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Tag: Jonathan Glazer

  • One Fine Show: ‘This is What You Get’ at the Ashmolean Museum

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    Stanley Donwood (b. 1968) and Thom Yorke (b. 1968), Pacific Coast, 2003. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm. Collection of Stanley Donwood. Photo: Ellie Atkins © Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke

    With a few glaring exceptions, Radiohead is known to have good taste when it comes to the people with whom its members choose to collaborate. Their music videos have been directed by Jonathan Glazer and Paul Thomas Anderson, for whom Jonny Greenwood has done several soundtracks, and Thom Yorke did the excellent score for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 Suspiria remake, which had every possibility of being good in other regards as well. And who could forget Yorke and Greenwood’s appearance as themselves in the South Park episode “Scott Tenorman Must Die” (2001), mocking the villain for crying because Cartman had killed his parents?

    A new show at the Ashmolean Museum, “This Is What You Get,” celebrates the band’s visual art for their albums and related materials. They have collaborated with artist Stanley Donwood on every album since their second, “The Bends” (1995), the cover of which features a CPR dummy that Yorke and Donwood discovered after they snuck into the basement of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. Ever since, Yorke and Donwood have been partners in all the band’s visual language, which is vast and complex. This homecoming exhibition features over 180 works—paintings, digital compositions, etchings, drawings and lyric sketches.

    Radiohead makes peerless music, but the exhibition demonstrates the extent to which their stirring album covers have wrapped these songs in a universe, a vibe, perhaps even an ethos. Because the band has been so influential, it can be a chicken-and-egg question as to whether their artwork was ahead of its time or simply shaped public consciousness because of how widespread it became.

    I would argue that it’s the former. Take the hollow-feeling, glitched-out landscape of OK Computer. This was created from a deep engagement with the moment: Yorke playing Tomb Raider (1996) in the studio with Donwood and noticing that when the scenery blurred due to memory errors, it was “the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.” The pair used an early Macintosh to design the cover, setting a rule for themselves that they could not undo any changes they made. The end result is a triumph. Not many people were making art like that in 1997. You’d have to compare it to the contemporary output by luminaries such as Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince and Christopher Wool.

    Some like to say they stopped after “Amnesiac” (2001), but “Hail to the Thief” (2003) and “In Rainbows” (2007) can be said of the visuals. Hail to the Thief has a false-naive style of painting—similar to artists who have become wildly popular today, like Jane Dickson and Stanley Whitney—while the spilled wax of In Rainbows recalls Wolfgang Tillmans’s recent efforts to make photography more organic and abstract. In the catalogue, Donwood is most proud of the T-shirts from the In Rainbows tour. Radiohead’s practice is precise and holistic, and the results have proven them to be consistently ahead of the curve in almost every way.

    “This is What You Get” is on view at the Ashmolean Museum through January 11, 2026.

    More exhibition reviews

    One Fine Show: ‘This is What You Get’ at the Ashmolean Museum

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    Dan Duray

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  • Sexy Beast: An Allegory For How No One Wants You to “Soft Live”

    Sexy Beast: An Allegory For How No One Wants You to “Soft Live”

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    From the moment viewers first encounter Gary “Gal” Dove (Ray Winstone) in Jonathan Glazer’s directorial debut, Sexy Beast, it’s clear that you can’t find a “fatter and happier” man. Lying out in the sun in a state of overly oiled, overly tanned bliss, his voiceover begins, “Oh, yeah. Bloody hell. I’m sweatin’ here. Roastin’. Boilin’. Bakin’. Swelterin’. It’s like a sauna. A furnace. You could fry an egg on my stomach. Ohh… Ooh, now that is hot. It’s ridiculous. Tremendous. Fantastic. Fan-dabby-dozy-tastic.” We soon see that he’s next to his own private pool, living in a house that appears quite remote. (Though it’s never stated, Gal is supposed to be somewhere along the Costa Del Sol of Andalusia.) Obviously, he’s on what can be called a “permanent vacation.” Granted, in his former line of work, that term doesn’t have the most positive of connotations. Indeed, it likely means you’ve been “put out to pasture” in a decidedly more murderous way. But for a rare few criminals and assassins, like Gal, there is a way through to the other side…or so one would like to believe. 

    Gal certainly did—before his retired bliss spent living with his wife/love of his life, DeeDee (Amanda Redman), was so rudely interrupted by none other than his former employer (a head hunter, if you will): Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). Well-known and feared among London’s criminal underworld, Logan’s role as a “recruiter” kicks into overdrive when crime boss Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) hatches a plan to rob an elite, supposedly “impregnable” bank after getting a tip about it from the chairman, Harry (James Fox), at an orgy. Though Gal’s never heard of the bank in question, Imperial Emblatt, Don claims it’s because “they’re one of those sniffy lot, don’t need publicity.” Gal himself wishes he didn’t have any “publicity” right now, with Don so far up his ass about partaking of this robbery (an eight-man job) that he finds it all but impossible to shit him back out. Even though he assures DeeDee before Don’s arrival that he’s going to tell him no to the job and that’ll be that. Ah, so sweet for Gal to think he ever had a choice in the matter. Alas, there’s a reason one of the taglines for the movie is: “Yes or Yes?” The word “no,” to Don, won’t be tolerated. 

    What’s more, it becomes slowly revealed to Gal that Don’s motives for turning up in the south of Spain and homing in on him as the guy for the job might not be entirely without its own ulterior motive. Specifically, wanting to see Jackie (Julianne White), the girlfriend of Gal’s best mate, Aitch (Cavan Kendall). The two apparently had a little something going on before Jackie was with Aitch, and Don never got it out of his head that he loved her (even though sociopaths can’t love). 

    As Don becomes more and more aggressive throughout his extended visit (he claims he missed his flight and needs to stay the night now), Gal is running out of ways he can say no to the stubborn fucker. At first, he tells him quite simply, “I’m…retired.” Don balks, “Are ya?” Gal assures, “‘Fraid so. I haven’t…not got lots of money. I got enough.” And it’s that statement right there that proves to be the most terrifying to someone like Don, who wields money (as much as emotional manipulation) like a weapon to get people to do what he wants. Because without that ultimate motivator—capitalism’s greatest tool—the world just doesn’t make sense to an exploiter and opportunist like Don. So it is that he “has to” start getting rougher with Gal, reminding him that “retired” or not, he can’t bite the hand that fed him enough to think he was retired in the first place. Prompting him to mock (in a manner that would also work on John Wick for thinking he could escape the High Table), “You think this is the Wheel of Fortune? You make your dough and fuck off? ‘Thanks, Don. See you, Don.’ ‘Off to Spain, Don.’ ‘Fuck off, Don.’ Lie in your pool laughing at me, d’you think I’ll have that?” What he’s really asking, though, is: do you honestly think I, the aggressor, the alpha, the person with more power than you, will allow you to enjoy yourself when I support a system that traffics only in misery?

