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    What Directors Love About Nicole Kidman

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    As the actress receives a life achievement award from the American Film Institute this week, five filmmakers discuss what makes her work so singular.“We come to this place for magic,” Nicole Kidman says in the well-known AMC Theaters preshow advertisement. And who could better welcome back audiences to experience movies on the big screen than an acclaimed artist who’s illuminated stories across all genres?Kidman has starred in daring art house projects (“Dogville,” “Birth”), awards-friendly dramas (“Cold Mountain,” “Rabbit Hole”), big-budget crowd-pleasers (“Aquaman,” “Paddington”) and everything in between.On Saturday, the Australian American Oscar-winning actress will receive the life achievement award from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. At 56, Kidman is among the youngest honorees.But what qualities have kept Kidman consistently in demand for the past three decades?The Australian director Jane Campion said via email that “her fierce curiosity has helped her take an audience inside some gnarly women.” The American filmmaker Karyn Kusama described her as a “channeler of inchoate energy,” and explained that when this “coalesces into something visceral for her character, you almost feel the molecules in the air shift around her.”Five directors who have worked with Kidman, including Campion and Kusama, discussed what makes the performer an irreplaceable, shape-shifting talent.Baz Luhrmann‘Moulin Rouge!’ (2001), ‘Australia’ (2008)As Satine in “Moulin Rouge!”20th Century FoxWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Rediscovering Australia’s Generation of Defiant Female Directors

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      Gillian Armstrong, Jane Campion, Essie Coffey and others had waited years to tell their stories, as a Museum of the Moving Image series shows.In the opening moments of Gillian Armstrong’s debut feature, “My Brilliant Career” (1979), a freckled, tawny-haired young woman stands in the doorway of her house in the Australian outback and declares: “Dear countrymen, a few lines to let you know that this story is going to be all about me.” The woman is Sybylla, played by a fiery, young Judy Davis, and she dreams of a long, fruitful career as a writer — love, marriage, motherhood and all of society’s other expectations be damned.Sybylla’s words might as well have been the rallying cry for a whole generation of Australia’s female filmmakers, who had waited for years to tell their own stories. Their defiant and eclectic body of work is the subject of Pioneering Women in Australian Cinema, a fascinating series that opened last week at the Museum of the Moving Image, in Queens, N.Y.“My Brilliant Career,” which shot Armstrong into global prominence, was the first feature to be directed by an Australian woman in more than 40 years. In 1933, “Two Minutes Silence,” the fourth and final feature by the three McDonagh sisters — Isabel, Phyllis and Paulette — had closed out a brief but booming era of early Australian cinema in which women had been active as producers and directors. (The MoMI series includes the 1929 film “The Cheaters,” the only feature by the McDonagh sisters for which a print still exists.)The intervening decades had drastically shrunk not just opportunities for women interested in film, but the scope of Australian cinema itself. Stiff competition from Hollywood and the ravages of World War II had more or less shuttered the country’s film industry by the 1960s. Government initiatives to subsidize production and establish a national film school eventually spurred a rebirth in the 1970s. The Australian new wave, as this resurgence came to be called, thrust antipodean cinema onto the world stage with stylized, maverick films like Bruce Beresford’s “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie,” Fred Schepisi’s “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith,” and George Miller’s “Mad Max.”Tracey Moffatt in “BeDevil,” a horror anthology she also directed.Women Make MoviesThe new wave was a male-dominated movement, with many of the films flaunting a grisly, macho vision of Australian culture; Armstrong often stood out as the sole female exception. But “My Brilliant Career” also represented the beginning of another kind of renaissance in Australian cinema — one led by women. Between the late 1970s and the 1990s, a number of women directed landmark films across genres, introducing rousing new feminist narratives to the Australian screen.