David Remnick: Richard Brody writes the column front row for newyorker.com, and he's a true believer in cinema with a capital C. He looks at films not as entertainment only or storytelling, but as a true art. Maybe the art form, at least for Richard, his criticism is beloved by readers who take movies very seriously. Every year around this time Richard joins us here to present the best films of the last year, The Brodies. His picks often differ wildly from other award shows you might see and we're joined in this enterprise by staff writer Alexandra Schwartz, who covers film and books, and much more. Alex, Richard great to have you.

Richard Brody: Hi David.

Alexandra Schwartz: Hello.

Richard Brody: Alex. How are you?

Alexandra Schwartz: Great to see you, Richard.

David Remnick: Here we go. This Year's Academy Awards appears to be at least superficially making a play for a more populist audience. What do you guys make of this development? What's your overall impression of this year's nominees for best picture?

Richard Brody: I have the sense that the Academy membership is in a state of fear right now because of two simultaneous developments. On the one hand, the fact that the bottom has dropped out of movie viewing. There are the big champions and then there are films that are by and large flops, only a few in the middle. On the other hand, Oscar viewing the broadcast viewing has dropped out too. That confluence of crises seems to be causing the Academy membership to put big popular films out there in the awards.

David Remnick: Alex?

Alexandra Schwartz: Yes, I agree. I think fear is the right way to put it. There is a desperate whiff to all of this. It's hard to think of another year in which Top Gun shows up as a best-picture nominee. I'm not opposed to it on its face because I think one of the premises of The Brodies is that we don't necessarily think that the Oscars is the number one arbiter of cinematic taste.

David Remnick: Absolutely. Right.

Alexandra Schwartz: I would say that probably we're okay with saying that maybe a film getting an Oscar does not automatically seal it as being great and maybe a film not getting an Oscar doesn't automatically seal it as being forgettable.

David Remnick: If you really quizzed me hard about who won the big awards in the last three years, I'm not sure I could come close to coming up with even half of them

Richard Brody: Now without the paradox of the Oscars that though the broadcast is for the general audience, the awards themselves are for the industry. That's one of the reasons why I keep coming back to the Oscars with interest and enthusiasm. I think of it as aspirational as a kind of futures market. It's people in the movie business telling each other and the world this is what we want ourselves to be, what we want our industry to be.

David Remnick: Now we've come to the crucial moment. Let's get to the awards. The awards we're waiting for. Alex Schwartz is here with the official Brody Envelopes. They were of course in a briefcase handcuffed to her arm, so no one, including me, knows who the winners will be until they're announced right here on the air. We're going to start with best actor Alex, who is nominated.

Alexandra Schwartz: The nominees for the 2023 Brody Award for best actor are Jeremy Pope for The Inspection. Christian Bale for Amsterdam and Jafar Panahi for No Bears and the winner is--

Richard Brody: Jafar Panahi for No Bears, which is a very unusual choice because Jafar Panahi is not an actor. He is the director of No Bears, and he plays the role of Jafar Panahi. The realistic winner is Christian Bale because he's a Hollywood actor but Jafar Panahi playing someone like himself in a movie made in Iran about the oppression that a filmmaker such as Jafar Panahi, who has been under essentially house arrest and a ban from filmmaking since 2011, the pressures that he faces in effect by being a non-actor, he brings the kind of presence to the world of acting that the actual professional world could very well learn from.

David Remnick: Now, that sound you hear out in radio land and podcast land is the sound of many people scratching their heads. The Academy's best actor nominations this year were all first-timers. Brendan Fraser for The Whale, Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Bill Nighy for Living, Austin Butler for Elvis, and Paul Mescal for Aftersun. Richard, none of those impressed you?

Richard Brody: Some of them even depressed me.

[laughter]

Richard Brody: Go to it.

Alexandra Schwartz: Name names.

Richard Brody: Every one of these is a competent actor. In fact, more than competent. Every one of them is a wonderful actor. I thought that Austin Butler playing Elvis had the moves but didn't have the soul. He didn't have the sense of erotic energy that Elvis does. He seems like an impersonation rather than a performance. I basically think that it's almost impossible for an actor to give a great performance in a mediocre film. Paul Mescal's a wonderful actor, but what was required of him in this film is so narrow in its perspective, so narrow in its range that I don't consider it more than a skilled professional performance. The same is true of Bill Nighy in Living, a terrible remake of a great film.

[drumroll]

Alexandra Schwartz: Moving on to the next category. The Brody nominees for best actress are Danielle Deadwyler for Till, Tilda Swinton for The Eternal Daughter, and Guslagie Malanda in Saint-Omer and the Brody goes to--

Richard Brody: Danielle Deadwyler for Till. This is the scandal of the year.

