It is five years since Natalie Portman stood on stage at the Golden Globes and announced “here are the all-male nominees” as she presented the award for Best Director. Perhaps someone at the Oscars should check to see if Portman is free on the 13th March because once again, we are looking at an Academy Awards that only seems interested in rewarding male directors.
How deflating that only a year after Jane Campion became the third woman ever to win Best Director for The Power of the Dog (after Katherine Bigelow in 2009 for The Hurt Locker and Chloé Zhao in 2021 for Nomadland), we are still stuck on the measly total of seven women ever nominated for Best Director since the Oscars began (with Campion nominated twice).
The Academy does place at least some value on films made by women, deservedly nominating Paul Mescal for his devastating performance as a young father in Charlotte Wells’ magnificent Aftersun, which topped Sight and Sound’s Best Films of 2022 poll and most notably granting Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s unflinching exploration of the consequences of sexual violence, a spot in the Best Picture race and Polley a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
While these are achievements more than worth celebrating (especially after Women Talking was bizarrely shut out entirely in last week’s Bafta nominations), it begs the question of why Polley in particular didn’t make the cut in the director category. It certainly echoes events last year when eventual Best Picture winner, CODA, saw its director Sian Heder overlooked.
While male directors frequently rake in multiple nominations over the course of their careers, it is almost as though the biggest awards shows are content to recognise the work of women only in categories considered less prestigious and absolutely not when it risks the opportunity of honouring a man for his work instead. It’s not as though there weren’t genuine contenders in 2023: along with Wells for Aftersun (I’m sure Mescal would be the first to admit that his performance would not have happened without her), Gina Prince-Bythewood for The Woman King, Alice Diop for Saint Omer or Chinonye Chukwu for Till would certainly have been worthy. As it is, the category remains men-only and Women Talking is the only Best Picture nominee directed by a woman.
Across the board, the bleak picture continued. With the exception of Polley, and Lesley Paterson, co-writer of All Quiet on the Western Front, both writing categories were dominated by men and none of the Best International Film nominees were from female filmmakers. In Best Original Score, Hildur Guðnadóttir was not nominated for either of the Best Picture contenders she scored: Women Talking or TÁR. Meanwhile in cinematography, which took a disgraceful 90 years to nominate a single woman (Rachel Morisson in 2018 for Mudbound), there was also only one female nominee this year: Mandy Walker for Elvis. It speaks volumes that the only all-female category, outside of acting, is for Costume Design.
The other big Oscars debate of our time has rightly been about diversity and the 2023 nominations did offer some good news, with the likes of Angela Bassett, Hong Chau and Stephanie Hsu nominated for Best Supporting Actress, along with Michelle Yeoh for Best Actress and the delightful and welcome surprise of the brilliant Brian Tyree Henry nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Causeway. Here’s hoping too for Everything Everywhere All At Once to capitalise on its eleven nominations.
But overall, the Academy still seems either reluctant or ignorant to the work of non-white filmmakers. It might not quite be an #OscarsSoWhite situation (the viral response to all 20 acting nominations at the 2015 awards going to white actors) but no Black director has ever won their category and no Black woman has ever been nominated. Many will be disappointed that Jordan Peele’s NOPE garnered no love across the board and that Park Chan-wook’s glorious Decision to Leave left empty-handed.
There is also the case of the Best Actress race with Danielle Deadwyler missing out on a nod for her heartbreaking performance in Till and Viola Davis for the barnstorming The Woman King – both the types of roles that the Oscars usually eat up…with white actors at least. Their snubs likely came thanks to one of the more bizarre stories in recent Oscars history – the out-of-nowhere groundswell of a campaign for Andrea Riseborough’s turn in To Leslie that saw A-listers including Gwyneth Paltrow, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, Amy Adams and Jane Fonda urging their peers to vote for her. In terms of awards season drama, it’s an extremely fun story and Riseborough is long overdue having a moment, but equally, we should be asking whether the weight of Hollywood would similarly be thrown behind a non-white actress. The answer is likely, no. And there is another valid argument that Michelle Williams, who did secure a Best Actress nomination for The Fabelmans, should really have been in the Supporting category thus freeing up a potential spot for Davis or Deadwyler.
Inevitably, the movement struggled to deliver.
No wonder there are annual discussions over the relevance of the Oscars, and awards shows like it, when it seems so determined not to expand its horizons. But while it is easy enough to ignore or disparage, the fact remains that Oscar success has undeniable benefits beyond a glitzy invite to the Governors Ball on the night. A nomination could be the key to essential funding for a new project or the factor that convinces a studio to hand over the reins of a high stakes production. It shouldn’t be the ultimate validation but in industry terms, this matters. When a film like Parasite breaks free of the Best International Feature category and offers Bong Joon Ho a global platform to talk about overcoming the “one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles”, it matters. When a film like Moonlight triumphs over a Hollywood love-in like La La Land, it matters. When Halle Berry becomes the first Black woman to win Best Actress, it matters – and it matters even more that she remains the only Black woman to do so over 20 years later.
Frankly, we should not still be scouring Oscar nominations for history-making headlines because this is history that should already have been made. It is not that we are still waiting for cinema made by women and people of colour to be worthy of awards: it already exists and has done for a long time. We just need the Academy to catch up and reward it.
