Last week was a big week for Oscar prognosticators. Starting last Sunday we had the Los Angeles and New York film critics weigh in with their best of 2010. Then the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild added their nominations. Then, just last night the Satellite Awards were announced and while they aren’t exactly the best indicator of what films are going to do what, they add their own numbers to the formula. Patterns have formed and front-runners have clearly been sorted, but there are still some questions up in the air.
After the dust settled, The Social Network was the clear Best Picture front-runner. This, however, can be attributed to more than just one thing. Obviously, the critics have been all over it, but when predicting Oscar’s Best Picture you have to remember critics don’t vote in the Academy, but I think we all know critics helped The Hurt Locker last year so their attention given is important. Critics helped both The Hurt Locker and Slumdog Millionaire recently, but I don’t see The Social Network quite hitting that stride just yet, it’s a bit too divisive and the overwhelming universal love isn’t there just yet.
I’d say the Best Picture race is still a dog fight, but there’s one category that really does help one film’s chances more than any other… Best Director.
If you ask most any Oscar prognosticator, they will almost all tell you David Fincher is going to win Best Director. There isn’t much debate on this matter and that one opinion alone, deserving or not, gives The Social Network a decided advantage in the Best Picture race.
Only 21 times in Oscar’s 81 years of existence has the Best Picture winner and Best Director winner been split. More importantly, it’s only happened 11 times in the last 60 years and only four times in the last 20.
Here’s a look at the 21 times the decision has differed for those that may be interested:
- 2006 – Crash and Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
- 2003 – Chicago and Roman Polanski (The Pianist)
- 2001 – Gladiator and Steven Soderbergh (Traffic)
- 1999 – Shakespeare in Love and Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan)
- 1990 – Driving Miss Daisy and Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July)
- 1982 – Chariots of Fire and Warren Beatty (Reds)
- 1973 – The Godfather and Bob Fosse (Cabaret)
- 1968 – In the Heat of the Night and Mike Nichols (The Graduate)
- 1957 – Around the World in 80 Days and George Stevens (Giant)
- 1953 – The Greatest Show on Earth and John Ford (The Quiet Man)
- 1952 – An American in Paris and George Stevens (A Place in the Sun)
- 1950 – All the King’s Men and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (A Letter to Three Wives)
- 1949 – Hamlet and John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
- 1941 – Rebecca and John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath)
- 1938 – The Life of Emile Zola and Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth)
- 1937 – The Great Ziegfeld and Frank Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
- 1936 – Mutiny on the Bounty and John Ford (The Informer)
- 1933 – Grand Hotel and Frank Borzage (Bad Girl)
- 1932 – Cimarron and Norman Taurog (Skippy)
- 1930 – The Broadway Melody and Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady)
- 1929 – Wings and Frank Borzage (7th Heaven) and Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights)
Therefore, history tells us if Fincher is a lock for Best Director then the film has the upper hand when it comes to Best Picture.
I mention this because I have recently updated all of my Oscar predictions as well as opened up my predictions for all of the categories from top to bottom, excluding only animated and documentary short subject categories as well as Foreign Language as I will have to wait to see which films make the short list.
In updating my predictions my opinion has shifted from the two horse race for Best Picture between Social Network and The King’s Speech, into a three horse race with The Fighter taking over The King’s Speech position as #2.
As the Oscar race has been debated the main reason The King’s Speech seems to have remained at the top of many charts (outside of the fact it’s a very good movie) is because people believe the old guard in the Academy will be more likely to vote for the more traditional film than the newer, flashier and younger Social Network. It’s sound logic and it’s logic I was going with until The Social Network started sweeping the critical awards circuit, but there’s more to it than just that. Take The Fighter for example, to me it seems like a film that crosses boundaries, covering both the old and the new guard. Something neither The King’s Speech or The Social Network accomplish as completely. It’s a film for everyone and it doesn’t come with that period piece stigma the Academy may want to avoid.
The other factor that comes into play is the Academy’s voting process where sometimes the big film going in may be a bit too divisive to actually win the big prize. A lot of times it comes down to what film makes it into the most Academy members’ top five films rather than the one that gets the most number ones.
Jeff Wells pointed out a discussion of this very nature recently where someone going by the name of “movielocke” wrote, “[What] really matters is that the voting for Best Picture is Instant Runoff. That means you do NOT win by being the most popular. You win by a combination of two factors — (a) Being well liked enough to last through the first five rounds of vote elimination, and (b) Being well liked enough so that on average you have a higher vote than the other film… The math says that no divisive film will never ever win Best Picture, unless there is a year where only divisive films are nominated.”
Over the last couple of years I discussed the Academy’s “preferential tabulation process” or “instant runoff” voting procedure at length and if you need a refresher click here. The particulars of this procedure may have a great effect on this year’s winner. Even if The Social Network is listed the #1 film of the year on a majority of the voters’ ballots, it could still end up losing should another film such as The Fighter or The King’s Speech end up in more top fives than Social Network, and if you’ve seen these films you know there is a strong possibility of that happening. Not to mention The Fighter and The King’s Speech will likely get their own share of #1 votes.
So not only is it always important to look at what’s considered the best film by the majority, but the math of it all as well as the politics. I also believe Fincher’s likely Best Director Oscar is more of a lifetime achievement rather than an award for this one singular film. So, where does this leave us?
For the time being here’s a look at my current predictions for the ten Best Picture nominees:
- The Social Network
- The Fighter
- The King’s Speech
- The Kids are All Right
- Black Swan
- 127 Hours
- Toy Story 3
- Inception
- True Grit
- Winter’s Bone
Yeah, after all that I still have The Social Network at #1 as it will still take a little more convincing for me to officially move The Fighter into that number one slot, but some things have already started convincing me, such as the Screen Actors Guild awarding The Fighter and The King’s Speech with four nominations each. The actors branch is the largest in the Academy with 1,205 so when they speak it’s smart to listen. Should either film take SAG’s top honor it may be reason enough to shift direction. Last year the decision didn’t effect much when the Guild awarded Inglourious Basterds as Avatar was perceived to be The Hurt Locker‘s only real competition, and with Avatar not even nominated there wasn’t much to talk about.
This isn’t necessarily the best predictor as the SAGs have only matched the Oscars 50% of the time, but in a year where there is some doubt over the front-runner it doesn’t hurt to go into your predictions with some additional ammunition. This year’s race is much different than what we’ve had recently, which means any opportunity for another film to take charge is beginning to dwindle, but that opportunity is there.
As I said, I’ve updated all of my Oscar predictions and will be featuring all of them over the next couple days, but you can get a head start by checking them all out right here or starting by category with the links below.
