“Pictures at a Revolution,” Mark Harris’s smart, keen-eyed study of the cultural implications of the 1967 Best Picture race, is without a doubt one of the best books ever written on the subject of the Academy Awards. So it’s hardly surprising that Harris, in a piece for yesterday’s Observer, has provided the most intelligent take on this year’s awards race to date.
What’s particularly interesting is that, while he just wrote an entire volume on the countercultural meaning of a Best Picture race in a pivotal year in Hollywood history, he’s quick to avoid such a unified reading of this years nominees — effectively and wittily debunking several trends that many Oscar-watchers have attempted to glean from the crop:
1) The Academy has a new, more global outlook, represented by the 10 nominations given to Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. Alternatively, the Academy suddenly has a new, more insularly American outlook, as evidenced by the fact that 17 of the 20 acting nominees are from the US, the most since the early 1990s.
2) The “gay mafia” in the Academy, outraged by the passage of the anti-gay marriage amendment Proposition 8 in California, powered the gay-rights drama Milk into the race with eight nominations. However, it will never win, because the Academy is hopelessly homophobic, as we all are presumed to have learned when Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash.
3) In a time of great economic uncertainty for the major studios, Hollywood reasserted its authority by bestowing 13 nominations on the high-grossing, high-budget product of two conglomerates, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But the Academy simultaneously renounced any interest in supporting studios or representing popular taste by snubbing Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Dark Knight, excluding it from consideration for best picture, director or screenplay.
Instead, Harris comes to rather paradoxical conclusion that the only unifying factor in the race is uncertainty: not within the race itself (which he, like everyone else, thinks “Slumdog Millionaire” has sewn up), but within the actual films. All five Best Picture nominees, he argues, display an appetite for “the kind of fantasy that grows out of (or into) grim reality,” whether it’s “Slumdog”‘s straightforward rags-to-riches narrative or “Milk”‘s portrayal of burgeoning hope for the gay rights movement.
Not that he’s saying, like some pundits are, that this is necessarily an instance of the Academy chiming in with the aspirations of Obama’s new America. Rather, he thinks it comes down to the simpler and more constant issue of the Academy’s aesthetic and thematic preferences:
Pity the film scholar who tries to discern something about our times from surveying this list of best picture nominees 10, or 30, or 50 years from now. The substance of popular movies is almost never coincident with the events on the front page, and it would be a huge mistake to try to sew these films together into an argument that they somehow represent an Obama-era paradigm shift. For one thing, the presence of the fifth (and most surprising) best picture nominee, The Reader, proves only that the appeal of Holocaust-themed dramas to a large bloc of Academy voters transcends time, space, politics and fashion.
He has a point. We really all should have seen a prospect as Academy-friendly as “The Reader” coming — most of us, in any case. After one bleak, anti-populist Best Picture choice, too many of us assumed that indicated some kind of shift within the Academy, whereas “No Country for Men” was as much an anomaly, dressed in just enough Academy-friendly prestige, as “The Silence of the Lambs” was 16 years before it. It was a diversion rather than a new direction, possibly owing to the fact that 2007 had less to offer in terms of “typical” Academy fare than most years.
Harris concludes that there are some years when the Academy tries to gauge the state of the nation with their choices, and others where they simply choose the movies they like. This, he argues (and I agree), is one of the latter years — and that’s why a film as plainly likeable as “Slumdog Millionaire” is sweeping the board. It’s a terrific article — read the rest here.
Comments
21 responses to “What does it all mean?”
Intersting article. However it was in the Observer, because its next to me now.
Even though only 3 of 20 acting nominees are international, they will probably all win. 3 of 4 winners paints a very different picture than 3 of 20 nominees.
I think Obama’s election did make an impact. Two films suffered “the change effect”, as we may call it-The Dark Knight and Gran Torino.
The Dark Knight:
http://www.motherjones.com/riff_blog/archives/2008/07/9099_the_dark_knight.html
http://washingtonindependent.com/509/batmans-dark-knight-reflects-cheney-policy
Gran Torino, on the other hand is from Clint. Clint’s an old time academy favourite-and a Republican.
