Year in ReviewPt 1 of Many It's time to wrap up 2010. You'll have to have patience since The Film Experience likes to do this piecemeal... and often! Let's do it every day at 10 AM or 10 PM or both when we magically have free time. How about that? We'll start with the US box office.
Box office hits get much coverage in the media so let's just dispense that basic "smash hit" list quick-like and move on to more interesting less covered seat-filler topics. All figures on all lists are up until the December 18th. And please go easy on any errors as I am unskilled at math is not my strong suit.
US Top Dozen
Toy Story 3 $415
Eyesore in Wonderland $334
Iron Man 2 $312
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300
Inception $292
The Commercial For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 $265
Despicable Me $250
Shrek Forever After $238
How to Train Your Dragon $217
The Karate Kid $176
Clash of the Titans $163
Grown-Ups $162
The list proves again - as in every year - that the American moviegoer has an extremely limited palette. There are only four types of films he/she will go to in droves: animated features, sequels/remakes (i.e. "franchises"), action/visual spectacles and broad comedies. It doesn't get more diverse until much further down the list. The only film in the year's top 25 that doesn't fit neatly into one of those four categories is Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. So well done, Marty. That is a true accomplishment.
Subtitled Features (I've included worldwide figures too for the sake of provenance)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [Sweden] $10 (worldwide: $104)
The Girl Who Played With Fire [Sweden] $7 (worldwide: $66)
The Secret in Their Eyes [Argentina] $6 (worldwide: $33)
I Am Love [Italy] $5 (worldwide: $10)
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest [Sweden] $4 (worldwide: $40)
My Name is Khan [India] $4 (worldwide: $41)
A Prophet [France] $2 (worldwide: $17)
Dabangg [India] $2 (worldwide: $3)
Kites [Miscellania] $1.6 (worldwide: $3)
Raajneeti [India] $1.5 (worldwide: $12)
MicMacs [France] $1.2 (worldwide: $16)
Golmaal 3 [India] $1 (worldwide: $2)
Beyond interest in the Swedish "Millenium" trilogy -- which dropped steadily with each film here and elsewhere in equal percentages -- it was tough going for international fare yet again. It seems like a different world entirely than when we regularly had a couple of substantial breakout hits a year (as recently as the mid Aughts). The only steady market seems to be Bollywood features, which regularly gross about a million with barely any media coverage. Oscar nominees are a far less stable subcategory. Despite more media coverage their grosses tend to be all over the place, ranging anywhere from $10,000 (Peru's Milk of Sorrow) to just over half a million (Israel's Ajami) to the $2 million range (France's A Prophet and 2009 holdover Germany's White Ribbon) to $6 million (the winner, Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes). In other words it's a bit hard to imagine that the Oscar nomination does all that much more for the films than they could have managed on their own... unless they win. It's tough to quantify so it's aggravating that the studios seem to think that the first quarter is the only time to release the high profile foreign contenders. (It's like how the English language Oscar contenders all have to compete with each other for the same limited seasonal dollars from November through February. It's so weird.)
Next...? Well, I was going to do a list based purely on original material but the list was so depressing (it was basically original material that could easily be confused for a remake) that I screamed abort! abort! and changed course immediately. Let's try this. Which DRAMAS, i.e. the things audiences mostly only want to see on their TVs now, were hits with moviegoers?
Top 12 Dramas (reality based i.e. no supernatural, genre or primarily action-focused stuff)
Shutter Island $128 [debatable classification - remove it if you will]
The Town $92 [an action movie in a sense but mostly a drama]
The Social Network $91
Eat Pray Love $80
Dear John $80
The Last Song $62
Why Did I Get Married, Too $60
Secretariat $58
Letters to Juliet $53
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps $52
For Colored Girls $37
The American $35
On this list we see that quality matters far less than having a star in your movie; just don't expect big returns on investment since big stars cost $10+ million. Also: Amanda Seyfried and Tyler Perry are good bets for non-gargantuan but sturdy profits. The Social Network, a film without any action sequence, gooey romance or crime-angle, is a true anomaly. It's only here because it's awesome and topical. But being awesome and topical will only get you to around $90-100. It's interesting that The Social Network's box office is so similar to Brokeback Mountain's, another anomaly that had quality as its chief selling point. (GASP. What a crazy thing to bank on!)
