY, USING AN UNCONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE AND CINEMATIC ARTISTRY TO MAKE ITS POINTS.’’ KENNETH TURAN,

A F I L M BY G I A N F R A N C O R O S I

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D OCUMENTARY SPOTLI G HT

DOC STOCK Clockwise from main image: Ava DuVernay’s 13th; Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea; Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America; Roger Ross Williams’ Life, Animated.

TRUE STORIES

question, beautifully made.

This year’s documentary feature nominees dig into hot-button race and immigration issues.

BY A N T O N I A B LY T H

making O.J.: Made in America. “Hon-

To reach the Academy’s top

estly, I am still weirdly exhausted

five in this category is, of course, an

by it in a way that’s hard to even

incredible achievement in itself. With

articulate,” he said. “The subject

a total of 145 films throwing their

matter is dark. You’re living with this

hats into the ring, and such typical

thing that is all-consuming.”

obstacles as restricted access to

DuVernay may be best known for

subjects, highly irregular shooting

directing the 2015 Oscar-nominated

schedules and a notoriously difficult

Selma, but 13th is not her first foray

THIS YEAR’S DOCUMENTARY

the fifth of the group, Roger Ross

funding and distribution process,

into the documentary genre. In

FEATURE NOMINEES are a particu-

Williams’ Life, Animated, should not

documentary filmmakers must be

2008 she made This is the Life—an

larly news-centric bunch, with four

by any means be sidelined. Wil-

especially driven. Also, making a

exploration of L.A. hip hop cul-

out of the five tackling the subjects

liams, who won an Oscar in 2010

film about emotive and often tragic

ture—following that up with a series

of current furious worldwide debate.

for his documentary short, Music

issues requires incredible personal

of BET TV documentaries. 13th is

Ava DuVernay’s 13th, Raoul Peck’s I Am

by Prudence, tells the story of how

strength. As DuVernay told Deadline

a landmark achievement in that it

Not Your Negro and Ezra Edelman’s

animated film has radically changed

of making 13th, “It was really intense.

exposes a shocking ‘loophole’ in

O.J: Made in America all address the

the life of a man with autism. This

Over 1,000 hours of racist, violent

the 13th amendment that techni-

issue of racial discrimination in the

may be less front-and-center than

footage that my editor and co-writer

cally allows slavery in the instance

U.S., while Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea

the other subjects in the top five,

Spencer Averick and I got to wade

of a criminal conviction—something

handles refugee immigration.

but it depicts a triumph over a

through. It’s not easy to do.”

not commonly known. DuVernay

Weighty, vital topics such as

condition that affects many fami-

Edelman, who took the DGA

expertly examines the horrifying

these must surely appeal to the

lies. Bottom line: all five films are

Award for documentary, also spoke

downward spiral for people of color

Academy from the get-go. However,

important, educational, and without

of the personal experience of

trapped within the U.S. justice

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Peck allows Baldwin’s words to

Rosi’s unstructured format brilliantly

speak through the ages, demon-

echoes the dislocated sense of his

strating relevance as clear today as

subjects’ lives. This film shows the

when they were written in the late

brutal truth and sheer extent of the

1970s. With the voice of Samuel L.

worldwide refugee crisis, revealing it

Jackson, along with archival record-

as a situation no one can ignore.

ings of Baldwin himself, the end

For the film lovers who make

result is incredible, powerful visual

up the Academy, the tale of a boy

poetry. Peck aligns images of the

literally rescued by movies is surely

civil rights movement with black and

hard to resist. For many years Owen

white photographs of Ferguson pro-

Suskind didn’t speak, until one day

tests, highlighting their similarity and

he began communicating from the

thus, how little has actually changed.

viewpoint of his favorite Disney

And he examines the ways Ameri-

characters. In Roger Ross Williams’

can culture has legitimized racism

film Life, Animated, we see how

through advertising and movies.

Suskind makes sense of the world

Previously known for Lumumba,

around him via the magic of ani-

his critically-acclaimed 2000 biopic

mated film. Based on a book written

about the first prime minister of

by Suskind’s father Ron, the docu-

the Belgian Congo, and for Fatal

mentary follows Suskind as he pre-

Assistance (2013), his documentary

pares to move into his own apart-

about the aid failure following the

ment at the age of 23. It appears

earthquake in his native Haiti, Peck

that Suskind’s favorite films allow

is nominated for an Independent

him to channel and control the

Spirit award for I Am Not Your Negro.

chaos of his emotions and percep-

He also won the IDA’s Creative Rec-

tion, since these animated movies

ognition award, the People’s Choice

handle life with clear themes of

award at TIFF and Best Documen-

‘good’ and ‘bad’ and with straight-

tary at the L.A. Film Critics’ awards.

forward emotional responses.

While Trump’s refugee immigra-

What makes Williams’ film

tion ban has recently made front-

especially powerful though, is the

page headlines and inspired nation-

way in which autism is not depicted

wide protest in the U.S., Gianfranco

as a sad and crucifying condition.

Rosi’s Fire at Sea takes us to the

Instead, we hear from Suskind on

desperate front lines of the refugee

his determination to make a life

crisis. The film centers on the small

for himself, and Williams cleverly

Mediterranean island of Lampe-

intersperses this testimony with

system and the historical precedent

Spanning some seven hours, O.J. is

dusa, where thousands of refugees

animation using Suskind’s favorite

that led to this situation, drawing

part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, and

continue to be granted safe haven.

characters. Life, Animated isn’t just

unsettling parallels with the world

focuses on the rise and fall of the

70 miles away from North Africa, the

a moving tale of triumph over adver-

today. Said DuVernay: “The docu-

infamous sportsman, with a detailed

island is a first landing place for dis-

sity, but a love letter to filmmak-

mentary talks about Trump, it also

look at race relations and the U.S.

placed people, and Rosi (El Sicario,

ing and its transformative powers.

talks about many people through-

political climate from the 1960s up

Room 164) depicts the struggles of

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize

out history who espoused this point

until that notorious ‘trial of the cen-

their journey and arrival, along with

at Sundance last year, Williams also

of view, and the effects of that kind

tury’. “I wanted to tell a story about

the tragic drowning of those whose

picked up the Directing Award at

of policy and that kind of thinking,

race in America through the lens

boats flounder at sea. He also looks

the festival. He was then nominated

and also the ways in which people

of this guy,” Edelman told us. “But

at the effect on local people and

for DGA and PGA awards and three

have started to come back at that.

also in a way that could explore the

at the valiant efforts of the island’s

more at Critics’ Choice, where

And that’s where we are now; that

history of Los Angeles and the black

single doctor, Pietro Bartolo.

Suskind took home the prize for

folks will resist this.”

community here, and juxtaposing

Perhaps the category frontrunner, though, is Edelman’s five-part epic

that with O.J.” Raoul Peck’s examination of race

Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin, Fire at Sea involved an 18 monthlong, grueling shoot, with Rosi

Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary.

All in all, there are some very

O.J.: Made in America. Like 13th, it’s

relations in I Am Not Your Negro

impressively gaining access to the

tough choices for Academy voters

nominated for an Independent Spirit

does something very different from

Italian Navy’s rescue vessel. For the

to make in this final round of voting,

award, and has won several Critics’

these other films—he draws on

local resident viewpoint, Rosi looks

with five powerful, influential films

Choice awards (four to 13th’s three).

the unpublished letters of African-

through the non-judgmental eye

on the docket. Many are strong

But it scooped the biggest prize at

American activist, author and

of Samuele Pucillo, a young Italian

enough to encourage political

the IDA awards—Best Feature—and

playwright James Baldwin as source

boy, serving up a grassroots vision

change; all of them serve to educate

is undoubtedly a massive achieve-

material, with Baldwin’s own words

of life on the island. In examining a

and move the viewer. May the best

ment in documentary filmmaking.

making up the entire soundtrack.

time and place wracked by chaos,

filmmaker win. ★

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WAY IT WEATHERED SHIFTING STARS, DIVERTED DIRECTORS AND FICKLE FINANCIERS, BUT SINCE ITS SUNDANCE DEBUT LAST YEAR, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA HAS BECOME ONE OF AWARDS SEASON’S GREATEST STORIES OF TRIUMPH. MIKE FLEMING JR. MEETS THE TEAM. PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL BUCKNER

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CAR TROUBLE Patrick (Lucas Hedges) and Lee (Casey Affleck) share a moment in Manchester by the Sea.

THE ROAD TO BEST PICTURE FOR INDEPENDENT FILMS is usually filled with uncertainty and adversity. And only in hindsight does it seem like some beneficent movie god plotted the course, and that calamities along the way would seem like big breaks. Manchester by the Sea might be defined by a rapturous 2016 Sundance premiere, followed hours later by the news that Amazon Studios paid $10 million in a bidding battle that started its road to Oscar season. But it was an exhausting journey to that point. From the shuffle of director, star and a financier shortly before production, to the incredible sadness of the storyline, Manchester turned its struggles with adversity into good war stories.