“My Brilliant Career” is one of many firsts in the aptly named MoMI series, which was curated by the programmer and critic Michelle Carey. These include Essie Coffey’s “My Survival as an Aboriginal” (1978), often hailed as the first documentary to be directed by an Aboriginal Australian woman; the dystopian lesbian heist film “On Guard” (1984), written and directed by Susan Lambert and believed by some to be the first Australian film made with an all-women crew; and Tracey Moffatt’s rollicking three-part horror anthology, “BeDevil” (1993), regarded as the first feature to be directed by an Aboriginal Australian woman. Then there’s “Sweetie” (1989), the oddball black comedy that was the debut feature of Jane Campion, who would go on to make “The Piano” (1993), the first film by a woman to win a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.This flurry of breakthroughs resulted from two intersecting developments: the creation of state film institutions like the Australian Film Television and Radio School and the Australian Film Commission in the 1970s; and campaigns by women’s and Aboriginal groups to demand policies that would ensure fair access to these public resources. Armstrong was part of the inaugural class of 12 at the school, whose graduates also include Campion and her “Sweetie” cinematographer Sally Bongers, as well as Jocelyn Moorhouse, who produced the 1994 crossover hit “Muriel’s Wedding.” “Proof,” Moorhouse’s disarmingly mordant feature debut as a director, is part of Pioneering Women in Australian Cinema.While state support helped nurture a fledgling mainstream industry, it proved crucial in the development of a feminist documentary and experimental film tradition in Australia, which benefited greatly from the commission’s Women’s Film Fund. “On Guard” is a striking example. Lambert’s hourlong movie follows a group of lesbians who scheme to destroy the data held by a multinational company, U.T.E.R.O., which they suspect is performing illegal reproductive experiments on women. A kind of Aussie sister-film to Lizzie Borden’s 1983 cult classic, “Born in Flames,” “On Guard” subverts patriarchal control in both form and narrative. Told in short, sleek fragments, the film strips the heist thriller of all its usual machinations and violence, instead dwelling on the everyday struggles of its heroines — be it with child care, domestic division of labor or living an openly gay life.Essie Coffey’s “My Survival as an Aboriginal” serves as both a manifesto and an heirloom for her descendants.Ballad FilmsMoffatt’s movies similarly reimagine cultural and film tropes, but through the lenses of gender and race. The short film “Nice Coloured Girls” uses clever juxtapositions of image, voice and text to turn a wily story about three Aboriginal women who seduce and scam white men into a historical meditation on the power plays between early settlers and the women’s ancestors. This theme of colonial haunting is expanded with raucous invention in Moffatt’s “BeDevil,” which draws on Aboriginal folklore to tell a series of modern-day gothic tales. Tracing lines between past and present evils — colonialism, gentrification, cultural appropriation — with an irreverent and experimental approach to editing and sound, “BeDevil” refashions Australian history as a deeply unsettling ghost story. Like many films in the MoMI series, “BeDevil” feels startlingly ahead of its time.As does Coffey’s “My Survival as an Aboriginal,” despite its simple and straightforward documentary structure. Made one year before “My Brilliant Career” — and no less seminal than that film in inspiring an entire tradition of filmmakers — “My Survival” is both a personal manifesto by Coffey and an heirloom for her descendants. Coffey speaks bluntly, straight into the camera, of the violence suffered by her people, the Muruwari, at the hands of white settlers. Then she sets out with the camera, brusque and determined, to ensure that her heritage is preserved and passed down to future generations. She teaches the local children the traditional skills of her people — hunting, gathering, surviving in the bush — and laments that their education has left them without this essential cultural knowledge. At the end, Coffey declares, “I’m going to lead my own life, me and my family, and live off the land. I will not live a white-man way and that’s straight from me, Essie Coffey.”Between Sybylla’s fictional “this story is going to be all about me” in “My Brilliant Career” and Coffey’s raw and real “I’m going to lead my own life,” a whole history of Australian women’s cinema was born.“Pioneering Women in Australian Cinema” runs through Aug. 14 at the Museum of the Moving Image. Go to movingimage.us for more information. More

