For Your Consideration: MAN ON WIRE For Best Picture

For weeks now, film reviews, writers and Oscar prognosticators have lamented that 2008 was not the great year for cinema that was 2007.  Further, some suggest that most of this year's crop of Oscar hopefuls wouldn't stand a chance in a normal (read: better) year.

Others point to the flaws even in the movies that they believe will get nominated.  FROST/NIXON? Not as good as the stage play.  BENJAMIN BUTTON? Forrest Gump in a pretty package (and what's with the creepy heads on bodies thing?).  MILK? Sean Penn is good, but what was that screenplay?  DARK NIGHT?  The first two endings were fine, but the third, fourth and fifth...  DOUBT? I've haven't seen so much scenery chewing since, well, you get the idea.

So why is no one arguing that the best reviewed film of 2008 should be nominated for Best Picture?

Oh, that's right, it's because MAN ON WIRE is a documentary and documentaries are supposed to be happy with their specialized category and their 3 1/2 minutes of airtime.  And that, as they say, should be that.

This is also the reason why many have been predicting that WALL-E, also thought to be one of the year's finest films, will not be up for Best Picture.  It should take its animated statue and be proud of it.  

But at least WALL-E is the subject of some debate.

Only twice my lifetime have documentaries been seriously discussed as potential Best Picture candidates.  The first was HOOP DREAMS and the push for it came mostly from film critics who argued it was a way to correct the Academy's huge oversight of not including HOOP DREAMS on its shortlist - not to mention that it was, and remains, a great film.

The second was FAHRENHEIT 9/11, although this perhaps was mostly a vision in Michael Moore and Harvey Weinstein's heads, particularly after they purposely pulled the film from the documentary competition and said they would campaign for Best Picture.  Although their gambit was taken seriously for awhile, most agreed that Bush's second-term victory over John Kerry took the film out of contention.

But no one, as far as I can tell, has made the argument that MAN ON WIRE should be considered - even just considered - for Best Picture.  So, I will make the case.  Here are six reasons why Academy members should save a vote for James Marsh's transcendent film:

1.) It's the first true post-9/11 film.

Many filmmakers have dealt with 9/11 in one way or another and all have tried to walk the treacherous line between solemn, saccharine and sacrilegious, to various degrees of success.  (Even Paul Greengrass' acclaimed accounting of UNITED 93 stumbled at first with a clumsily written coda about the start of the war on terror.)  But no one, no one, has attempted to use the towers as backdrop for a heist, and to set up - in the very first scene - the World Trade Center as a target.  Not once does director James Marsh feel the need to tip his hand and acknowledge the horrific events that happened there 25+ years later.  He knows you know.  That's great instincts about what an audience is ready for.  That's great filmmaking, fiction or non.

2.) It confirms nonfiction as an art form.

Lost in all the discussion this year over AMERICAN TEEN's alleged staged scenes, MY WINNIPEG's "is it or isn't it" scripted scenes with actors and WALTZ WITH BASHIR's animated memoir is the simple fact that MAN ON WIRE is full of recreations.  Now, most may think that the issue of recreations went the way of the dinosaurs not long after THIN BLUE LINE, but sit through a Q&A at Full Frame or pour over an exchange on Doculink and you will find that plenty of folks still find recreations to be disqualifiers.  Not. A. Documentary.  (Which is why we don't use that word much around these parts - we're not much for boundries, case you missed it.)  But MAN ON WIRE has managed to win jury and audience prizes, be a indie-level hit for Magnolia and sweep the critics awards with nary a pejorative word about the film's extensive use of recreations.  Including actors.  That's a mighty big corner we just turned.  And it might seem small to some but not to those who've been arguing that nonfiction can be more than just Direct Cinema.  That it arrives with WINNIPEG and WALTZ and even the much-maligned TEEN, signals not just a corner turned but a movement realized.

3.) It's a producers' collaboration worthy of Best Picture.

The argument made about the Oscars is that the Best Picture nominees are a reflection of each piece, each element, each person who contributes to the whole.  This is why the producer, who ostensibly pulls all those pieces together, is the one who is nominated for Best Picture, not the director.  In nonfiction, it's most often the director who finds the elements, the subjects.  They often work hand in hand with their producer (sometimes they're even married to them), but often the director is the seed from which the film will spring forth.  But MAN ON WIRE began with producer Simon Chinn, who tracked down subject Phillipe Petit and convinced him, after numerous other documentarians had failed, to entrust him with his story.  Chinn then partnered with Executive Producer Jonathan Hewes, who suggested James Marsh as a potential director.  After Marsh signed on, production teams in New York, London and Paris began work on production of the film's mix of documentary and dramatic recreations.  Together - and this is no slight to the creative choices that Marsh made - the producing team pulled the right people, the right elements together.  As much as Marsh's direction deserves attention, this is a film whose producers are worthy of this distinction.

4.) We should nominate the Best Pictures, not the Best Live Action Narrative Pictures in the English Language.

There are those who are ideologically pure on this topic.  They don't feel that any animated, foreign language or documentary films should be up for Best Picture.  That's why we have those categories, they remind.  Yet, most don't hold such stringent views and argue that we should be honoring the best films, irregardless of country or live action/animation.  However, even these folks haven't been pitching for MAN ON WIRE, or frankly, even discussing it.  Did it just not occur to them?  Is there any special reason that we are only to consider documentaries that are egregiously shunned by the Academy or those that gross over $100 million?

