Art: reminding us of Life

I've seen a lot of movies in the last several months. I assumed by the time the Oscars came around, I'd have seen most of the ones that matter.

Not so though. The Oscars will be handed out this coming weekend and even though they nominate more films than they used to, I still fall short.

Of the eight films nominated for best picture, I've seen three.

The eight are:

The Big Short

Bridge of Spies

Brooklyn

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Room

Spotlight

The three are:

Brooklyn

Spotlight

And The Big Short

I'm not sure any of it matters any more as The Revenent is, apparently, going to clean up.

I didn't see The Revenent by choice. I had read and heard too much about it. It's grisly; it's brutal, unflinching, raw. It didn't sound as if it were made for me.

One of the most powerful pieces I read about it was written by an Indigenous woman, Sasha LaPointe, Coast Salish/Nooksack, and was titled ‘Bring Me The Girl’: Why ‘The Revenant’ was Hard for My Friends and Me.

Powaqa’s face is empty as she is violated, as the French captain stands behind her, as she is shoved against the tree. Her face is wiped of any emotion. I have goosebumps and feel lightheaded when I think of it, the absence of fantasy. There is no Hollywood, choreographed rape scene. No big fight, no shrieking, no scratching, no scrambling to get free. There is only the reality of that expression. Those dead and empty eyes. The face of a woman taken over, defeated, if only for a moment.

I hope The Revenent is worthy as it seems likely it will win best picture, best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), best director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu), best cinematography, costumes, hair-styling and makeup, production design. . . (I'm just going through the list of everything it's nominated for.)

And if it does win everything in sight, I hope everyone who goes to see it will begin to see the world in a different way. That's one of the purposes of Art.

Her face reminds us that there is a highway in Canada known as the Highway of Tears, named after the many disappearances of women (mostly indigenous) reported along its vast expanse. It reminds us of the large numbers, the cases of assault against Native women. It is facing generations of surviving, of historical trauma, of memory distilled into a short scene and watching it release from within our bodies and float out into the world.

Michael Caine: Still at the top of his game

I have never walked away from a Michael Caine film and not said, "My, he's a splendid actor." He's been in a lot of movies and I've seen many of them — too many to remember and to name. He's been in good, mediocre and bad movies and people make jokes about his choices and how he's never turned down a role.

It may be that he plays on that. I read a good little story about him recently. He said someone asked him how he chooses his parts and he said, "When they give me a script, I look at the first page and the last page. If my character is on both pages, I accept the part."

I loved Educating Rita. It's one of the movies I go back and watch every so often. I looked it up recently and was surprised to see that it came out in 1983. 1983! It's aged well.

Julie Walters and Michael Caine in Educating Rita. (I saw Julie Walters just a couple of weeks ago in Brooklyn.)

Today, I saw Michael Caine in Youth. Also Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano with a cameo by Jane Fonda. I don't want to tell you too much about it about it because maybe you'll go see it. I will say that, on leaving the theatre, I said my usual thing about Michael Caine's acting and I also said, "This film should win all the awards."

I'll tell you this much:

Septuagenarian best friends Fred Ballinger and Mick Boyle are on vacation in the Swiss Alps, staying at a luxury resort. Fred is a retired composer of classical music; at the hotel, he is approached by an emissary for Queen Elizabeth II to perform his popular piece "Simple Songs" at Prince Philip's birthday concert. Fred turns down the offer, claiming he is not interested in performing anymore – although he still composes pieces in his head when alone.

Mick is a filmmaker, and is working with a group of writers to develop the screenplay for his latest film, which he calls his "testament". Also with them is actor Jimmy Tree, who is researching for an upcoming role and frustrated that he is only remembered for his role as a robot. The hotel is inhabited by other quirky individuals, including a young masseuse, an overweight Maradona, and Miss Universe.

Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel

I was interested to read that a theatre-full of critics saw it in Cannes last May and when it was over, half the theatre boo-ed and the other half bravo-ed. I suppose there's no accounting for taste. I would have been in the cheering section. I can't even imagine what people found to boo about.

The scenery was beyond spectacular and I say that even though I don't like mountains. And Jane Fonda, known most recently for her vocation in non-aging, showed her age — and then some — playing a part that gained her some award nominations and lots of critical acclaim.

Michael Caine has won two Oscars, both in the supporting actor category. I hope he lives many more years and plays many more parts and I hope he'll win an Academy Award for Best Actor. I'll be cheering him on.

And the Oscar goes to. . .

I have a love-hate relationship with award shows. It's in that context that I'm writing this.

Last year, 2015, the list of films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar were: Birdman, Selma, Whiplash, American Sniper, The Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood.

I had seen four out of the eight. I would never have gone to see Whiplash or American Sniper. I was iffy about Birdman. And I felt guilty about passing up Selma because it's the kind of movie I find so painful.

I thought I was pretty well covered, however, for the major categories. Boyhood was considered to be the film to beat, the front-runner, and I was feeling confident.

I thought Boyhood was brilliant. I had spent weeks in advance of the Oscars defending it from certain naysayers. There were people who sneered that the 12-years of filming the same actors to tell the story in "real time" was a gimmick.

I even had to defend the movie from one viewer who said she didn't like it at all because she'd rather have seen the story of Mason's sister. I said maybe she'd have to wait for a movie called "Girlhood" — a movie I'd be happy to see but it wasn't this one.

There's a feeling around awards and there's a point where you begin to sense where things are going. Once Alejandro González Iñárritu won the best director's award, I was starting to feel uneasy. I think people there, in the theatre, sensed something happening also.

Sure enough, Iñárritu's movie Birdman won the best film award and I felt very disappointed. I usually don't mind that much; I usually go along quite docilely with whatever the Academy decides but last year, I was still feeling let down the following morning. Boyhood was such a singular accomplishment, a film that can never be duplicated, a one-of-a-kind achievement. It seemed so wrong that it had been passed over.

This year's nominated films are The Big Short, Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies, The Revenant, Spotlight, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Room. I've seen three of them.

(The stars of The Big Short.)

When I read a review of The Revenant, I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. You couldn't pay me to see that movie. But it's Alejandro González Iñárritu again and this year, he's getting all the buzz. He's not the underdog and I predict he'll win best picture, best director, best actor — Leonardo DiCaprio — and probably plenty of others. You can tell when things are moving in a certain way.

Before The Revenant came along, I had chosen a few strong contenders for Oscars.

(Bryan Cranston as Trumbo.)

After we saw Trumbo, I felt sure that Bryan Cranston would win for best actor for his portrayal of the black-listed writer, Dalton Trumbo, during the McCarthy era. We didn't feel the screenplay was strong enough to carry a best picture nomination but the acting truly was phenomenal. I'm pretty sure now that he doesn't have a chance against Leo.

Likewise Spotlight. As we were leaving the theatre after seeing it, I predicted it had a chance for a few awards. Since The Revenant, Spotlight too has slipped a few rungs down the awards ladder.

Finally, my biggest disappointment this year is something I can't blame on The Revenant. Lily Tomlin was passed over for a nomination for her role in Grandma.

It's a tough old business. Sometimes, it's just not your year.