Film #173: Fahrenheit 451

NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, I have yet to read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Even though I own an autographed first edition of it (and many other sci-fi/horror books), I mostly read non-fiction, preferring to get my fiction from movies. The irony is thick here, I realize.

A few times over the past decades, I remember telling a few film lovers how much I admired Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, only to have the opposition defame my assessment. I've long been always confused by this, because my first viewing of the film was so memorable, probably due to the fact I’d seen very little Truffaut up to that point. The New Wave signatures—the pump-ins, the occasional slow-motion, the graphically stunning irises—shook my world. But, seeing it now, I think I understand where the naysayers were coming from. Fahrenheit 451, in my advanced age, strikes me as an overly-simplified telling of this complex tale, first written in 1953 as a reaction against McCarthy-era devaluing of intellectual ideals.

As presented in the film, the story is one of personal awakening by its main character, Montag. In this strange vision of a future that is decidedly non-futuristic (I guess the film’s clearly low-budget got in the way of depicting an outlook more technologically far along than this, though I kind of like the mixture of the old and new worlds), Werner plays a fireman—that is, a man that starts fires rather than extinguishes them (“We burn books to ashes, and then we burn the ashes”)—who becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his home and work life. Each day, he is sent out on  destructive missions that have begun to eat into his soul, with his commander (a jangly Cyril Cusack, in a role originally intended for Lawrence Olivier) and chief rival Fabian (haughty Anton Diffring) continually looking over his shoulder as if they know something is wrong with him. Montag returns home to Linda, his beautiful but vapid wife (Julie Christie) who can only tear herself away from her flat-screen TV--a bit of prognostication the film gets correct--long enough to down sedatives from her blue bottle (amphetamines are in the red one).

Montag is shaken awake by Clarisse, the gamine young teacher he meets one afternoon on his home-bound monorail. She, too, is played by Christie; the wife is long-haired, and the teacher’s do is more close-cropped, and that is almost the entire difference between the two performances (in the book, Clarisse is much younger). It’s a challenging choice, having the actress play both roles, and I understand Truffaut’s wish not to set up a typical heroine/villainess dichotomy with two separate actresses. Yet I wish Christie had, as Clarisse, enlivened her delivery a bit more; meanwhile, she perfectly assays the deadened Linda, maybe because she’s not much of an actress at this stage in her career (despite her having won the Oscar the year before for John Schlesinger’s Darling).

Still, it’s clear Clarisse is a self-described “well of words” whose embrace of ideas and narrative is obvious, even as she never discusses her secret passion for books. After all, she’s talking to a fireman, and people are generally afraid of firemen, who can approach with impunity and search your body for any books they might suspect hidden (one of the film’s best scenes has firemen patrolling a kid’s playground, with one casually upending a woman’s picnic basket, while another pats down a pregnant woman’s belly and later the captain finds a tiny tome hidden in a baby’s jumper). But Clarisse senses something is different about Montag, and she keeps him on her radar.

The film dramatizes this working man’s transformation rather clumsily. We’re aware he knows how to hide things—a talent he’s had to learn as part of his job uncovering concealed volumes–and once we see he has a secret compartment in his modern household, we’re sure there’s going to be a book hidden there sooner or later. The first one he reads is Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, and we see Montag going though the title page (word for word), starting with the chapter title “I Am Born.” Montag is born here, too, and this indomitable paragraph feels like it tells his story, just like it tells our own. This is a terrific sequence, centered in on the words on the page, instantly reminding us what’s essential about fiction, in that we can see ourselves in stories that put eloquent words to their character’s (and our own) struggles.

But the film falls down in showing Montag’s ultimate shift. Before we sense the difference in his personality from discovering the enrichment in reading (which never comes, because there is no step-up in Werner’s sleepy performance), suddenly there are massive tomes sneaking around his home. When this third-act discovery lands, we’re dumbfounded. “Wow, he’s been doing a lot of reading. When did this happen?” This is the point where I began to ponder the possibility of Fahrenheit 451 needing a remake (which, apparently, is happening courtesy of HBO, who announced in April 2016 a remake slated to be helmed by Man Push Cart and 99 Homes director Ramin Bahrani).