Best Return on Investment??? This list is haphazard / insufficient using only production budgets vs. US distribution returns from box office mojo. In other words it's not so accurate (merchandising, foreign markets, DVD sales and the potential windfall of sequels all contribute to insanely costly movies making a lot of money... eventually. While marketing costs subtract from that profit margin all the while.) But I think the following list is interesting as a very blurry snapshot as to what films are profitable even before you factor in these other things.
Paranormal Activity 2 $84 gross = 28 times its budget.
The Last Exorcism $41 gross =22.7 times its budget.
Easy A $58 gross =7.25 times its budget.
Jackass 3-D $116 gross = 5.8 times its budget.
The Kids Are All Right $20 gross = 5 times its budget.
Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
The Karate Kid $176 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid $64 gross = 4.2 times its budget.
Despicable Me $250 gross = 3.6 times its budget.
Dear John $80 gross = 3.2 times its budget.
Black Swan, budgeted at $13 million may well join this top ten since it's already earned $15 million and it's only just finished its first weekend of wide release and once it wears off its opening week energy, presumably it'll get that Oscar nominee boost to keep it going.
If you include worldwide revenues and franchise potential the numbers would change. How to Train Your Dragon, for example, which cost $165 million to make and grossed $217 million doesn't sound that profitable until you factor in the foreign gross (another $277 million) and the eventual sequels ordered up, which will come into the world market with the most cost efficent marketing tool possible: familiarity. And some movies are far more profitable overseas: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was budgeted at $13 million and has grossed $104 million worldwide, so only 10% of its gross is coming from America. But I was trying to make this as easy on myself as possible hence the US totals.
The year in box office. Crazy numbers. I'd be happy just making a really crappy "per screen average" figure this week. How 'bout you?
Finally..
It would... oh never mind. This post is long enough. What's the last movie you paid to see? Did you get your money's worth?
David from Victim of the Time, reporting from the 54th BFI London Film Festival.
I've been engrossed in this festival for so long now, it already feels like it's winding down; in fact, there's another week to go, with Danny Boyle's 127 Hours the closing night gala next Thursday evening. Perhaps my feeling comes from the fact that my most anticipated film is just around the corner: yes, I too fell under the spell of the Black Swan trailer, and it hits my eyeballs tomorrow. I'm at fever pitch. Today, though, we visit Italia and Quebec, but not before a British perennial delivers once again...
Lesley Manville.
I realise I have a tendency to waffle, so I thought I’d get straight to the point.
I had my problems with Another Year, but, as you’ve heard (and heard, and heard), Lesley Manville is absolutely superb in it. I’d heard that too, but it still didn’t prepare me for the density and devastation mustered by Manville in this character. Manville’s Mary is so magnificently imagined that, despite Leigh’s insistence in the post-screening Q&A that what you see is what was shot, and nothing more, there is the strong suspicion that the film shifted during its realisation to centralise on her. (Echoed by this review – I didn’t set out to focus it so immediately, but it felt honest to do so.)
