Taylor Swift’s Oscar Campaign: Hiding in Plain Sight

“Patient Zero” is the 18th video or short film Swift has directed — and for this one, she pulled together an even larger A-list crew than usual, including three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki (back in the race this year for Digger) and stars Colin Farrell (an Oscar nominee) and Dakota Johnson. (Previous Swift videos, including “Fortnight,” were shot by go-to Martin Scorsese director of photography Rodrigo Prieto.) On top of all of that, Swift was the recipient of the first-ever VMAs Artist Director Award, an honor that sounds even more made-up than most of the made-up awards of the season — and also likely was, at least according to VMAs executive producer Bruce Gillmer, who said the “kernel” of the idea for the award came from “external” figures. 

None of this technically has anything to do with “I Knew It, I Knew You,” of course. But this publicity blitz helps frame Swift as a Hollywood figure, not just a music industry one. Forget the hits, it seems to suggest; she’s also an ambitious director and narrative shaper who goes far beyond her music. (Tom Cruise calling her a “brilliant” filmmaker probably doesn’t hurt either.) Could that angle be enough to help endear Swift to the members of the music branch who have resisted her thus far?

This VMAs launch has presumably been in the works for months, but I still like imagining it as a response to the rapturous festival reviews for The Debut, the film that features multiple original songs from writer-director Jesse Eisenberg. I’d predict The Debut’s big standout number with an absurd title — “This City May Have Chewed Me Up (But Hasn’t Spit Me Out)” — as the favorite to win best original song. The Debut is produced by Swift’s longtime pal Emma Stone, so this contest won’t get ugly beyond light, friendly ribbing (Stone on having Swift’s support at the Golden Globes in 2024: “What an asshole, am I right?”). But Swift has the power to command attention beyond nearly anyone else in pop culture, and just as any Oscar campaigner would presumably advise her to, she’s using it. 

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Head East

Elsewhere in the world of Oscar buzz, the big event of the week is certainly the wide release of Digger, the film that will attempt to overcome mostly poor reviews and weak box office tracking to become Cruise’s first acting Oscar nomination since 2000, when he was recognized for Magnolia. I’m finally seeing the film this weekend and will share some thoughts in Monday’s newsletter, though as we discussed in this week’s podcast deep dive on the best actor race, critical response on this one may matter less than Cruise’s well-established skills at awards-season campaign stops. 

So for now, indulge me in a brief detour back into the world of television, where one of the best things I’ve seen all year is finally making its debut. John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, previously partially adapted in a 1955 film by Elia Kazan, has now gotten the full-fledged miniseries treatment from Kazan’s granddaughter, Zoe Kazan. East of Eden is already a book about families, legacies and overcoming the worst actions of your parents; the fact that Kazan, as she puts it, had to walk directly into her grandfather’s shadow to make the series adds another layer to what’s already an incredibly rich text. 

And seven episodes, all of which are now on Netflix, are still not even enough to hold the entirety of East of Eden, which Kazan narrows down a bit to become the story of brothers Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott) and Charles Trask (Mike Faist) and then Cathy (Florence Pugh), who transforms both of them. That’s still only the beginning — the series leaves time for wonderful supporting turns from Tracy Letts as Adam and Charles’ Civil War veteran father, Hoon Lee as Adam’s Chinese-American employee, Lee; and especially Ciarán Hinds as Samuel Hamilton, an Irish immigrant who moved to California’s Salinas Valley before Adam and Cathy get there. For an adaptation of a sprawling, 600-page novel that re-creates much of the Book of Genesis in early 20th-century America, that’s a pretty impressive amount of story to fit. 

Though East of Eden carries many hallmarks of the modern limited series — movie stars on the small screen, opening with a shocking moment of violence before rewinding to see how it happened — there’s something wonderfully old-fashioned, wonderfully miniseries about it. The fact that Kazan’s next project is a television adaptation of Lonesome Dove, the source material for one of the most iconic miniseries of all time, suggests she probably agrees. In an age where limited series keep sneaking their way into becoming regular-old dramas, it’s incredibly refreshing to watch a show that feels enormous but finite, too. 

It’s also a pleasure to watch something that looks this gorgeous — New Zealand stands in for central California farmland — and has the time for such expansive, fascinating performances from its leads. Pugh has stayed busy since her double-threat breakout with Midsommar and Little Women in 2019, but no character has tapped in to the extent of what she can do as much as Cathy, whom Steinbeck described as a monster before changing his mind midway through his own book. Kazan’s East of Eden isn’t exactly a feminist reclamation of a character who does many awful things, but it’s a clear-eyed look at how a woman with few options might harden her heart and choose herself above all others. 

We’ll get to the awards prospects of East of Eden eventually — expect it to show up all over the winter awards shows, such as the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards — but for now, I insist you watch it. In a time of year when I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up with movies I haven’t seen and interviews I need to schedule, returning to Kazan’s version of Steinbeck’s California has felt like a rewarding journey to somewhere else entirely.