State of the Oscar Race 2013: Which of the Many Best Actor Candidates Make the Cut?

Yesterday's Independent Spirit Award Nominations proved one fact, there are so many great performances from male leads this year that there had to be six nominees.  The six nominees are Bruce Dern for Nebraska, Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave, Oscar Isaacs for Inside Llewyn Davis, Michael B. Jordan for Fruitvale Station, Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, and Robert Redford for All is Lost.

Looking at this list of six most folks, including myself would go wow, this would be a great line-up for Oscar, and they and I would be right.  There is just one or well a few minor problems, and they include: Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips, Forrest Whitaker for Lee Daniels' The Butler, Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace or American Hustle, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street or even The Great Gatsby, and the bigger long shots Idris Elba for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Joaquin Phoenix for Her, and Ben Stiller for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  That is 15 possible candidates, and astounding.

Let's look at Independent Spirit Award Nominees past track record, meaning the last 5 years, or even 10 before that the amount of crossover between minimal.

2012

Only Bradley Cooper was nominated for both Oscar and and the Independent Spirit Award (ISA), but he did not win either John Hawkes who was a strong contender to be nominated, but missed out because of Joaquin Phoenix.  Hawkes won the Spirit Award.  Of the five nominees Cooper and Hawkes were the only strong contenders.

2011

Jean Dujardin won the ISA and the Oscar for Best Actor for The Artist, this rarely happens, but could happen again this year. Dujardin and Demian Bichir were the only two nominated for the ISA, and Oscar.  The only other nominee for the ISA who had a possibility of being nominated was Ryan Gosling for Driver, but the Academy appeared to hate this film.

2010

James Franco was the only person nominated for ISA, and Oscar of the five nominees; he won the ISA, but lost Oscar to Colin Firth.  None of the other four contenders were ever "serious" contenders for Oscar.

2009

Jeff Bridges won the Oscar and the ISA for Crazy Heart.  The only other person nominated for both ISA and Oscar was Colin Firth for A Single Man.  None of the other three men were "serious" contenders.

2008

If you want to find a year similar to to 2013, where ISA, and the Oscars line-up was 2008.  4 of the 5 nominees were nominated at both, and they were Sean Penn in Milk (who won the Oscar) Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (won the ISA), Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker, and Richard Jenkins for The Visitor.  I could see a similar situation to this happening this year, 4 of the five nominees come from this line-up, while two are snubbed.

Let's look at this year's ISA nominees:

Locks:
Chiwetel Ejiofor-12 Years a Slave
Robert Redford-All is Lost
Matthew McConaughey-Dallas Buyers Club

Ejiofor and Redford are the two top contenders at the moment, but watch out for Matthew McConaughey his performance in Dallas Buyers Club is the thing Oscar performances are made of!

Near Lock:
Bruce Dern-Nebraska

Dern is almost the next closest thing as a lock in this category, with his buddies like Nicholson and his daughter Laura Dern championing him, he can/will be a strong contender to not only be an Oscar nominee, but a surprise winner.

Longshots:
Oscar Isaacs-Inside Llewyn Davis
Michael B. Jordan-Fruitvale Station

Isaacs and Jordan are the newcomers of this group, they have critically acclaimed performances, but breaking into this category as relative new comers is going to be tough.

Who takes the fifth spot of the non-ISA contenders?

Tom Hanks-Captain Phillips-The film just made 100 million and he is getting rave reviews for his performance.  The thing working against him is that people may just nominate him in supporting for Saving Mr. Banks.

Forrest Whitaker-Lee Daniels' The Butler-The film is going to better with Oscar voters than critics, and with Weinstein Company behind the film I can't imagine it not getting more than one acting nomination  Whitaker has won before, is the movie out of sight out of mind?

Christian Bale-Out of the Furnace or American Hustle-If he was going to get nominated my money would be on Hustle, but in this tough year his performance and weight gain may be overlooked.

Leonardo DiCaprio-The Wolf of Wall Street or The Great Gatsby-Wolf has not been seen by anyone, and DiCaprio is always a dark horse especially in a Scorsese film.  Gatsby is only a contender in the technical categories.

At the moment my prediction for Best Actor is:
Bruce Dern-Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor-12 Years a Slave

Tom Hanks-Captain Phillips

Matthew McConaughey-Dallas Buyers Club

Robert Redford-All is Lost

Anything is possible in this category, but I only see one of these men losing out, if any.  The truth of the matter is that Oscar should take a note from the ISA nominees, and have 6 nominated performances.

