Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba Netflix Western: THE HARDER THEY FALL |
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Nominated for Nothing: The good, the bad, and the ugly truth of 'The Harder They Fall'
Why the Oscars ignored Netflix's The Harder They Fall, starring Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, and more.
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Nominated for Nothing: The good, the bad, and the ugly truth of The Harder They Fall
Westerns have always had a rocky road at the Oscars, not to mention movies with predominately Black casts — this one including Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, and Regina King.
By Lester Fabian BrathwaiteMarch 18, 2022 at 03:59 PM EDT
They're destined to score zero Academy Awards, but they won our attention throughout a year (and awards season) like no other. Ahead of the 94th Oscars ceremony on March 27, EW is breaking down the year's best movies, performances, and directorial achievements that were nominated for nothing
The film: Imagine a Sergio Leone Western but Black as hell and you've got singer-songwriter Jeymes Samuel's directorial debut, The Harder They Fall. A bloody tale of vengeance and redemption writ large against the American frontier, The Harder They Fall is typical Western fare, elevated by a stellar, predominately Black cast including Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, LaKeith Stanfield, Oscar-winner Regina King, and the great Delroy Lindo.
Of course, the predominate Blackness of the cast sets the film apart from other Westerns, which all but erase African Americans from that part of history. Before The Harder They Fall came out, I got into the podcast Black Cowboys and its profiles of forgotten heroes and villains, of the Wild West. And before that, HBO's Watchmen had a subplot involving the lawman Bass Reeves, the West's first Black deputy U.S. Marshall. The Harder They Fall brings to life Reeves (Lindo) and other real-life Black cowboys and girls — Nat Love (Majors), Rufus Buck (Elba), Stagecoach Mary (Beetz), Cherokee Bill (Stanfield) — while taking some creative liberties with dates and facts. It's an amazing cast, doing fantastic work, and yet nary a nomination, not even for King, by now an awards-show staple.
Immediately drawing comparisons to — but also unlike — Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning Django Unchained, The Harder They Fall is largely devoid of the white gaze. The characters are allowed to exist in relation to one another and not to a hierarchical structure; I kept waiting for the moment everyone would band together to stop the KKK or some other force of impending white supremacy, but that never happens. It's just the bad guys versus the not-so-bad guys. Or maybe the bad guys versus the worse guys. And I thrilled at it. There's the presence of moral ambiguity, borne of the West's very wildness, that defines the best Westerns, from High Noon to Johnny Guitar.
Why it wasn't nominated: The Academy has a fraught history with Westerns. Only four films in that genre have won Best Picture: 1931's Cimarron, 1990's Dances with Wolves, 1992's Unforgiven, and 2007's No Country for Old Men, though that last one's not truly a straightforward Western. Even 1956's The Searchers, arguably the greatest Western of all time, didn't get nominated for a single Oscar. If its awards track record is any indication, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog is poised to become the fifth Western to take the top prize at this year's Academy Awards.
If the Oscars don't necessarily take kindly to Westerns around these parts, they certainly don't to predominantly Black movies. And The Harder They Fall is just "too Black" for the Oscars. That is to say, it depicts complex, even villainous Black characters that don't fit the traditional mold for Oscar-worthy films about Black people — they aren't slaves or historical figures contending with or (briefly) triumphing over racism. If it's a surprise no one from the cast was nominated (Jennifer Jason Leigh snagged a nomination for Tarantino's last Western The Hateful Eight and Christoph Waltz won his second trophy for Django), it's disappointing that Samuel's direction wasn't recognized either. And the Academy loves a first-time director. Just ask Martin Scorsese, who lost to two of them (Robert Redford for Ordinary People and Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves).
Why history will remember it better than the Academy did: One may not peg me as a lover of Westerns: I'm Black, gay, and can rattle off five Bette Davis quotes at the drop of a hat. Any hat. But Westerns have always intrigued me — they contain some of the finest cinematography in film, often have something interesting to say about the American experiment, and are just plain fun. But save for Blazing Saddles and Django, I rarely got to see Black cowboys on screen. The Harder They Fall offers up a dozen or so to cheer for or against. What a gift that is for future generations. Most Westerns are also based on real people who lived at a time when the U.S. was still defining itself — and they managed to play a role, no matter how small, in it. That alone makes The Harder They Fall a touchstone in the history of Black cinema, regardless of the Oscars.
Westerns have always had a rocky road at the Oscars, not to mention movies with predominately Black casts — this one including Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, and Regina King.
By Lester Fabian BrathwaiteMarch 18, 2022 at 03:59 PM EDT
They're destined to score zero Academy Awards, but they won our attention throughout a year (and awards season) like no other. Ahead of the 94th Oscars ceremony on March 27, EW is breaking down the year's best movies, performances, and directorial achievements that were nominated for nothing
The film: Imagine a Sergio Leone Western but Black as hell and you've got singer-songwriter Jeymes Samuel's directorial debut, The Harder They Fall. A bloody tale of vengeance and redemption writ large against the American frontier, The Harder They Fall is typical Western fare, elevated by a stellar, predominately Black cast including Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, LaKeith Stanfield, Oscar-winner Regina King, and the great Delroy Lindo.
