Formal Film Study: Award Winners: Cannes VS Sundance VS Academy Awards

"I never make a movie for awards consideration. I will use the hope of getting an Academy Award a) to honor the people who work so hard and also b) it's the greatest Good Housekeeping seal in the world. It's the greatest brand. It's as good as Louis Vuitton and Dior in the world of moviemaking. It's the Super Bowl." - Harvey Weinstein

Films of a given year reveal a lot about what is going on in the world at the time and in what direction film is heading. Each year, people gather to celebrate these films for their beauty and recognize the filmmakers' hard work. Since 1929, the Academy Awards have represented the best of the best as all of Hollywood make way for the night of film celebration. On the beautiful coast of  France, the Cannes film festival has occurred annually since 1946, but it has since then not lost its touch for choosing more controversial, but artistic, films that capture the audience. The Sundance Film Festival, a baby compared to the latter (established 1978), is arguably the American version of Cannes for the unique independent films that cover the ballots. Each annual award show or film festival reveals the films that encompass that year and help us to take a look at film's current approach to styles and techniques that have been around for decades, and also what innovations people have come up with.

The Cannes Film Festival's Palme D'or, or Best Film, went to Blue is the Warmest Color, a french film directed by Adellatif Kechiche with the original title of La Vie d'Adele - Chapitre 1 & 2. The story is a coming-of-age film that follows 15-year-old Adele as she discovers what passion and feelings lie behind true love. Adele, after entering and ending a relationship with a boy, experiences what some might call love at first sight with 'the girl with the blue hair'. The color blue plays a strong roll in the film, but that is really the smallest of Adele's problems as she falls more in love with this girl, whose name is revealed to be Emma. 

Back in the states, The Sundance Film Festival has many different categories which could all be considered best film, but U.S. Grand Jury Prize for a dramatic film is often a title to shoot for. The winner for 2013, Fruitvale Station, shows the true story of Oscar Grant III on the last day of his life, on the last day of 2008, as he tries his best to stay out of trouble, but is ultimately unable to escape both his past and the prejudices that surround him.

The Oscars, star studded and all, holds in its highest regard the Best Picture winner. With Ben Affleck playing lead both on and off screen, the award went to Argo. The film takes in inside look at the historical Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979-80. With the job of a big time Hollywood filmmaker as his cover, CIA Agent Tony Mendez (Affleck) risks his own life to save six U.S. Embassy workers who escaped when Aggressive Iranians stormed the Embassy in rage of the United State's granted asylum to the Shah. It is Tony's job to make their story believable because if the Iranian were to find out that they were lying, or even that the six workers escaped, they might not return home.

The year of 2013 in film was more than a year of revealing reality in story-lines. Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, and Argo all used raw editing/camera movements and color to better highlight the more intense and sensitive subjects of the films.

One of the first things that I noticed while watching Blue is the Warmest color in the seemingly raw pacing, editing, and lighting of the film. There is no background music where I would assume there should be. We see Adele eating dinner with her family for a good minute with nothing but the sound of eating and silverware hitting the plates. It takes on Adele's reality as it really could be in her real life. The filmmaker must have wanted us to relate to Adele as much as possible, being that the topic of a young lesbian and the politics around that could really go both ways as far as being relatable or not-or he wanted to make sure we were paying attention like some do with discontinuity-like shots.
Going along more with the camera work, there were a lot of close ups throughout the 3 hour film. I assumed this was to make us further invested in the emotions of the characters. There is nothing to distract us from the tears on someone's face or the glow in their eyes. 

"Blue is certainly the film's warmest color" (Wolff), as the Huffington Post's Spencer Wolff put it. More so than in Emma's hair color, the color blue is seen throughout the film. As Adele becomes attached and dependent on Emma, the blue could be seen as a comfort to her.

All of these elements brought the story to life 
and not only made the story Palme D'or 
 worthy, but were used in other films to give the same amazing, award-winning affect.

Like Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler, takes advantage of enhancing the storyline through camera work and color. Being that the plot of the film is based off of a true story, there is already some restrictions to follow in order to do the story justice. The angles cannot be too experimental because at the end of the day the movie is about Oscar. According to Kodak, "the entire movie was filmed handheld to lend authenticity, much in the way that [a use of] organic film grain [did]" (Fruitvale Station: A Tragic Tale Retold Thoughtfully). This camerawork definitely payed off in the portrayal of the story and making it feel real-almost documentary like.

Throughout Fruitvale Station, we jump between time and locations. The filmmakers highlighted this with the use of color. When we visit Oscar in jail a year before his death, the duller lighting matches the mood as Oscar's mom visits him. We revisit this again after Oscar's accident, when colors turn grayer to match the mood. These changes reflect where Oscar is in his life and the filmmakers must have really wanted to pay

homage to Oscar because their techniques seemed like the best way to show the improvement in his life and the love that ultimately surrounded him. Filmmakers have a tough job when they have to retell a true story, but doing so well-enough for an award shows real talent.

Argo, due to it's setting in the late 70s and early 80s, tried its best at making it feel like we were really watching a movie made in that era. This, again, is seen through the use of editing, camera work, and lighting. The makers of the movie used a lot of different cameras and techniques for filming the movie, according to Arri.com. According to Rodrigo Prieto, the director of photography for Argo, "I like to find a different visual approach from movie to movie. With ARGO, I was able to find three styles within one movie!" (Exposing Argo). I noticed this as the lighting changed between the movie's 3 main settings: Near D.C., Hollywood, and Tehran (Iran). It created a different tone and atmosphere for the different locations, especially as the story helped support this. Prieto planned this as he said, "it was very important for all of these locations to possess a subtly different look to help orient the audience through the fast paced narrative" (Exposing Argo).
What I am assuming were handheld cameras were probably used to really capture what a camera at some of the actual events would have captured. As Iranians stormed the Embassy or as the Iranians found out about the 'film crew', a slightly shakier camera helped make it feel like it was a documentary crew trying to catch the action.

In some of the final scenes of Argo, the technique of cross-cutting is used to add suspense. As the 'film crew' is about to board a flight home, we get to see multiple cross cuts to people obtaining or missing information on their situation that could ultimately end badly, but only we know that the whole story. I found this interesting as it swayed a bit from the reality of the rest of the film, but it must be why it was called a thriller.


Blue is the Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, and Argo did a great job at enhancing their stories, real or not, through the magic of film. All three movies contain subject matter that could be considered controversial, but they managed to make it all an art and likable enough to become some of the best films of 2013. Argo total lifetime grosses now add up to $232,325,503 worldwide, Fruitvale Station has gotten $17,385,830 worldwide, and Blue has  gotten $7,379,806 worldwide (probably due to the NC-17 rating), according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, but that obviously does not compare to the pride these films have for going down in history with their prestigious titles.