    But Gal never appeared to be a willing participant in that system for the long haul. And his departure from the proverbial rat race (illegal or not) in England is enough to spook other people by making them question their own lives. Like, what the fuck are they doing? Does Gal know something about “better living” that they don’t? Hence, Gal’s voiceover, “People say, ‘Don’t you miss it, Gal?’ I say, ‘What? England? Nah, fuckin’ place. It’s a dump. Don’t make me laugh. Gray, grimy, sooty. What a shithole. What a toilet. Every cunt with a long face, shufflin’ about, moanin’ or worried. No thanks, not for me.’” And this was back in 2000 (though the movie’s wide release was in 2001) when Gal was saying it, so one can only imagine how vindicated he must feel about that statement now, when Britain has only sunk further into a state of misery and disrepair. But, on a larger, more metaphorical scale, what people are asking Gal when they ask him if he misses “it,” is if he misses making money, ergo being “relevant.” Being in the world and of the world. Gal, however, knew that soft living is where it’s at. 

    To be sure, long before it became both chic and nameable, Gal was living the “soft life.” A way of being that provides “more time and energy for what makes you happy and as little time as possible focusing on what doesn’t.” Unfortunately, now just as then, there are any number of Don-like forces in this world that don’t want people to live the soft life. Not just because a considerable part of them is jealous about it (/they don’t know how to switch off and achieve that life themselves), but because the more people become wise to soft living, the more the system of capitalism gets debunked/generally crumbles. And that’s the last thing that both people in positions of power and people who have invested their entire being into the system want to happen. 

    This form of jealousy and fear tends to manifest as anger and rage on the part of the anti-soft-lifer. An anger that works toward making the person living the soft life feel both guilty and worthless for the choice they’ve made to effectively “opt out” of something like “having ambition.” Which, by capitalistic standards, frankly means selling your soul to do something you hate for a living (and, these days, still barely scraping by despite this sacrifice—at least back in the day, the promise of owning a home generally came with such professional dissatisfaction). Thus, Don not only outright calls Gal “lazy” at one point after punching him in the face just as he’s waking up in his bedroom, but he also goads, “Do it.” Gal replies, “This is madness. I’ve had enough Crime and Punishment bollocks. I’m happy here.” Don snaps back, “I won’t let you be happy! Why should I?!” Because the unhappy people committed to the non-soft life simply won’t compute that there can be happiness without suffering needlessly for it. Without the forfeiture of countless hours that could have been spent actually relaxing or otherwise enjoying oneself. But no, “enjoyment” is not the name of the game in any capitalistic enterprise. 

    After a series of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) events leads Gal to do the job he was so vehemently opposed to doing back in London, when it’s all over, he finally has to say outright to Teddy Bass, “I’m not into this anymore.” The “this” he refers to isn’t just the life of crime he was once supposedly “at home” in, but a life so entrenched in angst and anxiety due to being ruled solely by the pressures of so-called success. Albeit capitalistic success, which dictates constantly amassing more, more, more. Filling the void within via the promise of more money, but, alas, never more fulfillment. Those, like Gal, who become wise to the soft life will always be deemed a threat to the Dons and Teddys of this world, who can’t fathom an existence not rooted in torment and wasted time. Though, of course, realizing that what they’re doing is a waste of time never quite sets in either.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Open Letter Condemning Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Garners Over 450 Signatures

    Open Letter Condemning Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Garners Over 450 Signatures

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    An open letter condemning Jonathan Glazer‘s Zone of Interest Oscars acceptance speech has been signed by more than 450 Jewish Hollywood professionals.

    The group consists of actors, executives, directors, creators, producers and representatives denouncing Glazer’s controversial comments made when accepting the Academy Award for best international film on March 10.

    “We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter reads.

    In his acceptance at the 2024 Oscars, Glazer read from a prepared speech to thank his partners and then make a statement addressing the current Israel-Gaza conflict.

    “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say, ‘Look what they did then’; rather, ‘what we do now,’” Glazer said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present.”

    Glazer, who is Jewish, added: “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” Glazer said, pausing briefly due to applause.

    He continued, “Whether the victims of Oct. 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

    The open letter this week continued: “The use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history. ”

    “It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.  The current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.”

    A24, the film’s producer, declined to comment. Glazer’s representative did not immediately respond.

    The full letter and a list of co-signees follows.

    We are Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals. 

    We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.  

    Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders, is the moment this heartbreaking war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7th.

    The use of words like “occupation” to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history. 

    It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.  The current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.