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      in Television

      Does the Academy Hate Movies? Our Critics on the 2022 Oscars.

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      Whatever you make of the slap, the telecast as a whole was a frustrating night of television that seemed based on a misunderstanding of what makes films great.Our chief film critics reflect on an Oscar night that went pretty much as expected — until it didn’t.A.O. SCOTT “The greatest night in the history of television,” said Chris Rock, a few seconds after Will Smith slapped him. Not a bad off-the-cuff punchline (so to speak). But until that moment — and Smith’s tearful, unrehearsed acceptance speech when he won best actor a short time later — it had been a dull and frustrating evening of television. Few surprises in any category (except maybe when “Belfast” won for original screenplay). Sentimentality triumphing over craft (except when Jane Campion won best director). A gnawing sense that the academy doesn’t understand movies, and maybe even hates them.MANOHLA DARGIS Bingo! Mind you, I don’t think the academy and its roughly 10,000 members hate movies; they just sometimes have really terrible taste, like everyone else, except you and me. But I think that as a TV show, the Oscars absolutely have contempt for the art, as the unfunny jokes about the hosts not finishing “The Power of the Dog” underscored.SCOTT The slap did not dispel any of that, but it did distract Twitter, which convulsed with takes about what it meant. We can get to that (or not!), but for the moment I want to stick with the question of what kind of television this was. American viewers did not actually see it on their screens. When the image froze, I thought my laptop had crashed, and it was only when people started posting uncensored video from Australian and Japanese broadcasts that anyone here knew what had happened. During Smith’s speech, the cameras cut away to Venus and Serena Williams, and then to the Oscars logo. Here was a spontaneous, complicated, emotionally intense moment — serving up more raw and painful human drama than “CODA,” “Belfast” and “King Richard” combined — and ABC just could not deal with it.DARGIS To be uncharacteristically fair about my favorite hate-watch, ABC wasn’t alone in not being able to deal. Initially, when ABC cut off Smith’s rebuke to Rock, I thought that the janky antenna that I use the rare times I watch broadcast TV had failed. Like a lot of people, I don’t watch as much traditional TV as I once did, which is part of the show’s and ABC’s intractable problem. That the network or the Oscar producers, or both, lost their nerve wasn’t surprising given that they’d already failed by not presenting some of the essential awards live.Will Smith’s slapping Chris Rock clearly overshadowed the evening.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesSCOTT The way the “below-the-line” awards were banished to an earlier, pre-broadcast ceremony and then spliced into the main event was nonsensical. Are the acceptance speeches of cinematographers and costume designers inherently more telegenic than those of composers and editors? As it happens, Jenny Beavan, winning her third costume Oscar (for “Cruella”), was glamorous and genuine and funny, and her celebration of craft and professionalism represents the best of the Oscars. So do the honorary awards, which were held Friday night and featured Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson hugging and cracking each other up as Washington presented Jackson with his trophy. Why wouldn’t the TV audience want to see that?DARGIS Even so, this year’s event started off pretty OK, particularly given horrific world events. One of the three hosts, Regina Hall, deftly handled the bit about administering faux Covid tests to some of the men in the room, even as the camera focused on her rear. It was stupid Oscar shtick — surprise — yet as it went on (and on), I kept thinking about the fact that the United States alone is approaching one million pandemic deaths. I’m not sure how the show could have addressed Covid’s grievous toll, but asking for a moment of silence, of all things — as it did with Ukraine — might have been worse.Of course now all the focus is on the slap, which was embarrassing and very sad. Smith seems to be going through something deeply complicated, to the point that he sabotaged his own triumph. As for the rest of the show, it lacked dramatic shape and momentum, partly because those canned awards would have given the live event more tension and emotion. There was no buildup, just bits … and an obituary musical number. Among other things, the show didn’t give viewers a coherent point of focus, the way it has when Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep sat front and center representing the art and industry, a place that this year should have been reserved for Denzel Washington, who looked mighty uncomfortable in that chair.SCOTT The endless pre-Oscar hand-wringing about how to shore up ratings and make the show more relevant demonstrates a lack of confidence that was very much in evidence last night. The hosts were fine. The movies that won were fine.Except for those idiotic “fan” awards. They were, somewhat hilariously, hijacked by the Zack Snyder Twitter militia. The most memorable movie moment (of all time? of the century? it was hard to tell) is supposedly that scene from “Justice League” when Flash enters the Speed Force. And the most popular movie (of 2021) was “Army of the Dead,” which beat other curiosities like “Cinderella” and “Minimata.”Is this the death of cinema?DARGIS LOL. (Also: Did you see “Minimata”?) The Oscars are a TV show, and while they reflect certain industry trends, like the transformation of the big studios, they don’t have much to do with cinema, which is doing just fine, as you and I keep saying and writing and muttering. The Oscars generated lower ratings and angry snark when independent films like “Breaking the Waves” and “Secrets & Lies” received nominations in 1997 — “The English Patient” swept, winning best picture — only to rebound with “Titanic” the next year.SCOTT The more things change, the more they stay the same. One thing that has gotten worse is the unfortunate journalistic habit of equating the state of the Oscars with the state of movies. Even when television is great, the Emmys are terrible. Nobody seriously thinks that bad Grammy Awards spell the death of pop music, or that a given year’s National Book Awards reveal much about the health of literature. But movie journalism has elevated the Oscars to a position of absurd importance.“CODA” was the first Sundance premiere to win best picture.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesDARGIS As an epic-sized commercial for movies, the Oscars just don’t often make good television. That’s kind of funny-strange given how many movies look like TV, which means it’s time to bring up Apple TV+’s “CODA.” It’s hard to believe it would have won best picture if voters had been forced to watch it on the big screen, though maybe it would have. It’s a nice, little, pedestrian heart-tugger, so it fits perfectly on TV. It’s the kind of movie that we’ve seen repeatedly at Sundance; but it isn’t the kind that inspires colleagues to proselytize about it the way they did with, say, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” But that’s the Oscars, right? One year, “Moonlight” wins; two years later, “Green Book” does — and then, boom, “Parasite” wins.SCOTT “CODA” is the first best picture winner to premiere at Sundance, as well as the first to be distributed by a streaming service. It also won all of the three categories in which it was nominated, none of which were for lead performances or technical achievements, making it a fascinating outlier. Its victories — especially Troy Kotsur’s supporting actor win, a wonderful Oscar-night moment — are part of the academy’s continuing efforts to present a more diverse, inclusive face to the world.And it’s worth pointing out that the 94th Oscars were not so white, or so male, as most of their precursors. For the second year in a row — and the third time ever — the best director is a woman. The best picture was directed by a (different) woman. The best documentary feature is the work of a Black filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. The best supporting actress, Ariana DeBose, is the first openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar. You and I have been covering Hollywood long enough to be wary of overstating its progress or believing its promises, but I also wonder if the defensiveness and insecurity that surround the Oscar broadcast amounts to a form of backlash.DARGIS Both Kotsur’s and DeBose’s acceptance speeches were lovely, and each offered moments of grace during an otherwise often awkward, poorly paced slog of three and a half hours, plus change. As to your wondering if the increasing diversity of the awards winners has provoked a backlash — well, yeah, I bet! The movie industry is changing and is no longer the citadel of white male power that it once was. At the same time, the old guard is holding strong and the Oscars often seem more like aspirational visions of the industry rather than its reality.SCOTT Aspirational and also, as we saw last night, wildly dysfunctional. That’s entertainment! More

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      Oscars 2022 Predictions: Who Will Win Best Picture, Actor and Actress?

