Golden Globe Nominees Have Chicago Connections

CHICAGO (Feb. 28, 2021) — The Golden Globes will stream live coast-to-coast Sunday night to name the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s picks for best film and television of the season.

Two of the night’s major nominees are set in Chicago: Aaron Sorkin’s tightly-written and timely “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the final performance of venerated actor Chadwick Boseman, who died of colon cancer last summer at age 43.

Both films are Netflix offerings; the streaming service’s 42 nominations are the most of any competitor being recognized by the HFPA in a year when closed cinemas meant Internet premieres for most major movies.

Sorkin’s film tells the story of the trial that charged protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention with inciting a riot. Universally praised for its timeliness in a year of protest and political division, Sorkin is nominated for directing, but should likely win for his brilliantly-constructed trademark dialogue. The film is also nominated for Best Picture, Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actor for Sasha Baron Cohen’s portrayal of famed political activist Abbie Hoffman.

Exterior shots were filmed for two weeks in Chicago in October 2019, using hundreds of local extras to recreate the protest and riot scenes in Grant Park. Other recognizable monuments are the Hilton Hotel and the John Logan Statue where protesters gathered during the convention. Prop Master Michael Jortner recreated Chicago Police Department patrol cars and paddy wagons that were used in 1968.

“For the most part, we have Chicago police officers playing Chicago police officers, Illinois National Guardsmen playing Illinois National Guardsman,” Sorkin said. “Obviously, these guys weren’t around in 1968. I thought I was going to have to explain the history of this whole thing to them, but in Chicago they well know their history.”

Based on the play by August Wilson, “Ma Rainey” is set in Chicago in the summer of 1927. Viola Davis is nominated for her performance as the titular blues singer struggling through a tumultuous session with her band at Paramount Records.

The film is the only major Wilson play set outside his hometown of Pittsburgh. “It became very important for me to embody Chicago because for some Black people Chicago was the promised land,” director George C. Wolfe said. “But for others it resulted in them doing hard and brutal work.”

Much of Wilson’s work analyzed the impact of the “Great Migration,” the decades in which more than six million African Americans relocated from the South. “We really believed in the promise of the Great Migration. There were more opportunities in Chicago and Boston, so there was hope there,” Davis said.

Though the movie was shot in Pittsburgh, production designer Mark Ricker researched 1920s Chicago to ensure the story evoked the right mood. “It’s a complete re-education about what literal materials were invented, like chain link and corrugated concrete, and diving into the details of what makes Chicago, Chicago, from elevated trains to lamp posts to trash cans,” he said.

Boseman is posthumously nominated for Best Actor for his role as coronet player Levee Green. The Chicago Film Critics Association named him Best Actor at their December awards. Boseman and the cast of “Marshall” opened the Chicago International Film Festival in 2017, and his nephew Aaron Reese Boseman founded Pulse Theatre Chicago. Co-star Dusan Brown hails from the City and executive producer Constanza Romero has been involved with productions at the Goodman Theatre.

“Nomadland” is the likely contender for Best Picture, starring Frances McDormand as a woman travelling the American West and living out of her van after her factory town is left desolate. The film won five honors from the Chicago Film Critics Association in December, including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Screenplay and Director for Chloe Zhao. She is one of three women nominated for Best Director; the HFPA have never nominated more than one woman in the category prior to this year, and none since Ava DuVernay helmed “Selma” in 2015. A woman has not won the Best Director Golden Globe since Barbra Streisand in 1984.

In both “Trial” and “Ma Rainey,” Chicago serves as not just a background, but a beacon. For justice, for opportunity - and for incredible story-telling. Hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who put down comedy roots at Second City in the 1990s, the ceremony will air at 7 p.m. CST on NBC.