Alexandra Schwartz: I agree, Richard, I totally agree.

David Remnick: Why is that?

Richard Brody: Danielle Deadwyler's performance is extraordinary, as is the movie, and the direction of the film, all should have been nominated for Oscars. Danielle Deadwyler's performance is a very distinctive kind of performance. It's a still performance. It's a sharply focused performance. It's a rhetorical performance that raises the passion and the calculation, the political calculation of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till to a kind of prophetic passion. The question is, why in fact, did the acting branch not pay attention to Danielle Deadwyler's performance? I think that there's unfortunately a very long history of the Academy membership simply not even going to see movies that are about the Black American experience.

Alexandra Schwartz: Yes, Richard, I was just wondering if it's possible that Academy members didn't see this movie and the numbers they should have in part because as you say, they may have overlooked movies focusing on the Black experience and also this movie deals with an atrocious event. It is incredibly difficult to think about Emmett Till, let alone watch a movie about his murder and the aftereffects of his murder. Danielle Deadwyler is the heart and soul of this movie, and she is so moving on screen. There's a scene in which she's testifying at the trial of the men who are accused of having lynched Emmett Till.

[videoplayback]

Mamie Till: Like if he bumped into somebody on the street and they might get belligerent or something. I told him to go ahead and humble himself so as not to get into any trouble, but--

Lawyer: But what?

Mamie Till: I raised him with love for 14 years. My sudden warnings about hate weren't going to get through.

Alexandra Schwartz: What she does with her physical and emotional performance, her eyes flutter as she describes what it is to love your child. There's something that is so cinematic on the one hand about that performance, but also so deeply felt and authentic that to me it really seemed like a no-brainer for the kind of performance that should be recognized by the Oscars. None of Richard's picks were the favorites. Not surprising and perhaps another mark in favor of The Brody's cred, but instead we have Ana de Armas for Blonde, Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie, Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans, Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Cate Blanchett for Tár.

David Remnick: We're talking about Michelle Yeoh, I think up against Cate Blanchett. No?

Richard Brody: That's exactly what I think too. I think it's Michelle Yeoh's year. For the simple reason that Cate Blanchett has won Oscars before. I think Cate Blanchett's performance is quite showy but again, I don't think she had a lot to work with in Tár. Tár plays like cards turned over on a table in a game of three-card Monty. Todd Field knows exactly the cards he's turning over. The movie is set up to provoke responses to push buttons on the basis of the cards that he turns over.

David Remnick: You say that like it's a bad thing. What's wrong with that?

Richard Brody: Here's a psychological drama in which there's no psychology in which the protagonist more or less doesn't exist between the scenes that she plays.

David Remnick: Alex, I sense you disagree.

Alexandra Schwartz: The truth is that Richard has swayed me in some respects on Tár. I'm still trying to understand this concept of the character not existing in between the scenes which I love that idea. Where I disagree with Richard, Richard says the movie is out to provoke responses. Yours, Richard, is definitely one of the strongest and most interesting responses that was provoked. I do not feel that the film neatly aligns with the politics it's showing. I think it is critiquing those politics. I know you think that the film is advocating for them, essentially that it wanted to present this version of cancel culture as an atrocity and something that its character was victimized by. I actually think you see the monstrosity of the character very clearly in the film and that it grows as you come to understand more and more how she has manipulated and abused her position of power to destroy the life and then lives of the young women around her.

David Remnick: Can we not agree that any movie that begins with 15 minutes of the New Yorker Festival is a triumph of cinema?

Alexandra Schwartz: That was bold.

Richard Brody: That's what I thought.

Alexandra Schwartz: I think that was daring, that was audacious, that finally gave us the prominence we've long sought. All right. After two years in a row of women directors taking home the Oscars for Best Director, we have this year a return to an all-male slate of nominees. We have Todd Field for Tár, Stephen Spielberg for The Fabelmans, Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness, Martin McDonagh for The Banshees Of Inisherin, and the duo known as the Daniels, Daniel Kwan, and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Richard, who are your nominees for the Best Director?

Richard Brody: My nominees are James Gray for Armageddon Time. Jordan Peele for Nope. Terence Davies for Benediction. Alice Diop for Saint-Omer, and Jafar Panahi No Bears. My choice for the winner is Jordan Peele. Jordan Peele does something in Nope, that I think is exceptionally difficult, which is he takes a big Hollywood spectacle and does something completely original in it.