“From the moment this movie finally came together, there was a feeling there were people who loved and appreciated certain qualities it had, but that it would never find an audience,” says its star, Casey Affleck, who plays Lee Chandler, a man struggling to come to terms with an incident in his past as he’s given sudden charge of his teenage nephew. “That was true when we were out trying to find the money to make it, through even Sundance, where there was praise for the quality of the movie, but no sense that it was going to be

couldn’t go back to after he moved away to the big city where he was living anonymously,’” Damon recalls.

FOR 15 YEARS I’VE BEEN TELLING [LONERGAN] THAT MAKING MOVIES IS FUN, AND HE WAS CONVINCED I WAS INSANE. I’D SAY, ‘I WOULDN’T HAVE SPENT THE LAST 20 YEARS DOING THIS IF IT WASN’T THE GREATEST JOB, EVER,’ AND HE KEEPS GOING, ‘YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR MIND.’ I GOT AN OPPORTUNITY HERE TO PROVE IT TO HIM.

“There was this relationship he had with his big brother, and then there was his nephew and the death of a

-MATT DAMON

some blockbuster. That has really been one of the best parts of this whole thing; some vindication of good storytelling. From the very first movie I did, people were saying, ‘Small movies are dead. It’s over.’ I remember hearing that conversation on To Die For, and not being sure what it meant. Some 25 years later, they’re still saying that. It’s not true; a story well told can still find an audience, without big stars or big spectacle.”

Producer Matt Damon spent more time on the journey than anyone, and he doesn’t share Affleck’s optimism. “Oh, it’s much harder than it is was back when we did Good Will Hunting together,” he admits. “What made that difficult was that Ben Affleck and I were attached to it, and that was what was dragging it down.

That movie would have been made in a minute if we weren’t attached. It cost $19 million with Robin Williams’ salary, so maybe it was $14 million below the line. That number, up to a $50 million budget with people just hanging out and talking, got made all the time [then]. Now, it’s so rare, and I got to see why, with Manchester.

We had five producers on this film and needed every single one of them. It took a village, literally, to make this thing and I want movies like this one, or Moonlight, to get attention because it’s going to be the death of movies like this if they stop getting that attention.”

The story of Manchester by the Sea began with a meeting around six years ago, between Damon and Boston pal John Krasinski. Each was trying to move from actor-for-hire to actors who write, direct, produce, and create their own vehicles.

“John knew I wanted to direct and said, ‘I have this idea about this guy, an uncle, and there is this town he

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The Long Road To Oscar

Each of this year’s Best Picture nominees has survived a journey to cross the finish line, before ever earning the Academy’s consideration. Here’s how they came together.

I STILL THINK IT’S PROBABLY MORE FUN TO BE MATT DAMON, SHOOTING A MULTIMILLION DOLLAR MOVIE, THAN IT IS TO BE KENNY LONERGAN IN A BASEMENT IN GLOUCESTER. -KENNETH LONERGAN

ARRIVAL When Ted Chiang’s sci-fi Story of Your Life first came across Denis Villeneuve’s desk, it wasn’t an immediate choice for the big screen “The short story is more intellectual, in a good way,” Villeneuve says of Chiang’s work. “It’s more about language and not your political problems. It was a very powerful idea but there was no dramatic structure. There was one for a short story, but not for a movie.”

Fortunately, Eric Heisserer’s screenwriting brought an elegant solution: a clever use of timeline-created tension in this tale of alien invasion and interplanetary race relations, a mysterious love story between Amy Adams’ and Jeremy Renner’s characters, and a very smart twist.

In pre-production for Arrival, Villeneuve was faced with more hurdles, not least of which was the issue of creating an entire language for the alien characters. “To create a life form and to create a language,” he says, “I realized quickly how difficult it was.

It was a big challenge. For the language, I wanted to have specific qualities. My production designer, Patrice Vermette, worked with the help of an artist, Martine Bertrand. They came with this idea that I deeply loved, and Patrice deeply loved the idea to an extreme, where we had a dictionary.”

Sound designer Dave Whitehead worked to create the unearthly sounds of the alien language while supervising sound editor Sylvain Bellemare worked on the spaceship noises. Cinematographer Bradford Young—and in post-production, editor Joe Walker— worked with Villeneuve to create the aesthetic. Vermette helped design the spaceship, while VFX supervisor Louis Morin worked on the design of the ship and aliens with artist Carlos Huante.

Unusually, Villeneuve involved composer Johann Johannsson from the beginning. “Even before I started to shoot," Villeneuve says. "It’s like a dance between me and Johann to arrive at the end of something that feels married together, not music on top of images.” —Antonia Blyth

child, one child, in his past. I loved the idea of this broken man.”

Damon was the second person to hear the idea.

Krasinski first proposed it to Girl on the Train star Emily Blunt, shortly after they began dating, when she was shooting The Adjustment Bureau with Damon. “Believe it or not, I was sitting next to Emily on a train when I had the idea,” Krasinski says. “She thought it was moving and beautiful.”

The pitch, he says, didn’t base Lee Chandler on an actual tragic figure, but came from his own happy experiences in a tight-knit Boston family, and his connection to his nieces and nephews.

It sparked the idea “that you are responsible for your family whether you like them or not, and your community as well. It’s almost like a duty. I thought, what would it be like if someone who thought he was a failure for a different reason was asked to try again; to get a second chance on life, one he didn’t think he deserved? It was more that existential second chance question than anything. Could you become a better person if someone else saw you that way? I thought the idea of a kid realizing how special his uncle is when his uncle could never see it was fascinating, and I loved the idea of the older brother knowing this was possible.”

Armed with the title and intention to set it in Boston, Krasinski and Damon began writing, but then sparked to the fracking idea of Promised Land.

“That started to catch fire and Matt said he wanted to give the other idea to Lonergan,” whom Damon describes as “my favorite writer on the planet”.

They pitched it to the playwright, and director of You Can Count on Me and Margaret, with Damon ready to make his directorial debut, and Krasinski playing the brother who returns to Manchester to

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bury his older sibling.

Damon and Affleck both had a great experience starring in a London revival of Lonergan’s This is Our Youth in 2002. Less fun was Damon and Lonergan’s experience on Margaret, the Fox Searchlight film that stranded in dry dock for six years. Lonergan remains in a long lawsuit with financier Gary Gilbert, who demanded a shorter cut the director refused to provide. The ordeal left Lonergan wary of straying again from the stage, where his words are treated as sacrosanct.

For Damon, Manchester by the Sea became an opportunity to prove his point in a running debate with Lonergan: that moviemaking could actually be a pleasurable experience. “For 15 years I’ve been telling him that making movies is fun, and he was convinced I was insane,” Damon says. “I’d say, ‘I wouldn’t have spent the last 20 years doing this if it wasn’t the greatest job, ever,’ and he keeps going, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I got an opportunity here to prove it to him. This was one of those times where, once the script came in and I looked at it and felt it was so good and so much his voice, I just said, ‘Kenny, you have to direct this movie. I’ll play the role and I’ll get the funding. We’ll go make this and no one will bother us. I’m going to prove to you that movies are really, really fun.’”

This was no small gesture for Damon. While his production partner Ben Affleck used a leading man lull to carve a second vocation as a writer/director

FENCES After one rainy day in Seattle spent with August Wilson in the hopes he might write a star vehicle for him, Denzel Washington might have seemed destined to become the one to finally bring the playwright’s work to a movie screen. It is never that easy.

“I remember he just smoked cigarette after cigarette, like he was from another era,” Washington recalls. “It was kind of awkward, like, ‘What am I there for really?’ I don’t want to say, ‘Hey, can you write something for me?’ And he wasn’t saying, ‘I’m writing something for you.’”

He did tell Washington his secret, in creating well-worn characters who reflected the African-American experience through the decades. “‘Well, I just shut down the house and lock all the windows and doors, and I listen to the characters and I write down what they say,’” Washington remembers Wilson telling him. “I wanted to say, ‘You got some of their numbers?’”

His turn came years later, when producer Scott Rudin sent Washington the Fences film screenplay Wilson had written. While Troy Maxson reminded him of the quiet, blue-collar struggles of his own father, Washington needed to hear the character’s voices on stage as they were originally written.

A sold-out run and three Tonys later, Washington brought his castmates—including Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson, Mykelti Williamson and Russell Hornsby—whose stage repetition allowed them to wear their characters like a second skin, along for the feature film. The challenge became expanding Wilson’s world beyond a single stage, but Washington didn’t stray that far, insisting on shooting the film in the playwright’s Hill District hometown near Pittsburgh. —Mike Fleming Jr.

that eclipsed everything else, Damon was frequently sidetracked by movie-starring jobs that he couldn’t refuse. It prompted him to hand Promised Land to Gus Van Sant, and more recently Father Daughter Time to Gavin O’Connor.

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Manchester’s complex emotional storytelling too daunting for his first film, that wasn’t the case, he insists. “It was exactly what I was looking for.

