Oscar Nominees 2016: Part 8 of 11 (Best Original Song)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11.

Spectre

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Jimmy Napes & Sam Smith

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott

I heard people thought this was boring. It wasn't as good as Skyfall, certainly, but apparently I was one of the only people in the world that thought it was sort of fun. Eh. Oh well. The opening sequence of Spectre was definitely its coolest setpiece, but in general I thought it was sort of fun. I loved Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci (obviously – why isn't she in more American movies??), and I liked the way that this Bond movie became a little bit more about the team of Q, M, Moneypenny, and Bond and not just the lone wolf himself. (Thomas Newman's score is excellent, too.) There were two main problems with this new Bond caper. One was that the villain sort of sucked. Everyone loves Christoph Waltz. The man has two Oscars and he works a ton, but he is totally flat in Spectre, and I am not even sure why. The villain's villainy in this film just isn't that interesting or sadistic, and by comparison he is just no match for the creepy/sexy/weird quality of Javier Bardem's Skyfall villain. The other problem is the film's just general tone which is morose and regretful. Skyfall was this, too, of course, but Spectre positively revels in the dead and the way they haunt us. The first sequence takes place at a Día de los Muertos celebration, but from there we get sad messages from the grave, a sad dying father who shoots himself, another sequence at a funeral where Monica Bellucci mourns her husband. The entire plot, even, is related to the idea that MI6 itself is a relic and needs to be retired. The tone is just too morbid: Bond needs a vivacious reboot for sure. (I think one of the problems with James Bond nowadays is that he and those films are both sort of inextricable from the nostalgia that exists about previous Bonds and previous Bond films. Both of the Mendes Bond movies attempt to deal with that nostalgia head on, with, it seems to me, differing levels of success.) Frankly, I am not so crazy about Sam Smith's weepy song, either, and was a little surprised to see "The Writing's on the Wall" get nominated, but here it is, and I expect it to win now that it's here. It seems like a sensible consensus choice.

Will Win: Original Song

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #42 out of 67

Youth

1 Nomination

• Original Song: David Lang

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Robert Seethaler, Luna Mijovic, Heidi Maria Glössner, Helmut Förnbacher, Ed Stoppard, Paloma Faith, Jane Fonda, Madalina Ghenea, Tom Lipinski, Chloe Pirrie, Mark Gessner, Nate Dern, Alex Beckett, Roly Serrano, Leo Artin

This was one of my favorite movies of the year. It is a lot like Sorrentino's previous film La Grande Bellezza in style, although Youth is a much more sentimental movie, and one that explores feelings a great deal more than Bellezza. I still adored it; Sorrentino's frames are so rich, so full, and his filmmaking is so confident. It's just amazing movie-making. I think he is a master. I have to say that I was a little surprised that the Academy didn't like this more than it did. Jane Fonda was pretty close to scoring her eighth Oscar nomination for her turn as an aging actress, but it didn't happen. Maybe this was Fox Searchlight's fault for the way it promoted it, or maybe Sorrentino just isn't people's thing. I don't really understand. If any movie this year is specifically aimed at old white men it is definitely this one. Perhaps this underlines my very serious theory about the real Academy voters not actually being old white men but being old white women (old Academy wives). Youth is very male. It's nominated song, David Lang's "Simple Song #3", is absolutely gorgeous and there was no question about its nomination. It's not a pop song, so that will hurt it with voters, certainly, but I have been listening to it for months now. It's a real feather in David Lang's cap. I should also note that it is a very important part of the film itself, much of the film's action revolves around the song, and we hear little phrases from it throughout the film, so that when we hear it in its entirety in the film's third act, it has the ability to be deeply moving.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Original Song
My Rating: #3 out of 67

Fifty Shades of Grey

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Ahmad "Belly" Balshe, Stephan Moccio, Jason "DaHeala" Quenneville & Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Marcia Gay Harden, Eloise Mumford, Victor Rasuk, Jennifer Ehle, Luke Grimes, Max Martini, Callum Keith Rennie, Rita Ora, Dylan Neal

This is awful. I've written in detail about how I think this film is a kind of rape fantasy, so I won't really go into anything about this movie here, but I will say that I was super into this song when it came out (the song is "Earned It" sung by The Weeknd). It really is a great tune with a great beat and The Weeknd is this kind of neo-R&B artist, that I will admit to liking a lot. So I was loving this song, and listening to it rather a lot – which is when I noticed that the chorus rhymes the lyrics "So I love when you call unexpected / 'Cause I hate when the moment's expected". And now I can't get out of my mind that expected and unexpected aren't so much words that rhyme as they are, you know, the same word. But whatever, I keep trying to let it go. It's still a fun song. (But goddamn, this movie is bad, if not downright offensive.)
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #66 out of 67

The Hunting Ground

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Lady Gaga & Diane Warren (Beyond the Lights, Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)