This isn’t the first time such a project has been announced–I recall Mel Gibson being attached to a remake in the early ’90s. Even so, I can only hope this newly-proposed iteration is going to be an eight-episode miniseries or at least a four-hour two-parter, as Bradbury’s original story includes a bloody war going on in this dystopian world’s background (which would possibly clarify the explicit assault on words—here, it’s too-simply portrayed as a battle against people being threatened by ideas that might make them unhappy, while no thought is given to expressions that DO make them happy). I also had to ask myself, well, given that no one really likes to talk to each other in this world filled with empty-headedness and paranoia, how is essential information transmitted? This being a pre-digital telling of the story, the film shows Cyril Cusack going to a bank of file cabinets for information and pulling out Montag’s file, which includes only mugshots of Oskar Werner (including only 6, not the required 12, shots of the back of his head), and in seeing this I wondered “Well, how does this help in any given situation?” I could see a remake fixing all of this with well-placed digital goo-gaws. I also see reparations on those still-striking views Truffaut gives us of people rifling through newspapers filled with only wordlessly cryptic comic-book panels.

There are also problems with the film’s climax, with Montag escaping his former life and taking up with the Book People, a forest-bound commune of intellectuals who each choose preferable texts to memorize in whole in order to preserve them for future generations. Memorization seems like a weak defense for such importance (the digital world could fix this), and as beautiful–and gorgeously fun–as this sequence is, it doesn’t make for a very desirable outcome. The sight of people walking around in the snowy winter, endlessly reciting the volumes they’ve devoted themselves to doesn’t strike us as one that’s demonstrably preferable to  the robotic realm left behind. There’s still no real human communication going on.

Now, I realize my words are making it seem like I don’t like Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. But I do. I can see now his difficulty in making this his first (and only) English-language film. I can sense it in his direction to the actors; apparently, he had a communication clash with Werner great enough for the director to classify this as his most unhappy filming experience (he originally wanted to go with either Charles Aznavour or Jean-Paul Belmondo in the lead, but producers balked at that, so Terrence Stamp was enlisted, until he realized he’d be overshadowed by Christie in the two female leads). And, unusually, I realize it in the titles Truffaut shows, in the film’s most difficult-to-watch sequences, as victims in the book-burning sequences (among the title being destroyed here: Proust, Genet, Behan, Nabokov, but also books by Charles Chaplin, and ones including images by Salvador Dali and even Truffaut's old haunt Cahiers du Cinema).

But when it comes to FILM language, Truffaut excels often. The movie’s most energetically edited sequences are its best: the firemen’s preparations for duty (a scene that probably influenced countless filmmakers, including James Cameron) and the bookburning sequences, chief among them the film’s centerpiece, an errand targeting Clarisse’s old-fashioned home (the more traditional they are, the more likely they are to house books), with the superb Bee Duffell, cast with her unmistakable chipmunk cheeks, as Clarisse’s housemate, a woman who would prefer to die along with her friendly books. Duffell was an Irish actress with an atypical visage who appeared in Quatermass and the Pit and, in her final performance, as an old crone in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Her one-scene performance here, though, cements her in film history. She bravely lights the match that sets herself and her print collection on fire, and as such, she still burns in the minds of those who love books and would gladly perish with them.

It’s the film’s sensational photography, by Nicolas Roeg, that keeps you going through it. Just looking at Fahrenheit 451 is a treat. Your eyes drink in those dazzling reds around the firehouse (where even the firepole senses Montag’s betrayal), or the maudlin oranges in Montag’s chilly home. The blue siren lights sing around the book-burning spots, as do the drab cement grays around the blocky British suburbs. The enveloping warmth of the Book Woman’s library is an oasis, albeit one short lived, while the autumnal and ultimately snowy vistas of the book-lover’s fiefdom leaves you with the impression that a fantastic movie has been seen (until you’re left to put it all together). There’s only one disappointing special effects shot to be seen here, a goofy view of four dangling air-patrolling policemen that’s clearly a blue-screened afterthought. Still, Tony Walton’s costume design (Nazi-influenced, when it comes to the firemen’s sternly blackened uniforms) and Syd Cain’s art direction also do their part (although one senses that the set design could use a little more cash thrown at it).

I also love Truffaut’s many dark gags: the needless breaking of things in the Book Woman’s house; Cusack’s throwaway “Stop it” to a man pantomiming a romantic embrace during the playground assault; the apple-chomping book lover seen throughout the entire film (munching on the fruit of knowledge); Anton Diffring’s cross-dressing second role as a briefly-seen woman observing Clarisse’s return to the elementary school she’s been fired from for being too smart; the Captain holding up a copy of Mein Kampf as he extols the burning of all books; the dumpy doctors outrageously dressed in white patent leather while giggling over tending to the comely Linda as she lies overdosed on downers; the inclusion of a Mad Magazine paperback during the book burning sequence; Linda’s gasp as she removes a picture from a wall and finds a book dropping from behind it (she acts like it’s a cockroach); the Book Woman’s smiling regurgitation of by-rote times tables as her executioners count down to her death; the twin book lovers at the end who represent the two volumes of Pride and Prejudice; and, most notably, the hilarious TV show (“Come Play With Us”) that Linda gleefully participates in, not realizing that her responses have been pre-determined by the producers (“What do you think, Linda?”). I adore these sly touches.

