Featurette: Lincoln

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A wonderful featurette on the making of Lincoln, one of this year's best films:

Nominees: The SpyGlasses Full (2012)

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Click to show full list

Best Live-Action Film (Feature-Length)

Holy Motors

Lincoln

The Master

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master

Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty

Ang Lee, Life of Pi

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Ann Dowd, Compliance

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Meryl Streep, Hope Springs

Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea

Best Supporting Actor

Jason Clarke, Zero Dark Thirty

Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook

Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained

Eddie Redmayne, Les Misérables

Best Supporting Actress

Isabelle Allen, Les Misérables

Sally Field, Lincoln

Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Best Art Direction

Rick Carter & Jim Erickson, Lincoln

David Crank & Jack Fisk, The Master

Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer, Anna Karenina

David Gropman & Anna Pinnock, Life of Pi

Arthur Max, Prometheus

Best Cinematography

Greig Fraser, Zero Dark Thirty

Eric Gautier, On the Road

Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln

Mihai Malaimare, Jr.; The Master

Robert D. Yeoman, Moonrise Kingdom

Best Costuming

Bob Buck, Ann Maskrey, & Richard Taylor; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Sharen Davis, Django Unchained

Paco Delgado, Les Misérables

Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina

Joanna Johnston, Lincoln

Best Make-Up

Tina Earnshaw & Nina Fischer, Prometheus

Bernard Floch, Holy Motors

Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, & Tami Lane; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Lincoln

Lisa Westcott & Julie Dartnell, Les Misérables

Best Visual Effects

Cloud Atlas

Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, & R. Christopher White; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, & Dan Sudick; Marvel's The Avengers

Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, & Martin Hill; Prometheus

Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, & Donald R. Elliott; Life of Pi

Best Original Score

Mychael Danna, Life of Pi

Jonny Greenwood, The Master

Dario Marianelli, Anna Karenina

Ennio Morricone, Django Unchained

John Williams, Lincoln

Best Original Song

"100 Black Coffins" by Rick Ross, Django Unchained

"Pi's Lullaby" by Mychael Danna & Bombay Jayashri, Life of Pi

"Song of the Lonely Mountain" by Neil Finn, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

"Touch the Sky" by Julie Fowlis, Brave

"Who Were We?" by Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors

Best Sound Editing

Karen Baker & Per Hallberg, Skyfall

Christopher Boyes, Marvel's The Avengers

Paul N. J. Ottosson, Zero Dark Thirty

Ann Scibelli, Prometheus

Wylie Stateman, Django Unchained

Best Sound Mixing

Ron Bartlett & Doug Hemphill, Prometheus

Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill, & Drew Kunin; Life of Pi

Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, & Ronald Judkins; Lincoln

Paul N. J. Ottosson, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Editing

François Gédigier, On the Road

William Goldenberg & Dylan Tichenor, Zero Dark Thirty

Leslie Jones & Peter McNulty, The Master

Michael Kahn, Lincoln

Tim Squyres, Life of Pi

Best Screenplay (Original)

Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master

Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

Leos Carax, Holy Motors

John Gatins, Flight

Jonathan Lisecki, Gayby

Best Screenplay (Adapted)

Michael Bacall & Jonah Hill, 21 Jump Street

Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Tony Kushner, Lincoln

David Magee, Life of Pi

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Animated Film (Feature-Length)

Brave

The Lorax

Paranorman

Best Animated Film (Short)

Best Documentary Film (Feature-Length or Short)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The Queen of Versailles

Best Foreign-Language Film (Live Action or Animated, Feature-Length or Short)

Amour (Love)

Holy Motors

L'Intouchables (The Untouchables)

A Royal Affair

Article: "Pain and Nourishment: Kirin Kiki in Still Walking"

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Michael Koresky of the Criterion Current presents a complimentary piece on the performance of Kiki Kirin, a 2009 Best Supporting Actress nominee from the Best Live-Action Film (Feature-Length) and Best Foreign-Language Film (Live Action or Animated, Feature-Length or Short) that year, 歩いても 歩いても (Still Walking).

Review: Django Unchained

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Genre: Comedy

Mr. Tarantino's Django Unchained is not, as many people would have it, a racially charged epithet against the progress made by proponents of abolition and equality among men but is rather, as it was written to be and as Inglourious Basterds (2009) was, a clever send-up of those who would speak up to protect the so-called sacrosanctity of the relevant topics in social and cultural discourse both polite and casual. As it is, the result is brilliant. Under Mr. Tarantino's glowing hand, the characters spring to life in a charming, mostly well-paced and even jaunty, literally and figuratively explosive, and cacklingly comical adventure into, cleverly, what is again the new old frontier. Mr. Waltz delivers a popping performance, in key locked tight with Mr. Tarantino's audiovision - audio vision, indeed, for music unsurprisingly figures as importantly and proudly as image in his cinematic work. To this end, Mr. Morricone's work is perfect. Not in any way neglecting to mention Mr. Jackson's tremendous [and though the expression be cliché] scene stealing performance or Mr. DiCaprio's own able acting, I must conclude by mentioning how the curious sound mixing and the slightly lumpy pacing in places defected the figure of the film. The bursts and shudders of the soundtrack veered unwittingly into erraticism, betraying the zany but ultimately controlled plan spiriting forward the action of the film, and the bowing out of the plot midstream - particularly when the protagonists are busy socially entangling themselves with Calvin Candie, Mr. DiCaprio's character - weighs down an otherwise lithe and quippy body. Yet, the film eventually rights itself and finishes with aplomb in a bang - for real.

