National Society of Film Critics Awards - 2006
by Andre Soares
The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC), composed of 58 U.S. critics mostly based in New York City and Los Angeles, has chosen Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-language dark fantasy El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth as the best film of 2006. Curiously, the two runners-up were also shot in a language other than English: Cristi Puiu’s Romanian dark comedy Moartea Domnului Lazarescu / The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Clint Eastwood’s Japanese-language World War II drama Letters from Iwo Jima. (According to The Envelope’s Tom O’Neil, the two runners-up led in the initial voting rounds.)
The last time the NSFC chose a foreign-language film as best film of the year was when Edward Tang’s Taiwanese family drama Yi Yi / Yi yi: A One and a Two… won in 2000 (announced in Jan. ‘01). Before that, one would have to go back to Akira Kurosawa’s Ran in 1985. (From its inception in the mid-1960s up to the mid-1970s — perhaps a time when U.S. critics were less concerned with being Oscar bellwethers than with choosing the year’s top cinematic accomplishments — most NSFC best film winners were non-English-language productions. Only one of those, Costa-Gavras’s Z, went on to receive a best picture Oscar nomination.)
Set in 1940s Spain, Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of a girl (Ivana Baquero) who finds herself living in two worlds: One of Fascist horror above ground, one of dark magic below ground. Also in the cast are an outstanding Sergi López, Ariadna Gil, and Maribel Verdú, none of whom made the NSFC’s list of winners or top runners-up. (In the last couple of decades, acting categories have tended to be restricted to English-language performances.)
Del Toro was runner-up for best director (tied with Martin Scorsese for The Departed), but his screenplay failed to be listed among the NSFC’s top three picks. Guillermo Navarro, however, did find himself as the runner-up in the best cinematography category. (Emmanuel Lubezki was the top choice for the futuristic drama Children of Men.)
Other winners include usual suspects Helen Mirren for The Queen and Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland, in addition to best director Paul Greengrass for United 93, best screenplay for The Queen’s Peter Morgan, and best non-fiction film for Davis Guggenheim’s global warming warning An Inconvenient Truth.
Despite the best actress push, Meryl Streep was appropriately chosen best supporting actress for both The Devil Wears Prada and A Prairie Home Companion. This year’s NSFC awards were dedicated to the recently deceased director of the latter (mess of a) film, Robert Altman.
The best supporting actor was Mark Wahlberg, who has been receiving critical kudos for his woefully ineffectual performance as a tough cop in The Departed. But then again, better Wahlberg’s stilted line delivery than Jack Nicholson’s scenery swallowing.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver, which was the runaway favorite in the foreign-language field until U.S. critics began opting for Letters from Iwo Jima and Pan’s Labyrinth, failed to show up among the top three picks in any of the NSFC categories. (An unfortunate omission, if I may add…)
Also missing in action was Clint Eastwood’s other World War II drama, Flags of Our Fathers.
The NSFC also honored David Lynch’s Inland Empire as best experimental film, and Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 resistance drama L’Armée des ombres / Army of Shadows (left), which shared the Film Heritage Award with New York’s Museum of the Moving Image for its presentation of the first complete U.S. retrospective of the works of Nouvelle Vague French filmmaker Jacques Rivette.
In The Envelope, Tom O’Neil explains that only 45 of the NSFC’s 58 members participated in this year’s voting. Of those, only 21 were present at Sardi’s restaurant in New York City, where the voting was conducted. Proxy votes of non-present members, however, only count on the first ballot. (This year, the only categories decided in the first round were best actress, screenplay, and cinematography.)
Assuming that most — if not all — of those present at Sardi’s are New York-based critics, the strangest thing about this voting system and its ensuing results is that several New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) winners failed to come out on top in the NSFC lists, e.g., director Martin Scorsese (NYFCC) vs. Paul Greengrass (NSFC); supporting actor Jackie Earle Haley vs. Mark Wahlberg (NSFC); foreign-language film L’Armée des ombres (NYFCC) vs. the (foreign-language) best film Pan’s Labyrinth (NSFC).
It’s unclear whether New York critics changed their minds after a few weeks (the NYFCC results were announced on Dec. 10) or a few drinks, or if they simply wanted to spread the wealth around. In any case, if there’s no clear winner on the first ballot, New York City critics tend to, quite literally, have the last say on the NSFC’s top picks.
Full list of 2006 National Film Critics Society winners and runners-up
Tom O’Neil discusses "who almost won the National Society’s top awards"
Jean Arthur on TCM in January 2007
French Critics Say A GOOD YEAR Is Anything But
British Film Academy’s 15-Title 2006 Longlist
Golden Globe Foreign-Language Film Nominees at the American Cinematheque
Berlin Film Festival’s First Six Films in the International Competition
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