Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 462-463: The Year of Jessica

Every year there seems to be one star who comes out of nowhere to be a household name and in 2011 that person was Jessica Chastain. We've already met Chastain via her Oscar-nominated performance in Zero Dark Thirty but a couple of years' earlier it seemed like she was everywhere. In fact she was so ubiquitous that she featured in two of the nine films that were nominated for Best Picture at the following year's ceremony.

First up we have her appearance as Mrs O'Brien in Terrence Malick's oblique The Tree of Life. Chastain's turn as the caring mother to a trio of sons in the 1950s, one of whom soon passes away towards the start of the film, was one of only a handful of the movie’s positive elements. The film is sort of seen through the perspective of a modern day Jack O'Brien who is reflecting on his harsh upbringing at the hands of his tyrannical father. Rather than presenting any sort of coherent narrative, Malick instead presents the film as a series of scenes in Jack's life. The majority of the movie depicts his childhood as quite a bleak time due to the fact that his father would often fly into a rage at a moment's notice. From criticising his sons' behaviour at the dinner table to teaching them how to fight, it's fair to say that Mr O'Brien will never win father of the year. However, Malick depicts Chastain's character in a more sympathetic light as she's more able to forgive her son when he does something a little mischievous. Whilst a coming-of-age film is nothing new, Malick's film comments on all existence featuring as it does a twenty minute sequence which shows us the beginning of time. The fact that dinosaurs appear in a film that is primarily set in the 1950s is one of those pretentious aspects of The Tree of Life that I don't like. That sentiment is echoed in my feelings about the end of the film where Jack is what I assume is the afterlife and is confronted by his mother and father as well as other people who have touched his life. Whilst I always applaud film-makers who think outside the box I do think that Malick is somebody who didn't actually ever see the box. Indeed, this feels more like an art instillation than a coherent movie which I'm assuming is why the critics loved it so much.

The Tree of Life is one of those films that critics love because it makes them seem intelligent but I feel that if they looked at it objectively then there's very little of worth here. Chastain's aforementioned performance as the matriarchal figure showcases why she became such a breakout star in that year. Her facial expressions convey her character's inner torment and she is able to balance the fear Mrs O'Brien feels towards her husband with the love she has for her children. Chastain is more impressive than either of her A-list co-stars, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn who play Mr O'Brien and the adult Jack respectively. Pitt just wasn't convincing as a harsh father figure whilst Penn hardly appears and when he does he just looks wistfully into the sky. I believe my main issue with The Tree of Life was that I felt detached from it throughout its two hour plus running time. Even though there were some parts of the narrative that hung together, Malick did little to make us care about his characters. I do remember going to see the film at the cinema and at the time there were roadworks happening outside which spoilt the quieter moments of the movie. However, I did prefer to listen the rather irritating noises that watch some of the more outlandish scenes that Malick decided to include in his film. I was actually quite surprised that The Tree of Life garnered nominations in the Best Picture and Director categories as it doesn't seem like your typical Oscar film. It does appear to me that this is the Academy's way of trying to look like they enjoy arthouse cinema however this was the same year that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was up for the prize. In fact the only deserving nomination that The Tree of Life received was in the cinematography category which was one of the only elements of the film that deserved celebrating. Ultimately The Tree of Life is a pretentious piece of arthouse cinema that critics go potty over but normal people like me hate with a passion.

Whilst Chastain tried her best to salvage her poorly written character in The Tree of Life, she had more success bringing a bit of humour to Tate Taylor's The Help. In fact Chastain was one of three female performers who were nominated for their role in a film that primarily concentrated on strong women. The plot of the film is based on Kathryn Stockett's book of the same name and involves Emma Stone's Skeeter; an aspiring writer in 1960s Mississippi. Although Skeeter is friendly with the snobbier members of the Jacksonville community, she is portrayed as a forward thinking young lady. Skeeter has the idea to write a book from the point of view of the African American women who help raise white children and clean the houses of families who give them very little respect. Skeeter targets Aibileen Clark, a well-meaning maid who is the first person to come forward to tell her story for the book. Aibileen is soon joined by Minnie Jackson, an outspoken maid who is fired by her Queen Bee boss Hildy after using the guest bathroom rather than the outside convenience that had been constructed for her. After Hildy spreads lies about Minnie being a thief, she is only able to get work with Chastain's Celia Foote who has been shunned by the other women of the community. Celia and Minnie's relationship is one of the most entertaining parts of the film as the former doesn't really know how to treat the latter. However the pair soon become friends as they bond over being shunned by their communities and help each other realise what is important in their life. Meanwhile, Hildy has Minnie's replacement arrested after she steals a ring to pay for her sons to go to college. This prompts a multitude of maids to come forward and tell their stories to Skeeter who eventually publishes the book of the title. After the book is published it seems to me as if Taylor didn't quite know how to finish his film with the last fifteen minutes or so feeling a little unnecessary. However I felt that for a two hour film, The Help was an incredibly easy watch.