And there are more serious moments that land mightily, like the one where Montag identifies an elderly man as a book-holder (the film’s frame alarmingly solidifies the suspect, with blackness keeping him in check). There’s that great scene (perhaps Werner’s best) where he reads to Linda’s collected girlfriends, reducing us to sorrow because she had never been reminded of emotions she’d held inside. There’s the agitating moment where Clarisse tearfully revisits her stark elementary school, with a former student recoiling in horror upon seeing her (the kid is played by a pre-Oliver Mark Lester). In a quick glimpse, we see Montag’s escape story being told on TV, with only the shot of the back of his head (the one that his captain wanted more examples of earlier) being used as public identification. And, finally, there’s glory in the final sequence where human intelligence somehow finds peace in this absurdly callous world.

On speaking to how Ray Bradbury’s story has come to fruition, one has to look at the devaluation of books, and even movies, as commodities. As a collector, I can’t help but see my library (with many first editions, including a signed first edition of Fahrenheit 451) spiraling down in intellectual value now that millennials (at least) fail to recognize the worth of real-world books. But I do see this film, and the book it’s based on, as an effective clarion call to their import. No Kindle version, subject to open-ended editing, can be trusted against the power of the printed word, and no world without reading can be one that adequately celebrates the accomplishments of man. Still, I do hope for an eventually superior cinematic recounting of Mr. Bradbury’s universally prescient mainstay.

Film #172: Quatermass and the Pit

I'm surprised by the seemingly large number of rabid science-fiction fans who have never seen the Hammer Studios' classic Quatermass and the Pit. Why have they missed this essential entry in the Bristish studio's treasured output? Well, neither Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing are in it, first of all. It wasn't a major hit when it arrived in 1967. It’s been out of print on DVD for many years, and was only released on Blu-Ray in 2011, and has quickly gone out of print again. Also there could be some confusion lingering as it was (not badly) renamed Five Million Years to Earth upon its 1968 American release, since the estimable UK TV and movie hero Professor Bernard Quatermass was largely an unknown quantity on US shores. Anyway, it's a film that's never been talked about in the same breath as other heady sci-fi classics like Solaris and Blade Runner, though it certainly deserves to be. If I’m correct and many of you have missed this bonafide masterpiece--or somehow have forgotten its rather nightmarish power--I’m happy to lead you to a visitation (or re-visitation) of its estimable horrors.

The Quatermass series has a complex history. It originated on British TV in 1953, with actor-turned-writer Nigel Kneale’s serial The Quatermass Experiment dramatizing the aftermath of a failed mission to space; a single astronaut (out of a three-man crew) returns to Earth, upon which Quatermass is charged to figure out why the spaceman’s flesh is slowly deteriorating. Reginald Tate would be the first of many actors to assay the role, and the piece would be remade for cinemas in 1955 with Brian Donlevy in the lead (the film would be rather strangely retitled The Creeping Unknown in the US).

The TV serial was a huge hit for BBC, so they quickly were on board for a 1955 sequel, Quatermass II, which had John Robinson taking over the role after Reginald Tate’s untimely death at 58. In this installment, Quatermass studies the effects of a meteor shower and uncovers an alien invasion that has reached the top echelons of the British government, and so it’s up to the professor to weigh the pros and cons of using a nuclear device to upset the alien plot. Once again, this massive hit was remade for cinemas in 1957 with the highly difficult Brian Donlevy in the lead (he was battling serious alcoholism). The US distributors, obviously continuing to have a difficult time with the character’s name, decided to give this one the drab moniker Enemy From Space.

By 1958, BBC was again badgering Kneale for another series, so he came up with Quatermass and the Pit. In this cycle, the professor (here played by Andre Morell) and his team soon ferret out a mind-boggling theory that puts forth not only answers to our derivation from alien species, but also to the very human notion of abject evil and its representatives here on Earth. This turned out to be the most thoughtful and unsettling entry into the series, and it’s for this reason that the cinematic adaptation didn’t arrive for almost another decade (not surprisingly, the American financiers were flummoxed by the story). Anyway, it was probably a bear for Kneale to reduce his tale down to a more movie-shaped 90 minutes (by the way, the 3 ½ hour, six-episode original is now available on You Tube).