    Signed,

    A.M. Driver – SAG
    Aaron Erol Ozlevi – Director
    Aaron Fishman – DGA Producer-Director
    Adam Berkowitz – Manager-Producer-Strategic Advisor
    Adam Friedman – Creative Artists Agency
    Adam Goldworm – Manager- Producer
    Adam Kulbersh
    Adam Newman
    Adam Rosenberg
    Adam Waltuch – TelevisaUnivision
    Alan R. Cohen – WGA
    Alex Anhalt – Sugar23
    Alex Foster
    Alex Horn – Author and Editor
    Alex Lebovici – Producer
    Alex Litvak – WGA
    Alex Meitner
    Alida Michql – AEA
    Alissa Vradenburg
    Aliza J. Sokolow
    Allan Spielman
    Allison Lahav
    Ally Shuster, Agent
    Alon Aranya
    Alyssa Hill – WGA Screenwriter
    Amanda Markowitz – SAG/AFTRA, PGA
    Amy Engelberg – WGA
    Amy Pascal Producer
    Amy Sherman-Palladino – WGA / DGA Writer/director/producer
    Amy Straus – WGA Writer
    Andrea Barros
    Andrea Cayton
    Andrew AvnerAndrew Stearn – PGA Producer
    Anna April-Ross
    Annie Wood – WGA/SAG/AFTRA Actor/Writer/Artist
    Ari Ackerman
    Ari Arad
    Ari Frenkel – SAG Actor / Filmmaker
    Ariel Nishli
    Ariel Vromen – DGA FilmMaker
    Ariella Blejer – WGA
    Ariella Noveck
    Ariyela Wald-Cohain – Costume Designer
    Art Levitt
    Asher Weinberger
    Avi Liberman – SAG
    Avital Levy
    Avital Onn Shachar – Business Affairs
    Aviva Pressman – AEA, SAG
    Avram Butch Kaplan – DGA Jamsea Productions, Inc
    Barbara Garshman – WGAE Garshman Productions LLV
    Barbara Heller – SAG Actor writer producer
    Barbara Lazaroff – ASID Commercial designer, restaurateur, businesswoman
    Barbie Kligman – WGA
    Barry Schkolnick – WGA Writer/Producer/Creator
    Bart Coleman
    Batia Parnass – SAG AFTRA
    Becky Tahel – PGA, SAG-E Producer, Writer, Actress
    Ben Cosgrove – CEO, Leviathan Productions
    Ben Levin – LINK Entertainment
    Ben Mor – DGA Director
    Ben Younger – WGA/DGA
    Benjamin Gober
    Benjamin Rapoport
    Bess Kargman – DGA Director
    Beth Milstein – WGAW Writer
    Betsy Borns – WGAW Writer/Producer
    Bill Freiberger – WGA WriterBob Bookman
    Bob Kushell – WGA
    Bonnie Greenberg – Music supervisor/producer/professor
    Bradley J. Fischer – Producers Guild of America Producer
    Brett Gelman – Actor and Writer
    Brett Gursky – Writer / Director / Producer
    Brian Frazer
    Brian Liebman
    Bruce Burger – Music Producer and Recording Artist, RebbeSoul
    Bruce Franklin – DGA Producer
    Bruce Goldstein – The Cat in Manhattan
    Bruce Resnikoff
    Caitlin Gold Producer
    Cameron Curtis
    Carin Sage – EVP, Feature Film, Skydance Productions
    Carl Schwaber – SAG-AFTRA
    Carmi Zlotnik
    Carolyn Newman
    Caryn Osofsky – SAG actress and director
    Chava Floryn – Filmmaker/Actress Twin Rose Media
    Chuck Slavin – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    Cindy Kaplan
    Claudine Jakubowicz – Film Producer
    Clifford J. Green – WGAW Screenwriter
    Cory Richman – Manager / Liebman Entertainment
    Craig Emanuel – Entertainment Executive
    Craig Singer – p.g.a. Producer
    D.J. Gugenheim – PGA
    D.M. Harring – WGA
    Dan Adler – Producer
    Dan Benz – wga writer
    Dan Birnbaum
    Dan Kaufman – VFX Supervisor/VFX Producer
    Dan Marshall – SAG-AFTRA
    Dan Redfeld – AFM Local 47 Composer
    Dan Signer – WGA
    Dana Min Goodman
    Dani Menkin
    Daniel Alcheh – SCL
    Daniel Grindlinger – WGA WriterDaniel Kaufman DGA Director
    Daniel Lehrer – WGA Writer
    Daniel Rosenberg – WGAe
    Daniella Rabbani – SAG AFTRA AEA Actor
    Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick – CSA Casting Director
    Danna Rosenthal
    Danny Manus – Writer, Script Consultant
    Danny Weiss – WGA
    Dave Chameides – Local 600 and DGA Camera Operator
    David Abrookin
    David Bickel – WGA Writer/Producer
    David Brandes – WGA writer
    David Fury – WGA/DGA/SAG-AFTRA Round Swamp Entertainment
    David Grae – WGA
    David Haring
    David Kekst
    David Kendall – WGA/DGA
    David Kohan – WGA Writer-Producer
    David Lipper – SAG Actor, writer, director, producer
    David N. Weiss – WGA Writer-Director
    David Price – TV Academy Executive Producer
    David Renzer – Creative Community for Peace
    David S. Rosenthal – WGA
    David Shore – WGAW DGA
    David Zabel – WGA
    Debi Pomerantz
    Deborah Marcus
    Debra Messing – SAG/AFTRA Actor/Producer
    Deena Stern – Entertainment Marketing Executive
    Dena Roth – Ampas Set decorator
    Dena Waxman – Executive Producer / Writer
    Diane Robin – Sag
    Diego Chojkier
    Doug Mankoff – Producer
    Eitan Chitayat – Creative Director
    Eli Roth – Director/Screenwriter
    Eli Steele – Producer
    Elin Hampton – WGA/SAG-AFTRA Round Swamp Entertainment
    Ellie Kadosh – Actress
    Elon Gold – WGA SAG/AFTRA Comedian/Actor/WriterElyssa Nicole Trust
    Emmanuelle Chriqui Sag Actor
    Erez Rosenberg – Attorney / Partner at Jackoway Austen et al
    Eric Feig – Entertainment Attorney
    Eric Fineman
    Eric Tuchman – WGA writer-producer
    Estelle Lasher
    Esther Netter
    Evan Silver – DGA Director / Writer
    Fernando Szew
    Franklyn Gottbetter – DGA Producer
    Fred Raskin – ACE Film Editor
    Frederic Richter
    Gabriela Tscherniak – DGA Director
    Gail Berman – PGA Producer
    Gail Goldberg – CSA Casting Director
    Gail Katz – PGA Producer
    Gary Barber – Spyglass Media Group
