A literary guide to the 2023 Oscars

THE (LITERARY) NOMINEES

All Quiet on the Western Front

Based on: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Nominated for 9 awards: Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects.

This German adaptation of the classic anti-war novel has critics raving and is a front-runner for Best International Film.  If, like many of us, you last read this World War I story in high school, may we suggest a reread? 

Women Talking

Based on: Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Nominated for 2 awards: Best Picture and Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Based on Miriam Toews' 2018 novel of the same name, and adapted by director Sarah Polley, "Women Talking" is an austere yet powerful examination of how the women of an isolated religious community gain political consciousness as they attempt to reconcile their faith with the atrocities committed against them.  Toews' book is itself motivated by the true story of a Mennonite colony in Bolivia, where a group of men were discovered to have been drugging and raping the community's women and girls from 2005 to 2009. 

Living

Based on: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (by way of the 1952 Japanese film "Ikiru")

Nominated for 2 awards: Best Actor (Bill Nighy), and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

The story of a bureaucrat spurred to change his life after reciving a terminal medical diagnosis, Living's screenplay was penned by acclaimed author Kazuo Ishiguro (author of book club favorite "Klara and the Sun," as well as "Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go," both of which were adapted into excellent movies).  Akira Kurosawa's classic film "Ikiru (To Live)," a favorite of film buff Ishiguro, was based on the Tolstoy novella.  Ishiguro, who was born in Japan but moved to the U.K. at age five, kept Kurosawa's time update of the 1950s, but transplanted it to London.  

The Quiet Girl

Based on: Foster by Claire Keegan

Nominated for 1 award: Best International Feature Film

Ireland's entry for Best International Film, "The Quiet Girl" adapts Keegan's radiant novella, "Foster," which tells the story of a young Irish girl who is sent to spend the summer with her mother's relations where she discovers a new way of living.  "Foster" was earlier published in condensed form in The New Yorker.    

Blonde

Based on: Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

Nominated for 1 award: Best Actress (Ana de Armas)

Joyce Carol Oates' fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe's life serves as the fodder for this new biopic, starring Ana de Armas as the adult Monroe (the book and movie cover her from childhood until her premature death at age 36).  The novel weighs in at over 700 pages but has been condensed to just under 3 hours.  

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Based on: Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Parris by Paul Gallico

Nominated for 1 award: Best Costume Design

This is the third film adaptation of the light-hearted 1958 novel (published as "Flowers for Mrs. Harris" in the U.K.), in which a British cleaning woman embarks on an adventure to Paris to obtain a Dior couture dress.  The book was the first in a series of four, so maybe we'll get some more films?

Bonus movie: Elvis

Baz Lurhmann's Elvis biopic is told from the perspective of Presley's longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks.  While Luhrmann claims he didn't read it, the definitive biography of Parker is “The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley” by Alanna Nash. 

Elvis was nominated for 8 awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Austin Butler), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Sound. 

Bonus movie: Causeway