Spielberg told me this 15 years ago. He said, ‘The first movie you make, just take a small story and see if you have the ability, visually, to tell it. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.’ Manchester was designed for that, and the script came in perfect. But I really felt like Kenny was so locked in at that point. And Ridley Scott and I wanted to do The Martian.”

But Lonergan wasn’t easily convinced to take the reins. What he sparked to in the pitch was “the idea of someone who’s lost that much, trying that hard to do the right thing for what remained of his family.

I was attracted to the idea of trying to tell a story like that without sentimentalizing it or having everything turn out okay in the end.”

Lonergan says it takes him three years to turn out a script that’s any good, and this one took longer because he was busy with plays and a Howards End miniseries, plus the Margaret litigation. “I also had a lot of trouble with the first draft, and only felt like I was off and running when I introduced a

HACKSAW RIDGE A prize for longest road traveled by a Best Picture nominee would surely belong to Hacksaw Ridge. While the clock on this project started in 2001—when producer David Permut introduced Bill Mechanic to Terry Benedict, the filmmaker behind a documentary about Medal of Honor-winning conscientious objector Desmond Doss—Doss had spent decades spurning Hollywood offers from Darryl Zanuck, and one from producer Hal Wallis and actor Audie Murphy. A humble Seventh-day Adventist, Doss didn’t want credit for his impossible WWII heroism, but when he turned 80 he left the decision to his church.

Mechanic persuaded them, but bumps loomed ahead. That included an initial pass by Mel Gibson, before the collision of a man of peace in an extremely violent battleground prompted the Oscar winner to make Hacksaw Ridge his comeback vehicle as director.

Financing fell through from Walden Media, because Gibson’s depiction would be R-rated. The filmmakers put it back together on a shoestring budget made possible by Australian incentives.

And while many true stories embellish heroism, Mechanic says they had to underplay Doss’s exploits—that even included dodging bullets to hang that cargo net off the ridge. When Doss (Andrew Garfield) took shrapnel from a grenade, he gave up an easy ride on the stretcher upon seeing another injured man, whose injuries he treated. Doss then was shot in the arm, fixed a gunstock as a splint, crawled some and waited five hours for rescue. So it’s not true Doss never touched a gun, but that wasn’t why the scene wasn’t included. “It was like, holy cow, would anyone believe this?” says Mechanic. —Mike Fleming Jr.

flashback structure. Writing chronologically was pretty flat.”

After eight months, “I just stumbled on the flashbacks by throwing out everything I didn’t like,” Lonergan recalls. “There’s this janitor, and he’s very strange and you don’t know why. I started over with the first scene that I was interested in: him, shoveling snow outside of the apartment complex.

In the first draft, I just had him get up on the day of the accident and go through his day, and it seemed very pedestrian plotting, a series of disasters that seemed pretty uninteresting.”

Lonergan admits that writing this for a friend to direct allowed him to be looser than when he writes for himself, but not in the fully-disconnected way that assignment writers take on, where there is a hesitancy to expend total authorship when the likelihood is your words will be changed by the next rewriting scribe. Way before he agreed to direct, Lonergan put himself on the line creatively because it was for Damon.

“Matt is such a good guy, and I trust him,” Lonergan says. “I knew Matt would never fire me or rewrite the script without my permission. I wrote it knowing I wasn’t going to direct it, that it was going to be his movie, but because I knew it would be made more or less unadulterated, that gave me the liberty to really put my heart and soul into it.”

Lonergan made the tragedy worse than the one in Krasinski’s imagination, and both Krasinski and Damon were amazed by Lonergan’s use of humor in the script, using the logistical practicalities of burying the brother’s body in winter to create revelatory moments for all the characters (think Lucas Hedges’ freezer-induced anxiety meltdown over the realization his dead father was on ice until spring, or Michelle Williams' character's chance encounter with her ex, on the streets of Manchester).

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“I was blown away,” Krasinski recalls. “His was a much grittier take; a deeper, darker look into what the situation would be like. And that’s absolutely what the movie needed. What was also clear was that Kenny’s writing was so unbelievably specific to him. He’s one of those people who, five minutes into a movie, you know it’s a Kenny Lonergan film. I felt that here. I was disturbed by a lot of the script; how he peeled back layers of things I would have left as, ‘We can all imagine what the impact of that would be.’ He really showed it to you.”

That bleak subject matter would make the film a difficult sell to financiers, and it got more complicated when Damon realized he would have to push the film back at least two years if he was going to direct it.

Lonergan eventually succumbed to Damon’s urging him to direct. By then, Krasinski had his own scheduling problems that prompted him to exit the lead role of Lee Chandler. Damon took on the role, but he too had to vacate because of starring commitments. Damon says: “When I was playing the main role, we had set it up at Odd Lot and Gigi Pritzker. She said, ‘I love the movie, but I don’t know Kenny.’ Fair enough. Chris Moore and I set up this plan where I would have final cut, and while my intent was to help Kenny see through his vision, it worked. We were going into production, but I had this hard start date in Hungary for The Martian, and there was less and less time. I remember speaking to Chris when we were five weeks from principal photography and still in L.A., with no production offices open in Massachusetts. I said, ‘Dude, now we’re putting Kenny in a bad spot.’ I didn’t have another opening in my schedule for two years, and we would have to punt. But Kenny was so ready to go that he had his bags packed. He had Casey reading every draft for support anyway, and on some parallel track, I think we all felt, when I was going to direct it and John fell out, that I’d do it with Casey.”

Affleck says he wished this had been conveyed more clearly to him early on. He remembers exactly where he was when he read Lonergan’s script, meant for Damon and Krasinski. “He wanted feedback from a friend,” Affleck said. “I read it in Atlanta on a Saturday morning and thought, well, so this is what it feels like to read a great script for a movie that will be great.’ I told him how I felt and didn’t think about it again.”

He adds: “Matt will make a great director someday; I remember when I was way, way younger, sitting with Matt and watching Rain Man on laserdisc. He kept winding back this scene, over and over again, where Tom Cruise is looking out a window and the camera is slowly pushing out, and out, as he’s having the conversation with his brother’s doctor. Matt was fascinated by the director’s choices, and that had to be a full 20 years ago. But he’s been so busy acting. I was sure reading it that Matt would make it a great movie, but on the other hand, I think

HELL OR HIGH WATER As the old saying goes, you’re as good as your last picture, and in the case of screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, he was in fantastic shape coming off drug war noir Sicario. That film went from being a buzzed about title at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival to a threetime Oscar nominated pic. As such, Sheridan’s second script, the revisionist western Hell or High Water, sped from page to screen quite rapidly.

After approaching Peter Berg to produce, Sheridan found the script in a financiers’ bidding war, which Sidney Kimmel won since he agreed to shoot the original draft. Ultimately the production settled on Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie, a guy who delivered a 1970s visual sensibility to Hell or High Water’s heist scenes; the filmmaker having adored such crime pics as Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick.

Says Sheridan about why Mackenzie was the right guy: “He’s an unsentimental director, and he’s patient with the camera in a way that doesn’t feel slow. There were important moments in the script that could be overly sentimental, such as between Marcus and Alberto’s friendship, and when Toby meets his ex-wife, or goes to sit with his son. There’s a lot of landmines, and David effortlessly stepped around them.”

One of Sheridan’s inspirations sparked from his federal marshal uncle who kicked down doors right up until his last day of the job before retirement, much like Jeff Bridges’ Marcus. But another nuance which makes Hell or High Water more than just a white hatblack hat bank heist story about two brothers on the lam are its side characters, which Sheridan paints: middle-class working folk weathering a post-recession U.S. While driving through the deserts of West Texas, Sheridan noticed a litter of banks in an area where few cops were on duty. “I worked through in my mind the cycle of poverty: robbing the people who legally robbed from you. I watched as the recession hit, and there was anger, and I allowed that to manifest.” —Anthony D’Alessandro

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as Kenny eventually would.”

Affleck read subsequent drafts for his pal Lonergan, and then had no problem committing. The question became, according to Damon, “Can we set this up with Casey?” Odd Lot, understandably flustered by the fast-shifting elements, dropped out. “We were told by WME it was unlikely we’d be able to set it back up quickly,” Damon remembers.

“They gave us an exact number we could get for a package with Casey in the lead, at that moment in his career. And it wasn’t enough. So we took all these meetings around town. And we got the exact offers they predicted we would. That’s when Kimberly Steward came into the picture.”