It’s good they waited, though. As fine as Hammer house director Val Guest’s work was on the first two black-and-white cinematic installments, by 1966, when Hammer was charged with remaking Quatermass and the Pit, the addition of color was absolutely necessary, and director Roy Ward Baker’s use of Hammer’s team in this regard was exemplary. Hammer films are always better in color, and as always, red is there favorite hue. It pops up most creatively all throughout this film, and is invariably a sign of scary things to come. But blues, greens and grays are equally important here.

The unusual burning-red credits that open Quatermass and the Pit are a portent of hellish things to come. Under Tristam Cary’s stinging but sparse score, blazing puzzle pieces fit together to construct a horrific skull as the unusually shortened credits sequence unfolds into a thin horizontal image of a London bobby patrolling the street’s outside of the Hobbs End underground station, where tunneling workers are dutifully peeling away layers of gooey clay. Director Baker keeps things moving quickly in this picture, so in only seconds, the major discovery of a glimmering, simian-looking skull appears in their sights. “Look at those dead eyes, and those gnashers,” a worker says. And before we can breathe again, another skeleton unglued from the mud, and the government is called in to investigate as Mod London looky-loos are gathering outside the station.

Leading the excavation is Dr. Matthew Roney (James Douglas), a grey-suited, serious-faced sort of chap, thin and pinched though joyful at his new find. His second is Barbara Judd (Barbara Steele), who supervises the various spots where fossils have been located. Roney manages the tour of the site for the press, who are present as new pieces are uncovered (one of the excavators is played by Bee Duffell, who portrayed the book-loving woman forced to see her library go up in flames in Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451). Under the interrogation of a red-coated journalist, Roney admits his belief that the fossils are evidence of an ancient ape-man that predates science’s view of man’s arrival on Earth. Just as this is unfolding, Duffell discovers a wall of metallic material she cannot define. The possibility is raised that this is an unexploded bomb dropped during the German blitz, and as far fetched as this is, it’s a good enough cover story to keep the public far away from their findings.

But it necessitates the arrival of the military, who have no time for science. Roney sees his site taken over and demands answers from the higher ups. This introduces Julian Glover as hawkish Colonel Breen, who’s introduced battling rocket scientist Professor Quatermass (Andrew Keir, who is superb here in his bearded authority) over the future of moon colonization, which is wholly being taken over by the military against his peaceful objections (“Nose to the grindstone,” says the prim government bureaucrat as he leaves them to it). Breen gets a call to Hobbs End, and he invites Quatermass to join him in a shakily placid collaboration.

When they see the “unexploded bomb,” it’s instantly clear this is not a construction of 1940s Germany. It has been excavated further, and looks like something constructed by a young H.R. Giger, with sharp lines and weird curves that connote something from another world (I guarantee, this film was a big influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien). Of course, the colonel stays his course, but Quatermass immediately thinks bigger. This craft they discover doesn’t conform to anything known by man. It’s a metal that doesn’t conduct magnetism and is resistant to any damage. But the military man, realizing his job is over if it’s NOT a bomb, stick to his story. But when another skull is discovered under the craft’s hull, Quatermass asks how did it get there, and remain there intact. The colonel is clearly disturbed by this, and by the news from his captain (Bryan Marshall) that there are no records of unexploded arsenal landing in the area. Quatermass is clearly both an establishment and anti-establishment figure here. I love how the movie sets him up as an authority and as a protester against military aggression. Thank goodness Kneale and Ward did this without introducing any hippie characters that could have badly dated the film.

It’s told that the area around the station had been abandoned during the war, not by evacuation, but by choice; the population had abandoned the area out of some “superstition” that the area housed a terrible power. “A lot of nonsense, I dare say,” a policeman tells an intrigued Quatermass. In examining the abandoned flats across the street, the professor learns of noises heard, things seen, that frightened the inhabitants away. The eerily scratched walls seem to bear this out, and so does the sweaty bobby who crumbles under the pressure of inhabiting the area. Miss Judd then informs Quatermass, upon his notice of the area’s original name Hob’s Lane, that Hob was once a popular nickname for Satan.

