Live-Action Oscar-Nominated Shorts Bring to Life Both Real and Fictional Tales

"The Eleven O'Clock" is a live-action, Oscar-nominated still directed by Derin Seale. By Courtesy of the Academy Awards

The Eleven O'Clock

Dir. Derin Seale

Doctor Harry Phillips wants to be called “Doctor,” not “Sir.” Phillips, a psychiatrist, seems uneasy, unsettled. He keeps tugging at his desk drawer, but it won’t open. He has a secretary temp, but just for the day, who tells him his eleven o’clock appointment is with a man who “suffers grandiose delusions, both occupational and reverential”—what’s more, he believes that he is a psychiatrist. Enter Dr. Nathan Kline, the patient, as he takes over his own appointment as the doctor. Cue a frustrating back and forth interaction as the two “doctors” compete to diagnose each other.

“The Eleven O’Clock” is as comical as it is painful to watch. The frustration between the two is almost too palpable, thanks to the skillful acting of Josh Lawson and Damon Herriman, who play Kline and Phillips, respectively. They both play sharp and convincing psychiatrists, maximizing a plot that risks being repetitive and exhausting. The film’s success is also largely due to Josh Lawson’s smart script and its play on words, which peaks during an attempted word association test.

"DeKalb Elementary" is a live-action, Oscar-nominated short directed by Reed Van Dyk. By Courtesy of the Academy Awards

DeKalb Elementary

Dir. Reed Van Dyk

“DeKalb Elementary” is a fictional retelling of what could have been Atlanta’s mirror image of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In both situations, a 20-year-old, mentally ill white man opens fire with an assault rifle into an elementary school. The crucial difference—and what stopped the August 2013 Atlanta shooting from turning deadly—is one brave woman’s compassion for the man who could have killed her. Tarra Riggs is superb as Cassandra Rice, the school’s receptionist, who mediates between the shooter and a 911 responder—composed, while she waits alone in a room with a man who will either turn himself in or go on a killing spree. The film rings eerily true, especially in the wake of the recent, heartbreaking shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people.

The short film’s brilliance lies in its realism. With the screenplay dialogue taken directly from the transcript of the actual 911 call made, the film balances the terrifying anxiety of the situation at hand and the calm required of both Rice and the audience to see it through to the end—all in a mere 21 minutes. Van Dyk makes sure to immortalize one woman’s story—one that undoubtedly would have gradually disappeared into history—in an uncanny short that speaks to the times we live in. A hero, Rice saves the day with her compassion. “It’s a good thing you’re giving up. We all go through something in life, OK?” she comforts the gunman, as he prepares to turn himself in. We can only hope to be as brave as Rice if and when that “something” comes.

"My Nephew Emmett" is a live-action, Oscar-nominated still, directed by Kevin Wilson Jr. By Courtesy of the Academy Awards

My Nephew Emmett

Dir. Kevin Wilson Jr.

In “My Nephew Emmett,” director Kevin Wilson Jr. takes a look at the less publicized, but crucial point of view of Moses “Mose” Wright (L.B. Williams), uncle of Emmett Till (Joshua Wright), the teenager from Chicago whose 1955 lynching helped push the Civil Rights Movement into motion. The short film relies heavily on closeups of Wright, whose stunning, subtle performance carries the film, and on the countryside’s natural soundtrack, with crickets and other noises of the night painting a deceptively peaceful picture while Wright waits helplessly for the horrors that still plague this country to take place.

The tension builds with Wright’s dread, as the clock slowly ticks to the moment his nephew is taken away to be beaten, mutilated, terrorized, and ultimately shot for allegedly whistling at a white woman. As Wright bathes, waiting for the inevitable, he immerses himself in water in a scene reminiscent of another gorgeous movie, similarly built on closeups and starring a black man: “Moonlight.” But where Chiron’s submersion is liberating, Wright’s is harrowingly suffocating: sounds of an underwater struggle play over his submersion, perhaps in an attempt to reflect Wright’s agony as to what he know will inevitably happen, or even more disturbingly, to call to Emmett Till’s own drowning, as the 14-year-old boy’s body was ultimately thrown into the Tallahatchie River.