    Gary Gilbert – Gilbert Films
    Geoff Silverman – Producers the Cartel Literary Management
    Geoffrey Cantor – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    George Gallagher – SAG-AFTRA
    Gil Goldschein
    Ginette Rhodes – SAG AFTRA AEA
    Golan Ramraz – writer/producer
    Gregg Simon – DGA Director
    Guri Weinberg – SAG/AFTRA Actor
    Hank Steinberg – WGA / DGA Writer / Director / Producer
    Hannah Louise Shearer – WGAw Writer
    Hannah Tuber
    Hawk Koch – PGA, DGA, AMPAS Producer
    Heshy Rosenwasser – Musician and songwriter / The Hesh Inc.
    Hope Levy – Sag Aftra Actress
    Howard Michael Gould – Writer
    Howard Reichman – Producer/director
    Howard Rosenman – SAGAFTRA MOVIE & TV PRODUCER
    Iddo Goldberg – SAG Actor
    Ilana Wernick – WGA Writer-Producer
    Inbal B. Lessner – ACE Executive Producer/Editor
    Inon Shampanier – WGAIvan Menchell Writers Guild Writer/Producer
    Jacey Stamler – 705 Wardrobe Supervisor
    Jack Plotnick – SAG/AFTRA Actor
    Jacob Fenton – UTA Agent
    Jaime Becker
    Jaime Eliezer Karas – DGA
    James Beaman – SAG/AFTRA Actor/Writer
    Jamie Bialkower
    Jamie Denbo – WGA, SAG-AFTRA CO-EP Grey’s Anatomy
    Jamie Elman – SAG, WGA YidLife Crisis
    Jan Oxenberg – WGA
    Jared Sleisenger
    Jarred Weisfeld – Publishing
    Jason A. Kessler – WGA Screenwriter
    Jason Newman – Manager / Untitled Entertainment
    Jason Venokur – WGA
    Jay Kogen – wga, dga, sag-aftra WRITER/Producer/Director
    Jay Shore
    Jeff Astrof – WGA Writer/Showrunner
    Jeff Fierson – PGA Producer
    Jeff Greenberg – Gersh
    Jeff Handel
    Jeff Rake – WGA Writer/Showrunner
    Jeffrey Braer Former – SAG/AFTRA Independent Writer/Producer & Theme Park Developer
    Jenn Levine – Writer / Producer
    Jennifer jason leigh
    Jennifer Maisel – WGA Playwright/Screenwriter
    Jennifer Shakeshaft – SAG Self
    Jennifer Smith – GMS (Guild Of Music Supervisors) Music Supervisor
    Jeremy Aluma – SDC Theatre Director & Producer
    Jeremy Drysdale – WGA Screenwriter
    Jeremy Elice – Writer
    Jeremy Garelick – WGA/DGA
    Jeremy Goldscheider – Producer
    Jeremy Lehrer-Graiwer – WGA Writer
    Jeremy Padow – Screenwriter
    Jerry Weil – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    Jessica Leventhal – WGA
    Jessica Switch – PGA ProducerJill Kargman WGA/SAG
    JJ Adler – Dga Director
    Jo LaMond – WGA Self
    Joanie Leeds – Recording Academy
    Jodi Fleisher – SAG/Aftra Actor
    Jodi Lieberman – Talent Manager
    Joe Pearlman
    Joe Weisberg
    Joel Fields – WGA
    Joel H. Cohen – WGA
    Joel Michaely
    Joelle Boucai – WGA
    Joey Jupiter-Levin – SAG/Aftra Fi-Core Actress
    John Altman
    John Fogelman
    Jon Polk
    Jon Weinbach – President, Skydance Sports
    Jonah Platt – WGA, SAG
    Jonathan Baruch
    Jonathan Herman – WGA
    Jonathan Jakubowicz – Wga Writer & Director
    Jonathan Prince – WGA, DGA, SAG
    Jonathan Rosen
    Jonny Caplan – WGA Impossible Media
    Jonny Umansky – WGA Screenwriter
    Jordan Roberts – SAG-AFTRA Actor & Producer, Content Creator
    Josh Schaer – WGA TV writer / producer
    Josh Silver – Personal manager
    Joshua Katz – WGA
    Josie Davis – SAG/AFTRA
    Judie Aronson – SAG-AFTRA
    Judy Gols – Sag/Aftra, WGA, Actors Equity
    Julianna Margulies – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    Julie D. Holman – WIFT Independent film, Director, writer, and producer
    Justin Arnold – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    Kadia Saraf – SAG and WGA-E Actor and Writer
    Karen Morse – WGA Screenwriter
    Kate Cohen – DGA, PGA Producer/Director
    Keetgi Kogan Steinberg – WGA Writer/Producer/Showrunner
    Keith Eisner – WGA ShowrunnerKen Hertz Hertz Lichtenstein Young & Polk
    Keren Hantman – 1st AD
    Kevin Asch
    Kevin Bright – DGA Producer/Director
    Kimberly Ehrlich – CSA Associate Casting Director
    Kimberly Wallis – SAG/AFTRA Actor
    Kory Lunsford – Producer
    Lana Melman – Authors Guild Writer
    Lanie Siegel
    Laurie Israel – WGA, TAG
    Laurie Seidman – Producers Guild Producer
    Lawrence Bender – Producer
    Lea Porter – The Beverly Hills Estates
    Leah Gottfried
    Lee Broda – SAG AND PGA Producer and actress
    Lee Trink
    Lee Weinberg – Weinberg Gonser LLP
    Leo Pearlman
    Leonard Dick
    Leslie Belzberg – AMPAS, PGA Self Employed
    Leslie Schapira – WGA Writer/Producer
    Lev L. Spiro – DGA Director
    Limor Gott – Producer
    Linda Burstyn – WGA
    Lior Rosner – ASCAP Rosner Music Inc.
    Liron Artzi
    Lisa Edelstein – SAG/AFTRA, DGA, WGA Actor, director, writer
    Lisa Feldsher
    Lisa Ullmann – Producer and Social Impact
    Loni Steele Sosthand – WGA Writer, Producer
    Lori Alan – SAG-AFTRA Actress/producer/writer
    Lorin Green
    Loris Kramer – Lunsford Producer
    Lynn Harris – PGA:AMPAS Producer
    Lynn Roth – WGA, DGA Writer/Director/Producer
    M.J. Kang – WGA, SAG-AFTRA Writer, Actor
    Mandana Dayani
    Mandy Mitchell – Wardrobe Stylist
    Marc Guggenheim – WGA, DGA, PGA, Animation Guild Writer/Producer
    Marci Liroff – AMPAS Intimacy CoordinationMarcus J Freed SAG-e
    Margrit Polak – Talent Manager
    Mark Feuerstein – SAG, DGA, WGA Actor
    Mark Moskowitz – Producer
    Mark Pellegrino – SAG Actor
    Mark Reisman – WGA
    Mark Schiff
    Marni Flans
    Marty Adelstein – PGA Tomorrow Studios
