Oscar preview - Best Screenplay

The TOMB takes a look at the original and adapted screenplays nominated this year.

Mar  1 2006

Having dealt with the actors on Monday and the actresses yesterday, it's time to deal with the most important people in the film process today – the writers.

The Academy spilt screenplays into two different categories – original and adapted – and to get things moving along, we'll start with the original screenplays.

In this year of politically charged films dominating every award ceremony, entertaining but slight efforts like Noah Bambauch's 'The Squid and the Whale' and Woody Allen's 'Match Point' are probably just making up the numbers at this point.

Stephen Gaghan's challenging and complex 'Syriana' stands a better chance, although the fact that the film itself failed to find an audience probably means that Gaghan won't win a second award to join his 'Traffic' Oscar on the mantelpiece.

This category therefore probably boils down to a straight face-off between George Clooney and Grant Heslov's 'Good Night, and Good Luck' and Paul Haggis's 'Crash'.

While I wasn't a fan of the latter (feeling it was akin to being hit over the head with a giant racist stick), everyone else in the world seems to love it, and having picked up the BAFTA for original screenplay a couple of weeks ago, Haggis is definitely the hot favourite to win at this late stage.

However, here at the TOMB we'll be keeping our fingers and toes crossed that George and Grant carry home the award for their subtle and thought-provoking take on the McCarthy witch-hunts.

As for adapted screenplay, this should be a hotly contested category as all the nominees are deserving of awards.

John Olsen's inspired adaptation of John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel 'A History of Violence' made David Cronenberg's movie one of 2005's most unexpected gems.

Tony Kushner and Eric Roth turned George Jonas's controversial fact-based novel 'Vengeance' into 'Munich', a powerful yet accessible account of the aftermath of the Munich Olympics massacre.

Jeffrey Caine changed John Le Carre's 'The Constant Gardener' from thriller to touching romance without losing any of the original's compelling political plot.

And Dan Futterman's 'Capote' was full of humour, wit, power and pathos, making it one of the most entertaining scripts of the year.

But there has to be a victorious screenplay, and that can only be Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana's Golden Globe-winning, BAFTA-winning work on 'Brokeback Mountain'.

By turning E Annie Proulx slim novella into the film of the year, McMurty and Ossana crafted a timeless and unforgettable love story, and they thoroughly deserve every prize they receive.

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