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      In an interesting year with a duel for the top award and some wide-open races, here’s how our expert is marking his ballot.Best PictureEmilia Jones and Troy Kotsur having a moment in “CODA.”Apple TV+, via Associated Press“Belfast”✓“CODA”“Don’t Look Up”“Drive My Car”“Dune”“King Richard”“Licorice Pizza”“Nightmare Alley”“The Power of the Dog”“West Side Story”In a novel twist, this race has become a face-off between the best picture candidate with the most Oscar nominations (“The Power of the Dog,” with 12) and the one tied for the least (“CODA,” with just three). Still, “CODA” has recently surged after key wins with the actors, writers and producers guilds, the sort of bounty that almost always points the way to best picture victory. Though it’s awfully rare for a film to win Hollywood’s top prize without nominations for editing and directing — in fact, it hasn’t happened since 1932’s “Grand Hotel” — “CODA” can bypass those statistical precedents with an appeal that goes straight to the heart. In a year when I think voters are desperate to crown a crowd-pleaser, “CODA” is the clear favorite.Still, “The Power of the Dog” shouldn’t be counted out: Netflix has spent heavily to try to earn the streamer’s first best picture win, and the film’s 12 nominations indicate broad strength across several different branches of the academy. The tricky part is that the Oscars use a preferential ballot, which asks voters to rank the 10 nominees and tends to produce a winner that consistently shows up in the No. 1 and No. 2 slots. That favors a likable consensus choice like “CODA” instead of the more polarizing “Power of the Dog,” which will have to net a whole lot of No. 1 votes to offset the ballots cast by voters who found Campion’s film a little too austere.Best DirectorJane Campion, right, with associate producer Phil Jones, during production.Kirsty Griffin/NetflixKenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”✓ Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Campion is the first woman to be nominated for best director twice, and her win could make even more Oscar history, since it would follow Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” victory and mark the first time this Oscar has gone to women two years in a row. It’s true that Campion stepped into a controversy of her own making at the Critics Choice Awards, where she compared herself to Venus and Serena Williams but said the tennis superstars had never had to compete against men like Campion had. That diminishment of the sisters’ accomplishments caused an internet furor, but the older-skewing academy rarely pays attention to social-media conflagrations, and Campion remains the prohibitive favorite.Best ActorWill Smith opposite Demi Singleton, left, and Saniyya Sidney in “King Richard.”Warner Bros. Javier Bardem, “Being the Ricardos”Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog”Andrew Garfield, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”✓ Will Smith, “King Richard”Denzel Washington, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”The best actor Oscar rarely goes to young men, and bankable movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey were only able to win it once they were on the other side of 40 and had paid an appropriate amount of dues. That’s why Smith is so perfectly situated: His two other nominations, for “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness,” came when he was a superstar in his 30s, and now that he is a lightly grizzled 53-year-old who has proved himself over four decades, the timing is right for his first Academy Award win. All the better that in playing the father of the tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard,” Smith has found a character-actor role that he can animate with every ounce of his movie-star charisma.Best ActressJessica Chastain as the Christian broadcaster Tammy Faye Bakker.Fox Searchlight Pictures✓Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”Nicole Kidman, “Being the Ricardos”Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”Last year’s best actress winner, Frances McDormand, had a leg up on her competition by hailing from the best picture winner, “Nomadland.” This year, none of the best actress nominees come from movies in the best picture race at all, which gives you a sense of just how wide-open this field is. Chastain won the Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as the disgraced evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, but this could really go to any of the five nominees: Chastain, Stewart and Kidman all gave the kind of transformative biopic performances that Oscar voters love, while Colman and Cruz are critical favorites from much better-reviewed films. I’m going to play it safe by picking Chastain, but feel free to live dangerously in your own Oscar pool.Best Supporting ActorTroy Kotsur opposite Marlee Matlin as his wife in “CODA.”Apple TV+, via Associated PressCiaran Hinds, “Belfast”✓ Troy Kotsur, “CODA”Jesse Plemons, “The Power of the Dog”J.K. Simmons, “Being the Ricardos”Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”Smit-McPhee was recognized by year-end critics’ groups for his performance as Kirsten Dunst’s crafty son in “The Power of the Dog,” but once the televised awards shows began to weigh in, Kotsur cleaned up at SAG, the Indie Spirits and BAFTA. With his warm and funny acceptance speeches at those ceremonies, Kotsur has become this season’s breakout performer, and the Oscars can surely count on him for a winning moment that is both heartfelt and historic, since Kotsur would be the first deaf man to earn an acting Oscar. He is instrumental to the tear-jerking third act of “CODA,” and he has a personal narrative every bit as compelling as what you see on the screen. This is Kotsur’s to lose.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage. Hollywood Legend: Danny Glover will receive an honorary Oscar for his activism. He spoke to The Times about his life in movies and social justice.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Return to the Playground: For his Oscar-nominated short film “When We Were Bullies,” Jay Rosenblatt tracked down his fifth-grade classmates.Secret Sounds: Denis Villeneuve and the “Dune” sound team explain how far they went to create an aural experience that felt familiar.Best Supporting ActressAriana DeBose, with David Alvarez, in “West Side Story.”Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosJessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter”✓ Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”Judi Dench, “Belfast”Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard”It’s Anita’s America, and we’re just living in it. The key supporting role in “West Side Story” has proved to be catnip for Oscar voters across decades: Rita Moreno won the Oscar for her Anita in the 1961 film, and DeBose is well-positioned to repeat for playing the part in Steven Spielberg’s reimagining. Musical performances often do quite well in this category, as previous winners Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables”) and Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”) can attest, but if there’s a dark horse in the race, I’d look to Dunst: She’s worked with a lot of academy members who can appreciate the hard-earned awards breakthrough she managed with “The Power of the Dog.”Best Original ScreenplayLeonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in “Don’t Look Up.”Niko Tavernise/Netflix“Belfast”✓“Don’t Look Up”“King Richard”“Licorice Pizza”“The Worst Person in the World”This is one of the night’s toughest races. Many of my fellow pundits are picking Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” but if it couldn’t win in this category at the BAFTAs despite being a box-office hit in Britain, I don’t expect a sudden reversal from the academy. Besides, Oscar voters tend to take the “original” part of this category very seriously, voting for films that feel sui generis. To my mind, that leaves “Licorice Pizza” (which won the BAFTA), “Don’t Look Up” (which won the WGA Award) and “The Worst Person in the World,” which could earn votes here in a race where it doesn’t face “Drive My Car.” Ultimately, I think that the environmental satire “Don’t Look Up” prevails because of its topical, urgent subject matter.Best Adapted ScreenplayEmilia Jones as the hearing daughter of deaf parents in “CODA.”Apple TV+✓ “CODA”“Drive My Car”“Dune”“The Lost Daughter”“The Power of the Dog”The path to best picture almost always cuts through the screenplay categories, so this race could provide a crucial sneak preview of the night’s ultimate winner, especially because it contains another face-off between “The Power of the Dog” and “CODA.” The latter film won at the Writers Guild, where “The Power of the Dog” wasn’t eligible for a nomination — but at BAFTA, where both films competed, “CODA” still pulled out a victory. If “CODA” (adapted from the French film “La Famille Bélier”) can win over a snobby bunch of British voters, there’s no reason to think it will fall short with the academy.Best Animated FeatureA scene from “Encanto,” with Stephanie Beatriz voicing the central character, Mirabel. Disney✓ “Encanto”“Flee”“Luca”“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”“Raya and the Last Dragon”“The Mitchells vs. the Machines” has won most of the awards doled out by the animation industry, and it shares an innovative elan — as well as the producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which previously triumphed in this category. Still, it will be tough for any film to beat “Encanto,” which has the year’s most viral song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” as well as a popular pitchman in the songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Mitchells may have triumphed in their battle against the Machines, but “Encanto” boasts even heavier artillery.Best Documentary FeatureNina Simone, as seen in “Summer of Soul.”Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Ascension”“Attica”“Flee”✓ “Summer of Soul”“Writing With Fire”This race is filled with worthy contenders, including the animated refugee story “Flee,” which made Oscar history when it was nominated in the documentary, animated and international categories. But “Flee” is up against juggernaut front-runners in all of those races, and here, that No. 1 pick has got to be “Summer of Soul,” the Questlove-directed documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Oscar voters often fall for music docs — past winners include “Searching for Sugar Man” and “20 Feet From Stardom” — and the previously lost concert footage of artists like Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder and Mahalia Jackson is catch-your-breath, stomp-your-feet wonderful.Best International FeatureReika Kirishima, left, and Hidetoshi Nishijima in “Drive My Car.”Sideshow and Janus Films“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” Bhutan“Flee,” Denmark“The Hand of God,” Italy✓ “Drive My Car,” Japan“The Worst Person in the World,” NorwayThis should be a no-brainer, since voters gravitate to films in this category that have also made the best picture and best director lineups. (Think “Amour,” “Roma” and “Parasite.”) Therefore, the odds favor “Drive My Car,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s insightful three-hour drama about grief and art, which swept the major critics’ groups and kept amassing momentum as awards season continued. Still, I’d keep a watchful eye on the wonderful romantic dramedy “The Worst Person in the World,” which came out awfully late this season and has been winning a healthy share of Hollywood admirers. If enough voters gravitate to that Norwegian film because they think “Drive My Car” is taken care of, Hamaguchi’s breakthrough may run out of gas before reaching its destination.Best CinematographyBenedict Cumberbatch, left, and Kodi Smit-McPhee in “The Power of the Dog.”Kirsty Griffin/Netflix“Dune”“Nightmare Alley”✓“The Power of the Dog”“The Tragedy of Macbeth”“West Side Story”“Dune” won at BAFTA and with the cinematographers guild, and it’s probably the safer choice. But there have been several recent profiles of the “Power of the Dog” cinematographer Ari Wegner, who would become the first woman to win this Oscar. In a squeaker, that’s who I’m picking.Best ScoreZendaya in “Dune,” which has music by Hans Zimmer.Warner Bros. “Don’t Look Up”✓“Dune”“Encanto”“Parallel Mothers“The Power of the Dog”Even more than the powerhouse visuals, the rumbling, uneasy score of “Dune” makes the best case for watching the movie in a theater.Best SongDaniel Craig and Ana de Armas in “No Time to Die,” which is also the title of its nominated song.Nicola Dove/MGM, via Associated Press“Be Alive” (“King Richard”)“Dos Oruguitas” (“Encanto”)“Down to Joy” (“Belfast”)✓“No Time to Die” (“No Time to Die”)“Somehow You Do” (“Four Good Days”)If “Encanto” had submitted “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” instead of “Dos Oruguitas,” or if Beyoncé had done any campaigning for her rousing “King Richard” song, things might be different. But since they didn’t, expect a victory for Billie Eilish and Finneas for “No Time to Die,” the third James Bond theme to win in a row.Best Sound“Dune” is nominated for audible effects like sand crunching. Warner Bros. “Belfast”✓“Dune”“No Time to Die”“The Power of the Dog”“West Side Story”The sounds of “Dune” are designed to hit you in the solar plexus, and they bleed into the score and the edit in all sorts of memorable ways. Plus, the story behind crafting those sounds is fascinating: Who knew it involved Rice Krispies?Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      Jane Campion and the Perils of the Backhanded Compliment

