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Oscars to disappoint many
By John Behling
Published:
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Media Credit: KRT photograph via zap2it.com
Catherine Zeta-Jones, shown in a scene from "Chicago," is nominated in the best supporting actress category, one of 13 Oscar nominations for the musical.
To call a film "Best Picture of 2002" is a pretty lofty claim for anyone to make, given the completely subjective manner of film criticism. There's no exact science for calculating the "best" performance, or "best" film, but the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences makes a presumably strong case for the validity of their award in this statement taken from their official Web site:
"Because the Academy numbers among its members the most gifted and skilled artists and craftsmen in the motion picture world, its Award stands alone as an indication of what top filmmakers feel are the year's top achievements."
"(laughs) Yeah, that's one way to put it," City Pages Film Critic and part-time SCSU instructor Rob Nelson said.
One topic that isn't often discussed when it comes to award season is the awards themselves. With the media filling the air thick with speculation, predictions and anticipation for the yearly ceremony, there isn't a lot of thought or inquiring going into and behind this 75-year-old institution.
"The promotion of them (the Academy Awards) to the public has become so successful that no one ever questions who it is that votes for these awards. In other words, no one really talks about the fact that it's the industry celebrating the industry. It's not like some impartial group that's saying these are the greatest films. And the problem is that for most people who watch the Academy Awards, and who write about the Academy Awards, unfortunately, for most people there is sort of this unquestioned perception that these are just the five greatest films of the year period. There's no kind of understanding that these are the five films that Hollywood has deemed worthy of these massive campaigns and so basically we end up seeing the films they want us to see," Nelson said.
The campaigns, best observed in the industry magazine Variety with its numerous full page ads for prospective Academy Award features which begin running in early November, have gotten special attention this year from one of the Academy's favorite actresses, (judging from her record-breaking 13 nominations) Meryl Streep.
"I find it alarming that all the campaigning for Oscars is getting like a political campaign," Streep said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. "It is really distasteful. It won't be long before they start paying for television commercials for best picture, best actor and all those things."
Again referring to the Academy's Web site offers a positive perspective on the campaigning issue.
"The Academy aggressively monitors award campaigning, and has issued guidelines that limit company mailings to those items that 'actually assist the members in their efforts to assess the artistic and technical merits of a film,' according to Academy Executive Administrator Ric Robertson. 'And we seem to have had a tremendous impact in the areas we'd hoped to affect.'" Nelson regards these regulations, which address such topics as soliciting gifts and using enticing artwork to promote films to academy members, very skeptically.
"It's a little slap on the wrist. I don't think it has any effect at all in terms of creating a situation where there's a greater chance for smaller films to get in," Nelson said.
According to the Academy, the campaigns are for studios to make sure all the voting members see all of their films. This claim becomes suspicious when taken under the light that in most categories it's not even a requirement that all voting members view each of the nominated submissions (this includes best picture), as is the case for the Tony Awards, for example.
"The more you love movies and know about movies, the more you are disappointed by the Oscars," said Pioneer Press Film Critic Chris Hewitt. "You watch every year and the movies you feel are the best movies of the year inevitably don't get nominated, much less win. And year after year the movie that wins is a sort of bland, you know, least common denominator movie."
Hewitt also expressed regret over the market's segmentation, resulting in films that at one time would be done by major studios and are now being done independently, hence basically disqualifying them from the Oscar competition.
"If they continue to attempt to focus on studio movies they're going to have slimmer and slimmer pickings as the years go by because studios are basically making summer movies for teenagers and now they're making them pretty much year round," Hewitt said.
"There are some great films that will never be nominated because they aren't represented by studios and have enough money to push them to this level," Nelson said, echoing this sentiment.
In light of these inquiries, one might question why the public image of the Oscars remains as widely celebrated as their gold figurines.
Nelson offered an explanation.
"Film criticism is rarely understood as something that enables the critic or the writer to critique larger forces in the marketplace in terms of like, who has the power and what do they do with it... and that's one form of film criticism that's rarely, rarely, rarely practiced. And that's the kind that would be required, I think, in order to call attention to why these awards don't really represent an impartial judgment of greatness. Why they represent, in fact, the views of the people who make the films themselves," Nelson said.
From a different perspective, Hewitt warned about looking too deeply into some of these issues behind the awards.
"If you get too seriously into those sorts of issues, I think then it's as if you are acknowledging that the Oscars actually do honor the best films," Hewitt said.
However cynical these claims appear to be, both critics acknowledged that these issues, however troubling and disturbing in terms of the awards and the industry in general, shouldn't be taken too seriously.
"There are a lot more important things to be worrying about right now. I don't want to say that this is a scandal of unprecedented proportions or the public is being defrauded on a major level," Nelson said.
"As much as I think that they're bogus, I'm (still) interested in them. It's fun on the same level that going to the prom is fun, the pageantry and goofiness of it," Hewitt said.
One might even argue (from this critic's viewpoint) that it's this pageantry and goofiness that represents Hollywood best anyhow, and by taking these concerns into the definition of "best" in best picture, the awards can be enjoyed and understood in their own right.
The Academy Awards will be airing live at the Atwood Little Theatre at 6 p.m. Sunday.
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