    Matt Ritter – SAG Screenwriter/Producer/Actor
    Matthew Hiltzik
    Matthew Salsberg – wga writer producer
    Matti Leshem – WGA Writer, Producer
    Max Jacoby
    Maya Lasry
    Melissa Byer – WGA
    Melissa Center – Actor, Filmmaker
    Melissa Greenspan – Sag-aftra
    Melissa Rosenberg – WGA Showrunner
    Melissa Zukerman
    Menachem Silverstein – Comedian
    Micha Liberman – 700 editors guild Owner Mind Meld Arts
    Michael Auerbach
    Michael B. Kaplan – WGA
    Michael Berns – WGA Writer/Producer
    Michael Borkow – WGA
    Michael Diamond – Talent Manager / MGMT Entertainment
    Michael Glouberman
    Michael Konyves
    Michael Lewis – Agent
    Michael Malone
    Michael Pelmont – Manager
    Michael Rapaport – Actor/Disruptor
    Michael Robertson Moore
    Michael Sobel
    Michal Schick
    Micky Levy – WGA Writer/Director
    Mikhail Nayfeld – Heroes and Villains Entertainment
    Mimi Steinberg – Writer/producer
    Miranda Bailey – Sag – pga – academy member Cold iron picturesMitchell Akselrad WGA
    Montana Tucker
    Moran Atias – SAG Actress producer
    Nancy Cohen – WGA Writer/Producer
    Nancy Spielberg – Producer
    Natalie Marciano – President/ Producer
    Natalie Shampanier – WGA
    Nathan Firer
    Neil A. Cohen
    Nick Greene – SAG
    Nicole Rocklin – Producer
    Noa Tishby – SAG Author
    Noam Ash – Writer, actor
    Odeya Rush
    Omri Lahav
    Ophira Dagan – Producer
    Oren Safdie – WGA ST. OLAF COLLEGE
    Ori Elon Shtisel – Screenwriter
    Pam Reynolds – AMPAS / Executive branch Amazon MGM Studios
    Pamela Davis – WGA
    Patrick Moss – WGA
    Paul A Mendelson – WGGB Screenwriter and author
    Paul Weitzman – Literary Agent
    Peter Lenkov – WGA
    Phyllis Strong – WGA
    Po Kutchins – Showrunner
    Rabbi David Wolpe – Sinai Temple/ Harvard U
    Rabbi Marvin Hier
    Rabbi Steve Leser – Wilshire Boulevard Temple
    Rabbi Yonah Bookstein
    Rachel Kamerman – Art Directors Guild local #800
    Rachel Kaplan – PGA
    Rachel Seymour
    Rahman Daneshgar
    Rakefet Abergel – SAG AFTRA
    Rami Rivera Frankl – DGA
    Raphael Margules
    Raymond Leon Roker – Creator
    Rebecca Mall
    Rena Strober – Sag-Aftra Actor
    Rhonda Price
    Rina Mimoun – WGA
    Rinat Arinos
    Rob Kutner – WGA Writer-Producer
    Rob Lee – PGA
    Robert Kaplan
    Robert Lantos – PGA Producer
    Robert Rovner – WGA Writer/Producer
    Robin Carus – CSA Casting Director
    Robin Lippin – Local 399 and CSA casting director
    Robyn Bluestone
    Rochel Saks -Manager
    Rod Lurie – DGA, WGA
    Roger Kumble – WGA
    Ron Rappaport – WGA
    Ron West – Thruline Entertainment
    Rona Geller
    Ross Greenberg
    Ross Novie – DGA Director / 1st AD
    Rosser Goodman – PGA Circle Content
    Rotem Alima – Executive Producer
    Ryan Guiterman – Writer-Director
    Salvador – Litvak
    Sam Feuer – SAG/AFTRA Actor/Producer
    Sam Sandak – WGA Writer / Producer
    Sam Wasserman – Producers Guild, Academy of Television Producer
    Samantha Ettus – Founder, 2024 New Voices
    Sami Kolko – SAG AFTRA Actor / Producer
    Sammy Horowitz – WGA Writer
    Samuel Franco – WGA
    Sarah Afkami – WGA Writer
    Sari Sanchez – SAG-AFTRA Actor/ Writer
    Saul Blinkoff
    Scott Kaufman
    Scott Levine – DGA Producer
    Scott Melrose – Talent Agent
    Scott Mitchell Rosenberg – CEO, Platinum Studios Inc.
    Scott RosenbaumScott Rosenfelt – WGA, DGA Writer/Producer/Director
    Sepideh Makabi – Director
    Seth Fisher
    Seth Kurland – WGA Writer/Producer
    Seth Rudetsky – Sag/Aftra, WGA East Actor, radio host, writer, musician
    Shaked Berenson – pga
    Shani Atias – SAG AFTRA Actress
    Shanni Suissa – CEO, Jews Talk Justice
    Sharon Bialy – CSA, Academy of Motion Pictures Member Casting Director
    Sharon Farber – Film composer
    Sharon Lieblein – CSA, teamsters local 399 Casting Director
    Sharona Beck
    Shauna Perlman – Agent
    Sheer Aviram – Actress / Writer / Director
    Shep Rosenman – Attorney
    Sherry Lansing – Producer
    Shie Rozow – Motion Picture Editors Guild Composer, Music Editor
    Shir Samari
    Shira Rosenfeld – Creative producer
    Shira Yoram – Producer
    Simcha Jacobovici – Filmmaker
    Sophie Kargman – DGA Director
    Spencer Berman – Producer
    Stacey Tenenbaum – CSA
    Stacy Sarner – The Walt Disney Company
    Stella Evans
    Stephanie Liss – WGAW, DRAMATISTS GUILD Writer
    Stephen Levinson – WGA-E
    Sternberg Harriet – Harriet Sternberg Management, Inc.
    Steven E Gordon – 839 and 800 Director Wild Canary
    Steven Marmalstein – WGA
    Stuart Acher – Director/Writer
    Sue Steinberg
    Susan Rovner
    Susan Rudick – SAG-AFTRA Actor
    Tamar Pelzig
    Tamar Simon – BAFTA Film Distributor and Publicist
    Tamara Becher-Wilkinson – WGA
    Tara Strong – SAG/ACTRA Actress
    Terry Serpico – SAG AFTRA, WGAE Actor, Writer,DirectorTiffany Haimof Wasserman / Senior Director, Business Affairs
    Tiffany Lo – WGA
    Tovah Feldshuh – SAG-AFTRA-EQUITY ACTOR
    Traci Szymanski
    Tracy-Ann Oberman 0 Actor
    Victoria Gordon
    Vincent LeGrow
    Wendy Engelberg – WGA
    Wendy Sachs – WGA Director/Producer
    Yael Swerdlow – Video Game Industry CEO/Founder Maestro Games SPC
    Yahm Steinberg – Actor
    Yuri Rutman – SAG
    Yuval David – SAGAFTRA, AEA Actor, Director, Journalist
    Ziba Terrio
    Zusha Goldin

