January 25th, 2017 By: Nora Rawlinson
Time For Oscar Displays!
The Oscar nominations, announced yesterday, are providing good opportunities to build displays and make book lists, given the number of nominated films based on books.
Four of the nine Best Picture nominees are based on published material. Each is also in the running for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar:
Arrival, based on a story in: Stories Of Your Life And Others (originally published in 2002 by Macmillan/Tor; re-released by PRH/Vintage in 2016; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample). The movie is also nominated for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.
Fences, based on: Fences (Movie tie-in) by August Wilson (PRH/Plume). Denzel Washington was nominated for Best Actor, Viola Davis for Best Supporting Actress and the film is also a nominee in the Production Design category.
Hidden Figures, based on: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, Margot Lee Shetterly (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample). Octavia Spencer is in the running for Best Supporting Actress.
Lion, based on: A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley (PRH/Viking, 2014, trade paperback, 2015; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample). Dev Patel got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor and Nicole Kidman for Best Supporting Actress. The film is also nominated in the Best Cinematography and Original Score categories.
A fifth nominee for Best Picture is Moonlight. It is based on an unpublished school drama project titled In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney.
Other nominations with book connections include:
Florence Foster Jenkins, which nets Meryl Streep a history-making 20th Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. The tie-in is Florence Foster Jenkins: The Inspiring True Story of the World’s Worst Singer, Nicholas Martin and Jasper Rees (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Elle, for which star Isabelle Huppert is nominated for Best Actress. The film is based on Oh… by Philippe Djian (Gallimard, 2012; not published in the US).
Nocturnal Animals sees one of its stars, Michael Shannon, in the running for Best Supporting Actor. The tie-in uses the original title of the novel, Tony and Susan, Austin Wright (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Kubo and My Life as a Zucchini are both nominated for Best Animated film. Kubo is based on Japanese folklore and has a number of tie-ins, including Kubo and the Two Strings: The Junior Novel, Sadie Chesterfield (Hachette/Little, Brown YR; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). Life as a Zucchini is based on Autobiographie D’une Courgette (J’Ai Lu Editions, 2003; no English translation), a YA novel by the French journalist Gilles Paris.
I Am Not Your Negro is nominated for Best Documentary. It is based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House, called by the publisher in a companion volume, to be published in February, “the most famous book Baldwin never wrote.”: I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck, James Baldwin, Raoul Peck (PRH/Vintage; OverDrive Sample).
Life, Animated is also in the running for Best Documentary. It is based on Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, Ron Suskind (Hachette/Kingswell; OverDrive Sample).
A Man Called Ove is among the Best Foreign Language Films, based on Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove (S&S/Atria, July 2014; Dreamscape; OverDrive Sample).
Four additional films with book connections are nominated in technical categories:
Silence — Best Cinematography. Based on Shusaku Endo’s Silence: With an Introduction by Martin Scorsese (Peter Owen Publishers, Dec. 1; trade paperback, Macmillan/Picador Modern Classics).
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — Best Costume Design and Production Design. Based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Hogwarts Library Book), Newt Scamander, J.K. Rowling (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books).
Sully — Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Based on Highest Duty, Chesley Sullenberger (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2009; OverDrive Sample).
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — Sound Mixing. Not based on a book, but plenty of books, including the novelization, have been published as tie-ins: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Alexander Freed (PRH/Del Rey; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).