The daughter of World Wide Technology founder David Steward, she just launched her financier/ production company K Period Media, with no substantial narrative movie credits to speak of. “She was starting a company to do movies with auteur directors,” Damon says. “She told us, ‘I totally get this.’ She was familiar with Kenny’s work, told us the company she was going to build. We just looked at her and said, ‘Well, do you want to jump to the front

HIDDEN FIGURES Margot Lee Shetterly’s book, Hidden Figures, about the black women mathematicians in the 1960s that helped turn the space race into a sprint, was published in September. Before the end of the year, Ted Melfi’s feature adaptation had hit theaters. His movie hadn't come together in three months—nothing is quite that easy— but there was something so undeniable about the story Shetterly had unearthed that, when producer Donna Gigliotti was handed a 55-page proposal in 2015, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She showed it to Whoopi Goldberg, who emailed her almost immediately: “YOU MUST MAKE THIS MOVIE.” Like Gigliotti, Goldberg knew nothing of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn and the army of “computors” at NASA who did the calculations necessary to send humankind into orbit. Gigliotti turned to Allison Schroeder to put together a draft. Schroeder had never written a project of this scale before, but she told the producer she was “born to write this screenplay”. She was a NASA brat, after all, with her parents and her grandmother all working at the agency. She studied math and engineering at Stanford and interned at NASA. “I got [Schroeder and Shetterly] together and facts and figures were flying back and forth between them,” Gigliotti recalls.

Melfi had made his last movie with Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping of Chernin Entertainment, and all three “kind of went nuts for it” when it was brought to them. Says Topping, “you just couldn’t believe this was a story you didn’t know about.” Pharrell Williams boarded the project as a producer too, similarly inspired, and by the end had contributed an entire soundtrack of original music.

Movies rarely get such an easy ride to the screen, but then, how often do filmmakers get to introduce the world to stories like this, of history-defining events that were somehow lost to history? The women of Hidden Figures deserved their podium—and they finally got it. —Joe Utichi

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of the line?’ And she said she would make it for $8.8 million; a lot more than anyone else was offering.

It was exactly what we needed. I think we had $11 million when I was going to do it and we knew this would be right. This movie would never, ever, ever have come into existence without Kimberly.”

Rather than seeing Affleck as a liability, Steward took the leap because she loved his indie work.

Surprisingly, the performances of his that stood out most to her were The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Killer Inside Me. Both lost money. “[Jesse James] is one of my favorite films,” she says. “There, and in The Killer Inside

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Me, he brings such authenticity to his characters; such subtlety. He communicates such powerful emotions by taking the route less traveled and doesn’t require many words. He was just somebody I wanted to work with.”

Steward, now only the second African-American woman to be Oscar nominated for Best Picture, might have seemed to be making the kind of longshot bet many monied first-timers do, but what she saw in Affleck is exactly what helped elevate the film with his Oscar-nominated performance.

She also got an invaluable tutorial on producing prestige movies from Lonergan, Damon, Moore, and Kevin Walsh, she says. “I did my due diligence on everyone, and even when I bumped up against a few [Margaret] stories, for me [the opportunity] was so clear,” Steward recalls. “I was not going to tell Kenny Lonergan how to make his film and I wasn’t going to tell him what creative elements he needed.

I feel very blessed to have come from a situation where I can actually invest in these films, but it doesn’t give me the right to tell the other leader involved what he should or shouldn’t do. I wanted to be there, in service of my director.”

Having Damon in final cut position was also helpful; a concession that was more a relief than a burden for Lonergan. “Matt had been really involved and helpful in the struggle over Margaret, and since he was staying on as producer of Manchester, we discussed different scenarios whereby I and the financier would feel protected. I wouldn’t have directed it if I didn’t have complete trust in Matt having final creative control because, unless something really went wrong, I knew he would cede creative control to me. And if something had gone really wrong I wouldn’t expect to retain creative

I WAS NOT GOING TO TELL KENNY LONERGAN HOW TO MAKE HIS FILM AND I WASN’T GOING TO TELL HIM WHAT CREATIVE ELEMENTS HE NEEDED. I WANTED TO BE THERE, IN SERVICE OF MY DIRECTOR. -KIMBERLY STEWARD

LA LA LAND Write about what you love, not what works, right? Which is what filmmaker Damien Chazelle and musician pal Justin Hurwitz did, plying their adoration for yesteryear Jacques Demy musicals into what would become a cinematic love letter to Los Angeles, despite the classic MGM musical style they cherished going the way of the dinosaur.

They began cracking La La Land while the project was at Focus Features in 2011, where they met their producers Fred Berger and Jordan Horowitz. Focus didn’t greenlight the project, but the rights reverted back to the team.

Peddling La La Land around town ensued, with Chazelle explaining, “There wasn’t a lot of excitement in the room when we initially pitched it. Here we are with an original musical, one that incorporates jazz, and a love story where the protagonists may not wind up together; everything was a further death knell. But the fact that there haven’t been any in a while was part of the appeal.”

Whiplash, in all its Sundance and Oscar glory, occurred next for Chazelle, providing him with the momentum to drum up interest in La La Land. Lionsgate chiefs Erik Feig and Patrick Wachsberger were fans of French New Wave musicals and old Hollywood tuners, which gave the distributor the edge in winning the project.

Though Emma Watson and Miles Teller were attached at greenlight, they would ultimately depart: she for personal reasons and Teller over negotiations going south. Enter Emma Stone, fresh off her Broadway debut in Cabaret. Meanwhile, Chazelle was meeting with Ryan Gosling, Stone’s co-star from two previous Warner Bros. films (Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad). After hearing the music, Gosling knew he was the jazz pianist.

“The drunker we got, the more passionate Damien got about making movies that you couldn’t watch on your phone,” Gosling recalls about his first talk with the filmmaker about La La Land over drinks. “He wanted to make films that people would want to go see in a theatre, with an audience.” —Anthony D’Alessandro

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control. So there was no conflict at all in that arrangement. In fact, it was a perfect solution.”

The other factor that gave Lonergan confidence despite a crunched shooting schedule was all the time he and Affleck had spent discussing the main character. “I would describe what he brought as a really full emotional life, every moment, without having dialogue to express it,” Lonergan says. “His character’s often described as being cut off or emotionally dead, but I don’t see it that way at all.

What’s remarkable about Casey’s performance is that he’s very emotional and actively struggling to keep his emotions at bay, from the moment he wakes up until he passes out at night. That, I think, is what make it so compelling to watch him. He’s got his own plan of how he’s going to get through the day in terms of how he interacts with other people, which is not normal. You see him in these pedestrian situations, like when a tenant offers him a tip and he doesn’t understand because he’s trying so hard to control his interactions. You’re constantly wondering what’s going on with him, because he’s so active internally. These are specific choices, not

LION UK/Aussie producing duo Iain Canning and Emile Sherman were at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival screening their Jane Campion TV series Top of the Lake when they became aware of a “very hot story” popping out of Australia. Indeed, Vanity Fair had recently published an article about Saroo Brierley, the Indian-born Australian man who, at the age of five, was separated from his family in India, adopted by an Australian couple and later used Google Earth to reunite with his birth mother deep in the heart of India.

“There were a whole lot of people meeting Saroo and his reps to talk about making a film version of his story,” recalls Canning.

“Emile knew he had to get back to Sydney.” But it wasn’t just Saroo who they had to persuade—the See-Saw Films founders, who were behind titles such as The King’s Speech and Macbeth, had to convince Saroo’s entire family to trust them.

It didn’t take long before the family were on board, and See-Saw Films moved quickly into development, attaching Top of the Lake helmer Garth Davis to the project. “We wanted the film to be made as lively and quickly as possible because we wanted to be the first to make it a cinematic experience,” notes Canning.

Not only were they attracted to the sense of originality in the story but, being a UK/Australian outfit, the prospect of shooting in the rugged wilderness of Tasmania, and the vibrant chaos of India, was hugely appealing. “We saw that in some ways Saroo was very landlocked with his experience in his Indian village as a child, and then he’s adopted by Australian parents and moved to Tasmania where he’s pretty much on the edge of the Earth.”

And Nicole Kidman’s involvement may have been in the stars.

Whilst researching, they stumbled upon an interview with Sue Brierley, Saroo’s earnest adoptive mother, on Australia’s 60 Minutes.

When asked who she would like to play her in a film version of the story, Brierley said Nicole Kidman. “She’s got very powerful visions, Sue,” says Canning. —Diana Lodderhose

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random. We worked hard on this. It’s one of the most consistent and interesting internal thought processes I’ve ever seen in a performance, and if you watched the movie with either of us, we could probably tell you exactly what’s happening with him even when he has nothing to say.”

The uphill part of Manchester by the Sea ended with a rapturous reaction to the Sundance premiere, and Steward recouping her risk when Amazon Studios paid $10 million, winning the film over bidders that included Sony, Universal, Fox and Lionsgate.

Krasinski, ironically, was at Sundance to promote the movie he did instead, The Hollars, which he directed and starred in. “I would be meeting people for my movie and they would be like, ‘Did you hear about the sale of Manchester by the Sea? Did you see the movie?’ I was finding out about it in real time, feeling this swell of pride, because they pulled it off.”

Krasinski resisted the urge to inject his own role into those conversations even though it was his original idea. “Emily makes fun of me and how I’m overly pragmatic, but certain things just make sense to me, and I try not to get emotional about

EMOTIONAL SCARS Randi (Michelle Williams) and Lee struggle to reconcile their past with one another.

