Oscar Watch
Sofia Coppola was on David Letterman a few nights back, making the rounds for Lost in Translation and she said that she wrote the role of Bob Harris with Bill Murray -- and only Murray -- in mind. We watched Lost in Translation over the weekend and it is clear that the role was tailor-made for Murray's style of on-screen pathos. However, now I'm not as convinced about my decision to put my money down on him for Best Actor. Lost in Translation is a lovely film, but remains with me isn't Murray but rather Coppola's impression of Tokyo.
It's a film that I wish I had seen on the big screen which isn't a sentiment I usually feel towards character driven pieces. But the constant presence of Tokyo and how its alienness touched and infected the characters was something which wasn't as overwhelming as it should have been on the home screen. The irony doesn't escape me that the only reason I find the cityscape of Tokyo fascinating and beautiful is because I don't understand the language and that if I was cognizant that everything was an advertisement, I wouldn't be nearly as enamoured of the lights (pictures of Times Square in New York City always make me flinch with despair for the rampant commercialism which invades every pore of your body).
So, yeah, my affection for Murray stems from his work in Rushmore and The Royal Tennanbaums. His work in Lost in Translation was excellent and suited the mood of the film, but I think he was curtailed by the basic fact that the movie focused on lost souls who have found themselves in the endless light cycle of a foreign land. There is a difference between characters who are adrift and characters who find their earnest love unrequited and, frankly, the latter always tugs at your heart more.
Which puts Johnny Depp back in the lead for Pirates of the Caribbean. He'll never win, but man, even still, I hope he does.
Lost in Translation is also up for Best Original Screenplay. I find it interesting that the only category where the film might have a shot at taking home a trophy is the one category all the advertisements pushing the film on TV don't mention. I think the film is a mood piece and that a lot of what made it onto film stock was relatively unscripted. Coppola lingers on shots that are mood pieces, scenes which would appear on the page as "Sally looks out the window at the city." One line scene descriptions which are translated to slow panning shots which move around the characters as they cocoon against the florid landscape. These are directorial decisions and aren't necessarily ones that would occur on the page. The fact that Coppola wrote the screenplay herself means that what she wanted as a writer was more readily possible as she directed it, but I wonder if the film would have been half as good if it had been directed by someone else. Which lends more strength to the argument for rewarding her for Best Director instead of Best Original Screenplay.
Finding Nemo is a clear winner for Best Animated Film and I wouldn't mind it winning in the Best Original Screenplay category as well. We saw that again recently and the marvelous wit of the dialogue shouldn't go unrecognized.