Perhaps it's reductive to talk solely of Manville. The rest of the cast, from the connecting contentedness of Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen to the chirpy Karina Fernandez, give assured performances just the same, and surely only boost Manville’s power through Leigh’s famous workshopping process. The cinematography expressively, if rather obviously, differentiates the seasons the film shifts through. The editing is extremely deft within the restraints of Leigh’s improvisational approach, notably giving a sparky energy to scenes like Broadbent and Sheen’s first meeting with their son’s new girlfriend that contrast with the more sober, gentler feel of much of the film. But I can’t escape that it is Manville, her mousey, skittish walk, her nervous, misdirected laughter and her sad, defeated glances that are what struck me most heavily, and what continue to live mostly strong in my head. (B+)
If only he wasn’t gay! That seems to be the central lamentation of Ferzan Ozpetek’s dunderheadly jaunty Loose Cannons, which doesn’t just have one gay son of a traditional Italian pasta-making family to pretend to support; it has two! Oh yes; before Tomasso (Riccardo Scamarcio) can make his shocking announcement, his brother Antonio taps his glass and is promptly thrown out, leaving Tomasso to run the business and suffer suggestions he should get it on with the business partner’s daughter Alba. Of course, with its longing musical montages of the pair drinking, eating and laughing together, you could be forgiven for thinking the film is even more desperate for the heterosexual harmony than Tomasso’s oddball family are – even when Tomasso’s boyfriend Marco and their camp friends crash the… well, you can hardly call it a party. Framed with a seemingly irrelevant flashback device involving the wise, accepting grandmother, the unexpectedly poignant finale almost redeems things by not tying up every loose end in a neat little farfalle, but it can’t erase the tiresome, laboured schematics of what precedes it. (C-)
I confess. I have a weakness for young, attractive French people giving themselves over entirely to their lustful urges. Xavier Dolan himself is a young and attractive Canadian person, but he’s from Quebec, and I do believe that’s included in Subsection 1B of my confession. After his vaunted J’ai tue ma mere, Dolan again directs himself in Les amours imaginaires (feel free to explain the disastrous English title, Heartbeats). Dolan’s style boldly cribs from Wong Kar-wai – they may not be accompanied by In the Mood for Love’s striking musical theme, but you can almost see a pot of noodles swinging from the hand as we follow a posterior in slow-motion down the street. Dolan doesn’t merely copy but adapts the techniques he apes, sexualising the characters in saturated single-colour sex scenes; but there’s also a sense of irony and pity in the fierce emphasis on the desperation of the two friends both in lust with the same man. Dolan consumes you in sensuality and focuses you on the mistrustful dynamics of love, so that while you might not match the lust for the particular figure, you lust for this mood in general. It isn’t about liking these characters – the sneering ending makes that clear – but about identifying with how low these familiar feelings have made them, and can, have, and will make you. (B) [edited from full review]
If you'd like to read about the now official Oscar submissions for Best Foreign Language Film, click away. But because you -- make that we -- can't see most of the films, due to the hideous state of international distribution, let us use this Academy press release as an excuse to take a different view, a sexytime view... a Beauty Break if you will. Let's gawk at the actors and actresses who are in the submitted films. We'll pretend it's like a Miss Universe pageant (how do you say "shallow" in Finnish?). Randomly selected hotties follow (it's not easy to find info/photos.) whether you're into the men, the women or other. Don't judge!
Beauty Knows No Borders I presume you'll let me know your very favorites in the comments. Do I presume too much?
Handsome Guys...
Left: Bill Skarsgård a.k.a. Alexander's lil brö (20) for Sweden's Simple Simon. Right: Oscar Guerrero (age unknown) for Puerto Rico's Miente / Lie.
Oh the imperfections of the web: Guerrero is obviously famous having been in several films and soap operas and yet he has neither a wikipedia page nor any personal information on the IMDb. Weirder still, the IMDb does not even list him as appearing in Miente, a film in which he plays the lead role!
Left: Mark Chao -- or Zhao depending on your info source -- (26) for Taiwan's Monga (see previous post). He also sings.
Left: Gael García Bernal (31) for Spain in Even the Rain. He's from Mexico and the most familiar face in this year's submission list outside of Javier Bardem, who is from Spain representing Mexico with Biutiful. They've flip-flopped countries, submission-wise. I sat two rows behind them -- they were together so I assume they're friends -- in Toronto for The Sea Inside premiere back in 2004. Memories ♫ Right: Boris Ler (25) for Bosnia Hersegovina in Danis Tanovic's Cirkus Columbia.
Left: Coco Martin (26) who stars in Noy for The Philippines. (see previous post) Right: Santiago Cabrera (32), who you'll remember from the TV show Heroes (first season only -- the tortured artist) who is the romantic lead of Chile's The Life of Fish. The Chilean actor was born in Venezuela, speaks four languages and lives in London. International!