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    Zoe G Phillips

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  • Here Are All the 2024 Oscar Winners

    Here Are All the 2024 Oscar Winners

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    Poor Things
    Image: Searchlight

    After enduring the pandemic and a pair of industry-stopping strikes, Hollywood seemed extra jazzed about celebrating itself at this year’s Oscars. While there weren’t a ton of genre movies on the ballot—truly, last year’s Everything Everywhere All at Once sweep still feels rather validating—a few did find their way to the podium.

    What Should Fans Take Away from Imaginary?

    Most notably it was Poor Things leading the charge for genre, including a Best Lead Actress win for Emma Stone for her portrayal of Bella Baxter—arguably only rivalled by Oppenheimer, which took home the trio of big wins in Best Lead Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture. Barbie, amid a sea of discourse after nominees were initially announced earlier this year about perceived snubs, home only one win for original song out of its slate of nominations. Here are all the winners (plus their fellow nominees) from the 2024 Academy Awards. And may we just say, if Best Visual Effects winner Godzilla Minus One does get a sequel, we hope it makes it into more categories than its Best Picture-worthy predecessor.

    Best Supporting Actor

    • Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction)
    • Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    • Winner: Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer)
    • Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
    • Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)

    Best Supporting Actress

    • Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
    • Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)
    • America Ferrera (Barbie)
    • Jodie Foster (Nyad)
    • Winner: Da’vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)

    Best Animated Feature Film

    • Winner: The Boy and the Heron
    • Elemental
    • Nimona
    • Robot Dreams
    • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

    Best Animated Short Film

    • “Letter to a Pig”
    • “Ninety-Five Senses”
    • “Our Uniform”
    • “Pachyderme”
    • Winner: “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko”

    Best Costume Design

    • Barbie (Jacqueline Durran)
    • Killers of the Flower Moon (Jacqueline West)
    • Napoleon (David Crossman & Janty Yates)
    • Oppenheimer (Ellen Mirojnick)
    • Winner: Poor Things (Holly Waddington)

    Best Live-Action Short

    • “The After”
    • “Invincible”
    • “Knight of Fortune”
    • “Red, White and Blue”
    • Winner: “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

    Best Makeup and Hairstyling

    • Golda
    • Maestro
    • Oppenheimer
    • Winner: Poor Things
    • Society of the Snow

    Best Original Score

    • American Fiction (Laura Karpman)
    • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (John Williams)
    • Killers of the Flower Moon (Robbie Robertson)
    • Winner: Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson)
    • Poor Things (Jerskin Fendrix)

    Best Sound

    • The Creator
    • Maestro
    • Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning
    • Oppenheimer
    • Winner: The Zone of Interest

    Best Adapted Screenplay

    • Winner: American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
    • Barbie (Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig)
    • Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
    • Poor Things (Tony McNamara)
    • The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

    Best Original Screenplay

    • Winner: Anatomy of a Fall (Arthur Harari & Justine Triet)
    • The Holdovers (David Hemingson)
    • Maestro (Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer)
    • May December (Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik)
    • Past Lives (Celine Song)

    Best Cinematography

    • El Conde (Edward Lachman)
    • Killers of the Flower Moon (Rodrigo Prieto)
    • Maestro (Matthew Libatique)
    • Winner: Oppenheimer (Hoyte van Hoytema)
    • Poor Things (Robbie Ryan)

    Best Documentary Feature Film

    • Bobi Wine: The People’s President
    • The Eternal Memory
    • Four Daughters
    • To Kill a Tiger
    • Winner: 20 Days in Mariupol

    Best Documentary Short Film

    • The ABCs of Book Banning
    • The Barber of Little Rock
    • Island in Between
    • Winner: The Last Repair Shop
    • Nai Nai & Wài Pó

    Best Film Editing

    • Anatomy of a Fall
    • The Holdovers
    • Killers of the Flower Moon
    • Winner: Oppenheimer
    • Poor Things

    Best International Feature Film

    • Io Capitano
    • Perfect Days
    • Society of the Snow
    • The Teacher’s Lounge
    • Winner: The Zone of Interest

    Best Original Song

    • “The Fire Inside” (Flamin’ Hot)
    • “I’m Just Ken” (Barbie)
    • “It Never Went Away” (American Symphony)
    • “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    • Winner: “What Was I Made For” (Barbie)

    Best Production Design

    • Barbie
    • Killers of the Flower Moon
    • Napoleon
    • Oppenheimer
    • Winner: Poor Things

    Best Visual Effects

    • The Creator
    • Winner: Godzilla Minus One
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    • Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One
    • Napoleon

    Best Lead Actor

    • Bradley Cooper (Maestro)
    • Colman Domingo (Rustin)
    • Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers)
    • Winner: Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
    • Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)

    Best Lead Actress

    • Annette Bening (Nyad)
    • Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    • Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)
    • Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
    • Emma Stone (Poor Things)

    Best Director

    • Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)
    • Martin Scorcese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
    • Winner: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
    • Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
    • Johanathan Glazer (Zone of Interest)

    Best Picture

    • American Fiction
    • Anatomy of a Fall
    • Barbie
    • The Holdovers
    • Killers of the Flower Moon
    • Maestro
    • Winner: Oppenheimer
    • Past Lives
    • Poor Things
    • The Zone of Interest

    What did you think of this year’s winners? Any favorite moments from the ceremony? Share in the comments below!

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Cheryl Eddy

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  • Video: ‘The Zone of Interest’ | Anatomy of a Scene

    Video: ‘The Zone of Interest’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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    “Hello, my name is Jonathan Glazer, and I’m the writer and director of the ‘Zone of Interest.’ So we open the sequence on a prisoner gardener, one of whose duties is to clean Rudolf Höss, the commandant’s boots. So everything you’re going to see in this scene was shot simultaneously with 10 cameras. We’re watching Hedwig Höss here with her friends having — it’s a typical weekday morning in the Höss house. The cameras just shot those women in the kitchen, is running simultaneously with the cameras in here shooting this girl. And she is a character called Aniela, who was real and lived and worked in the Höss house as a domestic servant, like so many of the local Polish girls worked in SS houses for them and their families. I’m following her in this sequence rather than the main characters, because it’s really one of the only times in the film where we can see, and connect, and spend time with, essentially, a victim of these atrocities. She’s not a Jewish girl. She’s a local Polish girl. As long as she keeps her head down and gets on with her work, she’ll be safe. So that’s what you see here, really. My direction to her, I remember, was to be invisible. That’s what she had to do, and to do everything as if her life depended on it. So every action is so carefully considered here. She’s really fantastic. The purpose of shooting — using all these cameras simultaneously was because I really didn’t want to have the artificial construction of a conventional film to tell this story — rather, to view them anthropologically, as if we were a fly on the wall, really, and just watch how they behaved and how they interacted, and not get caught up in the sort of screen psychologies that one does when one uses close-ups, and film lighting, and so on. Everything you see was — there’s no film lighting at all. It’s all natural light. No film lights are used in the film, and it’s all shot simultaneously. And the effect as well, I think, puts the viewer in the same time as the actors. So we are kind of locked in a sort of present-tense atmosphere, as if this thing was really happening. There’s nothing to process in the way that we normally process films. It’s a sort of Big Brother effect, really. And what she’s doing is she is obviously collecting the boots of the commandant. He’s in a meeting. He’s come back from the camps with blood on them, and she’s letting him know that they’re ready. These guys in this scene are two senior engineers from a crematorium firm called Topf & Sons, who built and supplied crematorium to the various concentration camps.” – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] “The tone of this scene really is as if they’re selling air conditioning units. Because to them, effectively, that’s as much as human life mattered to them. In fact, they refer to them as pieces in this scene, not as human beings. And the map that he’s pointing to here was called the Ring Furnace, which was the latest design. They never got to build, but that was the latest design in crematorium technology. And he is hopeful that Rudolf Höss is going to buy it.” – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

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    Mekado Murphy

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  • “Bodies lie in the bright grass and some are murdered and some are picnicking”: The Zone of Interest

    “Bodies lie in the bright grass and some are murdered and some are picnicking”: The Zone of Interest

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    When Martin Amis’ fourteenth novel, The Zone of Interest, came out in 2014, many people still believed we lived in a very different world than the one of Nazi Germany. For Americans, after all, it was still before the 2016 election, the 2021 insurgency, the reemergence of Trump yet again in the 2024 election. People outside of the U.S., however, have always been less naive. Especially Europeans. For the lingering pall of World War II remains cast over everything throughout the continent: monuments, statues, plaques, walls. Constant reminders that to forget history is to slip back into the same dangerous patterns in the present. 