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it,” Krasinski says. “Instead of wondering whether I let the role of a lifetime go by, I immediately say to myself, ‘Thank God Casey did it,’ because I wouldn’t have been able to plan any of those nuances and those specific choices he made. They were so perfect and so him. He’s one of the best actors we have, period, and this showcases him in a way nobody has seen before.

“I think Matt would say the same thing here, but there’s no way Matt would have directed this movie like that, and no way I play that part like Casey did.

It’s like jazz; you had the right people at the right time and it can’t be duplicated.”

Damon is equally at peace serving as the film’s backbone—and chief spokesman in TV ads—and not director, star or writer, despite Oscar nominations for all three of those categories. He hasn’t exactly gotten Lonergan to admit, though, to an enjoyable experience. “I’m all over him about that,” laughs Damon. “And considering he’s got a tuxedo on now every time I see him, something has worked out. Honestly, that day at Sundance, to see that embrace by the audience…it was so clear, right away, and so palpable how moved everyone was. It was clear to me then we were going to be OK, and then that night Amazon swooped in and gave us that great deal and we’ve never looked back.”

When Affleck took to the stage at the DGA Awards earlier this month to fete his director for Manchester, he joked that Lonergan was “the greatest director who really hates directing”. The reluctant writer/director admits now, “After it’s all over, it’s fun if people like the movie. I’m not suggesting I’m suffering or struggling, but I am still waiting for the actual process itself to be a little more fun.”

Damon, Lonergan concedes, enjoys himself on movie sets, “but he’s a huge movie star and I’m not sure he has the best perspective on this issue.

He is not working 16 hours a day in a little room in Gloucester, waiting for them to move the furniture from one room to the other because they forgot which room we were shooting in that day. We had a really good crew but there are screw-ups with every movie, little problems that come up all over the place. I still think it’s probably more fun to be Matt Damon, shooting a multi-million dollar movie, than it is to be Kenny Lonergan in a basement in Gloucester.” ★

MOONLIGHT Like many of the most important works, Moonlight shone only after all hope appeared to have been spent. Writer/director Barry Jenkins had earned some kudos for his debut feature—2008’s Medicine for Melancholy—but it never led to the career as a filmmaker he had hoped for. Years later, after he’d turned his attention to making a living in other ways, his former Florida State film school classmate Adele Romanski sat him down and told him she wanted to produce a movie for him to direct. They kicked around ideas, with Jenkins demurring from one he felt would be too close and personal to his youth in the Miami projects, struggling with a drug-addicted mother.

That film, surprisingly, was not Moonlight. In fact, Jenkins didn’t immediately notice how closely playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s tale mirrored his own, perhaps because the lead of his unproduced play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, was primarily struggling to understand his emerging homosexuality in a world determined to shun him for it; Jenkins is straight. “Maybe it was good it came about that way,” Jenkins says, “because it allowed me to remove this block I’d had, that I didn’t want to make a movie about myself.”

Jenkins wrote the screenplay in a flash in Belgium; felt it pour out of him. Not long after, he went to Telluride, where he worked as a programmer, and moderated a Q&A for 12 Years a Slave. It was there he reconnected with producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, who asked him what he was working on. When he sent them the script, “It was one of the most astonishing things I’d ever read,” Kleiner says. “I thought it was so complete.”

The project came together with A24, the upstart distributor looking to move into production after releasing films like Room and Ex Machina. Of the fevered 25-day shoot, Jenkins admits, “it was this fresh, open wound of an experience. It took us to places that I guess we should have seen coming, but none of us realized how intensely personal it was going to be in the making of it.” —Joe Utichi

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D THE DIALOGUE

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LUCAS

HEDGES

Best Supporting Actor Manchester by the Sea You land this part, working with Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kenneth Lonergan. What goes through your mind on day one?

I remember feeling fearless in the auditions, like I was so capable of just being as playful as possible. I thought, if I got it, that I’d figure it out on the day, but when I got it I was like, holy shit, I actually have to do this part now. A lot of the process for me was actually just getting over the fear of doing it, and the fear of failing, and the fear of letting the movie down. Fortunately I had the most supportive and amazing director in the world for that. Kenny [Lonergan] is just a dream.

What has this role meant to you?

Without this movie I would be a sophomore in college right now. Probably really struggling my way through an acting conservatory. It’s been the opportunity of a lifetime in terms of a platform that would allow what I can bring to the table as an actor to be seen, and that is really all you can ever ask for. One thing I’m really grateful for this awards season is that it feels great to be seen right now, and I know that a lot of my friends are not being seen. This role has been everything for me. —Joe Utichi

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MICHELLE

WILLIAMS

Best Supporting Actress Manchester by the Sea

What do you remember about reading the script for the first time?

I imagine it’s like reading a perfect piece of music, and then you have to learn how to play it.

The script is the first place that I look for clues, and I also start with the filmmaker’s work to really understand what their influences are, and what they respond to in other films.

That’s important to me.

We meet your character Randi, struggling to process tremendous loss, and then confronted by the reappearance of the man responsible.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the intervening years, because after a tragedy like that, I would imagine that she would be a person reborn. Who she is now would bear very little resemblance to who she was then, because it skins you as a person to go through something like that. I remember reading this thing about how women helped rehabilitate each other after being victimised by the Khmer Rouge. They would remember how to take care of each other, and then, through that, learn how to take care of themselves.

I thought about that with Randi; she had to be re-taught how to live, and how to care, and how to put herself back together.

—Joe Utichi

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RYAN

GOSLING

Best Actor La La Land

What sparked you to La La Land?

I really responded to the story of these two characters struggling with their hopes, dreams and failures.

The musical element seemed to come into their story in the same way a soundtrack would in any film, only in this film, the characters were in control of it. I was excited by that and by the idea that through song and dance, you could potentially take both the characters and audience to greater emotional heights.

Of course, that’s something that everybody who loves musicals already knows, but because this was coming from a place of character and not just concept, it seemed like it had potential to also resonate with people who don’t love musicals.

What was the most demanding musical number?

I worked about four hours a day, for three months, on a piece of music that I was meant to be able to execute in one take without any sneaky edits or mistakes. It just so happened, for scheduling purposes, that this scene had to be shot on my first day of production. Needless to say, I lost a bit of sleep over it but I managed to do it on the day. Everything after that, although still challenging, seemed possible. —Anthony D’Alessandro

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VIOLA

DAVIS

Best Supporting Actress Fences It’s rare for an entire cast to transfer a project from stage to screen like this.

It is very rare, but you know what? You need that much time to find the character. I’m sure any actor out there can look at something they did 10 years ago—even something that they were relatively proud of—and say, “Oh, I could have done that a little bit differently, if I just had a little bit more time.” And that’s kind of what it feels like.

It felt like maybe the play was a big rehearsal for the movie.

Is there a difference in playing the role on film?

The difference is, of course, when you’re in the theater, you’re playing in a room full of 1,200 people, and in the movies, you’re playing to the person about five inches away from you. You have the benefit of going into the house, or cooking the food, going up to the bedroom.

So that changes it, but then there’s a huge part of it that doesn’t change.

—Pete Hammond

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AVA

D u VERNAY

Best Documentary Feature 13th

You made 13th in the Obama era, but we are now in the Age Of Trump, so what does the film say to the America of 2017?

Well, huge, huge question, and I honestly don’t know the answer. I know when we were making the film that we knew that there was going to be some kind of radical change coming on the horizon. That’s why it was important for us to get it out before the election.

I also really wanted it to feel evergreen. I wanted it to be something that could live on and be a conversation piece long after this inauguration, whoever it was going to be. So now, I think there are pieces of the film that are even more emotionally resonant and more vital to talk about than ever.

There’s been a diverse field of Oscar nominations this year. But are the recent changes at the Academy deep and real?

I think true change is a long game, and it remains to be seen if this is change. We’ve had years before where there have been great years for filmmakers and performers of color, LGBTQ filmmakers and performers, women. we’ve had these bursts of cool years here or there, but that’s not change, that’s a trend. You only hope that this could be the beginning of true change.

It certainly could be, but time only will tell. —Dominic Patten

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JUSTIN

TIMBERLAKE

Best Original Song Trolls

Trolls is a film that preaches happiness and inclusivity above all else. A tonic for our times?

It’s something that’s come up recently with the filmmakers at a couple of Q&As I’ve done. It’s sort of what we were trying to accomplish, but we didn’t know it was going to be so prescient. It’s ironic the movie’s called Trolls, because those are angry, weird people who sit behind computers, nowadays.

“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” fits that theme; it’s such a spirited ode to the power of music.

I got to thinking about the soundtracks that I love. Saturday Night Fever was something I kept talking about with the directors.

This is a trippy movie, and it felt to me like watching an ABBA video under the influence of something crazy. It got me thinking about disco again, which I think is a highly underrated genre of music. I felt like, why don’t we write a song about music making you feel good?

