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There was a bittersweet symmetry in learning of Norman Jewison's death just a day before this year's Oscar nominees were announced.
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Jewison, who died Saturday at age 97, was one of Hollywood's greatest directors, the stylistically understated craftsman who brought to the screen the gripping civil rights drama “In the Heat of the Night” as well as the brilliant cold war comedy “The Russians Are Coming.” , the Russians are coming”, the musicals “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” as well as the earthly romantic comedy “Moonstruck”. Jewison, who was born in Toronto, was never an overt polemicist, but always tried to give his films substance. “I don't make social statements in my pictures, although I believe a film should be about something,” he once told the New York Times, according to his obituary in the Washington Post. “She shouldn’t shy away from social problems.”
The 10 films nominated for best picture on Tuesday suggest that Jewison's successors feel the same way. Many of the controversial films are stylistically broad and address historical or current themes: the questioning of race in “American Fiction” and criticism of sexism in “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Barbie” and “Poor Things”; morally attuned excavations of the past in “Oppenheimer” about the development of the atomic bomb; “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which dramatized the decimation of a Native American community in the name of capitalist “progress”; and “The Zone of Interest,” which was about a German family’s complicity in the Holocaust.
In terms of subject matter, sensibility and aesthetic language, the best picture nominees reflect an encouragingly diverse artistic ecosystem. When it came to nominating directors, however, members of this branch of the academy clearly rewarded self-conscious auteurism over Jewison-like accessibility. “Poor Things” and “Barbie” were essentially the same story, as wryly observant portraits of a doll with no agency coming to life and gaining political consciousness. Although “Poor Things” director Yorgos Lanthimos made the cut — understandably so, given his film's wildly imaginative vision and ambitious execution — “Barbie's” Greta Gerwig was snubbed because her razor-sharp feminist message was delivered in the shell of a big, fun movie became , mainstream comedy? (Although Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera were nominated for their supporting roles in Barbie, the irony that Gerwig and producer Margot Robbie were overlooked in the director and lead actress categories, respectively, immediately sparked outrage on social media: ” Greta Gerwig: Made a critically acclaimed, culturally profound, feminist film about Barbie and the patriarchy that grossed a billion dollars at the box office. The Oscar nomination goes to…Ken.” wrote Activist Shannon Watts on X, formerly Twitter.)
The bosses behind “Barbie” weren’t completely ignored: Robbie was honored in the Best Picture nomination as one of the film’s producers, and Gerwig was honored as a co-screenwriter. And Gerwig has already been nominated for her directing work on her 2017 debut film “Lady Bird.” This year could easily have included two more newcomers: Cord Jefferson and Celine Song, whose films “American Fiction” and “Past Lives,” respectively, were perhaps too subtle and humane to stand out alongside big swings from the likes of Christopher Nolan and movie god Martin Scorsese. The same goes for Alexander Payne, whose tender, carefully paced comedy-drama “The Holdovers” draws a direct link to Jewison, having been inspired by the work of Hal Ashby, the director of such winningly humane comedies as “Harold and Maude.” “ and who learned to direct as Jewison’s long-time editor.
Since there are only five spots in the Director category, as opposed to ten in the Best Picture category, the inevitable parlor game is choosing which filmmakers to eliminate in favor of your favorites; This year I would gently push Scorsese aside to make room for Jefferson, Payne or Gerwig. Still, it's difficult, if not impossible, to argue with the sheer audacity and skill on display in “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Oppenheimer,” “Poor Things” and “The Zone of Interest,” which all of this type of art demonstrates the sense of narrative, tone control, and technical skill that we mean when we say something is well directed.
Directors like Greta Gerwig and Celine Song are not in the running for a 2024 Oscar, while Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer” received 13 nominations as of Jan. 23. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
When you pull back the lens, the picture is even more encouraging, with a list of best picture nominees that reflects an exceptionally healthy and diverse year, not just in filmmaking but in cinema as well. If 2023 will be remembered for anything (besides Taylor Swift), it will be for the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, in which millions of viewers around the world flocked to see two elegant, wholly original spectacles – one about a quirky one theoretical physicist and the other a piece of bizarre theoretical agitprop. The success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — and the deserved attention their co-nominees will receive over the next two months — belies a fear that Jewison expressed in The New York Times in 2001, when he noted that Hollywood stopped making his kind of films.
“They would say these films are too wordy, too intellectual, too much dialogue,” noted Jewison – who, as mentioned, was nominated three times for directing but never won an Oscar. “So many aspects of our lives have disappeared from movie screens.”
If this year's Oscars are any indication, the tide has turned, at least for now.