Grade: A-.

Review: Zero Dark Thirty

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Genre: Drama

Ms. Bigelow bulwarks against cinema's ever effacing superfice with her own quasi-documentary brand of drama narrative filmmaking - a brand now manifest in a captivating Zero Dark Thirty. A purposefully naturalistic film, the piece is smartly edited and even better written, a vision of not simply the plan executed for apprehending and eliminating the terrorist Osama bin Laden but generally the effort expended in cultivating and asserting a political face over one's personal one. In this craft, the film mirrors truly Ms. Bigelow's own filmmaker's story and thus becomes itself a political face to a personal toil rich and sweaty and gritty and male (in the most loaded social sense of the word).
As her Galatea (of sorts), Ms. Chastain exuberates her dampened passions, frustrations and joys, in the thoroughness of her body. She affronts her surroundings across the spectrum in concert with the growth of her character in the film, until as a perfect last note the façade breaks and she cries to close the film. Her tears moisten the desert landscape that she inhabits, hoping for greenery where there is hardly cause to expect one. Like Galatea, she transforms.

The only serious critique I can lob at the film is, surprisingly, at its score's composer, Mr. Desplat, whose work for other films (see here for example) notably has been among my favorite musical compositions in memory. Here, however, there is none of his keen observation of rhythm and depth as there has been in the past; his notes and, indeed, his chosen motif miss the nature of the film and sound classical where they should sound spite and severe. I wanted a kind of Messrs. Reznor and Ross' bubbling spirit from The Social Network (2010) but I continually found a kind of Mr. Desplat's terpsichorean cues from Birth (2004). Would that the score had been as en pointe as was Mr. Morricone's for this year's Django Unchained, this work would approximate ultimate excellence.

Grade: A.

Review: Les Misérables

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Genre: Drama (Musical)

It saddens me to have to write that summarily Mr. Hooper's new film may - far more than its predecessor, a technically apt portrait - be best characterized by the simplistic adjective "weak". Weak acting cum singing, weak writing, weak editing, and - above all - weak cinematography undermine what could have been an even more compelling film than The King's Speech (2010).
Now, perhaps the weak writing could be excused by weakness in the source material; perhaps, for example, Javert as a character could be proven by the original text to be a spare, unidimensional automaton by nature. (Whether he be truly I cannot say, for I have not read that original text. I can say:) Still, the rest of the listed weaknesses cannot be similarly excused. In fact, by contrast, all the other weaknesses hinge on the final one; the abominable cinematography of this film makes for such difficult story-telling that the spectating audience is almost entirely reliant on the snippets of the background behind the singing actors' faces for gaining any sense of the action's location and is entirely reliant on those faces for gaining all sense of the action's emotion and direction. As I've mentioned on this blog before [though at present I can't find the post for citation], it's just too hard for actors to carry thus, via such tight bust shots alone, a whole film successfully. Success in such acting is akin to success in neurosurgery; delicate, fine-grained articulations make all the difference. With such a heaping swath of tight framing, the likelihood that each needed articulation is executed smoothly is terribly low; the story is visually too closely told to have a realistic chance at being quite good. Therefore, expectedly, it falters. It trips over its own breaks in pacing, in tone, in coherence.... Even Ms. Hathaway, whose performance in this year's The Dark Knight Rises I lauded and whose performance in this film I had eagerly anticipated, only shoddily delivered.
But two actors really stood apart from the rest and made their soliloquys' scenes entrancing and powerful: Mr. Redmayne and Ms. Allen. Mr. Redmayne, playing the young buck Marius, infuses into his role the ripe honesty and fraternity that personify Marius' embodiment of the spirit of the Revolution. It is forward thinking, forward thrusting, and forthright, and it weeps as he does well for the fellow champions of the cause who have fallen for it at his side. Singing his unique song "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," Mr. Redmayne is in full command of his character and evidences why he already has a Tony award. Ms. Allen, a much younger member of the cast, hums with the same accuracy and cohesion of person with place. Though only a girl, she is the frontispiece of not only the Revolution in spirit but also of the show in explicit visage. Thus, she must too carry in her bearing the resilience beneath weight that speaks to the hearts of the crowd, around both the French red, white, and blue and the English silver (screen). That she sweeps and trips with anything less is as a judgement unfair. These actors, plus only Mr. Delgado's costumes and Ms. Wetcott's make-up and somehow the magical coincidence of comedy within the "Master of the House" sequence, redeem in part this cinematic effort. Would that redemption held more.

Grade: C.