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      Jane Campion’s comment about Venus and Serena Williams reminded our critic of his own night of ‘botched fanciness’ and racial slights.Something about the way the director Jane Campion went overboard on Sunday to identify with, then insult, Venus and Serena Williams at an awards show brought to mind a night of botched fanciness that happened to me. A couple Fridays ago, I went to see some art: a Faith Ringgold retrospective at the New Museum in the afternoon, with friends; Norm Lewis singing at Carnegie Hall in the evening. (That was a solo trip.) For both, I wore a suit.The Ringgold show requires three floors and includes her 1967 masterpiece “American People Series #20: Die,” a blunt, bloody racial-rampage frieze that would be pure physical comedy about the era’s racial cataclysms were it not for the helpless terror in the faces she’s painted (Black men, women and children; white men, women and children). The scale of the canvas helps. It’s huge. Ringgold has always painted Black women in a range of moods, feelings, conditions, beauty. She gives them faces that feature both personal serenity and indicting alarm.I planted myself in a tight corridor that featured three works at the alarm end of things — the “Slave Rape” trio, from 1972. Each is a warm, sizable canvas of a woman nude and agape, framed by patchwork quilting, a signature of Ringgold. I was taking my time with one called “Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away” — the woman is mid-flight, loosely shrouded by leaves, a big gold ring in each ear — when two strangers (women, white) parked themselves between me and the piece and continued a conversation I had heard them having in an adjacent gallery. They noticed neither me nor the depicted distress nor my engagement with it. I waited more than a minute before waving my hand, a gesture that seemed to irritate them.“Is something wrong?,” one stranger asked.“You’re in my way,” I told her.“Please accept our deepest apologies,” said her friend. If a middle ground exists between sincerity and sarcasm, these two had just planted a flag. But they did move, though not immediately, lest I relish some kind of relocation victory, and kept their talk of real estate and art ownership within earshot.The Faith Ringgold painting “American People Series #20: Die,” from 1967, in an  exhibition at the New Museum.Faith Ringgold/ARS, NY; Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesAfter a drink with my friends I left for Carnegie Hall. A cab made sense. One pulled up, and the driver (male, brown) took a look at me, then noticed a white woman hailing a taxi up ahead and drifted her way, instead. When I jogged over to ask him what just happened — Is something wrong? — I was given no acknowledgment in the way only a guilty cabby can achieve. I chased the car half a block to photograph a plate number that you’d have to be Weegee to get just right. I’m not Weegee.I’d never been to Carnegie Hall. And I liked the idea that Norm Lewis was going to break me in. He played Olivia Pope’s senator ex on “Scandal” and one of the vets in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” He’s got a luscious, flexible baritone that I’d only ever encountered in recorded concerts on PBS. That night, backed by the New York Pops, he gave Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Marvin Gaye the polished jewel treatment and pumped “Ya Got Trouble” with enough breathless gusto to make you wonder, with all due respect to Hugh Jackman, why the current “Music Man” revival isn’t starring him.As a solo performer, this was Lewis’s first show at Carnegie Hall, too. And people were anxious to see him and their beloved Pops. In a queue in the lobby before the show, one such person (woman, white) was making a point to push past me when I turned to ask if she was all right.“We’re going to will-call,” she said of herself and the gentleman she was with.“Ma’am, I think we all are,” I said.“We’re members. Are you?” she asked.I lied, hoping a yes would stanch her aggression.“Of the Pops?”She had me.“I like Norm Lewis,” I told her.“We love the Pops.”Venus Williams, left, and Serena Williams at the Critics Choice Awards; “King Richard,” a movie about their family, earned a best actor award for Will Smith.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesI was thinking about my night out a week later when one of the world’s great filmmakers saluted two of the world’s greatest athletes in an acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards. Jane Campion had been given the directing prize for a sneaky-deep ranch drama called “The Power of the Dog.” From the stage, Campion (woman, white) saluted Venus and Serena Williams and announced that she had taken up tennis but her body had told her to stop. In her nervous excitement, Campion was charming. She then took curious note of her plight as a woman in the film industry by informing the Williamses that they’ve got nothing on her. “You are such marvels,” she said, through a grin. “However, you do not play against the guys like I have to.”The Williams sisters were in the room that evening because a smart, tangy movie about their family, “King Richard,” was in the nominations mix, alongside Campion’s. “King Richard” is not about the time in 2001 when a California crowd booed and slurred Venus and Serena and their father, Richard, at a top tennis tournament. It’s not about the many mischaracterizations of their bodies, skills and intent in the press and by their peers. It’s not about the insidiously everlasting confusion of one sister for the other, the sort of thing that, just a few weeks ago, took place on a page of this newspaper. It’s not even about their fight, Venus’s particularly, to get women’s prize money even with men’s “King Richard” is about how the sisters’ parents molded and loved and coached them into the sort of people who can handle sharp backhands and backhanded compliments with the same power and poise.Even though Campion’s errant backhand had flown wide, the room lurched into cheers. Some of the applause came from Serena Williams, who has watched many a shot sail long. I had to desist further thought about the meaning of Campion’s aside. It was too confused. Was this a wish for the establishment of gendered guardrails for directors at award shows or the elimination of such distinctions in sports? Are there no men to be contended with in tennis? The line separating argument from accusation and accusation from self-aggrandizement was murky. I thought instead about the costs of the murk.Sunday afternoon, the Williamses got dressed up to celebrate some art. And somebody stood before them and challenged the validity of their membership, here in Campion’s restricted vision of sisterhood. The next day, Campion gushed an apology. These slips and slights and presumptions have a way of lingering, though. Their underlying truth renders them contrition-proof. I had every intention of keeping my date with Faith and Norm to myself. These incidents aren’t rare in fancyland, and therefore don’t warrant a constant spotlight because standing in its glare is exhausting. But Venus. Her face does something as Campion speaks. A knowing cringe. She and her family came out to soak up more of the praise being lavished on art about their life. They were invitees turned, suddenly, into interlopers, presenting one minute, plunged through a trap door the next. Faith Ringgold would recognize the discomfort. She painted it over and over. Run you might get away. But you probably won’t. More