    With Jonathan Glazer’s brutal adaptation of Amis’ novel, a different aspect is highlighted than in the source material. An aspect that more directly asks the question: how does evil not only so effortlessly rationalize itself, but continue to live with itself each day? In the book, Amis does a better job of concealing his main character’s true identity by, if nothing else, naming him Paul Doll instead of Rudolf…as in Rudolf Höss, the longest-serving commandant at Auschwitz. Glazer doesn’t much bother with that, likely figuring one of history’s biggest monsters doesn’t deserve such a cloak. Being Jewish himself (unlike Amis), Glazer’s take on the material is undoubtedly more personal. And certainly comes across that way. His merciless contrast between how someone so despicable lives right next to the very thing that serves as the crux of their despicability is what keeps viewers on the edge of their seat throughout the film despite never actually seeing any onscreen torture of camp prisoners. 

    Instead, Glazer relies on the horror of the sounds coming from the camps. Screams, burnings, gunshots. All contrasted against “idyllic” scenes like the flowers growing in Rudolf’s (played by Christian Friedel) backyard. Or, more accurately, his wife’s backyard. Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, clearly on her game this year with film choices, for Anatomy of a Fall is also Oscar-nominated), indeed, “runs the roost,” as it were. Perhaps being more Nazi-like in her rigidity than her husband. In point of fact, Rudolf is sure to tell her she’s the “Queen of Auschwitz.” This being something she relays proudly to her visiting mother, Linna (Imogen Kogge). Initially, Linna seems pleased with her daughter’s way of life. “Living off the land” and all that, but, after enough days spent seeing and hearing the goings-on at the camp (complete with watching the flames burst into the sky as the crematorium roars on next to them), she departs without any warning. The note she does leave behind with an explanation is never shown to the audience, only the image of Hedwig reading it and then promptly burning it in her own “mini crematorium” of a cast iron fireplace. Because it’s clear that Hedwig can’t “receive” any information that might infect her delusions about what this place really is. What it actually represents. And that is, of course, how the unspeakable suffering of others is always at the core of those on top’s pleasure. Glazer elucidates this in so many ways throughout The Zone of Interest, but among the most memorable is when Hedwig is given the latest batch of personal effects from those transferred to the camp. Among these items is a lavish fur coat and a pink-hued lipstick. 

    Greedy Hedwig is quick to retire to her room and try these things on, even the used lipstick. Because, apparently, Jews aren’t that “dirty” to Nazis when they want to use something they’ve stolen from them. Plucked and pilfered from their very body. It is such a disgusting sight that it makes graverobbers look almost positively benign by comparison. Glazer eases his audience into this more overt form of reprehensibility, opening the film with a black screen filled with ominous noises and Mica Levi’s jarring music. That blackness leads into the contrasting image of Rudolf on an idyllic picnic with his family, taking a swim in the river as he surveys and appreciates the natural beauty around him. Natural beauty that is a stark contrast to the visions he views at “work” on a day-to-day basis. Where “just following orders” meant the mass extermination of millions of human beings. This done in just less than five years. All that life snuffed out thanks to methodical German “efficiency,” carried out by men with the same effortless compartmentalizing ability as Höss. And yes, walls like the one between Höss’ “home” and the concentration camp do make it so much easier to compartmentalize. Something that not only Germany knows about, but also Israel. With its West Bank Barrier designed to keep Palestinians (therefore, Palestinian “militants”) out as they’re summarily abused in their occupied territory.

    The seed for building this barrier was heavily planted by former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said in 1994, “We have to decide on separation as a philosophy. There has to be a clear border. Without demarcating the lines, whoever wants to swallow 1.8 million Arabs will just bring greater support for Hamas.” The clinical, “pragmatic” tone with which Rabin stated this is a mirror of Nazi “logic” during WWII. And, as so many have pointed out, it seems more than a touch ironic that the very race—Jews—subjected to such cruelty has decided to unleash similar acts of violence and oppression on another race. This being yet another reason why The Zone of Interest’s release comes at such a timely moment. Glazer couldn’t have anticipated just how timely. Not only in relation to Israel with Palestine, but also that “other” increasingly forgotten war between Russia and Ukraine. 

    This is why, when accepting the LA Film Critics Award for Best Director, Glazer remarked, “Obviously the events in the film predate the abominations of these current conflicts by years. But the questions it poses are the same: to ask ourselves to have a genuine human response, to ask ourselves why one life can be considered more valuable than another. Human pain is pain and loss is loss and at their most basic or fundamental, the needs and desires of any of us are the same. Violence and oppression of any kind produces more violence and oppression, not less.” But it seems history will never teach governments and regimes anything, that it will forever be doomed to repeat itself. Especially since, as The Zone of Interest suggests, it isn’t necessarily “pure evil” that causes violence and subjugation and genocide, but rather, a willingness to simply go along with pure evil’s will. “Just following orders.” 

    It was the Milgram Shock Experiment, conducted by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1961, that accented an unsettling point about that Nazi-spouted excuse: any ordinary person is capable of what is reductively branded as “evil.” When coerced by those in positions of authority, Milgram found that the large majority were willing to go against their own personal beliefs in order to “follow orders.” To obey. Milgram eventually summarized these unnerving findings as follows: “​​The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

    Despite ringing true in relation to how the events leading up to the Holocaust could go unchecked, Milgram’s experiment was viewed unfavorably as an analogy for what Nazi officials like Höss and Adolf Eichmann were capable of doing. And even what Höss’ wife was more than capable of turning a blind eye to for the sake of her “comforts” and “needs.” Something most are also willing to do every day while others suffer on an unfathomable scale. As Jenny Holzer once said in her Survival series, “Bodies lie in the bright grass and some are murdered and some are picnicking.” This is at the heart of what The Zone of Interest quietly, yet ruthlessly illuminates. The tragic part being that we all still need to be illuminated about our own complicity in the goings-on of the present.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • ‘Past Lives’ Named Best Picture by National Society of Film Critics

    ‘Past Lives’ Named Best Picture by National Society of Film Critics

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    The National Society of Film Critics has selected Past Lives as the best picture of 2023.

    May December and The Zone of Interest each received two awards. May December was recognized with awards for best screenplay and supporting actor, Charles Melton. Zone of Interest helmer Jonathan Glazer was named best director, with star Sandra Hüller receiving recognition as best actress for her performances in both Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall.