5.) You can't trust the documentary branch to nominate the film in the documentary feature category.

Just sayin'.

6.) Did I mention that it's the best reviewed film of the year?

It's hard to fathom a narrative film that had won both jury and audience awards at Sundance, that had screened extensively in theaters throughout the US to unanimous critical raves, that had swept the year-end critics prizes and that had won (in a tie anyway) the top award at the closest thing its craft has to a pre-Oscar guild prize not being part of the conversation for Best Picture.  OK, impossible to fathom.  Now add in that it's the best reviewed film of the year, according to Rotten Tomatoes.  Even on the year-end critics lists, where many critics leave off documentaries altogether from their top ten listing (they've got a special category for that, you understand), MAN ON WIRE has consistently placed in the top 20 (along with its even more genre-bending brethren WALTZ WITH BASHIR and MY WINNIPEG).  And it's ranking higher than the other films that are assumed to be locks or just outside the Best Picture race.  Take a look:

Movie City News' current Top Ten Scoreboard (updates regularly) has MAN ON WIRE at #9 of all films.  That's higher (far higher in some cases) than FROST/NIXON, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, DOUBT and GRAN TORINO - films that all have been chewed over for their Oscar viability.

indieWIRE's Critics Poll puts WIRE at #20, two spots over THE DARK NIGHT, eight above SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and 14 ahead of BENJAMIN BUTTON.

Yes, even with a handicap (in that many just were planning on saving WIRE for their doc list), it still beats all the front runners.

And so, I humbly submit, For Your Consideration, MAN ON WIRE for Best Picture of the Year. 

Isn't it, at the very least, worthy of consideration?

Comments

[Michael C.]

Great observation, A.J., and one that I completely agree with. Now anyone would tell you that our Awards are not the Oscars, but the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film have been honoring their own picks for the best in independent film each year for nearly fifteen years, and recently documentaries have started to show up in the Best Movie category. In 2004 it was SPELLBOUND, and last year, PROTAGONIST was nominated in both the Best Movie and Best Documentary category (it won the latter category). Our nominating committee are starting to get used to the fact that when they're thinking of the Best Movie of the year, quite often that movie was a documentary.

[Sean O'Connell]

You nailed it. Great job, A.J.

MAN (as well as WALL-E) belong in the race. They are both superior to the films supposedly in the "running" for the top Oscar.

Otherwise, the Academy needs to change the name of the Best Picture trophy to, as you say, Best Narrative Feature ... or something more appropriate.

[Conor Pewarski]

YES! We should nominate the Best Pictures, not the Best Live Action Narrative Pictures in the English Language. Thank you for taking an analytic approach to the problem of non-fiction films getting snubbed in the Best Picture category. The fact that docs are never taken seriously in this category is a large impediment to the progress of the artform. There would be an explosion in great documentary films if investors thought that a project had Best Picture potential. Doc filmmakers could finally make a decent living instead of having to take a vow of poverty.

This is an important issue and one that doc filmmakers and fans should take seriously. We should have a gameplan for future award shows. AJ, as one of the biggest bloggers on doc films, you definitely have influence here. Long pieces like this one need to be written, not just tiny sidenotes in top ten lists.

Unfortunately, I don't think that 'Man on Wire' deserves it. It's a very very good documentary film, but not spectacular.

(1. There's much to be said on the role of 9/11 in 'Man on Wire'; the images in the film are loaded because of that event. But I don't think that reason makes it any more worthy of a Best Pic award.)

2. The recreations were nothing spectacular. They were your pretty standard Errol Morris / tv docudrama recreations. Nothing fancy, didn't set a new standard for recreations or anything like that. Say what you will about the story and acting in "Benjamin Button", the filmmaking special effects were impressive and worthy of praise.

3. Not to take anything away from the 'Man on Wire' producers, but rounding up the crew from the wire coup was a small task compared to Morris getting together almost every player in the Abu Graib photographs or Alex Gibney rounding up all the players in "Taxi". (Many of the interviews in 'SOP' were paid for, but if we want to even the playing field of docs, maybe we should overlook this possible ethical problem.) If this is what makes a film more Oscar-worthy, we should take a closer look at 'SOP'.

6. Just because it was one of the best-reviewed doesn't mean it deserves to be nominated. It's hard to say anything bad about this film. Part of the problem is that critics don't know enough about docs to properly critique them. (See Thom Powers' recent post: http://stfdocs.com/blog/comments/wanted_documentary_critics/) Half of the top 20 reviewed films are documentaries. All of the top 5 are. This definitely was a weak year for fiction films and many in the talks wouldn't deserve it if they were released in years past, but I don't think that metric is the best for determining who should be nominated.

While I don't think that 'Man on Wire' is the best doc of the year, I do think that it's important for the doc community to get behind a doc and push for it to be included in the conversation.

Maybe it would be better to also push for "Bashir" and "Winnipeg"? They're likely to get snubbed by the Academy because they're not non-fiction enough by traditional standards and would definitely be a step in the right direction.

[low budget movies]

It is sad to say that I've not seen any movie mentioned in this article.

[joanne Feinberg]

Great food for thought here AJ!

[bryan]

did you today's NYT Oscar special section? The Man listed Werner Herzog on her personal ballot for Best Actor! It's a greater stretch than MAN ON WIRE for Best Pic, but i thought you'd appreciate the symmetry.