Dear Oscar

Dear Oscar,

I know that awards season can get really crowded with so many high profile films and contenders vying for your attention. It must get tricky being able to remember films from the beginning of the year when several presumed juggernauts don't even premiere until the end of December. Yes, it must get hard when you have actors losing weight, or donning prosthetics in flashy biopics. Yes, I know it's hard, but before the endless onslaught of awards movies, I ask you to hear me out.

I'm sure you've heard how Rosamund Pike is fantastic in David Fincher's "Gone Girl", a film that has crossed $100 million in just 3 weeks since premiering, and I'm sure a Best Actress nomination would seem fitting as a reward for that film. I'm also sure you've heard Julianne Moore, Jessica Chastain, Reese Witherspoon, Felicity Jones, and Amy Adams are all great in their respective films. It must be hard to see past all of these flashy, very familiar names; some of these women are past winners, or multiple time past nominees. But I'm asking you to look past those names for a moment, to consider Marion Cotillard's groundbreaking work in James Gray's, "The Immigrant".

Marion Cotillard Discovers the American Dream in "The Immigrant"

The opening shot of director/writer James Gray's fifth feature (entitled, "The Immigrant") is an image we're all familiar with: the back of The Statue of Liberty . To many, the statue represents the ideals that America was (allegedly) built on: truth, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

Gray's film opens in New York City, 1921 as 2 sisters, Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and Magda (Angela Sarafyan) are arriving on Ellis Island to be processed, and hopefully begin their new life in the legendary United States of America. However, they are turned away; Magda has contracted Tuberculosis and is carried away into the infirmary where she will be left until she can be deported back to Poland (the sisters' home country). Ewa, on the other hand, has been accused of having "questionable morals" during her time on the boat ride (we later learn she refused a man's sexual advances) and we learn "America doesn't accept women of questionable morals into the country."

In these first few moments of the film, Gray lays the overall tone of the film. The grand wide shots and bleak, sepia filter of the cinematography accentuate Ewa's helplessness and loneliness, and it becomes very clear why he chose to shoot the infamous statue from the back; While she stands for freedom and the hope of a better life, it becomes clear through the course of the film that she literally has her back turned to Ewa's plight, and the rest of these powerless people.