    Best actor went to All of Us Strangers‘ Andrew Scott, and The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress. Best cinematography went to Rodrigo Prieto for Killers of the Flower Moon.

    The NSFC, founded in 1966 and made up of more than 60 critics from prominent outlets across the country, annually votes on its selections for best picture, director, actor, actress, supporting actor and actress, screenplay and cinematography. Awards may also be given out to film not in the English language, nonfiction film, production design and film heritage.

    This year, the group began with a number of special awards, including film heritage honors for Criterion Channel and Facets, Kim’s Video, Scarecrow Video and Vidiots.

    The NSFC praised Criterion for its “adventurous, wide-ranging, finely curated selection of films, ranging from American independents to world cinema to short films to classic Hollywood, making readily available the kind of repertory cinema that every city should have.”

    Facet’s, Kim’s Video, Scarecrow Video and Vidiots were recognized for “maintaining wide-reaching libraries of films on disc and tape and making those libraries available to the general public.”

    Voting is conducted via a weighted ballot system, the group explained on its X (formerly known as Twitter) account. On the first ballot, members vote for their top three choices, with the first choice getting three points, second choice getting two points and third choice getting one point. The nominee that receives the most points and appears on the majority of ballots wins. If no winner is declared on the first ballot, the category goes to a second ballot, without proxies. Voting continues with as many rounds as necessary until a nominee receives the most points and appears on the majority of ballots.

    Any film that debuted in theaters or on streaming platforms in the U.S. during 2023 was eligible for awards consideration.

    Last year, the NSFC named Tár as its best film of 2022, with Cate Blanchett also awarded best actress for her starring role and writer-director Todd Field getting the best screenplay award. Separately, The Banshees of Inisherin‘s Colin Farrell won best actor for his performances in both that film and After Yang, and Banshees‘ Kerry Condon was named best supporting actress.

    A complete list of the winners and runners-up from 2023 follows.

    Best picture: Past Lives
    Runners-up:
    The Zone of Interest
    Oppenheimer

    Best director: Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
    Runners-up:
    Todd Haynes, May December
    Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

    Best actor: Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers
    Runners-up:
    Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
    Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

    Best actress: Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest
    Runners-up:
    Emma Stone, Poor Things
    Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon

    Best supporting actor: Charles Melton, May December
    Runners-up: Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer, and Ryan Gosling, Barbie (tie)

    Best supporting actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
    Runners-up:
    Penélope Cruz, Ferrari
    Rachel McAdams, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

    Best screenplay: Samy Burch, May December
    Runners-up:
    Celine Song, Past Lives
    David Hemingson, The Holdovers

    Best cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon
    Runners-up:
    Łukasz Żal, The Zone of Interest
    Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer

    Best experimental film: Jean Luc-Godard’s Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars

    Film heritage award: Criterion Channel

    Film heritage award: Facets, Kim’s Video, Scarecrow Video and Vidiots

    Special citation for a film awaiting U.S. distribution: Víctor Erice’s Close Your Eyes

    This story was first published on Jan. 6 at 10:05 a.m.

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    Hilary Lewis

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  • 'The Zone of Interest' is a Must-See Study of Evil

    'The Zone of Interest' is a Must-See Study of Evil

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    The Zone of Interest, written and directed by Jonathan Glazer and based on the book by Martin Amis, has a deceptively simple plot. Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) lives with his family in an upscale home with a lush, sprawling yard. Rudolf finds out he’s being transferred to another location; his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) is angry at the thought of leaving their idyllic life behind. They amuse themselves by boating on the nearby river and inviting guests over for tea. Hedwig is proud of her Edenic garden, with grapevines and roses growing against one high concrete wall.

    On the other side of that wall is Auschwitz itself.

    The death camp is, arguably, the most important character in the film, and it roars at the edges of the characters’ perception. Sickening sounds float into the Hösses’ yard: gunshots, screams, and the constant rumble of the crematorium, whose voracious flames light up the night. The Höss family’s bucolic life is punctuated by the whistles of trains arriving at the camp.

    Yet, thanks in part to Johnnie Burn’s ingenious sound design, the Höss family seems strangely immune to the horrors happening over the wall. They seem so blasé, in fact, that only the most ghastly atrocities seem to ruffle them, and it’s in those brief instances that we get the most intriguing character studies. The family and their home are seemingly at the center of the film, but the real story is what’s happening just beyond the camera lens. Friedel and Hüller do a remarkable job of conveying the hollowness at the center of the Hösses: two people who have signed away their souls for a pretty garden.

    Yet, even in conditions as claustrophobically vile as these—and even in a story whose ending we already know—the film still manages to let in a tiny ray of hope. Yes, we’re confronted with the bottomless evil of a nice Nazi family, but we also see glimpses of people trying to help the Jews and other Auschwitz prisoners. The Hösses have let themselves become monsters, but around the edges of their story, we see people who have kept hold of their humanity.

    The film’s visuals and story structure are stunning. The innovative camera work, for which Glazer and cinematographer Łukasz Żal installed hidden cameras in the house, creates the feeling that Höss and his family are subjects of study, or even surveillance. Some night scenes are shot with a thermal imaging camera, creating a dreamlike quality. At one point, the film jumps forward in what could be interpreted as one character’s sudden vision of the future. At another, as the film grapples with the incomprehensible nature of its subject matter, the screen simply burns into a bracing field of red. In portraying a crime too colossal for words, The Zone of Interest finds its own language to express what feels unspeakable.

    The Zone of Interest is a breathtaking achievement, but there’s one thing that scares me: A solid Holocaust education is absolutely necessary to understand it. I’ve met Holocaust survivors and said Kaddish at the sites of mass graves. I immediately recognize the significance of a train whistle or a smoke stack. All around me, though, I see rising ignorance and denial of not just the Holocaust, but any genocide. When a work of art depends on a baseline of historical literacy, what happens when that work’s audience drifts further and further from that baseline? What happens when audience members literally don’t know what genocide looks like?

    Most of us like to think that we would never support atrocities like the Holocaust. That genocide is the realm of monsters and villains, not decent people like us. However, The Zone of Interest gives lie to that idea. Genocide flourishes under the touch of people as ordinary as you or me, and although the real Rudolf Höss was eventually tried and executed for his crimes, many more Nazis—average citizens who were fine with exterminating people they didn’t like—walked free. As Auschwitz survivor Joseph Wulf, whose song “Sunbeams” is included in the film, put it shortly before his death in 1974: “You can document everything to death for the Germans …. Yet the mass murderers walk around free, live in their little houses, and grow flowers.”

    The Zone of Interest comes out in theaters on December 15.

    (featured image: A24)

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Julia Glassman

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