In addition to each taking the place of The Dark Knight, the 2009 Best Picture nominees have a few more common traits. They are all adaptations or biographies, as film's fascination with books and history continues to grow. All five films are nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay, with only Slumdog Millionaire without a nomination in acting, and The Reader curiously missing from the Best Editing category. But most interesting is the fact that all five are stories relying heavily on flashback; each film uses the storytelling device differently and with mixed results.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opens on an elderly woman in her deathbed. The scene takes place in New Orleans on the eve of Hurricane Katrina. It is a gimmick, and not a very good one at that, especially with less than appropriate jokes of people saying that the storm will blow over. These scenes are cold and lifeless, in sharp and unnatural contrast with the rest of the film. Because of this, the film is no longer the story of its protagonist, but a character reading the story of the protagonist, detaching the audience and preventing the characters from becoming timeless. The narrative unnecessarily stops in order to return to the present, which forces the viewer out of the reality of the film and causes it to seem unnatural.
Frost/Nixon employs a slightly different use of flashback, as it's present-day scenes act as interview segments to corroborate its story. Although not a documentary, these short scenes with the actors as their characters validate the claims of the film; the director, Ron Howard, creates a reality, and then adds his own primary sources for continuity. It is especially effective, considering that he never interviews his main characters. This allows for those characters to exist solely in the reality of their scenes; they do not leave the narrative, which would weaken the film. As well, the film makes a joke at itself, that both Frost and Nixon would be far too busy to take part in any interviews in a movie about the two of them.
Milk, alternately, uses flashback within its same era. The changes the character has gone through between the start of his story and where the audience sees him as he tells it are much more mental than physical. However, these “modern” scenes have a heavy sadness behind him, as Harvey Milk precedes the scene by stating that this story should only be listened to in the event of his assassination. It is a chilling line, never allowing the viewer to forget the impending tragedy hanging over the story. With these moments of Milk discussing his life, the film explains to the audience that the film is autobiographical in nature, allowing it to fully develop its subjective truth without cheating the viewer.
The Reader uses the flashback technique much more minimally than the other films, but perhaps more effectively. The film presents its protagonist, Michael, as an adult first, then allows the audience into his thoughts as he goes back to 1958 and relives the most important time in his life. With the film's crosscutting between present day and earlier, it demonstrates how much of an impact these early years had on Michael. As well, it is a great technique that perfectly develops its characters and readies them for the third act. The film tells its story organically, with the need for voice over or journals. Instead, like a book, it welcomes the omniscient viewer into its characters.
Slumdog Millionaire's main strengths come from its unorthodox storytelling. The story itself is a standard love story, yet it is the idosyncracies in its flashy narrative that bring to life the rest of the story and allow it to soar. The flashbacks are used expertly for comedy and melodrama, pain and glory. The film plays with viewer's expectations, especially with regards to when it stops flashing back and continues forward on a direct narrative. The audience realizes when the police have been interrogating Amir, which pushes a great surge of hope through to the end. With its tense, choppy structure, the film wonderfully assaults the viewer with its flashbacks.
It is unfortunate that original, forward narrative films such as The Wrestler did not receive nominations for Best Picture, this perhaps also symbolizes a changing of the types of films that audiences want to see; complex, multi-era spanning narratives with characters showing their arches physically. This will hopefully influence future filmmakers with regards to how they use unorthodox editing to tell a story.
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