Oscars: Joker, Irishman at 'the beginning of a real Golden Age' for movies filmed in NJ

Is Oscar a Jersey guy?

That's the question on the movie industry's mind this weekend before the 92nd Academy Awards air 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, on ABC from Los Angeles, as a pair of locally-shot films are in the running for a staggering 21 combined honors.

"Joker," the villain's saga starring Joaquin Phoneix, had Jersey City and Newark stand in for Gotham City when it was filmed in 2018. It's this year's most-nominated film, with 11 nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, and Best Director for Todd Phillips.

The film also earned a Best Cinematography nomination for Teaneck native Lawrence Sher. "Batman" film franchise producer Michael Uslan, born in Jersey City and raised in Ocean Township, served as executive producer on "Joker."

"Joker" is a dark re-imagining of the rise of Batman's arch-nemesis in a Gotham City that can't help but recall "Taxi Driver"-era Manhattan. Why has a film this grim resonated with critics and audiences around the world, grossing more than $1 billion and counting worldwide?

“I personally believe that ‘Joker’ is the most important film since ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ to deal with issues of mental health in this country and as an adjunct to it its connection to gun violence, but about mental health," said Uslan. "And it does what I believe cinema does at its best: it holds a mirror up to society, warts and all.

"A lot of people are uncomfortable seeing that — the Joker was meant to make people uncomfortable — but it addresses the very real fact of the lack of civility in this country right now and the lack of social discourse and too many people looking down and pressing lots of buttons rather than looking each other in the eyes and talking to each other, not at each other, but talking to each other.”

Martin Scorsese's Netflix crime epic "The Irishman" is also a local contender with 10 nominations.

The film — starring a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel and Bobby Cannavale — was partially filmed in Paterson.

Newark native Pesci, a longtime homeowner in Lavallette, earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the film. Scorsese previously directed him to Oscar gold in that category for 1990's "GoodFellas."

"The Irishman" tied with Sam Mendes' "1917" and Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood" for second-most nominations at 10 apiece, also scoring a shared Best Production Design nod for production designer Bob Shaw, a Philadelphia native who grew up Mountain Lakes and Medford, and set decorator Regina Graves from Harrison.

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Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour saga posed a very particular challenge to its design team, as its story of organized crime and labor unions spanned decades and a good stretch of the country.

“The first part of our job, before you get into anything fancy, is letting the audience know where they are," explained Shaw. "So it’s just trying to keep things distinct from one another, particularly when you have multiples of the same kind of locations.

"We had, I don’t know, like six hotel rooms and gas stations. There were multiples of everything and so you just try to stylistically say, ‘Well, this is almost a 1940s-looking city hotel and this is a Howard Johnson’s and this is in Washington and we’re going to do sort of a colonial look and this one’s more kind of fun and '50s.’ So I would say it’s theme and variations, trying to do different riffs on a similar topic.”

The local shoot on "The Irishman" is part of a filmmaking boom in Paterson that's also included Steven Spielberg's upcoming re-telling of "West Side Story" and the highly-anticipated "Sopranos" prequel film "The Many Saints of Newark."

Shaw and Graves, who both worked on "The Many Saints of Newark," welcomed the return of the film industry to the state.

“For us, it just opens up the possibilities of where we can film," said Shaw. "Like, Paterson’s amazing for filming, and for years we just couldn’t consider shooting there.”

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Film production boomed across New Jersey after lawmakers in Trenton approved tax credits to draw movie and television production back to New Jersey in 2018. It was a reversal from nearly a decade before, when Gov. Chris Christie suspended the credits in 2010, and later let them expire, in an effort to curb the budget.

The program — the benefits of which have been hotly debated by some in the state — was expanded by Gov. Phil Murphy in January when he extended its life from five years to 10 and approved New Jersey awarding up to $100 million a year in film and television credits, an increase from the originally allotted $75 million of annual credits.

Find out more about the tax-incentivized return of the film and television industries to New Jersey in our 2019 report.

“This is the beginning of a real Golden Age for New Jersey that we have seen’t the days (of) since Fort Lee and the beginning of the motion picture industry, which all began in New Jersey," said "Joker" producer Uslan, who is also chairman of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission.

"It’s going to be a triumphant return,” he added.

Graves, who'd worked on the Secaucus-based shoot of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" before Christie let the tax credits expire years back, echoed that sentiment.

“We shot everywhere, all around and different locations there," said Graves. "I think it helped New Jersey as a whole and it helped small businesses. It helped people who lived there. I think it boosted the industry, so I’m glad that it’s come back and I’m glad that it’ll help New Jersey in many different ways."

The 11 nominations for "Joker" tie it with eventual Best Picture winners "Rebecca" (1940), "Sergeant York" (1941), "The Pride of the Yankees" (1942), "West Side Story" (1961), "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961), "Oliver!" (1968), "The Godfather" (1972), "The Godfather: Part II" (1974), "Gandhi" (1982), "Terms of Endearment" (1983), "Amadeus" (1984), "Out of Africa" (1985) and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003).

"Joker" won the top prize at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, the Golden Lion Award, in September. Previous Golden Lion winners, including Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" (1948) and Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water" (2017), also went on to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Oscar precedent is also on the side of "Joker," as every live action film that has featured the character in the last 30 years — "Batman" (1989), "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "Suicide Squad" (2016) — has taken home some kind of Academy gold.

Other New Jersey-connected Oscar contenders include studio Sony Pictures Classics, where the co-founder and co-president is Tom Bernard of Middletown. Their "Pain and Glory" by Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar earned a Best International Feature nomination, as well as a Best Actor nod for Antonio Banderas.

Ocean Township's Robert Legato, a three-time winner, earned a Best Achievement in Visual Effects nomination for Disney and director Jon Favreau's re-telling of "The Lion King."

The Oscars smiled on New Jersey last year, as Best Picture winner "Green Book" chronicled a chapter in the life of the late Frank Anthony Vallelonga Sr. of Paramus, also known as Tony Lip, played in the film by Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen.

Sunday's Academy Awards could serve as the next step in New Jersey's return to the limelight. And with projects like Spielberg's "West Side Story" and David Chase's "The Many Saints of Newark" on the way, it looks like the Garden State will keep its star status for years to come.

“We like to sell ourselves as New York City’s greatest backlot," Uslan said. "Yeah, go there and do your scenes with the Empire State Building or Times Square, but then within an hour we can deliver you — at far cheaper rates by the way — Altantic City, beaches, mountain areas, farmland, urban centers, suburban communities, forests, the Pine Barrens. We are the greatest backlot ever.”