I think that’s quite enough to get one interested in the film. I don’t want to reveal any more than is uncovered in its first third. But, of course, I do want to trumpet the movie’s later success. It’s really a celebration of science (as is the entire Quatermass series). It’s a film about keen observation and its resulting conclusions. Quatermass and the Pit is, all at once, a piece concerned with fear, curiosity, and revelation. Quatermass, Roney and Judd form a triad devoted to discovering truth, even in the face of remarkably preposterous evidence. Watching it is to look into the face of those who believe one thing, only to discover another, more outlandish reality. It’s the essence of science (“The Germans didn’t make this and lose the secret,” Quatermass says of the harder-than-diamond craft. “You ask Von Braun”).

Quatermass and the Pit doesn’t shirk away from terror. As the process goes on, the threats mount, and the implications mount even higher. But it becomes a film that doesn’t accept superstition as rote, but as a jumping-off point for recognizing the reasons behind false beliefs. In that way, it’s very much unlike most science-fiction films. It has its roots firmly planted in the terra firma, and yet it becomes so otherworldly. The sequence following the exploration of the craft is unnerving; its results are even more so.

Proper respect must be given here to the movie’s art direction (by Bernard Robinson), makeup (by Michael Morris), and sound design. At times since its release, the film’s low budget has been held against it. But these artisans really make their creations sing. It’s true that, later on in the film, the visual effects let us down a bit. But I contend they add, in their ineptness, a kind of odd movement that better effects would fail to achieve. They somehow hit the abstract mark of pure, primordial dread. I've always thought it interesting that this film and 2001: A Space Odyssey arrived on screens at nearly the same time. Both films are about dug-up discoveries that send humans hurtling towards disclosures about our past for which our species is not quite prepared. Both are about the co-mingling of alien and human experience, and even of their shared DNA. I have no doubt that Kubrick viewed the original BBC production, since he watched even the most obscure science-fiction films in preparation for 2001. But, by the time its screeching, glaringly strange and harrowing denouement, Quatermass and the Pit provides an insight that Kubrick’s film arguably misses: in this co-mingling, a myth was formed, and that myth created religion—the uneasy cohabitant of science. This idea creeps me out, and is the chief quality that makes this smart, fast-moving, highly entertaining film unforgettable.

2016--The Year in Review

As in the past few movie years, most of 2016 felt like a bottomless nadir for cinema--I know it looks like I'm listing a lot of movies here, but the real achievers end at about the halfway mark. By November, seeing that the studios had abandoned all good taste, and that foreign product was nearly impossible to see, I was ready to name the collected titles in the current TV revolution as my number one pick of the year. I mean, when you have miniseries like American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, Horace and Pete, The Night Of, The Crown, and The Night Manager, and series TV like Atlanta, Baskets, Ray Donovan, The Americans, Black Mirror, Better Things, black-ish, Stranger Things, and This Is Us, plus occasional TV movies like Madoff, Confirmation, and All The Way...well, that's an avalanche of great stuff that can't be ignored. I still probably got more enjoyment out of TV than the movies this year, but the big screen finally came through with a tsunami of distinguished titles at the end of the year (to be fair, the indie world gave us some terrific material during its midsection). I still think the movies are in deep trouble, but maybe the current direness in the real world is gonna give the creative community a generous goose.

The film that gave me the biggest cinematic recharge this year was Damien Chazelle's chancy yet unspeakably glorious La La Land, which, by virtue of its early frontrunner status as Best Picture, got a big ol' target painted on its back for no good reason. This year, movie fans were either Team La La or Team Moonlight, referring to Barry Jenkins' widely loved character study of a gay and closeted black boy's progress from childhood to man. I appreciated many things about Jenkins' bravery and filmmaking prowess, yet I feel strangely distanced (and frankly a little bored) by the movie and its inexpressive main character (whose journey I could not completely buy into). All of this contributed to that now-famous clusterfuck at the end of this year's Oscar ceremony, when a Price Waterhouse screw-up of gigantic proportions led to the wrong film being announced as Best Picture (with La La Land, despite winning six awards including Best Director and Best Actress, becoming another victim of the preferential ballot, and the first 3-minute Best Picture winner in Oscar history). Part of me, though, is happy that a small, mini-budgeted indie like Moonlight actually became the winner; maybe, as a result, we'll see more intimate movies like it in the future runnings for Best Picture.

But I'm still in the La La Land cheering section. Chazelle's nostalgic, daring film just floored me with its energy, sweetness, and vivacious craft. Emma Stone ended up besting a formidable slate of competing actresses, totally deserving her Oscar as the film's MVP, though Gosling was very much her perfect match. The art directors' and costumers' bright colors, the daring camera moves by cinematographer Linus Sandgren, and Justin Hurwitz's gorgeous score all ensured this movies quality from the get-go, even if Chazelle's scripting let the film down a tiny bit. I'm as cynical as they come, and I can confidently tell you that this is the movie of the year--a movie lover's movie, eaten up with an adoration of what makes the art form lavish and exciting. Screw the bitter naysayers of the Oscar season: with its often dark and always enraptured examination of things that might have been, La La Land captured my heart from its first frame and never let go. It continues to do so with many others moviegoers, and I'm happy to be in this cabal.