Left: Pablo Derqui (34) for Costa Rica's Of Love and Other Demons. He was born in Barcelona and is a TV star in Spain. Right: Asser Yassin (29) for Egypt in Messages From the Sea.
Left: Aarif Lee (23) for Hong Kong's Echoes of the Rainbow. He won the Best Newcomer Award in the Hong Kong Film Awards for this role. He's starring in a Bruce Lee biopic next. Here's more info on the Lee picture. Right: Mateusz Kościukiewicz(24) for Poland. He stars in the punk rock drama All That I Love. At least one website names him the Polish Robert Pattison !
Gorg' Ladies...
Left: Maria Bonnevie (37) for Norway in Engelen (Angel). See previous post for more on Maria. Right: Lubna Azabal (age unknown) for Canada in Incendies (it's one to watch for the finalist list, I think). She's from Belgium and of Moroccan descent.
Left:Sibel Kekilli (30) for Germany's award winning When We Leave. We are fond of her. Right: Blanca Lewin (36) for Chile in the romantic drama The Life of Fish. She's a television star there.
Left: Takako Matsu (33) for Japan in Confessions (see previous post for exciting trailer). She won several best actress awards recently for the melodrama Villon's Wife. Right: MicaelaRamazzotti(31) for Italy in The First Beautiful Thing. She plays the young mother of two kids in this nostalgic memoir. (The role is shared with award-winning Stefania Sandrelli when the mother gets older). Lotsa photos of Micaela... she currently has darker hair.
Left: Jana Zupančič (age unknown) for Slovenia's 9:06. Like Guerrero up top she's also not listed on the IMDb as part of her submitted film, but she's one of only three actors on the poster. You may remember her from last year's submission Landscape No. 2 (previously reviewed right here). Right: Mariana Santángelo (34) for Puerto Rico's Miente / Lie. She's from Argentina.
For Specialized Tastes...
Left: Jenny Larrue & Cindy Scrashwho play rival transsexual cabaret stars in Portugal's To Die Like a Man. Right: Various for Hungary in what must be the oddest Oscar submission this side of Uncle Boonmee. It's called Bibliotheque Pascal.
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If you'd like to read more uh... professional and totally official info on the Best Foreign Language Film Submissions, click for whichever country you're interested in. On the charts you'll see posters, official site links for further exploration, distribution status (US based only, sorry) and basic trivia. As always the best way to see any of them is to pay close attention to festival schedules in cities closest to you.
Albania to France 23 films: East West East, Outside the Law, Carancho, La Pivellina, The Precinct, Third Person Singular Number, Illégal, Cirkus Columbia, Lula the Son of Brazil, Eastern Plays, Incendies, The Life of Fish, Aftershock, Crab Trap, Of Love and Other Demons, The Blacks, Kawasaki's Rose, In a Better World, Messages From the Sea, The Temptation of St Tony, The Athlete, Steam of Life, and Of Gods and Men.
Georgia to Nicaragua 21 films: Street Days, When We Leave, Dogtooth, Nuummioq, Echoes of the Rainbow, Bibliotheque Pascal, Mamma Gogo, Peepli Live, How Funny This Country Is, Farewell Baghdad, Son of Babylon, The Human Resources Manager, The First Beautiful Thing, Confessions, Strayed, The Light Thief, Hong Kong Confidential, Mothers, Biutiful, Tirza and La Yuma.
Norway to Venezuela 21 films: Angel, Undertow, Noy, All That I Love, To Die Like a Man, Lie, If I Want to Whistle I Whistle, The Edge, Besa, The Border, 9:06, Life Above All, A Barefoot Dream, Even the Rain, Simple Simon, La Petit Chambre, Monga, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Honey, A Useful Life, and Hermano.
"Do you know this one girl with hair like this?" -Scott Pilgrim
"Who MEEEEEEE?!?" -Julia
Eat Pray Love and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World are almost kinda the same movie. Or at least thematically kin. No really. Though I'd grade them differently: B- and B+ respectively at least immediately after viewing.
