When film historians look back on the first decade of the new millennium, I have no doubt 2006 will be seen as the decade’s best year for film.
It was the year that gave us such highly acclaimed films as Pan’s Labyrinth; Children of Men; The Departed; The Lives of Others and Letters From Iwo Jima as well as such grand entertainments as The Queen; Little Miss Sunshine; The Devil Wears Prada and Dreamgirls.
Will they remember that the musical Dreamgirls was the year’s most highly anticipated film and, in fact, ended up with the year’s most Oscar nominations – 8 – but failed to nab a Best Picture slot? Will they remember that the year’s eventual winner, The Departed, was initially regarded as too lightweight to even be nominated while the heavy Babel was considered the biggest threat to Dreamgirls?
By the time year-end awards started rolling in, there was no clear favorite for Best Picture. Both the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics gave their top prize to Letters From Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood’s film of World War II from the Japanese perspective which won more acclaim than his earlier in the year look at the same World War II battle and its aftermath from the American perspective, Flags of Our Fathers. The NBR named Martin Scorsese Best Director for The Departed, while the L.A. critics named Paul Greengrass for United 93 about the 9/11 plane brought down by passengers over Pennsylvania before it could slam into the Capitol building.
The New York Film Critics named United 93 as the year’s Best Picture and Scorsese as Best Director. The National Society of Film Critics named Guillermo del Toro’s dark fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth, the year’s Best Picture while giving their Best Director award to Greengrass.
The Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama went to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel which intertwined various horrific stories from different parts of the world. The Golden Globe – Musical or Comedy went to Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls, still considered the Oscar front-runner. Scorsese picked up another Best Director win for his high energy gangster film, The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs.
Directors Guild nominations went to Scorsese, Gonzalez Inarritu and Condon as well s Stephen Frears for The Queen, his highly regarded film of England’s Elizabeth II in the days following the death of Princess Diana, and the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valarie Faris for the comedy smash, Little Miss Sunshine. Scorsese won.
Oscar nominations for Best Director went to Scorsese, Gonzalez Inirratu and Frears, but Condon and the Dayton-Faris team were usurped by Clint Eastwood (Letters From Iwo Jima) and Paul Greengrass (United 93).
Best Picture nominations went to the films of four of the nominated directors: Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel; Scorsese’s The Departed: Eastwood’s Letter From Iwo Jima and Frears’ The Queen, with Little Miss Sunshine securing the fifth slot over Untied 93.
With eight nominations, the most of any film that year, Dreamgirls would certainly have benefited from an expansion to ten nominees for Best Picture, but so, too, would have Pan’s Labyrinth (six nominations and three wins), United 93 (two nominations, no wins) and Children of Men (three nominations, no wins).
Alfonso Cuaron’s film of P.D. James’ futuristic novel, Children of Men, is a film that won no Best Picture awards yet was a top runner-up on many critics’ annual ten best lists and is turning up on many ten best films of the decade lists as well.
Rounding out the nominees might have been Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others, a harrowing account of an East German Secret Policeman having a midlife career crisis, which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar over Pan’s Labyrinth, and Flags of Our Fathers (two nominations, no wins). In the running, but probably less likely would have been Notes on a Scandal; The Painted Veil and Little Children.
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