Analyzing Oscar
Nominees from 1967, 2017 reflect their times
A slate of best picture nominees is like a Rorschach inkblot — we look at it and can see the era. But then, it’s no surprise that Oscar-nominated movies in particular should be so revealing. These are the films that people thought were important, that contained stories, fantasies and ideas that people believed to be the absolute best. When a movie connects in that way, it means something.
The year 2017 was no exception to this phenomenon. In fact, 2017 revealed itself through film more than most years.
Yet discerning those meanings can be difficult from inside the actual moment. For example, if I look at the 1998 best picture candidates — “Shakespeare in Love,” “Elizabeth,” “The Thin Red Line ,” “Life is Beautiful,” and “Saving Private Ryan” — they look to me like missives from a world without a care. At the time it didn’t feel that way, but the movies knew better: Two movies set in Elizabethan England and three films set in World War II. It’s as if things were so easy that movies had to import their turmoil from other time periods.
Much more interesting is the
slate from 1967, for the Oscar ceremony that took place 50 years ago. There it is, America encapsulated. You have tradition represented, rather shakily, by “Dr. Dolittle.” You have artistic innovation and youth rebellion embodied by “Bonnie and Clyde.” You have discontent with the American dream, caustic humor and the sexual revolution expressed by “The Graduate.” And you have two movies about race relations, each starring Sidney Poitier, but coming at the issue from different angles — the social comedy-drama “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and the crime drama “In the Heat of the Night.”
These films not only tell you what people were talking about, but how they were thinking. “Bonnie and Clyde” ends in slaughter, but the actors, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, are so beautiful and Arthur Penn’s filmmaking so exuberant that there’s a lingering sense of ultimate victory. The ending of “The Graduate” is almost identical to that of “Bonnie and Clyde,” but in a dark comic way: After a moment of supreme self-expression, our hero is about to get subdued and swallowed up by the world. The idea is that American society may allow a brief moment of glorious rebellion, but there’s no chance of actually defeating the forces of conformity.
Meanwhile, the two race relations films end on entirely optimistic notes, with “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” presenting an interracial couple as the wave of the future, and “In the Heat of the Night” showing a formerly racist white police chief (Rod Steiger) and a black detective (Poitier) coming to a place of mutual respect and acceptance.
This brings us to the current day, to the movies of 2017 being considered for an Oscar. There are nine of them — “Call Me by Your Name,” “Darkest Hour,” “Dunkirk,” “Get Out,” “Lady Bird,” “Phantom Thread,” “The Post,” “The Shape of Water,” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Collectively, they paint a picture of our own era as one of anger and anxiety, with a few scattered glimpses of hope.
The World War II movies: It’s curious that both “Darkest Hour” and “Dunkirk” present precisely the same period of the war’s history, a period without military victory. “Darkest Hour” is about Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) readying himself, his government and the British people for the fight of their lives, and “Dunkirk,” directed by Christopher Nolan, is the story of an evacuation, a defeat that yet allowed the British to fight another day.
These films connect with the modern audience because they depict resolve in the face of seeming hopelessness. As each film begins, all the real power is in the hands of evil men, and by the end of each film nothing has changed, except that the forces of good have found the will to fight. Neither of these historically grounded pep talks would be as effective if viewers didn’t feel their own hopelessness as a present condition, and not as a historical memory.
The political film: Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” is the only film made as a direct response to Donald Trump. The story of the Washington Post’s publication of the Pentagon Papers, the movie celebrates journalism and its fight against pernicious power. Like the war films, it’s another pep talk for people feeling hopeless, but it’s so on the nose that it might actually be less effective.
The sex movie: “Call Me by Your Name” celebrates the power of sexuality, with its story of a summer affair between a 17-year-old boy (Timothée Chalamet) and a man who is supposed to be 24, though he’s played by Armie Hammer, who looks to be over 30. Twenty years ago, you could have made this movie about a heterosexual relationship. But today, a movie about a 17-year-old girl’s relationship with a somewhat older man would be considered criminal, and a movie about a 17-yearold boy’s relationship with a somewhat older woman would be greeted with skepticism or hostility.
So “Call Me by Your Name” is a missive from the land of Eros, but the only missive that our present culture will allow. As such, it’s a vision of beauty, but one tinged with sadness, because it reminds us that even as our times are becoming more lewd and prurient, they are also becoming more judgmental and puritanical. That’s the worst of both worlds, and we sit right smack in the middle of them, even as we watch and appreciate director Luca Guadagnino’s vision of an earthly, erotic Eden.
The film about race: “Get Out” harks back to the situation depicted in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” with its story of a white woman bringing home her black boyfriend to meet her white liberal parents. But the movie is informed by modern history, by the murders that have led to the Black Lives Matter movement and by the resurgence of white supremacist hate groups. So it’s a film propelled by anger, and anger in art can get you far — but not that far.
In essence, the movie turns “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” into a horror movie. But here’s the thing: Even before the parents are revealed as monsters, they’re presented as objectionable simply for being white liberals who say gauche things, like assuring their guest that they would have voted for a third Obama term. The film is so entertaining and so clearly driven by sadness at the current state of affairs that it seems unkind to mention it, but it presents a despairing and ungenerous vision. It ends with a woman being shot to death in the street and offers that as an on balance happy ending. It isn’t.
Two films from Jupiter: All great films are personal — you can argue that “The Graduate” is as much about writer Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols’ experience of Freudian analysis as it is about the world of 1967. But some movies are so personal, so divorced from the popular currents of the day, that they stand like little islands of articulated individuality. You could describe Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” and his “Before” trilogy in this way, and this year, “Phantom Thread” and “Lady Bird” fall into this category. In a less fraught era, there would be more movies like this. We can look forward to such a time.
The main contenders: Two films dominate the Oscar race for best picture. Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” is a highly unconscious work, supposedly a touching fable about the victory of love and gentleness. In fact, it’s about the crushing of those things at the hands of a brutally stupid government, with a tagged on happy ending that is no more convincing than the ending to del Toro’s equally dark “Pan’s Labyrinth.” It’s a strange combination — practically radioactive with terror and obsessed with its villain (Michael Shannon) and yet pretending that everything is all
right. Perhaps it deserves the Oscar for the way it encapsulates our psychological moment.
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” reflects modern times in a more realistic context. It’s set in a rundown, depressed working-class town, and tells the story of a woman (Frances McDormand) whose daughter was murdered. She’s enraged. In addition, there’s a stupid racist cop (Sam Rockwell) who’s enraged, too, and he doesn’t know why. But ultimately, the movie is about finding the way back — back from grief, back from despair, back from rage, back from racism, back from reflexive stupidity.
I’d like to see “Three Billboards” win, because I’d like to believe that it’s right, that there is a way back. If it wins, it would be, in a way, a repeat of the results of 50 years ago. For 1967, Oscar voters ultimately awarded best picture to “In the Heat of the Night,” not because it was better than the other nominees, but because it offered hope.
It’s a rare happy irony of this bitter season: This time, a hopeful film might also be the best.