/Film Jamie Bell may have just been cast as the new Spider-Man. Ah, I knew Marc Webb had good taste (with (500) Days of Summer as evidence) Trespass Magazine Glenn interviews movie poster maestro Jeremy Saunders, who designed this year's fb gold medal winner for poster (Antichrist). Little Gold Men Sandra Bullock sapphic smooches, part two. The TV Addict Katharine Heigl's career killer Killers ?
Deviant Art a fan made poster for The Avengers. This movie will have to give blind men back their sight and maybe part oceans to live up to fanboy expectations. Movie|Line Luke Evans is on "the Verge". He also wants to star in a film version of Miss Saigon so good on him. Towleroad Apparently Elton John is going to perform at Rush Limbaugh's wedding. Money may be the reason but it's not like Elton needs any more of it. What a traitor. I've only ever bought two Elton John records in my lifetime but now I'm wishing I hadn't given him a lone dime. OMG "Make Homosexuals Marry" Actors Justin Long & Mike White tie the knot excruciatingly tight in this campaign vid. Newsweek on Italy Porn Movies like Eat Pray Love and I Am Love
...one of the earliest surviving narratives shot on location in Yosemite Valley. The one-reeler shows the magnificent terrain prior to the creation of the National Park Service, when U.S. Army cavalry troops kept order, and it is the military presence that provides the backdrop for the story.
The second is from 1912, another western called The Better Man. That blog-a-thon which was hosted by Marilyn Ferdinand and Self Styled Siren is still taking donations so maybe a third film can be saved! It's a worthy cause if you have the cash.
Hollywood's millionaires and its behemoth corporations could do a lot more to preserve old films -- imagine how many silents could be saved if like one single day's profits (or hell even one showing's) from any of those soulless blockbusters were so directed -- but at least we have devoted cinephiles and government funding helping to preserve cinematic history.
Just got back from a decent Italian flick David's Birthday which is playing at NewFest. My friend thought the title made it appropriate for my special day though the movie birthday in question wasn't exactly, um, celebratory once it rolled around at the end. But it's the thought that counts.
We liked the film's attention to a weird amount of ensemble character detail considering it kept threatening to become a one and a ½ man show in the Death in Venice mode. The plot, such as it is, concerns a married Italian man Matteo (Massimo Poggio) on vacation with his wife, played by the always welcome Maria de Medeiros -- I just love her movie face -- from Henry & June and Pulp Fiction, and another couple. Matteo becomes obsessed with his friend's 18 year old son David (Thyago Alves), an underwear model from New York. It's really not as tawdry as it sounds! Most of the good stuff in the film is in the oddly realistic wandering mundane conversations between spouses and friend's spouses. I loved one tense heart-to-heart between Matteo and Francesca that never self identified as such. Instead, the conversation disguised itself as a simple list of home decorating plans. People do like to distract themselves from the heavy stuff.
Like I Am Love, another new (and much greater) Italian film about a sexual awakening, it goes from being electrified by sensuality to being punishing about sex. Movies can be so puritanical.
What movie did you see this weekend? At home or the theater?
tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful US run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making US television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman (Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note: Filmmakers like Ang Lee (Taiwan), Milos Forman (Czech) and Louis Malle (France) have won multiple notices for their foreign language work with the Academy but I'm restricting this list to those directors who worked primarily in their native tongue throughout their careers. The three aforementioned men all had their biggest Oscar successes from English language films.
OSCAR'S TEN FAVORITE FOREIGN AUTEURS
The ranking that follows are somewhat arbitrary since we're dealing with different kinds of attention paid.
Honorable Mention:Ettore Scola (Italy), Bo Widerberg (Sweden), Carlos Saura (Spain) and Zhang Yimou (China) each helmed 3 Foreign Film Nominees over the years... the latter two for submissions from two different countries. Denys Arcand (Canada) and Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia) have each directed 3 Nominees one of which won the prize (The Barbarian Invasions and Burnt By The Sun, respectively). Mikhalkov, who also acts in his pictures, recently completed the sequel to his Oscar winner called Burnt by the Sun 2, but reviews have been brutal so we aren't banking on seeing it in the Oscar lineup next year. Finally, Jose Luis Garci (Spain) directed 4 nominated films, winning once for Volver a Empezar.
let's make this a top dozen
12István Szabó (Hungary)1938 - still working 4 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win LikeSpain's Garci, the last of the honorable mentions, Szabó directed 4 Foreign Film Nominees, winning once. But in the case of Szabó, it's a more surprising achievement. Unlike Spain, Hungary has rarely won much favor with Oscar. In fact, after Szabó's last nomination, Hungarian films have been completely ignored by the Academy.