Despite being a terribly emotionally manipulative film I have to hold my hands up and say The Help did work its magic on me. I found myself welling up several times during the film and I feel that that's a testament to the strong female ensemble cast rather than Taylor's direction or adapted screenplay. I'm not surprised that the cast were rewarded with the top prize at that year's Screen Actors Guild Awards or that Octavia Spencer won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Minnie. I felt that Spencer's strength lay in the fact that she was able to balance the more comedic aspects of her role with the fact that this was a woman who wasn't able to speak her mind. Whilst being strong in certain aspects of her life she was also abused by both the women she worked for and her husband. Joining her in the Best Supporting Actress category was Chastain, whose Celia Foote was a fantastic creation; a white-trash socialite who was just incredibly likeable. As Aibileen, Viola Davis was nominated for Best Actress and I feel she should have triumphed over Meryl Streep's dodgy Margaret Thatcher impression. Davis' narration was the strong foundation the film was based around and I felt the actress perfectly anchored the film. Also worthy of credit is Emma Stone who arguably gave her breakout performance as the pioneering Skeeter. Stone perfectly conveyed her character's willingness to think towards the future whilst at the same trying to maintain friendships she had since youth. I liked how The Help had faith in actresses such as Davis, Stone, Spencer and Chastain who weren't exactly marquee names. Indeed only Davis was really a recognisable presence partly due to her scene-stealing performance in Doubt however not even she was a marquee name. The bigger names in the cast, such as Sissy Spacek and Alison Janney were confined to roles in which they bolstered the leading ladies. Although it's quite a predictable piece of cinema, The Help is one of those films that you can't help but like and to me that's a testament to all of the actresses who made their characters feel three-dimensional.

Next time we look at an actor whose career path took a change for the better during the early part of the 2010s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 427-428: Kathryn's War

It's been over five years since I started my quest to track down and watch every film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. My challenge started just after the 2010 ceremony and since then we've had another five ceremonies. Although I contemplated finishing off where I started, I eventually decided to explore what the modern day Oscar field looks like. This is especially relevant as, from the 2010 ceremony onwards; Oscar changed the number of nominees from five to ten. Two years later the rules were changed again allowing the Academy to choose between five and ten films meaning that they weren't forced to select movies that maybe didn't feel like they deserved to be amongst the best of the year. So without further ado we start with two films from the director of the first Best Picture winner of this decade and somebody whose win for directing the film was a history-making moment.

The person in question was Kathryn Bigelow who became the first woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar. Oddly, in the seventy plus years of the Oscars only four women including Bigelow were nominated which tells you something about the sexism that surrounds the film industry in general. It's also interested that the film Bigelow won the Oscar for is a fairly macho affair and features very few female characters throughout. The Hurt Locker is based on journalist Mark Boal's experiences living and interviewing members of the army in 2004. Boal, who won an Oscar for the film's screenplay, interviewed over 1,000 officers before beginning his work on the film. The film's protagonist is Sergeant First Class William James, a talented but reckless bomb disposal expert who joins a three man bomb disposal team who are nearing the completion of their time in Iraq. The film follows the team throughout their last days in the country with James' colleague Sergeant Sanborn getting more frustrated with his superior's lack of compliance to regulations. The third member of the team, Specialist Owen Eldridge, is portrayed as somebody who is desperate to get home and is regularly visited by the Camp's doctor. After several incidents, which include Eldridge getting his leg shot off, the team finish their rotation however Boal's lasting message is that some soldiers can't leave war behind. Indeed the film starts with the message that 'war is a drug' and concludes with James returning to Iraq after finding that he can't cope with the mundane nature of his regular domestic life. This final scene is a little jarring to me as I never quite knew whether The Hurt Locker was an anti-war or pro-war film. The characters of Eldridge and Sanborn represent soldiers who want to get home and the latter in particular voices his need to get more out of life. At the same time the portrayal of the majority of the Iraqis as 'the enemy' makes this feel more like the recently recent American Sniper than something like Apocalypse Now.

