Andrew Worsdale picks his Oscar winners – and those the academy is likely to choose
The race for the golden statuette is very interesting this year: more independently financed films than ever before and a foreign film nominated both as best picture and best foreign film – one of only three times.
Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and best film and best actor at the European Film Awards. Benigni, who takes the lead role, wrote and directed the movie, plays an innocent father who together with his son is deported to a concentration camp in 1943. The brilliant balancing of humour against this grisly background make the film a masterpiece. (Unfortunately South Africans have to wait until May 21 to see the picture.)
The only other two foreign films to be nominated in both categories are Jan Troell’s sombre, slow but moving movie, The Emigrants, and Costa Gavras’s 1968 political thriller Z, set in Greece and based on a true political conspiracy. Now the trivia is over let’s see who might win and who deserves to win the year’s most treasured movie award.
Best Picture
Shakespeare in Love should scoop this prize. It’s more of an audience pleaser than the equally distinguished Elizabeth and, quite frankly, even if Saving Private Ryan is the closest runner to the Bard movie, aren’t we just a little tired of Mr Spielberg scooping the statuette year after year?
However, if I was voting I’d probably cause a major upset and give the award to Todd Solondz’s Happiness. In any event I predict the nod will go to Shakespeare. Americans love taking holiday trips to Stratford- upon-Avon, the film is very entertaining and a Brit sentiment will prevail.
Best Actor
Once again, let’s hope Tom Hanks doesn’t get it. Even if he was very good in Saving Private Ryan, too much Hollywood success and affluence can only make him too big for his boots.
I really hope Nick Nolte gets it for Affliction. He’s never been truly recognised by the academy. On the other hand I’m also rooting for Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters. McKellen has been enjoying a great and relatively new film career what with stand-out performances in Richard III and Apt Pupil.
Edward Norton in American History X also seems like a strong contender, and I have to reiterate that it’s great that Benigni has been nominated.
I hope Nolte and McKellen share the award. But if I was to bet I think I’d put my money on McKellen scooping the prize.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) is the complete favourite and is most likely to scoop it. An outside favourite could be Emily Watson for Hilary and Jackie – after all she got nominated last year for Lars von Trier’s astounding Breaking the Waves. Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love) also stands a chance, but quite frankly she was just her usual cute self.
Best Supporting Actor
James Coburn is a hot contender for his role in Affliction, especially considering he’s a veteran who, like Nolte, hasn’t been recognised by the academy.
Geoffrey Rush should have been nominated for Elizabeth and not for Shakespeare in Love. His performance in the latter bordered on caricature. The same might be said of Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan, even though his monologue about never having had a girlfriend was great. If I had my way I’d vote for Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the horny, fat guy in Happiness, but if I was betting my money would be on Coburn.
Best Supporting Actress
Kathy Bates in Primary Colors gets my enthusiatic nod, but right up there with her is Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love. Both play bold, feisty women. Considering that Bates has already won an Oscar for Misery, Dench looks like a definite.
Best Cinematography
John Toll’s work in The Thin Red Line is what I’d go for. One of my favourite shots of the year was of a group of bats on a tree branch gazing down at a dying soldier. Awesome! Remi Adefarasin also stands a good chance for his swirling camera in Elizabeth – dazzlingly dizzy-making. Even though Adefarasin’s work was more showy than Toll’s, The Thin Red Line is a more likely winner as Terence Malick’s movie is unlikely to get any other salutations.
Best Director
A close competition. Malick might get the sentimental vote for The Thin Red Line, but John Madden is the frontrunner for Shakespeare in Love. He managed Stoppard’s script with incredible agility. Let’s hope, for justice’s sake, that Spielberg doesn’t get it once again. But unfortunately he might well. A pity that Todd Solondz wasn’t nominated for Happiness, perhaps my favourite movie of the year.
Best Screenplay
Shakespeare in Love by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard should definitely grab this one – the script is witty, romantic and devastatingly clever, especially if you know the Bard’s work. Andrew Nicol’s script for The Truman Show has an outside chance, but, as if Stoppard and Norman don’t get the prize there’s definitely something rotten in the state of Hollywood.
As for the other major awards it’s a fight between Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love.