Director: Kirby Dick

It is, perhaps, one of the great ironies of this Oscar season that another of the nominated original songs is from a film that attempts to document the problem of rape on college campuses. If Fifty Shades of Grey is a film where no always means ask again, The Hunting Ground is a film that wants to combat the real danger to which many women are subject on college campuses across the country. The Hunting Ground is doing really well when it is using testimony to inform its audience of the real crisis in USAmerican higher education, whereby the schools, which should be interested in helping students, in keeping students safe, and in, well, basic ethical principles, have become beholden to the dollars of their donors, particularly fraternity members, who prevent these institutions from dealing with absolute epidemic of sexual violence that exists on our campuses. The Hunting Ground is not a great film, though, and it jumps from story to story in a way that often feels inorganic and awkward. In many ways the film is not about taking on the universities using Title IX, and when the film is not about this, it feels messy. Still, when it is about this The Hunting Ground is, frankly, terrifying. In any case, this issue is close to my heart, and I am glad we are talking about this more frequently, more openly, and more vehemently. There is no more important issue on college campuses today, if you ask me. As for the song, Gaga sings, and the lyrics are chilling. Diane Warren – who wrote the very popular pop songs from Armageddon ("I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing"), Up Close & Personal ("Because You Loved Me"), and Con Air ("How Do I Live") – received her eighth nomination for "Til It Happens to You" (why it is missing that other l in the title I am not really sure), but she will have to go home empty handed yet again. One day, Diane, one day.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Unranked (Documentary)

Racing Extinction

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Antony Hegarty & J. Ralph (Chasing Ice)

Director: Louie Psihoyos

This movie is a serious wake-up call. The images of the thousands of shark fins removed from slaughtered fish are chilling enough, but Racing Extinction also spends a great deal of time on the way manta rays are being driven to extinction so that their gills can be harvested. And it documents the acidifying of the world's oceans. Racing Extinction is a truly sobering look at the planet and what we are doing to it. This movie should convince absolutely anyone that we need to change our way of living and become better caretakers of the planet on which we live. It is simply unacceptable – in fact the film's argument is that it is mass suicide – for us to continue to destroy this planet. I am sold, and I encourage everyone to watch this movie. J. Ralph also composed the haunting melody that underscored the Jeff Orlowski environmentalist documentary Chasing Ice, but the song from Racing Extinction, "Manta Ray", also boasts the talents of Antony Hegarty, the second transwoman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award (the first, by the way, was Angela Morley, the composer of The Little Prince and The Slipper and the Rose). Antony's lyrics are truly haunting: "Without biodiversity / I'm nothing / It's like I never existed // Without my home / With no reflection / I cease to exist //  And my children / Are dying now / Inside me". Yikes. Because Racing Extinction's subject matter is "how do we get this information out to people?" I am hopeful that the filmmakers use the Oscars themselves as a platform for their important message.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Unranked (Documentary)

Grey Areas

Fifty Shades of Grey is laughable for many, many reasons, and I spent much of the film riotously cackling at its nonsense, but I was, I must admit, left with a few questions after the final elevator doors closed and (spoiler alert) Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele said goodbye-for-now.

What a caretaker!

Leading the list of my questions is the very plot of this film, which, in effect, concerns a single question: Will Anastasia sign a very long contract that gives Christian legal immunity so that when he hurts her during sex she won't sue him? Will she sign this document or won't she? When Anastasia asks Christian what it is that she gets for signing this document, Christian's response is "me". I found this surprising mostly because the response wasn't related to Anastasia's own pleasure: Anastasia is not supposed to get pleasure out of these sexual encounters but instead understands these sexual encounters as a kind of currency that she uses in exchange for Christian "himself", a self we come to find out does not refer to his body (Anastasia is not allowed to touch him, according to the contract) but his wealth and his family connections. Anastasia is supposed to sign a contract that exchanges her submissiveness in sadomasochistic sexual situations not for the pleasure of those situations but for (what amounts to) a series of expensive gifts.

He plays the piano.

This is the film's plotline. Christian tries to convince Anastasia to sign this contract; she resists signing it.

Anastasia doesn't understand why she and Christian can't just be boyfriend and girlfriend. Why can't they just hang out and watch Netflix? (I don't do the boyfriend thing, he says sullenly.) Why do they have to have elaborate theatrical sex during which she will feel some amount of pain. She asks him: Why do you want to hurt me? Again the language is oddly fixated on inflicting harm and not on the pleasure that both the dom and the sub take in BDSM sex practices.

