I do love a good rant about the Academy Awards. And Ryan Gilbey is, for my money, one of the sharpest, most entertaining film writers around these days. So it figures that a Gilbey-written attack on the Oscars, in the lefty political mag the New Statesman, should make for good reading.
Gilbey cheerfully admits that he “hates” the Oscars, even as they fascinate him by “systematically disparag(ing) the creativity and alchemy of filmmaking.” And as in David Denby’s own recent rant, he dislikes all of this year’s Best Picture contenders save for “Milk,” though he still thinks Gus Van Sant’s film “pales beside” the likes of “WALL-E.” (I particularly like the accuracy with which he skewers “Frost/Nixon,” arguing that it is “built like a sitcom — every joke has its payoff in the following shot.” Bingo.)
But he also offers some ideas for how to fix the supposedly broken machine that is the Oscars. And while some of them are typically playful and even perverse (ban Ron Howard and Meryl Streep from future nominations, he pleads), some of them (to me, at least) really make a lot of sense. I particularly like his two-birds-with-one-stone approach to rectifying the embarrassing foreign-language situation, starting by abolishing the Foreign Film category altogether:
Scrap the only award specially designed to allow a sliver of glory to fall on cinema from other cultures. Why? Well, it’s patronising, for a start. Not quite as bad as the Best British Film Bafta, I’ll grant you, but still only a hair away from being termed The Special Needs Award For Hopeless Cases. It’s nothing short of insulting to see Laurent Cantet’s The Class and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir consigned to this subsidiary category when there is more accomplishment in one frame of those films than in the entirety of most of this year’s Best Picture contenders. An awards system that does not consider The Class good enough to compete with Frost/Nixon or Slumdog Millionaire deserves to be a laughing stock.
So how will foreign-language films get a look-in? Call it positive discrimination or affirmative action, but from now on, the total number of Best Picture nominees should be raised to six, of which two must come from non-English-speaking countries. There is simply no other way to redress the balance than to force Academy voters to consider films that are not being screened at the local mall. Let’s put The Reader up against Waltz With Bashir and then we’ll see some real tears from Kate Winslet.
Good stuff. The rest here.
Comments
9 responses to “Start from scratch, Academy”
He lost me when he started about limiting the number of nods for one film. Except for the foreign language films the rest is a bit far-fetched.
Some of his ideas are off the wall, but a great article.
I think Foreign Film should go as well. Can anyone honestly say that Atonement, Juno, and Michael Clayton were better than 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days?
I haven’t seen the Class yet, but as things stand now, a Palme d’Or means much more to me than a Best Picture Oscar.
I don’t think making the Academy vote for 2 foriegn language films is sane. That’s like saying they have to nominate one summer blockbuster, and then only one December released movie, and then you have to have the critics darling…
It gets to be a mess and ruins the whole thought behind the Oscars – the members honor what they choose to honor, not what they’re told to.
A lot of his arguments are poorly supported.
To abolish some of the mass appeal of the Oscars (i.e. nominating a Button over Waltz) would be to do a great disservice to the television audience, most of which is comprised of casual moviegoers.
This type of article seems to surface every year around Oscar time. I agree that certain movies this year (“Benjamin Button” and “The Reader”) should not be included in the Best Picture category. Superior choices to include there would have been “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E”. In an odd turn of events, not only were these movies critically-acclaimed, but they both were loved by the masses, as well. However, this is the Oscars; no one will be happy with all of the inclusions/exclusions. We have the People’s Choice Awards on one end. On the other, we have about 1000 critics awards. The Oscars lie somewhere in the middle. While not totally bending toward the will of the people, the Oscars tend to include epic pictures from time to time (as long as they are not comedic or fantastical). However, there is always at least one or two individuals we pick to root for.
The suggestion to abolish the foreign film category is ridiculous. I agree with some that if you want the “Best Picture” of the world, then maybe look to those international film festivals like Cannes and Berlin. However, an average person does not care nor may he be aware of these films. The Oscars need to be somewhat relevant to their American audience in their choices. If they aren’t then no one would watch them. In this same vein, why don’t we abolish the Best Documentary and Short categories, allowing all to compete in one big Best Picture category. We all know how that would end (i.e. Wall-E, this year).
This is why there are critics’ lists and awards. If the Oscars catered to snobbery, it wouldn’t be the Oscars.
Zan: But nominating a “Waltz With Bashir” in place of a “Reader,” or alongside, say, a “Dark Knight”? That would work for me. (One could argue that the Academy is already doing a disservice to the television audience by nominating such niche films as “Frost/Nixon” or “The Reader,” which have a lot less critical cache than other low-grossing alternatives.)
Anyway, no need to take the article too seriously. I just think it’s a theoretically interesting idea.
“Let’s put The Reader up against Waltz With Bashir and then we’ll see some real tears from Kate Winslet.”
Okay, THAT was pretty damn funny!
“…let’s keep a close eye, too, on those theatre directors…who get feted before they have grasped that film is a different language.”
DEAD ON. God-forbid the academy nominate a true visual auteur over a guy who just plugs their plays onto film for Best Director.
“…in the past 30 years of the Oscars, only two Best Picture winners have come close to deserving that accolade – The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and Unforgiven in 1992.”
I would add four more films to that statement – No Country for Old Men in 2007, Schindler’s List in 1993, The Last Emperor in 1987, and Amadeus in 1984.
I would be in favor of taking out the Foreign Language Film category. Because the current feeling is, nominate a movie there and then just stop at that.
But with Foreign Language Category out of the way, they would have no option but to nominate foreign language films in major categories.
But are we all asking too much from the Academy? They never claimed to award the best in world cinema, they were principally founded to honor the best in American cinema(they don’t even do that), so its little bit of a stretch when we say this or this film foreign film was snubbed. By saying all these things, we are actually all indicating that winning an Oscar is desirable.