Along with this odd balance of pro and anti-war sentiment, The Hurt Locker's other issue is that it doesn't really have a story to speak of. Instead the film is made up of a series of incidents that are strung together through the trio of characters who grow on you throughout the course of the film. James is a particularly memorable character who is initially portrayed as arrogant but later comes through for his team. His relationship with a young Iraqi boy known as 'Beckham' is also touching which explains his reaction when he thinks that the youngster has been used as a body bomb. Jeremy Renner's performance as James is very naturalistic and adds to the whole documentary-like feel of the film. This seems to have been Bigelow's intention as she cast three relative unknowns in the roles of James, Sanborn and Eldridge. What I liked most about The Hurt Locker was the fact that it at times it didn't feel like I was watching a fictional film at all. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd's use of 16mm cameras meant that the audience were able to look at multiple angles at once. Bigelow wanted us to get multiple perspectives during the film's many set pieces and I certainly feel this is one thing that the film achieved. Particularly memorable was one of the film's final scenes in which James is unable to detach a bomb from an innocent Iraqi man before it is detonated. The Hurt Locker really doesn't feel like any other Best Picture winner as its focus on realism over story is something knew. The only Best Picture winner it resembles is Platoon and even that had more of a focus on story than The Hurt Locker. To me this almost validates the Academy's decision to extend the Best Picture category especially if we're going to get films that play more towards realism than fiction. It's also great to see Bigelow, who did a fantastic job anchoring the film, being the first woman to pick up an award that has had only male recipients up to this point. Here's hoping that more female directors are honoured in the years to come and that Bigelow's victory isn't just a one-off.

Bigelow's next film, Zero Dark Thirty, was also in the Best Picture field although she herself wasn't nominated for director. Again the film focused on a modern day war setting, this time the War on Terror with the lead characters on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Although it possessed quite macho themes, Zero Dark Thirty's lead character was young CIA officer Maya. The film followed Maya from meek rookie to Osama obsessive as gradually the hunt for the terrorist mastermind engulfed her life. Originally the film was going to focus on the fruitless search for Osama straight after the World Trade Centre attacks however, following the capture and death of Bin Laden, Bigelow and Boal had to go back to square one. That to me is why the film feels incredibly fragmented with the first ninety minutes featuring Maya's attempts to get close to Osama's associates. It's a frustrating watch as every time Maya feels like she's getting somewhere she hits a brick wall or finds her plans wrapped up in red tape. The second part of the film sees Maya transported back to Washington after an attempt on her life in Pakistan as we watch her fight against the system again. The final third, which focuses exclusively on the army's hunt for and eventual murder of Bin Laden, feels almost tacked on to the end. Although this is where the film is at its tensest, this final half an hour is separate from the rest of the film save a few shots of Maya that appear to have been thrown in for continuity. The fragmented feel of Zero Dark Thirty is slightly off-putting at times and whilst all three sections are well-made they don't quite fit together. The scenes with Maya back in Washington are a particular drag and are only saved by James Gandolfini's appearance as the CIA's Director.

Despite my problems with the uneven structure of the film I think that Zero Dark Thirty is a step up on The Hurt Locker due to the fact that it has a proper story. As it's based on true events you know what we're building up to even though you're not quite sure what's going to happen on the way there. Boal and Bigelow punctuate the shocks well as there are several jump-out-of-you-seat moments such as when Maya and fellow CIA analyst Jessica experience a terror attack at a restaurant. In addition I felt I knew the character of Maya more so than I did any of the trio of bomb disposers in The Hurt Locker. Maya's progression from slightly nervous analyst to confident woman who isn't afraid to stand up to the CIA director is told well by Boal. The character is enhanced by Jessica Chastain's fantastic performance which earned her a Best Actress nomination. Chastain brilliantly conveys all of Maya's strengths and weaknesses which means that you start to feel for her as the film goes on. The fact that Chastain all but vanishes once the hunt for Bin Laden begins is one of the problems with the film for me. However I think she manages to save it right at the end with a tender moment as she boards a plane having finally succeeded in bringing down her nemesis. The supporting cast is almost universally fantastic with special mention going to Mark Strong, Jennifer Ehle and Joel Edgerton. Zero Dark Thirty's other big plus point is Greig Fraser's cinematography which employs a similar documentary-feel to Barry Ackroyd's camera work in The Hurt Locker. This is especially relevant in the final section of the film as you feel at times like you're part of the team who are being used to hunt down Osama. Zero Dark Thirty didn't have nearly as much success as The Hurt Locker did and only managed to win one award in the Sound Editing category. In fact this wasn't even a universal victory as the Zero Dark Thirty team found themselves tied with the sound effects team from the Bond film Skyfall. I do think it's a shame that Zero Dark Thirty wasn't as well-regarded by the Academy as The Hurt Locker as I believe it's a superior film. Despite my problems with the structure I think the characters, performances and story are stronger than Bigelow's Oscar-winning endeavour.

But one thing you can say without a doubt is that Bigelow broke through the barrier and will always be remembered for being the first female Best Director winner. Unfortunately, since her win no other women have been nominated despite several female-helmed projects featuring in the Best Picture category. I do feel this balance needs to be addressed soon and I'm hoping it won't be long before somebody joins Bigelow in the female Best Director winner's club.

Next time we explore the work of a male director who had three films in the Best Picture category in the space of only four years.