Oscar Volleys: As usual, Best Live-Action and Documentary Short Film are hard to predict

The Oscar Volleys continue, even as the Academy Awards ceremony draws ever closer. Tonight, Cláudio Alves and Ben Miller discuss the Best Live-Action and Documentary Short races...

ANUJA | © Netflix

CLÁUDIO: Well, we're starting to run out of Oscar categories to discuss at The Film Experience. But we couldn't go into the season's pinnacle without giving some attention to the two least-loved races - Best Live-Action and Best Documentary Short Film. And look, I get it. AMPAS rarely showcases good short-form cinema, having a bizarre predilection for miserabilism and stupid twists, moral lectures, and very little audiovisual invention. Where is Godard, or John Smith, or Leos Carax, or Steve McQueen, or Laura Citarella, or Takashi Miike? Nevertheless, AMPAS' favorite miniature pictures deserve to be considered, and there's even a highlight or two to celebrate. Do you agree?

BEN: Every year, these categories give me something that really knocks my socks off. Even if you have something like Animated Short, those are usually very digestible or play in front of a wildly popular Pixar film.  That's not the case with these.  You really have to go out of your way to see these shorts, but they are so very worth it...

I'M NOT A ROBOT | © The New Yorker

Part of me sees Live Action Short as a stepping stone for directors to figure out what kind of filmmaker they want to be.  All of these directors want to be making bigger, full-length features, but many are starting out and have to get their feet wet.  Look at the run of the 2000s in this category.  Really interesting and innovative filmmakers like Ray McKinnon, Lexi Alexander, Andrea Arnold, Martin McDonagh, and even Taika Waititi found nominations (and some wins). 

Are there some potential found in these filmmakers represented this year?  Absolutely, but I do feel like the Academy has drifted towards the obvious choices as opposed to bold filmmaking.  I think you can look at the nominations of I'm Not a Robot and The Last Ranger as the two sides of the spectrum.  One is a foreign dark comedy about humanity and self-realization, while the other is an extremely glossy piece of manipulation with the message of "obviously bad thing is bad."  It's like they can't help themselves.  They go out of their way to give an unorthodox nomination, just to revert back and immediately award the thing you expect them to award.

CLÁUDIO: I think you inadvertently articulated something that frustrates me about the sorts of projects the Academy tends to honor in Best Live-Action Short. They tend to feel like stepping stones on the way to feature-length endeavors. I guess I'd like to see them reward those artists who take on this model of filmmaking as a means into themselves, as a deliberate format that isn't an audition for bigger things. Which is something I'm missing in this quintet of nominees. Well, that's not entirely true.

THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT | © Antitalent Produkcija

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent feels like it could only exist as a short film and that any expansion beyond this diminutive package would detract from its power rather than the reverse. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Anuja, a surprisingly gentle entry into this category's long history of childhood miseries whose strengths would only benefit from a more extensive canvas. There's a real delicacy in Adam J. Graves and Suchitra Mattai's work, a taste for elliptical editing patterns that erodes away some of the more obvious sentimentality. Do you think either the Cannes winner or the Netflix short can take it? I tend to predict pessimistically in the shorts categories most of all, so I struggle to see a world where either of them wins.

BEN: This category does seem perceptually wide open.  While I would not be surprised at the awarding of either of those two titles, I feel like A Lien stands a much better shot.  Like we spoke about in our Documentary Feature discussion, the Academy cares about hot button issues facing the world of today, and immigration and the immigrant experience is right at the top of the list.  With what you referred to with The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, I don't see an expanded narrative giving any sort of benefit to what A Lien does.  I think what it does (tension, dread) it does very well, but I think it is limited by the story it is trying to tell.  I could see a film like Anuja being adapted to feature length.  That being said, I give the definite advantage of the win to A Lien.  

It sounds like Anuja would be your preferred winner, correct?

CLÁUDIO: I'm predicting A Lien both because it's the most topical of the five, but also because it's the one I like the least. Its visual idioms bore me to no end, all that shaky cam and closeup fever a strained attempt at communicating naturalism through a shortcut. The message is important, of course, though I don't tend to judge artistic quality just by political intent.

THE LAST RANGER | © Six Feet Films

The Last Ranger is a comparable case, full of good intentions and messaging articulated through cinematic mechanisms I find facile, if not outright clumsy. Still, it's nice to see AMPAS pay some attention to African cinema since they can't find it in their hearts to do it anywhere else, not even in the Best International Film race. 

My vote would actually go to The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent precisely because it's working within the confines and strengths of its storytelling model without ever feeling like a sketch for something bigger. I also appreciate negative narrative as a strategy, similar to what Jane Campion does in her early shorts, using absence and silence, and non-action as a way to define the central ideal. It's counter-intuitive, perchance, but it works well here. So, that's my preference. However, I would be interested to see what the Anuja team does in the future.

Who'd get your vote if you had an Oscar ballot? 

A LIEN | © Lefty Films

BEN: Though I do not share your negative thoughts on A Lien, my vote would go to I'm Not a Robot.  It's the film I wanted to see more of.  There is a unique tone that this film is able to strike that most dark comedy films miss, but with the addition of philosophical questions, and really without judging any of the characters.  It's a cute one-line synopsis that goes way deeper than it has any right to.  I don't see a world where it comes out victorious, but it would be what I would have chosen.

On to Documentary Short.  This is usually where the bummers end up, but we have two relatively light-hearted stories, one with a smidgen of hope, one that is presented as robotic and frank truth telling, and a phony redemption story.  Probably just based on my reactions, you can guess which ones I like the least.  I never have a good gauge on what the Academy likes from this groups, but they tend to be more uplifting for winners.  Do you see that trend continuing this year?

THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA | © Netflix

CLÁUDIO: Yes, in a way, because I'm predicting The Only Girl in the Orchestra, an overlong short with very little to say about its subject past the fact that she is not interested in seeing herself as a feminist icon or being the subject of her niece's project. Don't get me wrong - Erin O'Brien is a fascinating figure. I just don't get much from this cinematic portrait.

Instead, I loved Instruments of a Beating Heart, for proposing a very sentimental premise and presenting it with lucidity and a clear-headed look at a little girl's perseverance. It's Whiplash starring toddlers, only more compassionate and less fixated on the idea that suffering is the path to artistic fulfillment. Shout out to your Letterboxd review because I also adored Haruka's friend, who was emphatically crying over his pal's struggle. I wanted to give them all a hug. 

It helps that Instruments is a little self-contained marvel, well-composed and cut together, unfussy in the best ways. It makes for a radical contrast to Bill Morrison's Incident, the most challenging of these nominees, where the art and craft of film editing are so ostensibly underlined you can't help but reflect on its form. It'd get my vote in a heartbeat. But anything would be better than Death by Numbers and I Am Ready, Warden.

I AM READY, WARDEN | © MTV Documentary Films

The latter has little to say beyond exploiting the people it depicts and coming near feature-length, while the former reaches a point of self-contradiction. The film constantly speaks against centering the Parkland shooter and, instead, foregrounding the survivors and his victims. Yet, structuring itself around the trial does just that. Even the inconsistent detail of obscuring the killer's face only brings more attention to him, pulling the movie into a reactionary moral play about the monster rather than an exploration of surviving and dealing with the pain he caused. Sam Fuentes is an amazing individual and I praise her willingness to be so open about her messy, unidealized, or censored feelings in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma. Yet, I can't help but feel the project fails her. I understand you feel differently. 

BEN: I am more riveted by Fuentes' open anger and the film's willingness to not shy away from that anger.  Regardless of how justified it is, and in this case absolutely, modern sensibilities shy away from an angry woman who isn't on a revenge-type warpath.  Her anger shining through and not being softened or undercut I found to be a new and interesting angle for a documentary film to take.  She is also the writer of all her diary entries featured prominently in the film, so I appreciated it. 

DEATH BY NUMBERS | © Cuomo Cole Productions

I Am Ready, Warden is the only film of all the nominated shorts I am actively rooting against.  Not only does it have absolutely nothing to say about any particular aspect from any angle.  Forgiveness, acceptance, faith...nope.  This guy is going to die and after he dies, he will be dead.  That's what happened and that was the result.  I hate a film with nothing to say, but if you have nothing to say, at least say it in an interesting way, and the film didn't even do that. 

I completely concur with your thoughts on both orchestral films.  Incident is a whole other ball of wax.  I don't know how to feel about it.  Is it expertly constructed?  Without a doubt.  But I could sit through these nominees for multiple viewings if needed.  I don't ever want to watch Incident again.  It's not that it is particularly graphic or harrowing, but I felt so unhappy for the state of American policing and the idea of truth that it left me in a funk after I watched it.  As I said, I can't deny the impact, but I can't imagine Academy voters embracing it in a real way.

INCIDENT | © Hypnotic Pictures

CLÁUDIO: As a wrap, could I get you to share some other short films you loved from 2024? I started this convo by mentioning how limited the Academy is in the kind of short cinema it rewards, so some counter-examples wouldn't be amiss. 

I'll start by singing the praises of Godard's posthumous creations - Presentation of the Trailer of a Film “Scénario” and Scénarios - a summation and distillation of his late style,  illuminating and deliberately frustrating in equal amounts. Then there's John Smith's Being John Smith, a phenomenal self-portrait whose meta-cinematic commentary makes for one of the funniest things I watched all last year. Razan AlSalah's A Stone's Throw is a sobering piece of political history, while Lei Lei's Re-engraved tests the medium in a studious attempt at crystalizing another art form within cinematic limitations.

Finally, I have to give a round of applause to Portuguese cinema. Some of the best Lusophone films I watched this year came in miniature - Frederico Lobo's When the Land Runs Away, Inês Lima's The Moving Garden, Daniel Soares' Bad for a Moment, and Pedro Hasrouny's A Mother Goes to the Beach. 

BEN: I do want to shout out the wonderful shorts, which were all Oscar shortlisted, but didn't make the cut: Room Taken, The Masterpiece, Paris 70, and Clodagh.  All were sweethearted and genuine, and any of them would have been a wonderful inclusion in the Oscars lineup.  I was also in the voting body for the 2024 Femme Film Festival, so I have to shout out a few of those films, including the sweetly hilarious film Confessions about two older nuns doing their version of The Bucket List.  Good stuff is out there if you look for it.

CLÁUDIO: Agreed! Short films are such wonders, so let's spread the love and be thankful for them.

INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART | © The New York Times

Previous Oscar Volleys:

• BEST DIRECTOR, with Eric Blume & Nick Taylor
• BEST ACTOR, with Eric Blume & Eurocheese
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, with Cláudio Alves & Nathaniel Rogers
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, with Eric Blume & Nick Taylor
• BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, with Abe Friedtanzer & Eurocheese
• BEST ANIMATED FEATURE, with Cláudio Alves & Nathaniel Rogers
• BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, with Cláudio Alves & Ben Miller
• BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM, with Eric Blume & Nathaniel Rogers
• BEST COSTUME DESIGN, with Cláudio Alves & Nick Taylor
• BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING, with Cláudio Alves & Eurocheese