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      Jane Campion Apologizes for Comment About Venus and Serena Williams

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      In an acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards, the “Power of the Dog” filmmaker wrongly suggested that the tennis greats didn’t compete against men the way she had to.At the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday evening, Jane Campion won best director for her work on the revisionist western “The Power of the Dog.”Within minutes, she had committed a gaffe, one that she would apologize for the next day.“It’s absolutely stunning to be here tonight among so many incredible women,” Campion began as she accepted the prize. “Halle Berry, you have already done my speech — and really killed it, I loved it. You’re absolutely brilliant,” she said, referring to the winner of the #SeeHer Award.“And Venus and Serena, what an honor to be in the room with you,” Campion continued, referring to the tennis greats who were there in support of Will Smith and the rest of the cast of “King Richard,” a warm family drama about the Williams family. “I’ve taken up tennis. I truly have. And Will, if you want to come over and give me lessons, I would truly love it. I actually had to stop playing ’cause I got tennis elbow. I’d also just like to give my love out to my fellow — the guys. The nominees.“And you know, Serena and Venus, you are such marvels. However, you do not play against the guys — like I have to.”When the camera panned over to Venus Williams, her grimace launched a thousand memes.On social media, the angry reaction was clear. “‘No matter how far we come, we get reminded that it’s not enough’ — Serena Williams” read one of the top comments on YouTube, where video of the speech was posted.“The Williams sisters actually have competed against men in the mixed doubles team event,” another commenter noted. “For those not familiar with tennis, this is when 2 teams consisting of 1 man and 1 woman compete against each other. So not only is Jane’s comment ignorant, it’s inaccurate and incorrect.”On Monday, Campion apologized in a statement.“I made a thoughtless comment equating what I do in the film world with all that Serena Williams and Venus Williams have achieved,” she said. “I did not intend to devalue these two legendary Black women and world-class athletes.“The fact is the Williams sisters have, actually, squared off against men on the court (and off), and they have both raised the bar and opened doors for what is possible for women in this world. The last thing I would ever want to do is minimize remarkable women. I love Serena and Venus. Their accomplishments are titanic and inspiring. Serena and Venus, I apologize and completely celebrate you.” More

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      BAFTA Nominations List: ‘Dune' and ‘The Power of the Dog’ Lead Awards