So many of the best movies this year got a little love from the critical community, but not nearly enough in the end. Movies like Whit Stillman's endlessly clever Jane Austen adaptation Love and Friendship,  Mike Mills' revealingly autobiographical 20th Century Women, Jim Jarmusch's gleaming celebration of the average man's creative spirit Paterson, Ira Sachs' aching tale of a dissolving teenage friendship Little Men, Ken Loach's devastating indictment of the UK's unforgiving health care bureaucracy I, Daniel Blake, the Barack-and-Michelle first date movie Southside With You, Jon Favreau's blockbuster remake of The Jungle Book, and the crushing biopic Christine (with the unforgettable Rebecca Hall putting a sure face to a famously mysterious victim of depression) were all largely edged out of the running for year-end acclaim. Yet there was still a little room for Kenneth Lonergan's bleak but emotionally effusive Manchester by the Sea to send that underappreciated filmmaker and his low-key yet immanently deserving star Casey Affleck into the winner's circle.

Sadly, though, one of the year's most undeniably notable films, writer/producer James Schamus' directorial debut Indignation, culled from a Philip Roth novel, was unjustly forgotten by nearly everyone. I correct that injustice here by giving Schamus and co-star Tracy Letts (stunning as a snooty university dean) their due. I also concurred with the Academy that Viola Davis deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar in reprising her stage role as Denzel Washington's neglected wife in the star's adaptation of August Wilson's Fences. I also agreed with them that the excellent documentary O.J: Made in America definitely deserved the Documentary Feature award, even it it was really a TV production (recent rule changes in the Academy have insured that this sort of confusion won't ever happen again). Two notes: a terrible year for foreign product (at least that of which made it to American shores) and a really incredible year for the Best Song category. In the end, I agreed with 12 of the Academy's 24 choices--not bad! But, finally, I woulda given La La Land nine Oscars in total. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold.

