Crashing the Oscars
Y'know it'd seem that most people'd be excited that there was a surprise best picture. It's been seven years since the Best Picture race wasn't already decided three months before the event by the Oscar writers at Entertainment Weekly (all seven hundred of them). I was only fifteen (or, two thirds as old as I am now) when Shakespeare in Love gave the ol' Miramax Smackdown to Saving Private Ryan way back then all the talk was about how Shakespeare in Love essentially bought its Oscar from Variety magazine. I suppose a hundred For Your Consideration ads equals one statue of eternal glory. Needless to say, people in the internet geek contingent were mightily TO'ed, if ya know what I'm saying (nothing really). But, Oscar was big then, it's huge now. The internet has afforded a huge culture to spring up around predicting these awards. Where once there were a few Entertainment Weekly covers and Alex Fung's awesomely detailed Oscar columns (wonder whatever happened to that guy). Now, even the New York and LA Times have Oscar blogs. The problem is, the only folks who are crazy enough to post daily updates on Heath Ledger's chances of upsetting Phillip Seymour Hoffman are the ones who take the awards way too seriously. And so the consensus has tended to be (in the words of Ryan Wu, one of my favorite bloggers, who alas is not an Oscar blogger) "What the fuck just happened? Did the stupid middlebrow no-taste simpleminded-liberal insular no-taste dumbass undiscriminating motherfucking moronic sheep just annointed fucking Crash best picture?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!!?!!?!?!?" One guy even shut down his incredibly complete awards database, he was so incensed. It seems only that the only one on Crash's side is Roger Ebert.
The perspective I take on the Oscars goes back to a montage of Best Picture Winners at the 70th Oscars (aka the Year of the Big Sinking Boat). When I think about the Best Picture nominees, I think of how it's going to fit into that montage (with all the baggage of seeing Ordinary People instead of Raging Bull, Oliver! instead of 2001: A Space Odyssey (which wasn't even frickin' nominated!) and How Green Was My Valley (which I haven't seen) instead of Citizen Kane). So, at the 2002 Oscars, when it seemed like The Pianist (with wins for Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Director) was heading for an upset over Chicago, I thought, hey this fits the Montage. Then when it didn't win I thought "Hey I have to readjust my montage."
As happens when something actually interesting happens, people have been comparing this year's Oscars to a year in the past when a similar upset has occurred. I've heard 1976, when little ol' Rocky beat out seemingly every great movie of the 70s, but I think a better comparison is 1967 when the three front runners were In the Heat of the Night and The Graduate. Like Crash and Brokeback Mountain, both these movies were important in that they and took on daring issues (race relations and humping your girlfriend's mom respectively). And like today, the race back then was between a socially progressive race movie and one that's part of a sexual revolution. I think this is an important correlation, but there's another thing that might explain the upsets better. Both The Graduate and Brokeback Mountain are significantly more stylistic than the relatively conventional In the Heat of the Night and Crash. They have an offbeat literary quality (whatever that is) that I'm sure is a bit offputting to viewer more accustomed to conventional stories. Now, that's not to say they're avant garde or anything, but they're definitely pictures driven by shot compositions and directorial choices (whatever that means) rather than a rapid fire script. In other words, a bit left of the Hollywood Norm.
Today The Graduate is considered "the voice of a generation" (whatever that means), while the thing In the Heat of the Night, while still considered a great movie, is best remembered for is the Mr. Tibbs line (aka, Sidney Poitier's badassest moment). I was rooting for Brokeback Mountain this year. It's a period piece and a bit too specific to be a "voice of a generation" (whatever that means), but it would have been a marker in cinema history that a "gay romance" won Best Picture. But I'm not that disappointed that Crash won. It is a meat and potatoes flick, about real people in real situations (that crisscross a bit unrealistically). Unlike most of its detractors, I think it's a movie made to challenge, not applaud the individual. It asks "What would you do" and says that "right thing" is probably not the first instinct people have. It is probably the least glamorized Best Picture winner since The Silence of the Lambs. When the Best Picture montage at the 170th Oscars plays (if we even watch movies then), Crash is going to really stand out against the winners of the last five years (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings, Million Dollar Baby, romantic movies, all of em (except maybe Chicago)). I may think that Brokeback Mountain is a bit more appropriate, but hey, the Oscars, they're just awards right?
The perspective I take on the Oscars goes back to a montage of Best Picture Winners at the 70th Oscars (aka the Year of the Big Sinking Boat). When I think about the Best Picture nominees, I think of how it's going to fit into that montage (with all the baggage of seeing Ordinary People instead of Raging Bull, Oliver! instead of 2001: A Space Odyssey (which wasn't even frickin' nominated!) and How Green Was My Valley (which I haven't seen) instead of Citizen Kane). So, at the 2002 Oscars, when it seemed like The Pianist (with wins for Best Actor, Best Screenplay, and Best Director) was heading for an upset over Chicago, I thought, hey this fits the Montage. Then when it didn't win I thought "Hey I have to readjust my montage."
As happens when something actually interesting happens, people have been comparing this year's Oscars to a year in the past when a similar upset has occurred. I've heard 1976, when little ol' Rocky beat out seemingly every great movie of the 70s, but I think a better comparison is 1967 when the three front runners were In the Heat of the Night and The Graduate. Like Crash and Brokeback Mountain, both these movies were important in that they and took on daring issues (race relations and humping your girlfriend's mom respectively). And like today, the race back then was between a socially progressive race movie and one that's part of a sexual revolution. I think this is an important correlation, but there's another thing that might explain the upsets better. Both The Graduate and Brokeback Mountain are significantly more stylistic than the relatively conventional In the Heat of the Night and Crash. They have an offbeat literary quality (whatever that is) that I'm sure is a bit offputting to viewer more accustomed to conventional stories. Now, that's not to say they're avant garde or anything, but they're definitely pictures driven by shot compositions and directorial choices (whatever that means) rather than a rapid fire script. In other words, a bit left of the Hollywood Norm.
Today The Graduate is considered "the voice of a generation" (whatever that means), while the thing In the Heat of the Night, while still considered a great movie, is best remembered for is the Mr. Tibbs line (aka, Sidney Poitier's badassest moment). I was rooting for Brokeback Mountain this year. It's a period piece and a bit too specific to be a "voice of a generation" (whatever that means), but it would have been a marker in cinema history that a "gay romance" won Best Picture. But I'm not that disappointed that Crash won. It is a meat and potatoes flick, about real people in real situations (that crisscross a bit unrealistically). Unlike most of its detractors, I think it's a movie made to challenge, not applaud the individual. It asks "What would you do" and says that "right thing" is probably not the first instinct people have. It is probably the least glamorized Best Picture winner since The Silence of the Lambs. When the Best Picture montage at the 170th Oscars plays (if we even watch movies then), Crash is going to really stand out against the winners of the last five years (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings, Million Dollar Baby, romantic movies, all of em (except maybe Chicago)). I may think that Brokeback Mountain is a bit more appropriate, but hey, the Oscars, they're just awards right?
posted by Jesse @ 10:48 PM
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