1917

Don’t know much about this year’s Oscars (nor do I really care), but I know one thing:

Joaquin Phoenix should win Best Actor for portraying Arthur Fleck, i.e., the Joker, hands down, and 1917 should win Best Editing and Best Cinematography.

Yes, I saw 1917 in the blurry enfilade of the last ten days.

Yes, it was good, and if I was an Oscar voter, I’d vote for it for Best Picture, too.

But, damn, I’ve never, ever, ever been as impressed with cinematography – cinematography! – in a movie as I was in this one. And I’ve seen a lot of movies. The landscapes, about a half-dozen set pieces or so, are so iconic, such cinescapes of hell, that I couldn’t be but overawed. The bombed out city with crawling, seeking shadows from swirling searchlights, the infamous “No-Man’s Land” cesspools of WWI, the trenches – of different coloration due to, I guess, the shifting geologies of the geographies traversed by our two protagonists … that is what I took away, and will long remember. Along with the horrible, terrible grandeur of war, and of the human spirit.

As far as Best Editing goes, well, the whole movie plays as one long, unbroken camera sequence, which literally puts you on the ground with Privates Schofield and Blake.

And yes, I highly, highly recommend 1917.

Which reminds me, I still need to see Peter Jackson’s World War I homage, They Shall Not Grow Old.