12 Years a Slave is not the First Film about Slavery, but its the Most Realistic, and the Best

12 Years a Slave (5 out of 5 Stars)

Directed by: Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame)

Written by: John Ridley (Three Kings, U Turn)

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lupita Nyong'o, Adepero Oduye, and Michael Fassbender 

No film has captured the American slavery as well as 12 Years a Slave.  Roots may be one of the few things that does a solid job (up until now) because it was in a mini-series format, but Solomon Northup's book, with which this is based on, allows one of the darkest chapters in American history to be fully explored on every level.

12 Years a Slave is based on the true events, which happened to Northup (Ejiofor) starting in 1841, .  Northup was a black man who lived in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children.  Northup played the violin, went into stores, bought things for his family, and unlike most black people during this time. Northup was of course a free man.  One day he was approached by a white man in his town.  Northup was connected with two other gentlemen named Brown and Hamilton, the two offered to take him to Washington D.C. to play violin with a traveling circus of sorts.  Northup was then drugged and sold into slavery, where he lived between different plantations for the next 12 years of his life.

There are two men who will get most of the acclaim for this film, and that director Steve McQueen, and the star Chiwetel Ejiofor.  When people hear the name Steve McQueen, many often assume the "action" film star of the 1960s and 1970s.  This McQueen is now directing his third feature film, and his style, and focus in the director's seat has reached sheer perfection.  McQueen's second film Shame (2011), was one of my favorite films from that year.  McQueen's direction is purposeful, and focused he knows how to keep the camera on a moment, when the audience is ready for the moment to be over.  

While some have detracted McQueen's "art-house visuals" I have always embraced them and feel as though he extends them within this, mixing the traditional narrative of Solomon's story.  McQueen's structure with his direction works even better within this film because of the superb connection with diary-like format of John Ridley's script.  Ridley and McQueen work hard to make you feel as though everything we see, and hear comes from vantage point of Solomon.  These two men are the first black men to direct and write a film about the experience of slavery.  

Together all the people behind the scenes create the perfect window into the evil world of slavery.  Sean Bobbit's brilliant cinematography can not be ignored; he has worked with McQueen on Shame, and Hunger.  This man knows how to create the perfect shot, within Shame there was the sequence where Michael Fassbender was running through New York City, and in this film its the sequence of shots where Solomon is almost hung from a tree.  These series camera of shots from 12 Years haunt me.  Joe Walker's editing cuts just the like whip within each lashing, there is this precise movement showing every pain.  These two men like McQueen, and Ridley are the creative minds who made this an incredibly real experience.

The man who plays Solomon Northup, Mr. Chiwetel Ejiofor is going to brace for the attention he is going to get for this film.  Ejiofor has been around in numerous films and television movies, but this performance is wrought with grief, his face tells the story so well.  As you watch Solomon deal with each intense moment you champion him and hope he can endure the harshness escape, and become free once again.  Solomon's inner strength shines through; he knows he is a free man, but has to endure to both the beatings, and the malignancy from the white people he encounters in the south.  Ejiofor is the glue that holds the film together on screen.

The ensemble within this film is one of the most cohesive, and powerful, this was Solomon's story, but as he interacts with his first master Ford (Cumberbatch), Eliza (Oduye), a young mother being sold into slavery with her children, his second master Edwin Epps (Fassbnder), his wife Mistress Epps (Sarah Paulson), Patsey (Nyong'o) the slave who was the object of Edwin Epps affection, and so many more characters.  Together this ensemble tells a story of brutality, and injustice.  Men of color at this time needed white men to speak for them even though Solomon was educated, and had a voice because of the color of his skin in the antebellum world he was seen as less than by most.  Even as he is going to fetch groceries for Mistress Epps, and looks to run away he runs into lynching.  There is no place to escape, no way to run away from the evils of slavery. The film never forgets the details of each slaves experience, treating their journey as a new story for Solomon to experience.

12 Years a Slave is not the first film about slavery, but its the most realistic, and the best ever made.  The brutal nature of this film proves that this story about a free man ripped from his own life is something people often never think about.  This film tackles the cruelty of slavery has never been handled before, and changes the game for film making, it's brilliant.