It’s something pure, that you can always count on. With that scene at the end of the movie, everyone had to come together to capture that feeling. Everyone kept talking about the “feeling” of it, and so it was like, clearly there’s something sitting right in front of us that we can’t deny. —Joe Utichi

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ANDREW

GARFIELD

Best Actor Hacksaw Ridge

You’re playing a real person, Desmond Doss, who is no longer with us. How did you prepare?

There was a really profound moment— as part of my prep I went to the town where he retired and I went onto his property. There was something kind of mystical and magical that happened there, and at that point I had done the majority of the research that I would do, which was all the books, the films, the footage. I found myself just kind of praying to him, really, and asking him, fill me up. Fill me up with information that you want to give me, and tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.

You’re in two passion projects this year—this and Scorsese’s Silence.

Why are they so important to do?

The world needs the passion projects.

We want a deep experience when we go to the movie theater. We want something that’s going to tell us who we are, and that we’re okay, and that we can maybe do better, or that maybe we can rest a bit more— whatever it is. I hope that I can devote my life to that. And they take fighting.

Someone like Bill Mechanic has been trying to make this film for God knows how many years. It’s emotional to see him finally put it out there; and it’s the same with Marty.

—Pete Hammond

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VIGGO

MORTENSEN

Best Actor Captain Fantastic

As a director with acting experience, what makes Matt Ross a strong collaborator?

What distinguishes him, like the best directors I’ve worked with, is that he prepares meticulously and is a great listener. He’ll take suggestions from anyone, knowing that he is going to make the final painting. He always made us feel like we had plenty of time, and that it was play, which is the best possible thing you can do. But that shows you what a good actor he is, because obviously, you don’t have plenty of time.

The film premiered last Sundance; what do you see as the resonance of Captain Fantastic post-election?

I think it’s a “Yes We Can” movie.

Yes we can, individually, yes we can, as a nation, find a way to listen to each other, and make compromises that we can all live with. That’s not happening very much right now—there’s not a lot of cohesiveness in the country. You can either feel negatively about it, or you can look at the situation positively.

People are more socially engaged now with what’s happening than they have been in a long time, so I look at it as a positive thing. —Matt Grobar

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BEST PICTURE ACCORDING TO LA LA LAND’S OPENING SONG, “it’s just another day of sun” in Los Angeles. And for the 14-time nominated musical, the Oscars might be “just another award” to win as well. So far it has swept just about every major precursor honor there is, and in very convincing style. But the Oscar isn’t just another award, and this solid frontrunner will have to avoid the curse of being the one to beat. As I have often said, predicting the Oscars can be a real fool’s errand, and this year the strategy I offer is simple: for your Oscar pool you can either decide that enough voters are enamored with Damien Chazelle’s tuneful ode to the City of Angels and bittersweet romance that they just check it off in every category they can, or perhaps they feel it has already gotten too much and want to spread the wealth around. We haven’t had a major sweep in a while.

You may recall last year’s Picture winner Spotlight pulled off that feat by winning just one other award (Original Screenplay). Before that, both Argo and 12 Years a Slave took the Best Picture prize with only two other awards.

It is a quandary to try and see which way the Oscar winds might be blowing this year, but here goes my best assessment of the Best Picture race, along with everything else. Remember to check in with the online version of this story closer to the February 26th ceremony, because I reserve the right to make changes to these predictions that were made even before balloting began. And again, don’t blame me if I’m wrong (but I don’t think I am).

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BEST ACTOR Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck simply rolled over everyone else in the critics’ awards and at the Globes, but shockingly was stopped by Fences’ Denzel Washington at SAG. It was the first real test of industry sentiment, and it didn’t go Casey’s way. Denzel had a showier role and that might have helped. Since they didn't face off at BAFTA, where Washington wasn’t nominated, the next big showdown between the now two frontrunners will be Oscar night, and it might be a nail-biting time. Hacksaw Ridge’s Andrew Garfield is a very long shot, as is Captain Fantastic’s Viggo Mortensen (repping that film’s only nomination, but he did get the biggest applause at the Oscar Nominees' Luncheon).

Could Ryan Gosling upset, even though stars of musicals rarely win this one?

The Winner: Denzel Washington – Fences BEST ACTRESS La La Land’s Emma Stone won a comedy/musical actress prize at the Globes, and triumphed at SAG, which is enough to make her the odds-on favorite to pull off a rare win in this category for the star of a musical. Natalie Portman’s Jackie had early momentum, but after losses at the Globes and SAG, has faded. Meryl Streep’s 20th nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins is victory enough, as is Ruth Negga’s first, representing the only mention for Loving. Stone’s biggest competition comes from France’s critical darling and Golden Globe winner Isabelle Huppert, but will enough voters actually watch the subtitled Elle?

The Winner: Emma Stone – La La Land BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR There is sentiment for seven-time nominee Jeff Bridges, so good in Hell or High Water, but he won in 2009 for Best Actor. Manchester by the Sea’s young Lucas Hedges will be back another day, and so will Dev Patel.

Michael Shannon scored a surprise nomination after being snubbed by other groups, but reps Nocturnal Animals’ only nod, so that is a large mountain to climb.

Even without his stunning SAG acceptance speech, Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali was leading this race for a small, but significant turn that should pay off Oscar night in a big way.

The Winner: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS With a record three black actresses in contention here—Fences’ Viola Davis, Moonlight’s Naomie Harris and Hidden Figures’ Octavia Spencer—this category has already made Oscar history. Past Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman, getting her fourth nomination and first in this category, is touching in Lion, as is Michelle Williams in Manchester by the Sea. They both give strong portrayals of mothers, but Davis’ scorching turn in Fences has them all beat unless voters think she should have been in the Lead Actress category. Unlikely. She is a strong frontrunner, whatever the placement.

The Winner: Viola Davis – Fences BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY By all accounts, Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney became the frontrunners when the Academy’s writers branch went rogue and placed Moonlight here instead of Original, where WGA has it. That meant runner-up status

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is almost assured for the other four nominees, which include the late August Wilson for Fences, Luke Davies for Lion, Eric Heisserer for Arrival, and Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi for Hidden Figures, although the latter has enormous good will and could be rewarded here if the Academy wants to give that film something.

The Winner: Moonlight

Arrival DIRECTOR Denis Villeneuve WRITERS Eric Heisserer Ted Chiang (short story) PRODUCERS Shawn Levy Dan Levine Aaron Ryder David Linde STUDIO Paramount Pictures OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Director Best Adapted Screenplay Best Cinematography Best Film Editing Best Sound Mixing Best Sound Editing Best Production Design

This smart sci-fi drama takes the well-worn alien genre and turns it into a fascinating story dealing with life, death, loss, communication and a woman played by Amy Adams who goes deep in trying discover the mysteries of her own life as she encounters beings from another planet. With eight nominations, including one for director Denis Villeneuve, this stunning film has production values for days, but is a long shot to take the big prize.

Fences

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Politics and President Donald Trump’s travel ban for Iran and six other terrorist-deemed countries has already claimed a victim here, with nominee Asghar Farhadi saying he won’t be attending on behalf of Iran’s The Salesman. Some voters have already said they will vote for the movie out of protest, but is it the best? It likely would be further down the list, but world events have intervened. Completely deserving are Denmark’s Land of Mine, Sweden’s delightful A Man Called Ove, Germany’s comedy Toni Erdmann and Australia’s first ever contender, Tanna. I have a hunch in the end it won’t be Iran, and Farhadi, who is already a past winner here, but events could dictate otherwise.

The Winner: A Man Called Ove BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM Kubo and the Two Strings marks the fourth stop-motion film for LAIKA and its fourth nomination in this category; not a bad track record. Has the time come for Travis Knight’s Oregon-based animation factory? Or maybe another indie like The Red Turtle, or My Life as a Zucchini?

If voters stick to their predictable ways, though, Disney will return to the winners circle with one of its two nominees, either Moana or Zootopia. With the latter having dominated with wins at the Globes, PGA and the Annies, it seems the trend is clear.

The Winner: Zootopia

DIRECTOR Denzel Washington WRITER August Wilson PRODUCERS Todd Black Scott Rudin Denzel Washington STUDIO Paramount Pictures OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Adapted Screenplay

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Attention should be paid to Taylor Sheridan’s Hell or High Water, but probably won’t. Mike Mills is also a long shot for his very personal and fine 20th Century Women. A real long shot is Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou’s quirky The Lobster. No, this is a two-horse race at this point between Damien Chazelle’s original musical and Kenneth Lonergan’s highly praised words and silences for Manchester by the Sea, with the latter having the edge for the kind of script that usually wins, making it one to beat here and a way of rewarding the film. No musical has won a screenplay prize since Gigi took Adapted in 1958. Will La La be the first in nearly 60 years?

