Oscars Spotlight: Directing, Cinematography, and Best Picture
If CODA takes Best Picture, what does that leave The Power of the Dog?
The Nominees:
Directing
BELFAST
Kenneth Branagh
DRIVE MY CAR
Ryusuke Hamaguchi
LICORICE PIZZA
Paul Thomas Anderson
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Jane Campion
WEST SIDE STORY
Steven Spielberg
Who Will Win: Jane Campion
Who Could Win: Steven Spielberg (but I think it’s unlikely)
Who Should Win: Jane Campion
Image Credit: LA Times
Cinematography
DUNE
Greig Fraser
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Dan Laustsen
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Ari Wegner
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
Bruno Delbonnel
WEST SIDE STORY
Janusz Kaminski
Who Will Win: Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog)
Who Could Win: Greg Fraser for Dune
(I’m actually going against the majority in not picking this to win.)
Who Should Win: All the nominees are deserving, especially the two named above.
Image Credit: IndieWire
Best Picture
BELFAST
Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Producers
CODA
Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi and Patrick Wachsberger, Producers
DON'T LOOK UP
Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers
DRIVE MY CAR
Teruhisa Yamamoto, Producer
DUNE
Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve and Cale Boyter, Producers
KING RICHARD
Tim White, Trevor White and Will Smith, Producers
LICORICE PIZZA
Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale and Bradley Cooper, Producers
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier, Producers
WEST SIDE STORY
Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
Who Will Win: CODA
Who Could Win: The Power of the Dog
Who Should Win: Drive My Car
Image Credit: Apple
Netflix’s The Power of the Dog has been on on a rollercoaster this season. I’m talking spin around upside down until you feel queasy rollercoaster (the kind I won’t go on). It started off fairly strong on the film festival circuit and then over-performed on Oscar nominations morning, receiving 12 total noms, the most of any film nominated this year. And it’s maintained that frontrunner status until it only won some of its precursor awards. Suddenly, in the absence of a precursor sweep and in the face of CODA gaining popularity, its campaign began to crumble.
Now most pundits are predicting it to win between 1-3 Oscars, with most not venturing beyond a Best Director win. That’s a long way to fall.
Meanwhile, the little indie film (powered by the largest company in the world) that could, CODA, has surged like crazy in the last leg of the race, just in time for final voting. Starting with SAG wins for Troy Kotsur in Supporting Actor and the SAG Ensemble award, which is basically the SAG’s equivalent of Best Picture, hitting more and more eyeballs on AppleTV+ (even though it’s been there since last summer), and picking up steam with word of mouth, the cast and crew of CODA seem like they are everywhere. Anne Thompson of IndieWire tweeted from the Oscar Nominee Luncheon that the room got really excited when the CODA entourage showed up. Perfectly timed with the end of final voting, the core family at the center of the cast visited The White House to screen the film with President Biden. Marlee Matlin tweeted that the President and First Lady loved the film and the themes of “authenticity and family.” Jill Biden herself tweeted that “the Rossi family will always live in our hearts.” If that’s not campaigning done right; I don’t know what is.
Tonight’s results come down to two competing Oscar pundit methods: stats vs. passion/campaign power. The Power of the Dog is in the stronger position from a stats front, but it’s hard to deny the power of CODA’s campaign and recent groundswell of enthusiasm.
I always hear pundits talking about a third method, which I’m using to determine my final predictions: “Oscar puzzle theory.” Predicting individual categories in a vacuum isn’t enough. Your predictions have to make sense together. How many awards do you have each of the major contenders winning? If you pick a particular film for Best Picture, does it have enough wins in other categories to support that? Have you missed any beloved films that might not go home with a big haul but would still need to have some kind of acknowledgment in a random category somewhere? What kind of a story do the predictions tell about how voters feel about these films?
If I’m looking at Cinematography as an individual category, Dune’s Greg Fraser should win. Fraser won his guild’s precursor, the ASC. He’s been nominated before. His most recent work, still in theaters, The Batman, has gotten rave reviews, with some specifically praising the cinematography. And his win would fit neatly into a larger narrative of Dune as a technical marvel that sweeps below the line tonight.
But when I zoom out to think about my “Oscar puzzle,” I cannot, as Matt Neglia most ardently argued on The Next Best Picture podcast predictions episode, just have The Power of the Dog winning one Oscar for Best Director and nothing else. Even winning just Director and Best Picture would be extremely rare. So, in looking at the other categories where The Power of the Dog isn’t likely to win but still could win, Cinematography makes the most sense. Ari Wegner would be the first female cinematographer to win, and the Academy may very well recognize the historical significance of casting a vote for her. The cinematography is also, in my opinion, one of the most stand-out features of The Power of the Dog. Even if you weren’t that into the story or the acting, it’s hard not to recognize that the film is gorgeously shot.
Jane Campion, meanwhile, is a much surer bet, and will still prevail in Best Directing, even though the enthusiasm for The Power of the Dog has waned. Many Oscar pundits and journalists have also been asking if Campion’s recent misstep at the Critic’s Choice awards will impact her chances at the Oscars. During her acceptance speech, she tried to improvise and said, “Venus and Serena, you are marvels, but you haven’t had to compete against the men like I have.” Campion was trying to highlight the uphill battle female directors face in Hollywood, but by trying to bring Venus and Serena Williams into it, she made it sound like she was trying to take the tennis superstars down a notch in order to prop herself up. It did not go over well, especially on social media. I don’t think this will ultimately undermine her Oscar win in Director because I’d like to think voters would be realize that voting for someone else in her category would be reinforcing the narrative that Hollywood only values the work of male directors. The optics of her losing at this point would be worse than punishing her for these comments, for which she immediately apologized. I do think that if voters wanted to they could lash out at the film overall in other categories. Plus, Campion’s work and vision for The Power of the Dog, even if you don’t care for it, are undeniable.
The recent past indicates that Director and Best Picture are not necessarily tethered. In fact, Director and Picture have split four out of the past five years. So, it’s very possible that even if Campion wins as expected, CODA will still overtake The Power of the Dog in Best Picture.
A Director/Picture split becomes even more likely when I consider the preferential ballot, which the Academy instituted when they expanded the Best Picture category to include up to 10 films. This means that for Best Picture and Best Picture only, voters must rank all the nominees in order of preference. If no nominee receives more than 50% of the votes, then they start counting the #2 choice of all the ballots, rinsing and repeating the process until there is a clear winner. If The Power of the Dog isn’t a clear frontrunner (and it isn’t anymore), then the question is not what did everyone put in it #1, but how many people put it in #10 or somewhere towards the bottom of their list instead. And CODA, which is a heartwarming, feel good film, is much less likely to alienate any voters. So most people at worse might have that film in the middle of their ranked list.
CODA’s late, Parasite-levels of passion surge has to manifest somewhere and somehow tonight. I think that the passion for the film is so great that, given only three possible places to nominate it, voters will check all the boxes they can whether or not it makes sense in that individual category. Troy Kotsur has Supporting Actor in the bag no matter what. Adapted Screenplay will benefit from this general enthusiasm for the film in a way that it might not have a month ago. I think the love will spill into Best Picture as well.
We’re t-minus two hours from the start of the show as I write this. Wish me luck in my predictions, and, no matter who wins Best Picture, I would encourage you to check out these films, especially Drive My Car, which is streaming on HBOMax right now.
I’ll leave you with how I would have filled out my preferential ballot:
Drive My Car
Power of the Dog
Dune
King Richard
CODA
West Side Story
Nightmare Alley
Licorice Pizza
Belfast
Don’t Look Up