A Symphony Pathetique
The morning after the Oscars, Brad texted me: "worst oscars ever?"
I'll confess to getting a little self-righteous. Complaining about the Oscar not going to the actual Best Picture of the year is like getting mad over Boise State never getting invited to the BCS Championship Bowl. These are recalcitrant hegemonies designed only to perpetuate themselves as institutions. There is no need to get angry at the scorpion for stinging you.
But after we texted back and forth, I realized that my own ambivalence this year was not because of some new found transcendence of such petty award races. On the contrary, I have been nettled by the Oscars and the BCS numerous times. I guarantee I will be irked again in the not too distant future. After I reflected more on my own reaction, I concluded that my indifference can be attributed to the fact that I didn't have a horse in the race this year. And by horse, I mean movie that I loathed.
In my mind, there are three broad classifications for Best Picture winners [feel free to subdivide or complicate this taxonomy in the comments section]. The first category consists of movies that not only deserved to win among their nominees but also could arguably be considered one of, if not the best, movies of the year. When The Departed's name was read aloud in 2007, it felt like some infinite karmic imbalance was finally starting to be repaid.
The second category is made up of the crowd pleasers: insubstantial movies that are unanimously liked but not necessarily loved. Decontextualized from the Oscar race, movies like Slumdog Millionaire wouldn't garner much animosity but they buckle under the expectations of the Best Picture moniker -- particularly when they eclipse more momentous films. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction is the prime example. I don't begrudge the crowd pleasers for winning the Best Picture Oscar. In a decade or two, it is unlikely that The Artist will be considered as part of the pantheon of the best movies of the 10s (same with Chicago in 00s or Forrest Gump in the 90s) but I bear them no ill-will in their unabashed desire to entertain.
The final category is for films that play to your pathos: meaning they want you to feel and, more specifically, they want you to feel bad. These are those lachrymose movies that usually have some element of classic Oscar-bait: characters with physical or mental disabilities, the Holocaust, Hillary Swank. When they are done well, they don't get nominated. When they are done poorly, you get Crash and Million Dollar Baby. To exhume A.O. Scott's review of Babel from our earlier debate about the former contender: these sorts of movies are manipulative because they don't earn our emotions, they exploit them. For me, these are the true villains of the Oscar race. Looking at the list of nominees this year, only Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close qualifies and it was so universally disliked I couldn't even muster the requisite bile to get upset over it.
So although it is certainly an unpopular opinion, I will always defend Shakespeare in Love against Saving Private Ryan: a classic case of the pleasant triumphing over the pathetic. Thus, the Best Picture field this year may have been filled uninspiring crowd pleasers but I would hardly consider it the worst Oscars ever.
Instead, I'll nominate 2004: Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways. Even looking down ticket, the only bright spot I could find was Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry winning Best Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I'll confess to getting a little self-righteous. Complaining about the Oscar not going to the actual Best Picture of the year is like getting mad over Boise State never getting invited to the BCS Championship Bowl. These are recalcitrant hegemonies designed only to perpetuate themselves as institutions. There is no need to get angry at the scorpion for stinging you.
But after we texted back and forth, I realized that my own ambivalence this year was not because of some new found transcendence of such petty award races. On the contrary, I have been nettled by the Oscars and the BCS numerous times. I guarantee I will be irked again in the not too distant future. After I reflected more on my own reaction, I concluded that my indifference can be attributed to the fact that I didn't have a horse in the race this year. And by horse, I mean movie that I loathed.
In my mind, there are three broad classifications for Best Picture winners [feel free to subdivide or complicate this taxonomy in the comments section]. The first category consists of movies that not only deserved to win among their nominees but also could arguably be considered one of, if not the best, movies of the year. When The Departed's name was read aloud in 2007, it felt like some infinite karmic imbalance was finally starting to be repaid.
The second category is made up of the crowd pleasers: insubstantial movies that are unanimously liked but not necessarily loved. Decontextualized from the Oscar race, movies like Slumdog Millionaire wouldn't garner much animosity but they buckle under the expectations of the Best Picture moniker -- particularly when they eclipse more momentous films. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction is the prime example. I don't begrudge the crowd pleasers for winning the Best Picture Oscar. In a decade or two, it is unlikely that The Artist will be considered as part of the pantheon of the best movies of the 10s (same with Chicago in 00s or Forrest Gump in the 90s) but I bear them no ill-will in their unabashed desire to entertain.
The final category is for films that play to your pathos: meaning they want you to feel and, more specifically, they want you to feel bad. These are those lachrymose movies that usually have some element of classic Oscar-bait: characters with physical or mental disabilities, the Holocaust, Hillary Swank. When they are done well, they don't get nominated. When they are done poorly, you get Crash and Million Dollar Baby. To exhume A.O. Scott's review of Babel from our earlier debate about the former contender: these sorts of movies are manipulative because they don't earn our emotions, they exploit them. For me, these are the true villains of the Oscar race. Looking at the list of nominees this year, only Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close qualifies and it was so universally disliked I couldn't even muster the requisite bile to get upset over it.
So although it is certainly an unpopular opinion, I will always defend Shakespeare in Love against Saving Private Ryan: a classic case of the pleasant triumphing over the pathetic. Thus, the Best Picture field this year may have been filled uninspiring crowd pleasers but I would hardly consider it the worst Oscars ever.
Instead, I'll nominate 2004: Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways. Even looking down ticket, the only bright spot I could find was Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry winning Best Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
posted by d l wright at 3/01/2012 08:07:00 PM
4 Comments:
compared to last year they were god-awful. The King's Speech was lame, but watchable, other nominees were 127 hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Social Network, True Grit (one of the worst last year, but better than any nominee this year.), Winter's Bone. I didn't see the Kid's are alright.
Honestly I would rather watch any of the nominees from last year before i watched 1 movie from this year. Maybe the juxtaposition is why i thought it was so bad. also 9 nominees and they couldn't come up with anything that i liked more than midnight in paris, or the descendants?
off the top of my head, Drive, Win Win, The Way, The Trip, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This year was chock full of nominees I would never want to watch again, I would happily see any of the above again.
But I'll accept the argument that the oscars often suck. 2004 is a good example. My complaint this year is not that The Artist beat out a more deserving nominee, it is more that there wasn't much in the way of a deserving nominee.
also, you can add bridesmaids and rise of the planet of the apes to my list of movies that were better than any best picture nominee last year.
A few comments:
1) I think 2010 was an exception it terms of the quality of its nominees. In contrast, 2009 had 2 great films (The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds), 2 or 3 good films (An Education, A Serious Man... and if you are being generous, Up In The Air), and then a whole bunch of blehhhhh.
2) Although it is surprising that Win Win and Bridesmaids didn't make the cut, I think you can understand why Drive and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo didn't get nominated. I am not speaking about the quality of the films themselves: Dragon Tattoo was handicapped by coming so quickly off the heels of its Swedish predecessor (I will admit to having a bit of fatigue myself) and Drive alienated audience by looking like a typical action movie and not catering to expectations (again, not a bad thing) Finally, besides not having the money to fight an Oscar campaign, The Way might actually be a 2010 Spanish film.
3) I think you are unusually harsh with your judgements of the 2011 nominees. Hugo was a stunning u-turn for Scorsese. The Artist and Midnight In Paris, while not exactly profound, are both quite entertaining. The Tree of Life buckles under its own metaphysical weight but is never less than provocative. And finally... you have to be trolling me about Moneyball. That is like Nell saying that she doesn't like an all female indie rock band.
I hated Midnight in Paris.
I've seen Drive more than once and will likely watch it again soon.
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