Through Her Lens: 2018 (The 91st Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano 
Previously: Episode 1 - 2020-21 / Episode 2 - 2019 

Eyes were on the Best Director category at the 91st Academy Awards after Greta Gerwig became only the fifth woman to be nominated in the said category the previous year. Contemporaneous articles expressed disappointment with this fact, but this Oscar year was also plagued with other issues: no ceremony host, plans to give out awards during commercial break, and divisive films like Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Vice being major factors, too.

In a way, these other controversies clouded what could have been a more extensive discussion regarding representation in the Best Director category. Out of the 347 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2018 (91st Academy Awards), 62 of them (or 17.9%) were directed/co-directed by women.

OSCAR-NOMINATED FEMALE-DIRECTED FILMS (in alphabetical order): Animal Behaviour*, Bao*, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Capernaum, Free Solo, Late Afternoon*, Marguerite*, Mary Queen of Scots,  Period. End of Sentence.*, and RBG. (*not in the eligibility list for Best Picture)

OUR ALTERNATIVE SET OF FIVE...

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One Last Hurrah for the Unloved! (Our Post-Nomination Eulogies)

by staff

We asked Team Experience to share eulogies & tributes to their most beloved cinematic achievement that was left out on Oscar nom morning. Not everything can be nominated. Since we must now turn our attention to the actual nominations, please shed one last tear of appreciation for these great artists and films.

BEN MILLER: Leave No Trace - you were too beautiful and non-assuming to be truly embraced by an awards body like the Academy.  Yes, Winter's Bone got a Best Picture nomination for Debra Granik's 2010 film, but you were rated PG and there was not a cliche, line of exposition, or bit of over-acting to be found.  You are too perfect a creation to be lumped in with the Oscars.  We will remember you when Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie and Granik eventually accept their future statues.

NATHANIEL R: Eighth Grade, you were too lovely and far far too young. Too humiliatingly real, too emotionally fragile and too comically pure for the heightened spectacle of Hollywood's back-patting event. You gave us hope for the future (Elsie Fisher and Bo Burnham have bright ones) while also transporting us back to our own childhood. You were a time machine even H.G. Wells would have marvelled at and cringed through... provided, of course, that he attended the British equivalent of junior high in the 19th century...

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FYC: Thomasin McKenzie in "Leave No Trace" for Best Actress

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

A good number of pundits agree that Thomasin McKenzie has an outside shot at scoring a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance as a teenage girl living on the outskirts of civilization with her father in the critically-acclaimed Leave No Trace. I’d like to posit a different theory – that she may end up as a surprise nominee for Best Actress.

Now, I don’t think this is likely, but I’d be ecstatic if it happened. Nathaniel is very big on calling out category fraud when he sees it, and there’s more than enough of that to go around this year. It’s actually just as puzzling to see McKenzie called a supporting actress as it is to see her costar Ben Foster classified as a supporting actor. They’re both leads, sharing screen time and the focus of the narrative...

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Interview: Ben Foster on "Leave No Trace" and Acting as Therapy

by Nathaniel R

Ben Foster discussing "Leave No Trace" last summer when it openedWhen I first met Ben Foster he was promoting Rampart (2011), a hard and angry movie about corrupt cops in which the acting was (unsurprisingly) terrific, he would barely speak about himself. Time has mellowed him, or at least made him more lighthearted about his own intensity. He ended our last interview begging for a screen comedy but sadly that project has never materialized. In person he's friendly and thoughtful and funny, never as impenetrable or scary or tragically sad as he has been is in his famous roles. In fact he's a happy new father, having had a daughter with his wife, the actress Laura Prepon, just over a year ago.

We met last month to discuss Debra Granik's award-winning drama Leave No Trace. He plays Will, a former soldier who has shut himself off from society with only his daughter Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) for companionship.When Will and Tom are found living in the woods at the beginning of the film, social workers attempt to reintegrate them into society. The daughter immediately adapts but the father is tougher to reach. Leave No Trace is moving and insightful and beautifully acted so that's where we begin as we discuss his career, his early days in acting, and what's next.

Our interview, has been edited for clarity and length...

with Director Debra Granik on set

NATHANIEL: Projects like Leave No Trace live or die based on the chemistry between the leads, so how can you prepare for a two-hander like this. Were you involved in casting? 

BEN FOSTER: I was involved in casting so far as Debra said 'I found someone I really like, and she's in New Zealand, here's the tape'. It was recorded on her phone and I watched like 30 seconds before I was like 'Oh yeah, that's it.'  

Instant approval. That's so cool.

She has a quality --you see it in person and you see it onscreen, she's lit from within. [In awe] She's one of them.

And I assume you trusted Debra a little bit on unknown actors, too, because she's famous for that Jennifer Lawrence discovery...

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Podcast: On the Basis of Sex and Destroyer

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and Chris Feil talk new films

We recorded this one just before Christmas so apologize on the delay at delivering it to you! 

Index (57 minutes)
00:01 Felicity Jones underwhelming RBG in On the Basis of Sex
06:50 Mixed takes on Karyn Kusama's Destroyer with Nicole Kidman
12:52 "Festive" Christmas movies like Vice, Shoplifters, Destroyer, Capernaum, Beale Street... so many depressing films scheduled for the holidays
18:30 Oscar shortlists for Score, Visual Effects, and Makeup
28:00 The Documentary Finals and the short films
35:00 Will Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) be nominated for Best Director? Will Green Book controversies derail its expected screenplay nomination?
46:22 Leave No Trace and A Quiet Place might be peaking at the right time for big nominations
56:00 The Wrap Up

Further Reading / References
• Oscar Chart: Screenplay Charts
• Oscar Chart: Visual FX & Makeup
• Oscar Chart: Original Score
• Documentary Finalists
• Nathaniel's Destroyer Review
• Shadow & Act's Green Book Article

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Destroyer, On the Basis of Sex, Oscar Discussions