In our last video we looked at what’s most compelling
about The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, Get Out,
and Call Me by Your Name.
So now let’s talk about the rest of
the 2018 Best Picture nominees.
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Lady Bird reinvigorates the teen coming-of-age comedy --
on the one hand it descends from 80s
John Hughes movies like Pretty in Pink,
and Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything...
"My name's Lady Bird."
"It's weird to shake hands."
"Yeah."
On the other hand its determined individualism reminds us
of quirky high-brow high school movies
like Rushmore and Submarine.
"Lady Bird."
"Is that your given name?"
"Yeah."
"Why is it in quotes?"
"Well, I gave it to myself.
It's given to me, by me."
Director Greta Gerwig has also cited
a mix of other less obvious influences,
like Federico Fellini’s Amarcord,
which is about remembering youth,
Brian De Palma’s Carrie, a slightly more terrifying
view of high school,
and Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows,
the French New Wave film about
spirited boy Antoine Doinel.
So the result of these various textures is
a shot of new energy into the female teen story.
"[Screams]"
Coming of age stories about a young woman often end
with her finding romance or being socially accepted.
But we see Lady Bird go through two romances
that are disappointing and not profound
like she expectst them to be.
"You’re going to have so much un-special sex
in your life."
"I was on top.
Who the [bleep] is on top
their first time?"
A teen girl not being defined by her romantic relationships
definitely resonates in today’s day and age.
Unlike most other teen movies, Lady Bird actually
gets into class issues --
"Why did you say it was your house?"
"I wished I lived in that house."
another way that it makes us think of Pretty in Pink.
“Where did you get your clothes,
at a five and dime store?”
Lady Bird feels inferior to her rich classmates.
She strives to be friends with the popular girl
and go to prom with a cool guy --
but these classic 80s teen movie desires
turn out to be hollow and unfulfilling.
Rhis film is about the importance of developing
and protecting your individual identity.
"People call each other by names that their parents
made up for them,
but they won't believe in God."
But Lady Bird’s fierce will to be herself
is only part of the picture.
She’s trying so hard to be this cool “different” person
that she has to stop rejecting
the less exceptional, exciting parts of herself.
To be Lady Bird, she doesn’t have to
reject “Christine.”
Just because she wants to try New York,
she doesn’t have to hate Sacramento.
"You clearly love Sacramento."
"I do."
So the end the film shows Lady Bird learning to appreciate things
she’s written off while waiting for this more glamorous life.
And this is the story's key lesson --
that it’s important to honor our pasts and our backgrounds,
even if we do have bigger dreams for ourselves.
Over time as we look back, we realize those things
mattered more than we might have realized then.
"That was leaked out the Pentagon?"
"The most highly classified document of the war."
Steven Spielberg's The Post is an investigation
into what “truth” is.
The lesson in this story is that even though
it’s hard to be objective,
we have to strive to understand the truth
and do the objectively right thing.
So ultimately the movie it’s a rebuttal
of the “alternative facts” era
we find ourselves in right now.
"The way they lied...those days have to be over."
Spielberg has said that he’s “a believer in only one truth,
which is the objective truth.”
"The truth has to be the truth, you know.
It has to be an objective truth;
it can't be a truth with an agenda."
But the story ends up showing how easily moral principles
and personal factors get all tangled up --
what’s interesting is that it makes the point
that this intermingling of objective right
and private feelings can be either for worse,
or for better.
Of course, Nixon is the negative example of what happens
when someone lets personal motivations
overtake their integrity and responsibility
to serve the people.
On the other end of the spectrum is Kay Graham,
who’s become publisher of the Washington Post
in place of her late husband.
Kay faces a dilemma of personal loyalties
when it’s revealed that her friend Robert McNamara
gave the public misleading information
about Vietnam.
"The man who commissioned this study --"
"I am not protecting him --"
"Is one of about a dozen party guests ouside
on your patio."
"I'm not protecting any of them.
I'm protecting the paper."
Kay makes her personal background
a positive influence on her actions --
In her role on the Post, she feels under some scrutiny
because she’s often the only woman in the room.
"People are concerned that having a woman
in charge of the paper,
that she doesn't have the resolve
to make the tough choices."
"Thank you, Arthur, for your frankness."
She needs to prove to the world at large that publishing
should include leaders of her gender.
So it’s even more urgent and important that she does
the right, and difficult, thing.
"We could all go to prison."
Thus her personal bias helps her to make the right choice.
Personal factors inevitably inform our lives
and shape how we feel about things.
The Post says we can make this a good thing
if we're committed to values that really matter,
and remember that the truth is always the truth.
"So, we dig in."
Many people believe that Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan’s
best film.
Arguably, it leaves out his more frustrating trademarks
and showcases his best.
Nolan’s films often feature a puzzle-like plot,
exposition-heavy dialogue,
"Remember, you are the dreamer,
you built this world.
I am the subject, my mind populates it."
an ambiguous ending,
and a long running time.
Dunkirk cuts out those elements
but maintains fundamental Nolan-isms
like the nonlinear structure that plays with time.
The film’s triptych narrative is set in three locations
and three temporalities --
the events on land take place over a week,
the ones on sea over a day,
and the ones in the air over just an hour.