Both Wright’s and the audience’s foreboding painfully manifests itself in the downturn of Wright’s lips, in the bulge of his eyes as sleep eludes him, in the veins that strain across his face as he waits for the moment we all know is coming. Despite the film’s weak ending—Wilson Jr. inserts actual footage of Wright’s interview the day he identified his nephew’s body, possibly to cement the story as a real man’s experience, but inadvertently takes away from Williams’ beautiful performance—the film stands as tall as Wright, thanks to Williams.

"The Silent Child" is a live-action, Oscar-nominated short, directed by Chris Overton. By Courtesy of the Academy Awards

The Silent Child

Dir. Chris Overton

Disabilities deserve to be recognized, but they are not inherent hindrances. First-time screenwriter Rachel Shenton makes this message clear in the film, “The Silent Child.” Shenton plays social worker Joanne, who is brought in to help Libby, a four-year-old girl who is completely deaf. As Libby’s mother insists the girl learn speech therapy over sign language to integrate her into school, Joanne soon realises Libby is a child silenced not by her disability, but by her family. Her siblings are too busy with their own lives to interact with Libby, and her parents speak to her as if she can hear.

What then unfolds between Joanne and Libby is more than a mentor-mentee relationship. “Jo” becomes her only sympathetic and patient friend. Six-year-old Maisie Sly, who plays Libby and is deaf in real life, speaks beyond sign language. Her facial expressions, from blank stares to shy laughter, capture her journey as she learns to sign. The cinematography is striking in its bleakness. Jo travels by bike, lending room to panoramic shots of the foggy, rural landscape, which briefly glimmers under the sun when Libby is briefly allowed to communicate for herself.

The film ends with sobering facts about the experience of deaf children: “Over 78 percent of deaf children attend mainstream school with no specialist support in place.” Shenton hopes that “this film contributes in the fight for sign language to be recognized in every school across the globe.” Even so, “The Silent Child” isn’t preachy or aggressive—Shenton has successfully created a powerful yet subtle message with her simple storyline.

"Watu Wote/All of Us" is a live-action, Oscar-nominated short directed by Katja Benrath. By Courtesy of the Academy Awards

Watu Wote: All of Us

Dir. Katja Benrath

“The region between Kenya and Somalia is considered highly dangerous. In recent years Christians have repeatedly been attacked by Al-Shabaab terrorists,” on-screen text explains. Jua (Adelyne Wairimu), the film’s protagonist, is one such Christian. Having lost her baby and her husband to the aforementioned terrorism, she alienates all Muslims, including those who do not share the same extremist views as the Al-Shabaab terrorists. In line with the unofficial theme for many of this year’s nominated live-action short films, “Watu Wote” is also based on a true story: On a bus ride back to visit her sick mother—and the place where her husband and child were killed—Jua finds herself in the midst of a terrorist attack. The terrorists stop the bus and demand for all Christians to be separated from the Muslims. The threat is clear: They intend to kill the Christians, and the Muslims who would protect them, which turns out to be all of them. Jua is saved when her neighbor, a Muslim mother, quickly throws a hijab onto her head to hide her identity. Even Salah Farah (Abdiwali Farrah), a Muslim teacher toward whom Jua was initially volatile, questions the terrorists and their actions, protecting the Christian passengers from an undeserved fate.

The film depicts different people coming together to protect themselves, even at the risk of their own life. But, though poignant and timely, the film fails to convey what should have been a powerful message about unity and the rejection of bigotry, as Jua wanders away as she reaches her final destination to greet what we can assume is her family without coming to terms with what happened or the sacrifices people made to protect her.

—Staff writer Mila Gauvin II can be reached at mila.gauvin@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Kaylee S. Kim can be reached at kaylee.kim@thecrimson.com.