In a remarkable hot streak in the Eighties, Szabo had four (!) Best Foreign Film nominations: Bizalom (1980), Mephisto (1981 winner), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). The latter three all starred Klaus Maria Brandauer who became a fixture in international cinema after the success of Mephisto. It helps to speak several languages and be brilliant -- just ask Christoph Waltz (Yes, there are earlier incarnations of all success stories). Brandauer might have even won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his sterling work in Out of Africa (1985) had voters not been feeling sentimental for that Cocoon fella. Oscar was SO sentimental in the 80s.
But where were we? Ah yes. Szabo moved over to English language cinema (directing Annette Bening to a nomination for Being Julia) but he hasn't yet equalled those early Hungarian successes.
11Mario Monicelli (Italy) 1915 - still living 2 nominations (writing) | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 6 nominations, 0 wins
He's best known for kicking off the commedia all'italiana movement in cinema and for the classic Big Deal on Madonna Street but Oscar's love for him stretches over six movies (His two screenplay nominations weren't even from his foreign film nominees). Monicelli turns 95 (!) this summer. He hasn't directed a feature film since 2006 but you may have seen him as an actor in the Diane Lane vehicle Under the Tuscan Sun (2003).
THE TOP TEN
10René Clément(France) 1913-1996 1 Foreign Film Nominee | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations and 2 honorary statues
The Academy gave out 8 special foreign language film Oscars before they decided they needed to give foreign films their own category and René Clément won the prize twice during those years. In those days Oscar only had eyes for France, Italy and Japan. The Walls of Malapaga (1949) was his first win and he won again shortly thereafter for his internationally renowned classic Forbidden Games (1952). Games even won a second Oscar nomination for story two years later once it finally hit American screens (this is before they changed the rules to prevent films from competing in more than one year). That film was in some ways the perfect embodiment of Oscar's foreign type before Oscar even knew it had one: young children as protagonists + World War II.
The Academy created the foreign language film category as we know it in 1956 and Clément's was there again as a shortlister for the Emile Zola adaptation Gervaise (1956).Though that film was his last foreign film nominee, he continued to make movies for another two decades including such well regarded films as Purple Noon (1960) and Paris Brûle-t-il? (1966) which received two Oscar nominations in other categories.
09Luis Buñuel (Spain) 1900-1983 2 nominations (writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win
Oscar arrived at the Buñuel party conspicuously late. They even ignored Belle de Jour (1967) one of the best films ever, despite awards attention elsewhere. Sometimes they are well behind the curve. Notice how long it took Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon) to win attention. In some ways it's surprising that AMPAS got there at all with Buñuel given the director's penchant for sexuality and surrealism. Oscar somewhat prefers the chaste and the literal as you know.
Tristana and the years of critical acclaim preceding it, opened their hearts to his work at the dawn of the '70s. His follow up, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), was a double nominee. Its win in the Foreign Film category has to count as one of the best but most unusual choices in the category's entire history. But then Oscar was at his most adventurous in the early 70s. Oscar and Buñuel had one last fling with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). It was also Buñuel's last affair with the cinema. The father of cinematic surrealism was in his late 70s at the time and died in 1983.
08 Andrzej Wajda (Poland) 1926 - still working 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations, 0 wins and 1 honorary statue
Poland's most influential filmmaker was most revered by awards bodies in the latter half of the 70s and early 80s. He won 3 Foreign Film Oscar nominations in that period: Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979... retitled The Young Girls of Wilko) and Man of Iron (1981). To prove that it wasn't a temporary love, Oscar handed him an honorary statue for "five decades of extraordinary film direction" in March of 2000. He won a fourth foreign film nomination recently for Katyn (2007). His lauded filmography also includes Ashes and Diamond (1958) and the French biopic Danton (1983) starring Gerard Depardieu which received awards attention elsewhere but strangely no Oscar heat.