The Winner: La La Land

Denzel Washington’s faithful adaptation of the August Wilson play is the kind of Broadway transfer from stage to screen studios used to do all the time, but rarely try anymore. Its success is heartening and the idea of taking virtually the entire cast from the 2010 revival that starred Washington and Viola Davis is something that should play well with voters from the actors branch, the largest in the Academy. Still this one is far more likely to score in acting categories than this category, where its lack of a directing nomination for Washington doesn’t help its chances to pull an upset.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The ASC cinematographers themselves chose Lion, which was a bit of a surprise over Arrival, La La Land, Moonlight and Silence, but could that pattern be repeated here? Unlikely, as Lion’s very specific photographic challenges were easily recognized by the peers at ASC. With the entire Academy voting, I believe they are more likely to continue checking off their love for La La Land, which will mean good things for Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren in the category dominated the last three years in a row by Emmanuel Lubezki.

The Winner: La La Land

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BEST COSTUME DESIGN This is one of the toughest to judge as there seems to be no obvious period nominee to choose. These are all evenly matched. The question for La La Land here is does it seem too contemporary? That’s usually a drawback when the Academy looks at the word ‘costume’. That might favor period nominees Allied, Florence Foster Jenkins or Jackie. The fantasy duds of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them are another way to go. I see a split could possibly happen, meaning the La La fans could win again by default, for Mary Zophres’ technicolored stylings that are the perfect complement to the film’s production design and cinematography, but tradition will likely prevail.

The Winner: Florence Foster Jenkins

Hacksaw Ridge DIRECTOR Mel Gibson WRITERS Robert Schenkkan Andrew Knight PRODUCERS Bill Mechanic David Permut STUDIO Lionsgate OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Actor Best Director Best Editing Best Sound Mixing Best Sound Editing

Mel Gibson’s comeback triumph is a powerful and emotional World War II drama that celebrates the indefatigable human spirit.

The true story of conscientious objector and Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss is one that was made for the movies, and Gibson’s efforts behind the camera show what a brilliant filmmaker he is. It has its supporters, but its best shot at a victory would be in the sound and editing categories, where this recreation of one of WWII’s bloodiest battles is simply riveting.

BEST FILM EDITING Often, but not always, the winner of editing is also the winner of Best Picture, but it isn’t a golden rule. Hell or High Water and Moonlight (which has, among its nominees, Joi McMillon, the first African-American woman nominated in this category) are worthy entries, but not likely winners here. It comes down to Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, and you guessed it, La La Land. La La and Arrival were winners with the editors themselves at the ACE Eddie Awards, which divide it up between Comedy/Musical and Drama. Hacksaw is the kind of find that would seem to impress immensely in this area, so I expect a split between that and Arrival, leaving the door open for Tom Cross, already a winner here for Whiplash two years ago, to ride the wings of Chazelle once again to victory with the expertly assembled La La Land.

The Winner: La La Land

Hell or High Water DIRECTOR David Mackenzie WRITER Taylor Sheridan PRODUCERS Carla Hacken Julie Yorn STUDIO Lionsgate/CBS Films OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Supporting Actor Best Original Screenplay Best Editing

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BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Again, La La Land’s more subtle, contemporary production design doesn’t look weighty enough side by side with more epic efforts like Arrival, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Hail, Caesar! and Passengers, with Arrival the most likely to benefit if there is a feeling this is a place not to vote for La La Land. Oddly, Hail, Caesar! celebrates the kind of movies that inspired La La Land, so it would be ironic if that took it. It likely won’t, and here is where Arrival could triumph unless, like me, you are aiming to predict a near clean sweep and take your lumps if you are completely wrong.

The Winner: La La Land

The title says it all. This is a hell of a story and a high water mark for the season. I have been captivated by this smart crime drama ever since seeing it at Cannes in May, and since then it has oddly become more pertinent and politically potent as events have unfolded in real life. It is that miracle of a movie that entertains while having something to say, a real keeper. The lack of what certainly would have been a well-deserved directing nomination for David MacKenzie, though, probably means this film is somewhere back in the pack, and unlikely to shock the masses on Oscar night.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR STYLING This is a tough one. The Swedish makeup wizards behind the transformation of A Man Called Ove, Eva von Bahr and Love Larson, were actually surprise nominees last year as well, with the little seen The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window. Clearly, they know how to impress their colleagues, but the Academy at large probably will go for less subtle work in either Star Trek Beyond or Suicide Squad.

The Winner: Suicide Squad BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Yes, this would seem to be a slam dunk for La La Land, even if you aren’t a fan. Most voters outside of the music branch will assume they are voting for all those songs as well here, but this category is strictly for the musical score, not the songs. Justin Hurwitz’s score is deserving on that front, too, and is a clear frontrunner over Jackie,

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Lion, Moonlight and 14-time nominee and branch fave Thomas Newman, with Passengers. Newman will have to wait until number 15.

The Winner: La La Land

Hidden Figures

BEST ORIGINAL SONG With two nominations for “Audition” and “City of Stars”, La La Land could cancel itself out, leaving room for megastar Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, or tireless campaigner Justin Timberlake’s catchy smash hit, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” from Trolls. I see little chance here for Sting and J. Ralph’s “The Empty Chair” from the HBO docu Jim: The James Foley Story. Lionsgate is strategically pushing Golden Globe winner “City of Stars” and it likely will have little problem beating its stablemate and the rest of the field.

The Winner: “City of Stars” – La La Land

DIRECTOR Theodore Melfi WRITERS Allison Schroeder Theodore Melfi Margot Lee Shetterly (book) PRODUCERS Peter Chernin Donna Gigliotti Theodore Melfi Jenno Topping Pharrell Williams STUDIO 20th Century Fox OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Supporting Actress Best Adapted Screenplay

This surprise box office smash and beloved true story of three AfricanAmerican female math whizzes who made a major contribution in the early days of NASA’s space program just might be the most likely to stage a stunner of an upset on Oscar night. Voters love it and might want to reward it. The only problem is it has just an Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer) nomination in addition to Best Picture. That doesn’t indicate the kind of widespread support some others have in the Academy, and actually the only category it directly competes with La La Land is, indeed, Best Picture.

What an upset that would be, comparable to 1972, when another musical, Cabaret, swept the Oscars with eight awards, only to lose the big one to The Godfather, which only won three.

THE WINNER

La La Land DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle WRITER Damien Chazelle PRODUCERS Fred Berger Jordan Horowitz Marc Platt STUDIO Lionsgate OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Actor Best Actress Best Director Best Original Screenplay Best Cinematography Best Editing Best Costume Design Best Original Score Best Sound Mixing Best Sound Editing Best Original Song Best Original Song Best Production Design

This has become the 800-pound gorilla in the Oscar race, with significant wins at PGA, DGA, SAG, Golden Globes and Critics Choice, as well as being a leading force at BAFTA, and having a record tying 14 Academy Award nominations. Only two other films, Titanic and All About Eve, have climbed that high, and at this point, barring some sort of catastrophe, the only real question seems to be not if La La Land wins Best Picture, but just how many Oscars it takes before that final envelope is opened. It is La La’s to lose this year, and the only thing perhaps holding it back might be the feeling that the movie isn’t important enough, so maybe the Academy will award the top prize to something a little meatier. Don’t count on it.

BEST SOUND EDITING Both sound categories are often confused by voters, who tend to pick the loudest, a musical, or just a favorite film. Since everyone votes, I would expect that lesser nominated entries here like Deepwater Horizon and Sully are at the back of the pack, again setting up a threeway between Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival and La La Land.

Hacksaw is in the war genre, which is extremely popular in the sound categories, so it might have an advantage.

The more subtle, but haunting, sound editing of Arrival could as well, but I think, if they split, La La could sweep by both.

The Winner: Hacksaw Ridge BEST SOUND MIXING This is the more likely category for the musical to prevail, as past winners like Chicago and Dreamgirls have proven.

Again, war films are very big here, and in addition to Hacksaw Ridge, there was a surprise bid for Michael Bay’s January release 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. And, of course, we can’t forget Star Wars, and in this case, Rogue One. Arrival is also contending, but La La Land probably has this one if Hacksaw, representing notoriously Oscar-jinxed Kevin O’Connell’s 21st nomination without a win, doesn’t steal it.

The Winner: La La Land BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Sure, the usual big blockbuster movies like Doctor Strange, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Deepwater Horizon are in the mix, but this category has been getting a lot more interesting in recent years. Consider Ex Machina’s surprise triumph over the big guys last year.

This time around, Kubo and the Two Strings is the first animated film to make the grade since Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s not likely to win, though.

VES winner and astounding visual effects achievement The Jungle Book should sail easily to victory.

The Winner: The Jungle Book BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Fire at Sea is a demanding film, but a timely story touching on immigrants. And Life, Animated is a wondrous tale of the effect of Disney movies on a young man with autism. But the category is otherwise dominated by films dealing with the black experience in America. I Am Not Your Negro explores the life and times of James Baldwin. 13th is Ava DuVernay’s piercing

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and perceptive look into the incarceration of AfricanAmerican men and how it compares to a new form of slavery. O.J.: Made in America is Ezra Edelman’s exhaustive seven and a half hour doc about the effect of the entire O.J. Simpson case. There is controversy over the latter, which was bought at Sundance but debuted as a miniseries on ABC and ESPN, still qualifying for Oscars by staging nominal theatrical runs. Its sheer length then could give it the advantage—and probably will, based on its awards heat this season. But 13th would be every bit as worthy, and a lot shorter.