Of course, the predominate Blackness of the cast sets the film apart from other Westerns, which all but erase African Americans from that part of history. Before The Harder They Fall came out, I got into the podcast Black Cowboys and its profiles of forgotten heroes and villains, of the Wild West. And before that, HBO's Watchmen had a subplot involving the lawman Bass Reeves, the West's first Black deputy U.S. Marshall. The Harder They Fall brings to life Reeves (Lindo) and other real-life Black cowboys and girls — Nat Love (Majors), Rufus Buck (Elba), Stagecoach Mary (Beetz), Cherokee Bill (Stanfield) — while taking some creative liberties with dates and facts. It's an amazing cast, doing fantastic work, and yet nary a nomination, not even for King, by now an awards-show staple.
Immediately drawing comparisons to — but also unlike — Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning Django Unchained, The Harder They Fall is largely devoid of the white gaze. The characters are allowed to exist in relation to one another and not to a hierarchical structure; I kept waiting for the moment everyone would band together to stop the KKK or some other force of impending white supremacy, but that never happens. It's just the bad guys versus the not-so-bad guys. Or maybe the bad guys versus the worse guys. And I thrilled at it. There's the presence of moral ambiguity, borne of the West's very wildness, that defines the best Westerns, from High Noon to Johnny Guitar.
Why it wasn't nominated: The Academy has a fraught history with Westerns. Only four films in that genre have won Best Picture: 1931's Cimarron, 1990's Dances with Wolves, 1992's Unforgiven, and 2007's No Country for Old Men, though that last one's not truly a straightforward Western. Even 1956's The Searchers, arguably the greatest Western of all time, didn't get nominated for a single Oscar. If its awards track record is any indication, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog is poised to become the fifth Western to take the top prize at this year's Academy Awards.
If the Oscars don't necessarily take kindly to Westerns around these parts, they certainly don't to predominantly Black movies. And The Harder They Fall is just "too Black" for the Oscars. That is to say, it depicts complex, even villainous Black characters that don't fit the traditional mold for Oscar-worthy films about Black people — they aren't slaves or historical figures contending with or (briefly) triumphing over racism. If it's a surprise no one from the cast was nominated (Jennifer Jason Leigh snagged a nomination for Tarantino's last Western The Hateful Eight and Christoph Waltz won his second trophy for Django), it's disappointing that Samuel's direction wasn't recognized either. And the Academy loves a first-time director. Just ask Martin Scorsese, who lost to two of them (Robert Redford for Ordinary People and Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves).
Why history will remember it better than the Academy did: One may not peg me as a lover of Westerns: I'm Black, gay, and can rattle off five Bette Davis quotes at the drop of a hat. Any hat. But Westerns have always intrigued me — they contain some of the finest cinematography in film, often have something interesting to say about the American experiment, and are just plain fun. But save for Blazing Saddles and Django, I rarely got to see Black cowboys on screen. The Harder They Fall offers up a dozen or so to cheer for or against. What a gift that is for future generations. Most Westerns are also based on real people who lived at a time when the U.S. was still defining itself — and they managed to play a role, no matter how small, in it. That alone makes The Harder They Fall a touchstone in the history of Black cinema, regardless of the Oscars.
I'm not giving anyone a pass...youre acting like white people don't say nigga behind closed doors and thats not supposed to be reflected in their movies depicting how people talk in real life... come on dude.
Tarantino said his mother dated black men and they would usually take him to the movies on the black side of town when he was a kid...this would explain him being enamored with Blaxploitation and all things afro. Is that an excuse? no but it explains where it comes from. You don't like it and that fine...all I'm saying is IMO its a minor issue at best compared to other things in that dude's career.
Tarantino is CLEVER at BEST in his style and film aesthetic. He doesn't make movies about subjects he makes movies about MOVIES.
He has no voice. Nothing in his films is from him. There are websites dedicated to dissecting his films and showing what scenes and lines came from what other film and there are number of lines from his films that are lifted directly from other films. For this reason I call tarantino a clever hack.
In an interview he even says that Django Unchained isn't HIS vision its Reggie Hudlin's. Yet Hudlin didn't write it or direct it. On top of that its a direct rift off 70s Fred Williamson cowboy films. And every actor thats worked with him says the same thing about his directing style. something like: "This scene is like that tracking shot in the Maltese Falcon and this scene is that scene from The Wild Bunch where they shot up the saloon and this scene is that slowmotion scene from A Clockwork Orange were Alex cuts his friend's hand.." Everything from someone else's vision or statement so whats from him?