PICTURE: LA LA LAND (US, Damien Chazelle) (2nd: Manchester by the Sea (US, Kenneth Lonergan), followed by: O.J.: Made in America (US, Ezra Edelman); Love and Friendship (Ireland/France/Netherlands, Whit Stillman); 20th Century Women (US, Mike Mills); Indignation (US, James Schamus); Paterson (US, Jim Jarmusch); I, Daniel Blake (UK/France/Belgium, Ken Loach); Little Men (US, Ira Sachs); Southside With You (US, Richard Tanne); Christine (US, Antonio Campos); Kate Plays Christine (US, Robert Greene); The Jungle Book (US, Jon Favreau); Weiner (US, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg); 13th (US, Ava Duvernay); Things to Come (France, Mia Hansen Love); Toni Erdmann (Germany, Maren Ade); Sully (US, Clint Eastwood); Loving (US, Jeff Nichols); Rules Don't Apply (US, Warren Beatty); Cameraperson (US, Kristen Johnson); Sunset Song (UK, Terrence Davies); Blood Father (US/France, Jean-François Richet); De Palma (US, Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow); Hunt for the Wilderpeople (New Zealand, Taika Waititi); Eye in the Sky (UK/South Africa, Gavin Hood); Certain Women (US, Kelly Reichardt); The Neon Demon (US/Denmark/France, Nicolas Winding Refn); Elle (France/Germany/Belgium, Paul Verhoeven); The Edge of Seventeen (US, Kelly Fremon Craig); Maggie's Plan (US, Rebecca Miller); Silence (US/Taiwan/Mexico, Martin Scorsese); Tower (US, Keith Maitland); A Hologram for the King (UK/US/Germany/France, Tom Tykwer); Sing Street (Ireland/UK/US, John Carney); Moonlight (US, Barry Jenkins); Fences (US, Denzel Washington); Aquarius (Brazil, Kleber Mendonca Filho); War Dogs (US, Todd Phillips); The Founder (US, John Lee Hancock); Nocturnal Animals (US, Tom Ford); Remember (Canada, Atom Egoyan); The Salesman (Iran, Asghar Farhadi); The Infiltrator (US, Brad Furman); Jackie (US/France/Chile, Pablo Larrain); The Invitation (US, Karyn Kusama); The Witch (US/UK/Canada, Robert Eggers); The Phenom (US, Noah Buschel); Don't Think Twice (US, Mike Birbiglia); Zootopia (US, Byron Howard and Rich Moore); Hell or High Water (US, David MacKenzie); Amanda Knox (US/Denmark, Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn); The Birth of a Nation (US, Nate Parker); Train to Busan (South Korea, Sang-ho Yeon); Bad Moms (US, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore); Bleed for This (US, Ben Younger); Mr. Church (US, Bruce Beresford); Audrie and Daisy (US, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk); The Trust (US, Alex Brewer and Ben Brewer); Kubo and the Two Strings (US, Travis Knight); Into the Inferno (UK/Germany/Canada, Werner Herzog); The Fits (US, Anna Rose Holmer); Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (US, Werner Herzog); The Nice Guys (US, Shane Black); The Accountant (US, Gavin O'Connor); Pee-Wee's Big Holiday (US, John Lee); Keanu (US, Peter Atensio); The Bandit (US, Jesse Moss); Deepwater Horizon (US, Peter Berg); The Shallows (US, Jaume Collet-Serra); Class Divide (US, Marc Levin); Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You (US,  Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady); Imperium (US, Daniel Ragussis); Hands of Stone (US/Panama, Jonathan Jakubowicz); The Hollars (US, John Krasinski); Denial (UK/US, Mick Jackson); Anthropoid (UK/France/Czech Republic, Sean Ellis); Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (US/UK, Gareth Edwards); Team Foxcatcher (US, Jon Greenhalgh); Patriot's Day (US, Peter Berg); Hidden Figures (US, Ted Melfi); Hail Caesar! (US, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen); Everybody Wants Some!! (US, Richard Linklater); Midnight Special (US, Jeff Nichols); Eddie the Eagle (UK, Dexter Fletcher); Elvis and Nixon (US, Liza Johnson); The Beatles: Eight Days a Week--The Touring Years (US/UK, Ron Howard); Ghostbusters (US, Paul Feig); Florence Foster Jenkins (US, Stephen Frears); Cafe Society (US, Woody Allen); Life, Animated (US, Roger Ross Williams); Miss Sloane (US/France, John Madden); Snowden (US, Oliver Stone); Morris from America (US/Germany, Chad Hartigan); Fire at Sea (Italy/France, Gianfranco Rosi); Pete's Dragon (US, David Lowery); Popstar: Never Stop Never Stoppin' (US, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone); Arrival (US, Denis Villeneuve); Lion (Australia/US/UK, Garth Davis); Passengers (US, Morten Tyldem); Hacksaw Ridge (US, Mel Gibson); Green Room (US, Jeremy Saulnier); Don't Breathe (US, Fede Alvarez); Approaching the Unknown (US, Mark Elijah Rosenberg); Money Monster (US, Jodie Foster); USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (US, Mario Van Peebles); The Girl on the Train (US, Tate Taylor); Triple 9 (US, John Hillcoat); Get A Job (US, Dylan Kidd); Captain Fantastic (US, Matt Ross); Bad Santa 2 (US, Mark Waters); Deadpool (US, Tim Miller); Sausage Party (US, Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon)) 

ACTOR: Casey Affleck, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2nd: Dave Johns, I, Daniel Blake, followed by: Adam Driver, Paterson; Tom Hanks, Sully; Ryan Gosling, La La Land; Peter Simonischek, Toni Erdmann; Logan Lerman, Indignation; Denzel Washingston, Fences; Michael Keaton, The Founder)

ACTRESS: Emma Stone, LA LA LAND (2nd: Annette Bening, 20th Century Women, followed by: Kate Beckinsale, Love and Friendship; Isabelle Huppert, Things to Come; Rebecca Hall, Christine; Natalie Portman, Jackie; Ruth Negga, Loving; Sonia Braga, Aquarius; Sandra Hüller, Toni Erdmann)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Tracy Letts, INDIGNATION (2nd: Tom Bennett, Love and Friendship, followed by: Issei Ogata, Silence; Michael Barbieri, Little Men; Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea; Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals; Mahershala Ali, Moonlight; Greg Kinnear, Little Men; Jeff Bridges, Hell and High Water)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Viola Davis, FENCES (2nd: Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea, followed by: Hayley Squires, I, Daniel Blake; Linda Emond, Indignation; Paulina Garcia, Little Men; Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women; Sarah Gadon, Indignation; Gillian Jacobs, Don't Think Twice; Angourie Rice, The Nice Guys)  



DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle, LA LA LAND (2nd: Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea, followed by: Ezra Edelman, O.J.: Made in America; Whit Stillman, Love and Friendship; James Schamus, Indignation; Jim Jarmusch, Paterson; Mike Mills, 20th Century Women; Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake; Clint Eastwood, Sully) 



NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: THINGS TO COME (France, Mia Hansen Love) (2nd: Toni Erdmann (Germany, Maren Ade), followed by: Elle (France/Germany/Belgium, Paul Verhoeven); The Salesman (Iran, Asghar Farhadi); Aquarius (Brazil, Kleber Mendonca Filho); Train to Busan (South Korea, Sang-ho Yeon)) 



DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA (US, Ezra Edelman) (2nd: Weiner (US, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg), followed by: 13th (US, Ava Duvernay); Cameraperson (US, Kristen Johnson); Kate Plays Christine (US, Robert Greene); Tower (US, Keith Maitland); De Palma (US, Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow); Amanda Knox (US/Denmark, Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn); Audrie and Daisy (US, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk); Into the Inferno (UK/Germany/Canada, Werner Herzog); Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (US, Werner Herzog)) 

ANIMATED FEATURE: ZOOTOPIA (US, Byron Howard and Rich Moore) (2nd: Kubo and the Two Strings (US, Travis Knight))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: PEAR CIDER AND CIGARETTES (US, Robert Valley) (2nd: Pearl (US, Patrick Osborne), followed by: Piper (US, Alan Barillaro); Blind Vaysha (Canada, Theodore Ushev))

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: TEN METER TOWER (Sweden, Axel Danielson and Maximilien van Aertryck) (2nd: Watani, My Homeland (UK, Marcel Mettelsiefen), followed by: Sing (Hungary, Kristóf Deák); The White Helmets (UK, Orlando von Einsiedel) (won as Documentary Short))
 


ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Kenneth Lonergan, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2nd: Mike Mills, 20th Century Women, followed by: Jim Jarmusch, Paterson; Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, Little Men; Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake)



ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: James Schamus, INDIGNATION (2nd: Whit Stillman, Love and Friendship, followed by: Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals; Taika Waititi, Hunt for the Wilderpeople; Todd Komarnicki, Sully)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Linus Sandgren, LA LA LAND (2nd: Caleb Deschanel, Rules Don't Apply, followed by: James Laxton, Moonlight; Vittorio Storaro, Cafe Society; Rodrigo Prieto, Silence)

ART DIRECTION: LA LA LAND, Hail Caesar!, Jackie, The Witch, The Neon Demon

COSTUME DESIGN: JACKIE, Love and Friendship, La La Land, Hail Caesar!, The Neon Demon



FILM EDITING: LA LA LAND, O.J.: Made in America, Nocturnal Animals, Sully, Hell or High Water

SOUND: LA LA LAND, Sully, Deepwater Horizon, The Jungle Book, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story



SOUND EFFECTS: DEEPWATER HORIZON, Sully, The Jungle Book



ORIGINAL SCORE: Mica Levi, JACKIE (2nd: Abel Korzeniowski, Nocturnal Animals, followed by: Nicholas Britell, Moonlight; Cliff Martinez, The Neon Demon; Dickon Hinchliffe, Little Men)



ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Justin Hurwitz, LA LA LAND (won as Best Original Score) (2nd: John Debney, The Jungle Book)



ORIGINAL SONG: "City of Stars" from LA LA LAND (Music by Justin Hurwitz; lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) (2nd: "Rules Don't Apply" from Rules Don't Apply (Music and lyrics by Lorraine Feather and Eddie Arkin), followed by: "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" from La La Land (Music by Justin Hurwitz; lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul); "Waving Goodbye" from The Neon Demon (Music and lyrics by Sia Furler); "Drive It Like You Stole It" from Sing Street (Music and lyrics by Gary Clark); "Can't Stop the Feeling" from Trolls (Music and lyrics by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin, and Karl Johan Schuster); "Another Day of Sun" from La La Land (Music by Justin Hurwitz; lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul); "I'm Still Here" from Miss Sharon Jones (Music and lyrics by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings); “Stay Here” from Presenting Princess Shaw (Music and lyrics by Kutiman); "The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story (Music and lyrics by Sting and J. Ralph); "Try Everything" from Zootopia (Music and lyrics by Sia Furler, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen); “Hurry Home” from Max Rose (Music by Michel Legrand, lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE JUNGLE BOOK, Deepwater Horizon, Sully, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Doctor Strange  

MAKEUP: THE NEON DEMON, Suicide Squad, Sing Street