The Winner: O.J.: Made in America

Lion DIRECTOR Garth Davis WRITERS Luke Davies Saroo Brierley (book) PRODUCERS Iain Canning Angie Fielder Emile Sherman STUDIO The Weinstein Company OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Adapted Screenplay Best Cinematography Best Original Score

Another emotional, heart-tugging true story, Lion has the advantage of having Harvey Weinstein’s Oscar war machine behind it, and TWC has certainly been working it, with the added plus of sending its delightful young star Sunny Pawar out on the circuit to charm voters. Was its upset win over La La, Moonlight and Arrival at the ASC Cinematographers awards a sign of a possible trend in its favor? DGA First-time Feature winner and nominee Garth Davis wasn’t able to translate that DGA triumph to the Academy’s directors branch, so that hurts the chances here, and it is not likely to prevail.

Manchester by the Sea WRITER Kenneth Lonergan PRODUCERS Lauren Beck Matt Damon Kimberly Steward Chris Moore Kevin J. Walsh STUDIO Amazon Studios

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BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT Six-time nominee and two-time winner Kim Magnusson teams up with Aske Bang for Silent Nights, the category’s most movie-like entry, which deals with the relationship

BEST DIRECTING

DIRECTOR Kenneth Lonergan

OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Actor Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Director Best Original Screenplay

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT This is a fine group of nominees with two entries from Netflix, including The White Helmets, which is one of three films in the category dealing with the refugee and immigration crisis. The White Helmets deals with first responders in Aleppo; 4.1 Miles comes out of the University of California at Berkeley and deals with a Greek boat captain rescuing refugees on a daily basis; and Watani: My Homeland chronicles a family’s journey from Aleppo to Germany. The other entries include another Netflix pick, Extremis, about a palliative doctor dealing with end of life decisions, and Joe’s Violin, about the relationship between a holocaust survivor and the 12-year-old girl who receives his violin.

The Winner: The White Helmets

This masterful film has been universally praised now for over a year since its Sundance debut. The fact that a dark and often depressing drama is nearing the $50 million box office mark is an encouraging sign, and it has been in all the majors awards contests right up to its six nominations for Oscars, including three in acting, which is important, since actors comprise the Academy’s largest branch. Still it largely came up short at the Globes, where only Casey Affleck won, and particularly SAG, where it couldn’t cash in any of its leading four nominations. This looks to be a bridesmaid here, but should factor strongly in other categories.

AS USUAL, THE FIVE DIRECTORS nominated for Best Directing did so with unconventional projects that did not exactly scream commercial success.

In the case of the science fiction drama Arrival, director Denis Villeneuve took the alien genre and turned it inside out. For Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson came back from being a Hollywood outcast to direct a World War II story that remarkably had never been told. Damien Chazelle had a dream of bringing back the musical form in a contemporary way, and boy did he ever do it. Kenneth Lonergan, after a horrible experience trying for years to bring his previous film to theaters, finally found the perfect match in a searing drama set in Massachusetts. And Barry Jenkins realized a dream to make a very personal movie in a very personal way. Here’s the handicap on how the race is now shaking out.

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between a Danish girl and her Greek immigrant boyfriend.

It appears to be the most accomplished, and you can’t argue with Magnusson’s impressive track record. In this almost exclusively foreign language category, the hot button topic of immigration is also dealt with in Ennemis interieurs. La femme et le TGV stars the irresistible Jane Birkin, which is a plus. Sing deals with a choir, and Timecode is a touching Spanish tale of loneliness and the need for companionship.

The Winner: Silent Nights

Moonlight DIRECTOR Barry Jenkins WRITERS Barry Jenkins Tarell Alvin McCraney (story) PRODUCERS Dede Gardner Jeremy Kleiner Adele Romanski STUDIO A24 OSCAR NOMINATIONS Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Director Best Cinematography Best Editing Best Original Score Best Adapted Screenplay

This little $1.5 million dollar production has taken the industry’s heart by storm and landed a very impressive eight nominations, including, most tellingly, significant mentions in below the line categories like Cinematography, Editing and Music, where tiny indie films like this don’t often walk. That’s a sign that it is playing across all branches and could be the sleeper if La La stumbles. The fact that writer/director Barry Jenkins is also the first African-American to have noms for writing, directing and a Best Picture contender might also be a statement on the part of the Academy after two bruising years of #OscarsSoWhite. This is one to watch despite shortcomings at some earlier ceremonies like PGA, DGA, SAG and the Globes.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT Well, whenever Pixar has a contender, the others should just watch out, but actually they haven’t won here since 2001, with eight nominations in the intervening years.

Piper, a coming-of-age story of a little sandpiper, is just the ticket this time around. Blind Vaysha is about a girl who can see the past with one eye, the future with the other, but not the present. Borrowed Time is about a sheriff in the Old West revisiting his youth. Pearl comes from Oscar winner Patrick Osborne (the wonderful Feast) and deals with a father and daughter and an old car that serves as their home. Pear Cider and Cigarettes is a very adult, very true, and—at 35 minutes—very long tale of a guy visiting his wild friend as he awaits a liver transplant.

The Winner: Piper

THE W I N N E R

Damien Chazelle

Mel Gibson

Barry Jenkins

Kenneth Lonergan

Denis Villeneuve

In the days before his musical love letter to Los Angeles and dreamers everywhere had its world premiere at Venice, Chazelle told me of his passion to tell a contemporary original movie musical that harkened to the films of Jacques Demy and Gene Kelly. In fact, he said he really only came up with Whiplash as sort of a simpler, less expensive calling card. Of course, Whiplash went on to earn five nominations, including Best Picture and Screenplay for Chazelle, and won three Oscars. Now La La Land, with a record-tying 14 nods and a record-breaking seven Globes, has made him the one to beat here.

Gibson’s directorial career includes an Oscar for Braveheart in 1996, a cultural touchstone with The Passion of the Christ, and the exquisitely violent but mesmerizing Apocalypto. Unfortunately his personal demons got in the way of his career for the last decade, but Mel is clearly back now with an expertly-made war film he actually calls a love story. Whatever it is, this true story of WWII hero and conscientious objector Desmond Doss has been superbly directed by this man who has as much undeniable talent behind the camera as he does in front of it.

Taking a little known theatrical project that never saw the light of a stage, and turning it into a very personal and deeply human coming-of-age story makes Barry Jenkins’ second film in eight years an indie gem. He had the audacity to cast three sets of actors in major roles, separating each by 10 years in the life. It was a directorial gamble that could have fizzled but instead gives this critical darling its heart and soul. That it also reflects some of what Jenkins experienced himself growing up in Miami makes it all the more poignant and a real contender to become a spoiler on Oscar night.

The list of awards and nominations for writing this film is already endless, just as it was with Lonergan's 2000 directorial debut You Can Count On Me. Lonergan, a master writer who has now joined that talent with equally impressive directing skills, has found the perfect vehicle with this heartbreaking and wrenching story of a man whose life is nearly destroyed by unspeakable tragedy. Getting superb performances and letting his script lead the way, Lonergan does not go for flash but instead lets the actors, the words, and more importantly the silences lead the way.

Having been nominated once before for Best Foreign Language film with Incendies, Villeneuve went on to two more films that were equally worthy in my opinion: Prisoners and Sicario. Either of those could easily have brought him into this rarefied circle, but finally his latest film, Arrival, could not be denied. As the kind of human and intimate film rarely seen in the science fiction form from a major studio, Villeneuve has made something that feels like Close Encounters of the Third Kind as directed by Ingmar Bergman rather than Steven Spielberg.

It’s uniquely original.

La La Land

Hacksaw Ridge

Moonlight

Manchester by the Sea

Arrival

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“A MASTERPIECE. MEL GIBSON DIRECTS

LIKE A MASTER COMPOSER.”

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6

ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE BEST ACTOR ANDREW GARFIELD BEST DIRECTOR MEL GIBSON

“MEL GIBSON

“A STIRRING DRAMA. ANDREW GARFIELD

HAS ABSOLUTELY

GIVES A FIERCELY

HIT ‘HACKSAW RIDGE’

DRIVEN PERFORMANCE...

OUT OF THE PARK.

EXTRAORDINARY.”

A DEEPLY MOVING PORTRAIT OF FEARLESS, SELFLESS HEROISM.

HE IS THE FILM’S

ANCHOR, ITS

“ANDREW GARFIELD’S BEST PERFORMANCE

MORAL COMPASS AND

OF HIS CAREER TO DATE.”

ITS CONSIDERABLE HEART.”

CONSIDER THIS

LionsgateAwards.com

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