A few short years ago I would have submitted this a story in the New Yorker (Pauline Kael being a favorite of mine) but times have changed and so we find ourselves here on Medium.
Here’s a quick rundown of the five films the DGA has selected as finalists for this year’s Director’s Guild award for best picture. I’d say Oscar but, as I vote in the DGA awards and not the Oscars, I’ll limit myself to the venue at hand. Note that historically DGA Awards are a very good predictor of Oscar success.
The Revenant. Birdman was the best film of 2015 without a doubt. Alejandro Inarritu was masterful in his depiction of a failing, fifty something, manic, fallen star, wondering where his life has taken him, and seeking one last shot at redemption. Best Picture without a doubt. The Revenant is a beautifully shot (to a fault of the storytelling), melodrama, set in the Canadian Rockies, without a single shred of credibility. A great story hinges on our suspension of disbelief and the ability to place us in a dead center of empathy with its hero. From the moment in the Revenant (which comes early in the film) when we witness supposedly hardened mountain men voluntarily wading waist deep into an icy winter river that credibility is shredded. For although they may have been primitive, they were certainly not stupid and, only the arrogance of someone who has never spent a single day in the Canadian Rockies in the winter would presume his audience to be so stupid and gullible as to believe such nonsense. Real mountain men (see Jeremiah Johnson) were never so carelessly amphibious. Beyond magical realism this is just blatant disregard for an audience’s intelligence. From the river wading moment on, the jeopardy of Decaprio’s journey is pointless as we know he will survive whatever cinematic peril comes his way regardless how graphically presented. For a movie that relies on survival of the hero as it’s primary tension this is a fatal flaw. Bear attack not withstanding; this is an incredibly weak film to be a part of this crowd and obviously the obligatory nominee.
Spotlight. A well acted, taut, newsroom drama about the uncovering of the Boston Catholic priest sex abuse scandal and the relevant hand wringing by the entire community and political establishment. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the reverence for the Catholic Church and institutions that would make the drama compelling. Great performances all around, but universal themes are amiss, and the storytelling suffers from a presumption of surprise at abhorrent behavior and care for cherished institutions where there is none among millions of audience members. Were we all raised Catholic this would be the obvious choice.
The Martian. Ridley Scott is back! In a genre that owes him a huge debt of respect. The storytelling is honest, scientifically accurate, and well researched. Matt Damon is confident and easy to believe in the role of an astronaut mistakenly left behind on Mars. The structure of the story is also confident to a fault. In any other year, this runs a great shot at best picture but as there were two other nominees, we’ll have to leave the Martian as very well done also ran. It is hard to find anyone who disliked it but also hard to find anyone (other than the crowd at NASA) who was wildly passionate about it.
The Big Short. Christian Bale as a financial savant who saw it coming while the rest of us slept and took out another mortgage insured by AIG. It’s hard to follow and full of intersecting storylines. Not exactly the traditional hero’s journey but it’s relevant because of its non-linear structure and prescient theme. If you knew what to Google about the financial crisis that devastated the American economy and affected your life and that of your neighbors, The Big Short is the result you would get. The storytelling may be unconventional but the film stands as the most important lesson of the year for anyone who lived through the early part of this decade.
Mad Max Fury Road. A non-stop scream of conscious that grabs you by cerebral cortex and chokes you to submission and acceptance of a comic book reality. Also the classic hero’s journey and therefore the most deserving nominee in the category. From frame one where we meet our Tom Hardy hero and are introduced to the dystopian world of George Miller’s imagination, this movie is unrelenting and single minded in it’s pursuit of cinematic fury. Flawless in its technical execution and as lean as any of the numerous drone warriors that litter the roadside of it’s existence. As if one story isn’t enough, Miller manages to make the secondary story of Charlize Therone’s Furiosa equally compelling to that of Hardy as she makes her journey home to a childhood of her imagination. All the while addressing a multitude of socially relevant themes, patriarchy, feminism, autocracy, democracy, and climate change just to name a few. Unlike the Revenant, the violence of Fury Road, while comedic, is entirely believable and straps you to it’s heroes like a rusty flaming nitro fueled scrap of cobbled together machinery. Just what you didn’t expect and just what a great movie manages to do without seeming to try. Mad Max Fury Road is this year’s best picture in a screaming burn of gnashing metal.