He's clever in the way Dr Dre is clever...taking whole chunks of other peoples finished works and putting your own slight spin on it. This is the main issue for people who don't like rap music to gripe about. Its like giving credit to Dre for the "beat" on Nuthin But A G Thang... All he did was use the intro to Leon Haywards I Wanta Do Something Freaky To You..looped it added some accents to it and the most original thing was the actual lyrics over it.
The difference between genius and clever is if Dre had created that bass groove and music originally himself he'd be a genius but his using it in the manner he did makes him very clever. Tarantino's the same way. In fact he's called his film style a "hip-hop aesthetic".
Of course his films are cool and popular you can't go too wrong using the coolest and best scenes, shots and lines of other movies people already like.
I'm STILL trying to figure out how this nigga keeps winning best ORIGINAL screenplay oscars when he rips whole dialog from other films and sources...
Tarantino ripped off the observation of Clark Kent/Superman form Jules Feiffer published in 1965, the first serious examination of superhero comic books:
Previous heroes-- the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger-- were not only more vulnerable; they were fakes. I don't mean to criticize; it's just a statement of fact. The Shadow had to cloud men's minds to be in business. The Green Hornet had to go through the fetishist fol-de-rol of donning costume, floppy hat, black mask, gas gun, menacing automobile, and insect sound effects before he was even ready to go out in the street. The Lone Ranger needed an accoutremental white horse, an Indian, and an establishing cry of Hi-Yo Silver to separate him from all those other masked men running around the West in days of yesteryear.
But Superman had only to wake up in the morning to be Superman. In his case, Clark Kent was the put-on. The fellow with the eyeglasses and the acne and the walk girls laughed at wasn't real, didn't exist, was a sacrificial disguise, an act of discreet martyrdom. Had they but known!...
... Kent existed not for the purpose of the story but for the reader. He is Superman's opinion of the rest of us, a pointed caricature of what we, the noncriminal element, were really like. His fake identity was our real one. That's why we loved him so. For if that wasn't really, us, if there were no Clark Kents, only lots of glasses and cheap suits which, when removed, revealed all of us in our true identities-- what a hell of an improved world it would have been!
Tarantino's version in Kill Bill:
Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.
The bible verse quote in Pulp Fiction was ripped from another MOVIE not the bible...Sonny Chiba - The Bodygaurd:
The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the iniquity of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the father of lost children. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am Chiba the Bodyguard when I shall lay my vengeance upon them!
— Ezekiel 25:17
An altered version of the same passage (mainly substituting "I am Chiba the Bodyguard" with "my name is the Lord"), complete with erroneous attribution to Ezekiel by the character of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) appears in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
Whats funny is there are HUNDREDS of web sites that dedicate pages to dissecting and interpreting that line and what tarantino must have meant when he used various verses from the bible and how the character is shaped by his spiritual beliefs and blah blah....QT wasn't flipping thru books of the old testament piecing together verses for some deep layered structure of his character HE JUST TOOK THE LINE FROM ANOTHER MOVIE
The dude isn't as deep as people have been making him out to be for the last 30 years and he's been getting awarded and praised for that shit... oh yeah and he likes to say the word nigga alot too....
OMG.
I finally watched this
Great Great job
Great Great job
This was a really good movie, and I don't even like westerns.
Too you long enough lol
It got lost in the content avalanche
And I'm a western stan
And this cast Jay z behind it the music
My heart couldn't take it if it was wack.
So I think subconsciously....
And I just happen to see an announcement and decided to watch.
Wonderful work
NOT PERFECT.
But to create a kinda new jack black Sergio Leone style was incredible
I think the white town alone was enough to be a classic.
It has so much richness and the editing the cinematography give it a real high rewatch quotient.
Regina not getting nominated is maybe the final example that the Oscar's ain't about nothing.
Lakeith. His off the field antics are just exhausting but as an actor? I think we are still not fully appreciating how freaking brilliant he is.
That train robbery was pure classic had to remind it immediately
The Easter eggs throughout, the malcolm x finger, the chadwick baseman dedication, Cherokee Bill actually speaking in Cherokee, etc
Everyone came to play and delivered
Can't really complain
Especially with a very strong sequel and prequel right there to craft.
Ok I mean I got ONE minor nit to pick...
Zazie is stunning and talented and I love her work she did a great job...
But I wouldn't have cast her here.
That's it on that.
I wanted Love to get so more revenge on camera, a little stronger writing, one more scene to establish just how dangerous Buck was, little things....
But this was great. Once the kids get older I will put this with all the classics I used to watch with dad.
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All of this and more. I don't understand cinematography that well because though I consider myself a cinephile, I'm relatively self-taught and watching movies for years is like a kid playing football for years but who has never had a coach
Regina King deserved a nomination for this, but what Oscars so white anyway
When given the opportunity, when have black people not been better than our white counterparts at every opportunity? That's why they restrict our opportunities
^^^^
Lmao at people in the thread hyping this up as an Oscar quality movie, the Oscars are shit and this movie was dope for what it was, but talking about best cinematography or acting awards? Lmfao nah.
