January 26, 2009
Statue of Limitations?
Even the barely religious will attend a Christmas Eve church service once a year, and I believe there's a case to be made that watching -- and more significantly, at least half-caring about -- the yearly pomp that is Oscar night fulfills a similar sense of pious obligation among filmgoers. Before you groan, "Oh crikey, not another useless rant about the futility of the Academy Awards" and skip onto your next RSS feed, let me stop you now. I enjoy the Big Show every year, or at least, the collective experience of watching it with friends, bitching about the overrated nominees (Richard Jenkins! The Reader! Frozen River! Benjamin Button!) and the snubs (Sally Hawkins! Bruce Springsteen! Charlie Kaufman the writer! Cadillac Records!), cheering the merits of Hollywood populism (Michael Shannon! Robert Downey Jr.! Wall-E!), and jeering hideous musical numbers or tacky dresses.
But the key phrase in all that is "collective experience," as in, would any of us enjoy the all-too-familiar speeches, memorial montages, self-satisfied stock footage of Oscar nights past, and glorified back-patting so much if we weren't surrounded by our friends and families, all of us easily bemused lemmings? Part of me doubts that we watch because we value the Academy's choices of what the "Best" actor/picture/whatever/whomever is, but then how often do we also buy or rent DVDs with those laurel banners all over it? Do we care more than we'd like to admit, or have we been subconsciously programmed by the habitualism?
We love 'em, we're mildly irritated by 'em, we pretend to be less interested than we actually are in 'em, and for some ultimate reason, we need 'em. Why? Is it truly our personal love for cinema, our want to root for our favorites in imperfect categories as selected by wholly subjective tastes? In some cases, mine included, the excuse is professional; we HAVE to keep checking that zeitgeist for its pulse, right? (Okay, that's a gross cop-out.) Is it, as I hinted, psychological -- either we watch because we'll have conversations, debates and excuses to congregate, or on the other hand, that keeping-up-with-the-Joneses compulsion because we don't want to feel left out?
I'm useless when it comes to sports, so forgive me if my analogy doesn't stick, but I'm wondering why we treat the Oscars like a casual football fan would the Superbowl, where it isn't relevant if you follow college games (indie movies) or the NFL playoffs (year-end prestige films), it's that one single golden event that matters. I bring this up not only because said game is apparently happening soon, but because it is a game; a competition by all definitions. I don't think it's unnatural to judge arts and entertainment (Vegas odd-setting on the Oscars is still hilarious to me, but I won't negate my own gig!), but that the trophy events sometimes mean more to us as a society than the individual works is a human logic I can't quite deconstruct with purpose, in part because we're internet-fed heartily enough to know better.
I wanted to wait a few days to process the various think-pieces and responses to the Oscar announcement to try to gain insight about why, beyond its water-cooler relevance, I watch the Oscars. A dear friend, someone who probably only sees a half-dozen films a year if he's lucky, asked me what I thought about this year's nominees, and seemed surprised that someone with my career path would be looking forward to the event without caring so much about the individual nominations. I didn't have an answer, and realized then that I honestly don't know why I care or don't care. The Academy Awards will likely never hit my personal lottery and completely match all the balls up to my predilections, will they? If the potential for major shake-ups remains as limited every year (Oscar marketing campaigns likely having plenty of pull within the Academy's safe tastes), why do I (and you, and you and you) still talk about this dog-and-pony show as if anything, beyond the fashions, sociopolitical climate and buffoonish red-carpet interviewers, has changed in eight decades? Is that a cynical response, merely a curious one, or all hot air? The Award goes to whomever can make sense out of why we watch.
Posted by ahillis at January 26, 2009 12:58 PM
One of the things that strikes me whenever I see asinine pronouncements that the Academy is nominating too many "art-house" movies(like Courtney Hazlett's MSNBC denunciation of the nomination of movies like FROZEN RIVER only seen by "effete, elite" viewers) is that I don't live in the real world when it comes to movies; there are actually millions of Americans who don't just think SLUMDOG is an obscure little underdog, but don't even *realize* how many major world films are being seen out there in tiny, clique-ish coastal circles. It's literally inconceivable. (This isn't a value judgment in any way.)
The gap that you're talking about strikes me as the terminal phase of the "Oscar movie"; the fact that there are professional Oscar prognosticators (taking the role that once mainstream critics could be bothered to fill, and apparently no longer can) suggests the gap between the "prestige movie" and movies that just pander to old Oscar voters has gotten way too wide. When one of the Best Picture nominees is rocking a 58 rating on Metacritic (from the very pool of critics who should be crazy about it), something's gone wrong.
Posted by: vadim at January 26, 2009 1:31 PMWell spoken. What struck me was, in doing an Oscar pool a year or so back, I did two categories- WILL WIN and SHOULD WIN. With one or two exceptions, these were always different people. I can't remember the last time I agreed with a single major Oscar decision.
Posted by: Dylan Marchetti at January 26, 2009 3:14 PMEvery year I advise people to read the best piece ever written about the Oscars. Not much has changed since Raymond Chandler wrote it 1948.
www.theatlantic.com/issues/48mar/chandler.htm
I think you're asking the right questions, Aaron. A few years back, a friend asked me to speak to her current events-oriented history class about the Oscars. I pointed out to the students that when we watch the Oscars, it's essentially like attending an end-of-season awards banquet for a sport you don't play. Why would you do that? Got me.
Of course, the reason why the Academy keeps inviting us is rooted in Hollywood's deep and longstanding insecurity about being perceived as middle- or even low-brow entertainment. The Oscars help the industry manufacture prestige and suggest its ongoing cultural significance and have ever since the first radio broadcast of the event in 1930.
Posted by: cinetrix at January 27, 2009 7:18 AMWow, that graphic is both hideous and hilarious.
Posted by: Kathy Fennessy at January 27, 2009 8:53 AMAs it's never not fun to sit around the television and make rude comments, I don't believe you actually need more of a rationale to watch. But for me, the remote possibility that Bob Hope will return from the grave and take over the MCing duties is always a draw besides.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny at January 27, 2009 3:38 PMblack balloon film review-
Watched this other day.
This movie claimed a record 6 or 7 australian film institute awards, praised as masterpiece by the likes of various film reviewers round the country [Margaret Pomeranze and David Stratton] , hailed as THE great recent australian acting experience as well revelatory wonderland and enlightening drama too.
When really this film is little more than a reasonably well acted somewhat Melodramatic tele-movie [nothing wrong with 'melodrama', except when it goes unrealized as such by its film director] with a very politically correct special interest agenda [ie., more WASPY feminism hiding behind the allusion of appealing for understanding of mental imbecility] .
As well it had typically the call girl of australian bleeding hearts everywhere, our own talented and somewhat snake-eyed actress - Toni Collette.
Seriously What has happened to australian arts and cinema in the last few decades.
Its utterly up to its underpants and dominated with mushy feel good nonsense, allowing only very very infrequently something from left of centre [GETTING SQUARE, LANTANA, PROPOSITION] to somehow escape these nepotist, fawning, irrelevant, self-serving artistic adjudicatores/Electives CLUTCHES!!
Think its disgraceful that Australian potential for creating truly smart and adventurous cinema has been largely undermined by self-interested Philistines [in actual fact] that really and fundamentally could not give a damn about intelligent or moving arts and cinema [especially if it seeks to go beyond their self-imposed little agenda's] and any, especially those that practice art , if any of these dare criticise and make mention of their thoughts, these face a really hostile undercurrent of blacklisting.
This syndrome or clique must be challenged and overturned.
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