07Jan Troell (Sweden) 1931- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 7 nominations, 0 wins
He's often forgotten in discussions of Scandinavian cinema (at least here in the US) since Ingmar Bergman casts such a long shadow. But Oscar was quite fond of him up until recently. His high water mark with the Academy was Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) -- strangely not on DVD --one of only five pictures to ever achieve both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture nominations. Given Oscar history it's a bit odd that the Academy didn't jump on his latest picture Everlasting Moments (2008) and even with Max von Sydow in the lead role, Hamsun (1996) didn't win attention either.
06Pedro Almodovar (Spain) 1949- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 1 Oscar (writing) | 2 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 2 wins
Spain's most famous living filmmaker has a fascinating Oscar history. The Academy embraced his international breakthrough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) but then ignored the next ten years of his career. His Oscar comeback was the mature and wondrous All About My Mother (1999) which took the top prize, despite content that would normally scare them away. Given his global fame and AMPAS's familiarity with his mad melodramedic skill, you'd think he'd have more nominated films to his credit. Part of the problem is that the Spanish Academy, which makes Spain's choice about Foreign Film representation, hasn't always been gaga for Pedro's work. Famously they passed over Talk to Her (2002) in its year so Oscar handed that recent masterpiece a screenplay Oscar and a directing nomination instead. It's no small stretch of the imagination to say that it would've beat the German winner Nowhere in Africa that year to become Pedro's second winner in the category. Volver (2006) was weirdly snubbed in the Foreign category but managed the even more high profile Best Actress nomination and became Pedro's biggest stateside hit if you don't adjust for inflation.
05Francois Truffaut (France) 1932-1984 3 nominations (writing, directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 8 nominations, 1 win
This icon started his career as an obsessive cinephile and provoactive critic at the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. His feature debut, The 400 Blows (1959) kicked off the French New Wave and proved to be one of the most influential and acclaimed films ever made. That film won him the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival at only 27 years of age. It also netted him his first Oscar nomination and more would follow. His classics include seminal features likeJules et Jim (1962) as well as Oscar-recognized favorites like Stolen Kisses (1968), Day for Night (1973 -winner), The Story of Adele H (1975) and The Last Metro (1980).
Film buffs will note that he also acted, even receiving a BAFTA nomination for appearing in his admirer Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Here's Spielberg talking about working with him.
04Akira Kurosawa (Japan) 1910-1998 1 Honorary Oscar | 1 nomination (directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) | 1 Honorary Foreign Film Win (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 12 nominations, 2 wins and 2 honorary statues
Japan's most famous filmmaker spent over sixty years working in the cinema and his legacy is enormous. The Oscars don't paint a full enough portrait of his cinematic impact. Only two of his films won the Foreign Oscar: the game changing Rashomon (1951) which people have been riffing on ever since, making it one of the true must-sees for cultural literacy, and Dersu Uzala (1975) which actually won the prize for Russia rather than Japan. His other nominated films were Dodes'ka-Den (1970) and Kagemusha (1980). I can't recall the circumstances which led his King Lear style epic Ran (1985) to ineligibility in the foreign film category but the Academy compensated with a well deserved Best Director nomination for that classic.
Still, despite what would be more than plentiful Oscar attention for most filmmakers, this portrait feels incomplete. Major classics like The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) or The Seven Samurai(1954) had to make due with technical nods or none at all. They sure did owe him that honorary Oscar they gave him in 1990 "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world."
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The Top Three
Oscar's most beloved trinity of foreign language film auteurs (in terms of this list's criteria) had the good golden fortune to be doing incredible work during the decades when US movie culture was most enamored of foreign fare. That is, at least since the silent film era, before sound came crashing into cinema toppling it like the tower of Babel.
