The age of the silent movie, the peak of Hollywood glamour, the dawn of the Cold War, the uncertain times of Thatcherism - it seems that movie award nominators and nominees alike have become obsessed with certain iconic times in our recent history. The 20th Century has proven to be fertile ground for movie-makers in the run up to the 2012 awards season. Our national obsession with retro and vintage is manifesting itself on the big screen.
It began with the Golden Globes on 15th January and won’t end until 26th February with the Oscars, but we can expect more than your typical ‘best and worst dressed’ stories to come out from this year’s awards season. The Artist, My Week With Marilynn, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Iron Lady have all graced our scenes recently in emotive, polished fashion; a boost to the usual standard of cinema listings which can mean only one thing - there are gongs to be had.
Michel Havanavicius’ The Artist is hogging the limelight at the moment. Many are quick to reject a film so quickly recommended by so many different sources. It seems like the obvious choice. Newspapers, bloggers, critics and audiences are all applauding this stand out film, standing out in albeit a very quiet way. Although the scarcely heard of French cast may not be the first names to roll off the lips of those making awards season predictions (Jean Dujar-who?), the din of praise that this film has created will be difficult to ignore.
Across the channel, Britain is also faring well with its recent films. In the recently announced BAFTA nominations, Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has done well with 11 nominations, losing out to The Artist’s BAFTA nominee top spot by only one. Tinker Tailor showcases the very best of male British actors, in our own typically cool and softly spoken way. Meanwhile, Simon Curtis’ My Week With Marilynn, produced with the help of the BBC, is another example of British film at the heart of quality movie-making of the moment. Although American dazzler Michelle Williams steals the show, in true Marilynn fashion, her supporting actors, Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench, get some of the attention with nominations for best supporting. And it may have been American-born Meryl Streep who won the award for best actress at the Golden Globes for The Iron Lady, but it is her hair and make up team who eagerly await the BAFTAs, to see if their creepily lifelike subject will gain them any official recognition.
For those of you not so keen on recent history and what I’m going to call post-period dramas (above films may be lacking in petticoats and Darcys, but they certainly aren’t in the ‘now’), there is one film of note this award season which is actually set in current times. George Clooney stars in The Descendants, a film with a trailor as sentimental as a Jodi Picoult novel. Nevertheless, it has been received warmly by many critics and it won two Golden Globes, one for best drama picture and the other for Clooney’s performance.
But I’m afraid I have to come full circle here. It’s the obvious choice that has my backing; The Artist is a truly unique film for hugely apparent audiovisual reasons. And the awards season is always tempted by the obvious. After all, who could have been surprised last year by the winning four gong sweep of The King’s Speech at the Oscars; a typically stylish picture that ticked all the awards season boxes. The Artist is, simply put, top quality entertainment. Which is what these satin-frocked and fanciful events ought to be about.
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