Filed under: Academy Awards
I’m not quite sure what the Academy Awards represent. This year in particular they have failed to nominate the films and performances that were truly daring and artistic, and have instead chosen to acknowledge films that lack passion or insight into the human condition. In effect, the academy made an effort this year to nominate films that will not live on in history, and will surely be looked back as one of those years in Academy Awards history where the general public wonders what in the world the academy was thinking, ignoring such films as Synecdoche, New York, which at that time will finally be appreciated as a proper masterpiece, and other films like Happy-Go-Lucky and The Dark Knight, choosing instead static films like The Reader and Frost/Nixon.
Now I will not get upset. The Academy Awards do not really mean anything. There is no best of anything in art. I wish more people, actors in particular, would take a stand against the Awards circuit, like George C. Scott, who refused his Oscar and returned it to the Academy. His honorable declaration was that he did not believe to be in competition with other actors. They should have given him an Oscar for such a proclamation…oh wait. I suppose now, actors in particular, have obligations to promote their film to ensure financial success. The Academy Awards help fuel such lucrative prospects. I suppose if I view the show as one enormous publicity machine, instead of an offering of artistic merit, than the show becomes more enjoyable. Denial helps.
The Academy Awards have been around since 1927. At the first ceremony one of greatest of all silent films, Sunrise, was not given the top prize, which was given to the mightily inferior Wings. Sunrise was given some bullshit award for artistic merriment. The title Wings is now more associated with an 80s television sitcom than an academy award winner for best picture. Sunrise is still remembered and cherished and will live on as one of the truly great artistic achievements in cinema. The Academy got it wrong from the start; I see no reason why they should start awarding merit now.
The Academy Awards began at a pivotal time in film: the birth of sound. The Jazz Singer was awarded a special award at the time. However, there was no award for sound. Today there are two, but they are generally seen as a burden to the viewers, the producer of the show, and the winners whose long journey to the stage is subtracted from time in their speech. I am particularly fond of these two categories, as they award a difficult, thankless job of skill and expertise. However, in keeping with the zeitgeist, I have fitfully ignored those categories.
Anyway, I will now go through the arbitrary process of choosing my preferred winners alongside my predictions of who will actually win. Why do I do this? I suppose it’s because of tradition. I’m still swept up by the aura of this whole damn freak show.
Best Picture
Only two films pass a simple litmus test for this category: Are the films any good? Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are the only films that have a justifiable reason to be nominated for best picture. They are good films. However, it is fait accompli that Slumdog Millionaire will win this trophy. While that might be fine for now, I believe that a win for Slumdog Millionaire will actually hurt its popularity. Benjamin Button is an under-appreciated, great, and profound film that will become better appreciated, and will be looked back as the film that should have won best picture. Slumdog Millionaire will not be viewed as an independent entity. Just as Robert Redford’s Ordinary People is the film now best known as the one that beat Raging Bull at the Oscars, so will Slumdog Millionaire be known as the film that beat Benjamin Button.
All I can say for The Reader is that Satan is designing a special section in Hell where Harvey Weinstein will be forced to watch The Reader, Chocolate, and Il Postino on a never ending loop. Frost/Nixon, which is here due to another egregious producer, Brian Grazer, is a film made purely out of the notion that it could be a good film. Ron Howard holds no opinions on Nixon. He fails to bring the passion that Oliver Stone brought to Nixon. His film was made without passion or purpose and is dead on the screen. Meanwhile, Milk was written by Dustin Lance Black and directed by Gus Van Sant, two homosexual filmmakers who care a heck of a lot about Harvey Milk. They bring passion and energy to what could have been a standard biography; they embellish with a lust for life mentality to the story of civil rights.
Best Director
It’s rather shocking to see this category match up five for five with best picture. Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire, has probably already cleared space on his shelf for that little, naked man. Boyle made the flashiest film, with the most editing and stylized cinematography, which corresponds to him looking like he did the most directing. Meanwhile, Fincher had the hardest challenge in his attempt to tell an epic story, spanning the twentieth century, on a personal scale. Stephan Daldry is back in the race again securing a third nomination for his third film. Based on that unprecedented statistic, one might imagine that he was the hottest director in Hollywood, not some impersonal director whose last two films have been stale, emotionless prestige pictures. And Ron Howard’s a popular guy, I guess. Oh that’s right, he had the daunting task of transitioning the material from the stage to the screen. He failed.
Leading Actor
Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke are the two principal competitors in this category. Penn plays Harvey Milk in Milk, as a gay rights politician who spends most of the film losing elections until he finally breaks through and wins. Rourke plays the affable Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler. His fights are all fixed. Both performances are extraordinary. Penn shows a congenial persona not present in his work since his great performance in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown. Penn becomes Harvey Milk. I can’t say the same for Rourke. Rourke as Randy is both the character and himself. The emotional speeches he gives to Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood are poignant because we know that Rourke is simultaneously repenting for his own selfish arrogance. I think Penn will win his second Academy Award, deservedly, and I predict that he will specifically call out to Mickey Rourke in his acceptance speech. Everyone wins. Almost.
The other three nominess can just enjoy the show. Richard Jenkins gave a wonderfully minimalist performance as a bored, psychologically lost professor in The Visitor. Brad Pitt gives an equally minimalist performance on a grand scale in Benjamin Button. As for Frank Langella, I dearly hope he was well paid.
-Jason Bardin
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