03Vittorio de Sica (Italy) 1901-1974 1 nomination (acting) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (2 wins) | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before there was a category) all Oscar categories: His (directorial) filmography has earned 10 nominations, 3 wins and 2 honorary statues
The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis... the titles alone sound mythic somehow, having amassed so much cultural heft over the years. Those two Oscar winning classics aren't true bookends of de Sica's acclaimed filmography but since one is from the 40s and one from the 70s they work as such. This Italian neorealist and prolific writer/actor/director was celebrated often and seemingly continuously from Shoe-Shine(1947's honorary winner) through his supporting actor nomination for A Farewell to Arms (1957) and onward until the Fitzi-Continis. His swansong The Voyage (1974) didn't win awards but it was a fitting goodbye, since it allowed him to reteam him with his frequent muse Sophia Loren.
Loren & de Sica. They made beautiful films together.
I was a bit surprised to see his name above Kurosawa's in this listing given their name recognition value these days but he's a truly giant figure from world cinema history, popularizing neorealism in the late 40s and delivering multiple classics. He was also one of the principle authors of Sophia Loren's legend having directed her in both her Oscar winning role in Two Women (1961) and in celebrated films like Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964's foreign Oscar winner) and Marriage, Italian Style (1964). He also directed American screen giants like Montgomery Clift in Indiscretions of an American Wifeand Shirley Maclaine in Woman Times Seven (she was Golden Globe nominated for that multiple role performance). * 02Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) 1918-2007 9 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | Irving Thalberg Award | 3 Foreign Film Winners | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 21 nominations, 7 wins and a Thalberg
This legendary Swede's body of work is so deep and impressive (not to mention deeply immersed in the human condition) that listing his numerous Oscar successes wouldn't even acknowledge what some would argue is his greatest achievement (Persona, 1966). That black and white masterwork in which a mute actress (Bergman's muse and lover Liv Ullmann) and her nurse (Bibi Andersson) become pyschologically fused has influenced much work since, including two of the greatest films from other world class auteurs (David Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Robert Altman's Three Women). Woody Allen never did his own Persona riff but he is arguably the most famous of Bergman's many auteur fans.
Bergman's filmography is essentially one treasure after another so we'll have to ignore the bulk of it for brevity's sake and point you to his Oscar films in case you haven't seen them. Program a mini festival at home. All three of his foreign film nominees won: The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Fanny And Alexander (1982). [Trivia Note: Sweden has never won the foreign prize outside of Bergman's work]
Cries and Whispers (5 nominations, 1 win for cinematography)
In addition to his foreign film winners Bergman's other gold successes include Wild Strawberries (1957) Face to Face (1976) and Autumn Sonata (1978). The Academy fell deepest into a hypnotic Bergman trance in the early 70s when they gave him the Thalberg award and then followed up that honor with multiple nominations, including Best Picture, for his great and disturbing female grief drama Cries and Whispers (1972).
01 Federico Fellini(Italy) 1920-1993 12 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Winners | all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 23 nominations, 7 wins and 1 honorary statue
Last year's adaptation of Nine, itself adapted from a stage musical adapted from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) wasn't well received enough to spark a mini-Fellini revival in the media but the media was once quite enamored of all moving parts of Fellini's cinematic circus. That press conference scene in Nine was no exaggeration or joke. In fact, the word "paparazzi" sprung to life because of one of his best loved movies La Dolce Vita (1960) in which a male photographer's name is Paparazzo. Fellini's celebrity was vast and his actors were also sensations. His male muse Marcello Mastroianni never won an Oscar but he holds the record of most nominations for non-English language performances, three in total).
Though their sensibilities are vastly different, Fellini shares with Bergman, his only real rival for Oscar's foreigner crown, a prolific career and one with consistent inspiration and awards pull. Even before he won notices for his directing he was winning screenplay nominations for films he didn't helm.
How familiar are you with the films mentioned? I have a decent grasp of the Fellinis, Bunuels and Kurosawas. I'm nearly a completist with the Almodóvars (duh). But I need to get down to serious business on the Bergman's (small percentage despite my love. What's that about?) and I'm almost completely ignorant on the de Sicas and the Troells. So many I haven't seen.