If Fifty Shades' plot is one that hinges on the granting or withholding of consent, it is worth noting that Anastasia does not, after all, sign the contract. In other words, officially, Anastasia withholds her consent from these sex practices. The film sets up this additional threshold of consent – she is to sign a contract – and, because it is a document that needs to be signed or not signed, it is always extremely clear that Anastasia does not cross this threshold. Perhaps surprisingly, this withheld consent does not stop her from having (and enjoying) sex with Christian, and it doesn't stop her from willingly yet hesitantly participating in some of the sex practices he has proposed. In other words, Anastasia both withholds her consent and grants it.

Fifty Shades, to be clear, represents a woman who says no, who says no repeatedly, but who actually means yes. She always officially says no, but what she actually wants is for her lover to convince her. At one point she actually texts him "Nice knowing you", but when he shows up with wine and ice (?) and tells her she didn't mean that at all, she completely agrees. No, she didn't mean she was done with him forever. She meant: try a different tactic and then perhaps the answer will be yes.

If there are shades of grey in Fifty Shades, it seems to me that what the film is shady about is the difference between yes and no, the difference between consensual sex and non-consensual sex. Fifty Shades firmly believes that a woman saying no is simply a request for a man to pursue further negotiations. No is a grey area that might mean, probably means, could eventually mean, simply yes.

* * *

And another thing: as much as this film seems fascinated by kink and is willing to use it to titillate its audience, Fifty Shades is also surprisingly normative. I don't make love. I fuck. Hard, Christian tells Anastasia early in the film. But, we will come to find out, he is full of lies. He is happy to make sweet sweet love to the film's protagonist, and even spend the night with her, arms intertwined. He will protest, of course, that he doesn't do such things, he's not the boyfriend type, but, as it turns out, he absolutely does do those things. Mr. Grey spends much of the film holding Anastasia's hand, holding her face in his hands, caressing her lower lip, performing cunnilingus on her, caressing her with the feathers of peacocks, washing her back in a bathtub they share. And that's when he's not playing the piano, lifting her gently and carrying her to bed, dancing with her around his penthouse, posing for pictures with his arm around the small of her back, flying her around in his helicopter, or introducing her to his parents as his girlfriend. What's interesting about this is that Christian is obviously some kind of romantic heteronormative fantasy: he is simultaneously the image of the perfect future-husband who is rich and well dressed and can fly a helicopter and also the bad boy who hides his true feelings and secretly wants to hurt you.

Christian, I feel like there is something between us. Like a windshield.

I resent, of course (and we ought perhaps all to resent) the implication that Christian Grey is interested in his kinks because he is somehow damaged, because he is, as he says in the film's third act, "fifty shades of fucked up". This is absurd and offensive. This is equivalent to saying that his sexual tastes are somehow wrong as opposed to being one instance of the wide (and benign) variety of human sexuality. Grey has developed particular sexual interests and, as far as we were shown in this film, they weren't all that fucked up. What they were were specific. And anyway he is clearly capable of doing all of the things that heternormative vanilla sex deems appropriate (holding hands, cunnilingus, gentle caresses, etc.). If he doesn't want to do those things, that is his business, and if Anastasia doesn't want to have sex with him in the way that he wants to have sex, she is free to reject him and his floggers at any point. Furthermore, the caning sequence that somehow pushes Anastasia over the edge and convinces her (at least for now) that Christian is too far gone to be redeemed, is staged almost explicitly as a non-sexual encounter, in which he is hitting her only to hit her. If this is a kink, where is the eroticism?

(One might also ask why Christian Grey doesn't simply go on the internet and find a woman who is into his tastes from the get-go instead of trying to convince this college girl that she really will like it, no trust me.)

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.

And I guess this is none of my business – Sam Taylor-Johnson can put whatever fantasies she likes on her screen – but might I wonder aloud about how a film like this, directed by a woman and written by a woman, barely manages to pass the Bechdel test? Why doesn't Anastasia talk about this weird relationship she's in with, oh I don't know, her best friend and roommate? Or, perhaps, her mother? Our heroine could've used a little perspective, I feel. But instead she lies to both her roommate and her mother about Mr. Grey. What on earth is the point of having her do this? Why not have a simple conversation with another woman in your life? A bit of female solidarity, and perhaps some good advice, would, I feel, have helped this college senior a great deal.

I had numerous other problems with this movie, of course – mostly because it was a terrible film – but I see no reason to go into them. Fifty Shades, if it is anything, is a purely unrealistic rape-fantasy; the movie is simply a series of fantastic romantic images all of which involve the hope that the man of one's dreams won't take no for an answer. Christian Grey himself is merely the projection of many of those desires. There is much, perhaps, that is intriguing here about the way that Fifty Shades represents the fantasy of the white American (mostly) heterosexual woman in the early 21st century. These fantasies are, I will confess, darker than I had thought. But they strike me as dark not because of their propensity toward kink, but because what is clear in this version of the female fantasy is that the film simply refuses to be clear about what we think we in the 21st century mean by the word rape. The shades of grey upon which this film is predicated are all between the word yes and the word no.