It’s one of the most inventive, interesting structures
Nolan’s ever experimented with, up there with Memento.
Dunkirk also reimagines the war movie,
starting with its whole premise.
This isn’t a film about a battle --
it’s about an evacuation.
And as Winston Churchill once said,
“Wars are not won by evacuations.”
The victory at the end isn’t so triumphant and definitive
as besting the opponent;
it’s just getting home at all.
“All we did is survive.”
“That’s enough.”
According to Nolan, this is more a survival story
than a war film,
and that's why he includes movies like Alien and Speed
among his inspirations.
Finally, Dunkirk has gotten a lot of attention
for how vivid and visceral it feels.
It's almost like a virtual reality experience.
“The immersive quality of the image is second to none.
We really try and create the sensation that I would describe
as virtual reality without the goggles.”
In classic Nolan style, the director chose
to use a lot of real boats and planes
and thousands of extras instead of depending mostly
on digital effects.
So this makes us feel like
we’re traveling into the past,
but we're going into a particular piece of the past
that we haven’t really seen much before onscreen.
"Order!"
Darkest Hour could be seen as a companion piece
to Dunkirk.
Both feature the Dunkirk evacuation
but from different standpoints:
one is on the battlefield,
the other's more in the war room.
"We shall fight in France."
"We shall fight on the seas and oceans."
"we shall fight with growing confidence
and growing strength in the air."
"we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be."
But both films use history to slyly comment
on the present.
We seem to find ourselves looking back at Winston Churchill
a lot these days.
Modern depictions tend to emphasize
the legendary Prime Minister’s quirks
and periods of unpopularity.
The best historical fiction onscreen today takes care
to diligently report the unglamorous or ugly truths
that used to get glossed over.
And these days, we like to focus on less obvious
or known histories.
But underneath these trappings of historical accuracy
and a critical viewpoint,
in these stories about Churchill there’s also a nostalgia
a longing for a leader with character.
"Is France lost?"
Some might fear that today is one of the UK’s darkest hours
as they prepare for Brexit.
Darkest Hour shows that when you fear for your country,
you look back to the past for answers.
"I believe I can boil an egg,
but only because I've seen it done."
Also like Dunkirk, Darkest Hour highlights the importance
and influence of everyday civilians.
"He was falling back on Dunkirk,
but he never made it."
Churchill get inspired by his young secretary
and people he meets on the tube.
And they're a bit part of why he continues
to fight against Nazi Germany
instead of entering peace negotiations.
"Fight."
"Fight the fascists."
"Fight them with whatever we can lay our hands on."
"Broom handles if we must!"
"Street by street!"
"They'll never take Picadilly."
So the film is telling us that everyday people like this
have the power to influence the direction of their country,
and they can wield that power for better or for worse.
It’s saying that it’s up to us to shape history
and fight as hard as possible to ensure
that we come out on the other side
of our “darkest hours.”
So much of romance is told through either
romantic comedy or melodrama --
it tends to hinge on the happy ending or the tragedy
of two people not ending up together.
Yet Phantom Thread belongs to a rich, rarer genre --
it's a romance with suspense, almost a romantic thriller.
Its DNA in this respect comes from
one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest influences
in making it, Hitchcock’s Rebecca.
Like Rebecca, this is about a love story between
an established older man and a younger ingenue --
it’s a romance with ghosts --
in Rebecca, that ghost is the late wife, Rebecca;
here that ghost is Reynolds Woodcock’s mother --
it’s a romance that surprises us when the ingenue
turns out to be stronger than she appears --
"If you want to have a staring contest with me,
you will lose."
and it surprises us when something warm and alive grows out
of a dark, claustrophobic and strange environment.
Reynolds’s sister Cyril is even a twist
on Rebecca’s Mrs. Danvers --
but she's updated with a positive sense of self.
"I don't want your cloud on my head --"
"Shut up, Cyril."
"Oh, you can shut right up.
Don't pick a fight with me, you certainly
won't come out alive."
Phantom Thread’s weirdness is really
love’s weirdness.
The story shows the strange satisfaction we might take
in our partner becoming weak, sick, needing us.
"Is it because you think I don't need you?"
"Yes."
"I don't."
"Why, that's very predictable of you."
It reveals how relationships are a kind of back-and-forth,
a wrestling match to dominate on some level.
Alma might compromise, perhaps, but she refuses
to ever be beaten.
And likewise the actress playing her, Vicky Krieps
holds her own against the formidable Daniel-Day Lewis.
"Maybe I like my own taste."
"Yes, it's just enough to get you into trouble."
"Perhaps I'm looking for trouble."
"Stop!"
Phantom Thread is also the story of
the obsessive artist --
revealing that artist to be a selfish compulsive brat.
"The tea is going out, the interruption is staying
right here with me."
But it also shows fondness for his pursuit of perfection
and the way that he is his art.
Reynolds' partnership with Alma works because she, too,
understands that his work is everything,
that every piece, every garment must be treated
with respect, even with reverence.
Overall, the 2018 Best Picture nominees
are a strong set of movies
Together, they offer a compelling argument
for why we should still make it out to cinemas.
They transport us through the big screen,
they comment on the culture, they make us think,
and they bring something new and unexpected
into our collective dreams.
It's Debra.
And Susannah.
You're watching ScreenPrism.
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