[videoplyback]

Em: All I'm saying is, all that shit online is fake, low quality. Ain't nobody going to get what we going to get.

OJ: What we going to get?

Em: The shot?

OJ: What shot?

Em: The shot, the money shot. Undeniable singular-- The Oprah shot.

Richard Brody: He works at the level of any of the directors of the big blockbusters of the year, and he makes a film that is as wildly original as the most do-it-yourself, absolutely unsupervised independent film.

David Remnick: Now we are inching toward the crucial moment. The Academy nominated a full 10 movies this year, and among them, Avatar, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Women Talking, The Fablemans, All Quiet on The Western Front, Elvis Triangle of Sadness and Tár, which I think we now know Richard has a bit of an argument with. Richard, Alex from that group, what would be your pick for best picture? Let's go with Alex first.

Alexandra Schwartz: I'm afraid to say it. I think the most Academy-like pick is Tár. Is that my personal pick? I'm still mulling it over. I haven't totally cast my vote. It's in my top two or three.

David Remnick: Why is it the most Academy pick?

Alexandra Schwartz: Well, because I think a movie that deals with a big artistic figure, a movie that looks directly at prestige and what prestige is like, and a movie that looks prestigious--

David Remnick: She should have won best apartment in a movie. Fantastic apartment.

Alexandra Schwartz: Definitely. Although who wants to live in so much concrete? Yes [laughs]. A lot of concrete there. Pretty harsh.

David Remnick: You're seeing Concrete. I'm seeing a lack of children, one and the other.

[laughter]

That is a very Oscary movie. What--

Alexandra Schwartz: It's a very Oscary movie. Everything Everywhere All at Once has the indie appeal. It has a lot of quirk. It also has a lot of effects. It's still a movie-movie, capital M, perhaps capital Double M. I think it's the crowd-pleaser and the one perhaps most likely to win. I have a soft spot for Women Talking, having written about Miriam Toews the author of the book that Sarah Polley adapted. It's a real ensemble movie.

Richard Brody: No, the only nomination that I'm actually happy about is the one for Women Talking. I didn't love Sarah Polley's direction, but I think that her screenplay, which was in fact nominated, is a real literary achievement. I think that her transformation of the novel is remarkable and that the movie itself is very moving as a result. I think that Everything Everywhere All at Once is going to win. I think that it has the combination of, it feels youthful because of its reliance on special effects and the multiverse and sentiment. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a very sentimental, almost facile film about family life. That's exactly what the Oscars love.

David Remnick: Alex, who were the Brody nominations for Best Picture?

[drumroll]

Alexandra Schwartz: The nominees for Best Picture at the 2023 Brodies are Benediction, Nope, and Armageddon Time. Richard, The Brody goes to--

Richard Brody: It goes to Benediction, directed by Terence Davies. Benediction is the greatest First World War film of the 21st century. It's a biopic of the poet Siegfried Sassoon who made his name as a poet of the First World War, who was grievously wounded in the First World War, who met the love of his life, the poet Wilfred Owen in a military hospital. Owen was then killed in combat and Sassoon as Davies depicts in this film, spent the rest of his life in a state of grief, rage, and trauma over his experiences in the First World War.

[videoplaback]

Speaker 6: It is not your place to question how the war is being prosecuted. Your duty lies in obeying orders.

Siegfried Sassoon: Duty. That word covers a multitude of sins. In the face of such slaughter, one cannot simply order one's conscience.

Speaker 6: One can do better than that. One can ignore it.

Siegfried Sassoon: That reply was so disgraceful. You ought to be in politics.

David Remnick: Can I just say before we go, I'm just going to put this out there. The idea that these Oscars would get out and conclude without any acknowledgment of Spielberg's The Fabelmans, which is this autobiographical film, I find it hard to believe that won't happen in some form or another best director something. No?

Richard Brody: Very possibly. There's a great sentimental attachment to Steven Spielberg on the part of the Academy. This is for better or worse, a very personal film, for better in the sense that he knows the story well. The movie has a great deal of vigor, a great deal of verve. For worse, it also has a great deal of self-love. It seems to me to be less a work of autobiography than of autohagiography.

David Remnick: [laughs] Alex Schwartz. Richard Brody, as always, a great annual pleasure. Richard Brody's column on film is called The Front Row at newyorker.com, and you can find all of his best dubs for 2022 and so much more right there at newyorker.com. Alex, Richard, thanks so much.

Alexandra Schwartz: Thank you, David.

Richard Brody: David, Alex, thank you very much.

[music]

[00:16:50] [END OF AUDIO]

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