BOSTON, BEHIND THE SCENES
Sources from within the Boston Society of Film Critics, which announced their awards earlier this afternoon, have given me the lowdown on how the winners were arrived at. For the first time in their history, they opted to not announce runner-ups, so this information is all we really have to help us understand what/who else was in contention aside from the eventual winners:
- No Country for Old Men won Picture by one vote over The Diving Bell and the Butterfly!
- Three movies appeared to have the most support overall: No Country for Old Men, which won Picture and Supporting Actor; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which won Director, Foreign, and Cinematography; and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which won Ensemble.
- Contrary to popular suspicion, Gone Baby Gone, which was honored for Supporting Actress and New Filmmaker, garnered little support for Picture.
- For Cinematography, Janusz Kaminski (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) only barely edged out Roger Deakins, whose support was split, as I anticipated it would be, among his three films this year. Not surprisingly, most of his support was for his work on No Country for Old Men.
- Marion Cotillard won Best Actress handily on the second ballot. Apparently, the only others with any real support at all were Julie Christie and Ellen Page.
- The somewhat surprising win of Best Actor by Frank Langella (Starting Out in the Evening) came at the expense of Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood), who was a close runner-up, and remains the favorite for the Academy Award.
- There was widespread support for Ben Affleck en route to his win for New Filmmaker. Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) was the runner-up.
- Support was fairly split for Director, with Sidney Lumet (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) and Ethan and Joel Coen (No Country for Old Men) in contention, but Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) pulling away in the end.
- Juno was in the race for Screenplay and Ensemble, but came up short to Ratatouille (biggest surprise) in the former and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead in the latter.
- Speaking of Ensemble, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead won, but guess who tied for second place? I'm Not There and... drumroll, please... Superbad!