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      Dennis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic and Jane Campion’s western secured the most nominations in a lineup notable for its diversity.Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Power of the Dog,” which was nominated for eight BAFTA awards on Thursday.Kirsty Griffin/Netflix, via Associated PressLONDON — The unpredictability of this year’s award season continued on Thursday when the nominees were announced for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars.Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic “Dune” was nominated for best film at the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs, as was “Don’t Look Up,” the climate change satire starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jane Campion’s tense western “The Power of the Dog.”Those films will compete against “Belfast,” Kenneth Branagh’s black and white movie based on his childhood in Northern Ireland, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s ’70s coming-of-age romance “Licorice Pizza.” But of those movies’ directors, only Campion and Anderson were also nominated for the best director prize. They will compete in that category against several directors lesser known in the United States: Aleem Khan, the director of the British movie “After Love”; the French director Julia Ducournau for her Cannes-winning horror movie “Titane”; Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the Japanese director of “Drive My Car”; and Audrey Diwan, the French director of the abortion drama “Happening,” which was the unexpected winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film Festival.The BAFTA nominations, which were announced in a YouTube broadcast, are often seen as a bellwether for the Oscars, because of an overlap between the voting constituencies for both awards.Learn More About ‘Don’t Look Up’In Netflix’s doomsday flick, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are two astronomers who discover a comet headed straight for Earth.Review: It’s the end of the world, and you should not feel fine, writes the film critic Manohla Dargis.A Metaphor for Climate Change: With his apocalyptic satire, the director Adam McKay hopes to prompt the audience to action. Meryl Streep’s Presidential Turn: How the actor prepared to play a self-centered scoundrel at the helm of the United States.A Real-Life ‘Don’t Look Up’ Moment: The film revives memories of a nail-biting night in the Times newsroom two decades ago.“Dune” secured 11 BAFTA nominations, the most overall, although many are in technical categories like costume and production design. “The Power of the Dog” secured eight nominations, the second highest, with three of those in the acting categories.This year’s list also includes some acting nominees that may not be to be on the Oscars’ radar. The nominees for best actor, for instance, include Stephen Graham for “Boiling Point,” a British movie set behind the scenes in a restaurant, and Adeel Akhtar for the British romance “Ali & Ava,” as well as big names like Will Smith (“King Richard”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Don’t Look Up”) and Mahershala Ali (“Swan Song”).The nominees for best actress similarly include the British actress Joanna Scanlan for her role in “After Love,” about a white Muslim convert who uncovers her husband’s secret past, as well as Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”), Alana Haim (“Licorice Pizza”), Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) and Tessa Thompson (“Passing”).Amanda Berry, the chief executive of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which gives out the awards, said in an interview that the diversity of this year’s nominees was partly down to changes introduced in 2020 to encourage voters to watch more widely among the nominated movies. Before they cast their ballots, voters must now watch a random selection of 15 films via an online portal, to ensure they don’t just focus on the most-hyped movies, Berry explained. How much overlap there is between the BAFTAs and Oscars nominees will soon become clear. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science is scheduled to reveal the nominees for this year’s Oscars on Tuesday.The winners of the BAFTAs are set to be announced on March 13 at a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and Berry said she expected the event would return to its usual, pre-pandemic format. Last year, nominees attended via video link, but Berry said she expected the awards to be given out in person in March, and that the glamour of the red carpet would be back. More

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      Directors Guild Nominations Focus on Veterans Like Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg

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      The Directors Guild of America announced its feature-film nominees on Thursday, recognizing Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). Branagh is the category’s sole first-time nominee; the others have each been nominated by the guild before and Spielberg holds the record for most DGA wins with three.All five of the nominated directors also saw their films recognized earlier Thursday by the Producers Guild of America, which suggests they comprise the upper tier of this Oscar season’s best-picture contenders. The Directors Guild’s nominees also tend to match four out of five when it comes to the Oscars’ best-director category. Last year, only DGA pick Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) fell out; he was replaced in the Oscar nominations by Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”). The year before, the Oscars went for Todd Phillips (“Joker”) instead of Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”).Campion’s inclusion marks the first time in DGA history that women were nominated in back-to-back years: Last season, both Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and eventual winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) made the cut. And in the DGA category recognizing first-time filmmakers, four of the six nominees were women this year.Here is a rundown of the nominees in the major film and television categories. For the complete list, including commercials, reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeaturePaul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Denis Villeneuve, “Dune”First-Time FeatureMaggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”Rebecca Hall, “Passing”Tatiana Huezo, “Prayers for the Stolen”Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”Michael Sarnoski, “Pig”Emma Seligman, “Shiva Baby”DocumentaryJessica Kingdon, “Ascension”Stanley Nelson, “Attica”Raoul Peck, “Exterminate All the Brutes”Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, “Summer of Soul”Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “The Rescue”TelevisionDrama series“Succession,” Kevin Bray (for the episode “Retired Janitors of Idaho”)“Succession,” Mark Mylod (“All the Bells Say”)“Succession,” Andrij Parekh (“What It Takes”)“Succession,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (“Lion in the Meadow”)“Succession,” Lorene Scafaria (“Too Much Birthday”)Comedy series“Hacks,” Lucia Aniello (“There Is No Line”)“Ted Lasso,” MJ Delaney (“No Weddings and a Funeral”)“Ted Lasso,” Erica Dunton (“Rainbow”)“Ted Lasso,” Sam Jones (“Beard After Hours”)“The White Lotus,” Mike White (“Mysterious Monkeys”)Television Movies and Limited Series“The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins“Dopesick,” Barry Levinson (“First Bottle”)“Station Eleven,” Hiro Murai (“Wheel of Fire”)“Dopesick,” Danny Strong (“The People vs. Purdue Pharma”)“Mare of Easttown,” Craig Zobel More

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      Watch a Seductive Moment in ‘The Power of the Dog’

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      Jane Campion narrates an intimate scene between Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.A cowboy’s tough veneer is cracked in this sequence from “The Power of the Dog,” Jane Campion’s period look at the American West.The film (on Netflix) features Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank, a man who spends a lot of time on the family ranch he runs with his brother (Jesse Plemons), making life unpleasant for many of those around him, namely his brother’s new wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).But in this scene, which comes late in the movie, Phil has been warming up to Peter, and invites the younger man to watch him work on the weaving of a rope. The sequence has elements of a seduction, though the intentions of each character may be more complex than what they seem in the moment.In her narration, Campion said she loved the scene because “it’s the culmination of their relationship and so many different parts of the film that have been seeded right from the very beginning coming together.”The dialogue here is spare. It’s more about glances, close-ups of rope work and the methodical way the two characters feel each other out. An eerie and heightened score by Jonny Greenwood add to the tension of the moment.Read the “Power of the Dog” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More