Thanks, corrected. Since the Observer is the Sunday Guardian, I tend to use Guardian as a blanket name.
i think that describing “the reader” as simply a ‘holocaust drama’ is pretty lazy and pedestrian. i happen to think it’s less a holocaust drama than an usual love story with a multidimensional characters, one of whom is a nazi. if the academy is including it as a best picture nominee based on its holocaust tie why, then, did the academy ignore other holocaust-themed films like “defiance” and, to a certain extent, “valkryie?” to me the holocaust in “the reader” is more of a metaphor for secrets, shame, and guilt that can be parts of human relationships.
I dont think Clint snub has anything to do with politics. He probably canceled himself out by having to pictures in the same year. I know he has also two films in 2006, but Flags of our Fathers was not as baity as Changeling.
I agree with Jason completely. The ‘Holocaust movie’ blanket statement applied to The Reader by those who didn’t connect with the film has been one of the most frustrating things about this season.
I agree with Jason and Patrick W. It’s so much more about coping with guilt and love than anything related to the Holocaust. Its setting of postwar Germany just makes the stakes extremely high. And this is a side of the story we don’t see very often. But this is a “Holocaust movie”? It could just be me, but I thought the entirety of the movie took place after the war since the setting is “postwar Germany.” There are a total of two Jewish people in the film and neither is harmed physically throughout its course.
~Steven
Its ridiculous to try and discern an objective theme running through the nominees. A theme of “burgeoning hope in dark times”? It doesn’t work with all the nominees, and even if it did, couldn’t that be said about movies in general? Most storylines are about hope or change in dark times (relative to the presented universe), whether its externalized or internalized.
Should’ve seen “The Reader” coming because it appeals to the holocaust? How come Defiance didn’t show up then? Should we have seen that one coming as well? Doesn’t saying we should have seen “The Reader” coming completely contradict the earlier stated idea that the race is so uncertain?
I really don’t think the CRASH/BROKEBACK debacle is indicative of homophobia, considering the latter film won Best Director and Screenplay. I think CRASH, sub-par TV movie version of GRAND CANYON though it is, just pushed too many white guilt/we are the world buttons to not succeed with the hopelessly sappy academy.
Where did I say we “should’ve seen The Reader coming because it’s about the Holocaust?” Nowhere, that’s where.
I think we should’ve seen it coming because it’s a serious-minded, not-too-avant-garde period drama with a lot of Academy-favoured talent on board and, most crucially, a heavy push from Harvey Weinstein. It ticks a lot of Oscar-friendly boxes.
Sure, I don’t think the Holocaust theme hurts it at all either. But you’re just putting words in my mouth.
Plus, I quite specifically said that uncertainty doesn’t characterise the race, but the films within it. Sorry to sound cranky, but please take a little more care when you read.
“The Reader, proves only that the appeal of Holocaust-themed dramas to a large bloc of Academy voters transcends time, space, politics and fashion.” written by the article writer, was followed up by you saying “Exactly. And it’s for this reason that we really all should have seen “The Reader†coming — most of us, in any case. ”
Your saying the two are unconnected? Sorry if I incorrectly connected the two Guy, but I didnt exacted put words in your mouth
Right, I see where you get that. My “Exactly” referred to his identification of continuing Academy tastes, but I didn’t mean to isolate the Holocaust theme as a reason. Poor phrasing on my part — apologies for that, and my reaction.
No worries Guy.
I have to say Philip French is about my favourite film reviewer in the UK press. He’s always fair and tries to have something interesting to say.
But I have no idea why the Observer decided to have a 3 page Oscar spread yesterday. The themed cocktails sound great though.
Not a problem at all. We were just seeing two different things.
I agree with you and Harris though, ‘The Reader’ does seem to appeal to the general taste of the academy that we’ve seen over the years, in that respect, it was more obvious than most knew.
However, I still find Harris’ observations hard to reconcile. Surely, the stories and themes of film in many ways reflect the culture it was born out of, but just beacuse a film is easier to identify as “topical” during a given age, doesn’t in any way reflect anything significant. His pointing to The Sound of Music is the best case example. Had The Sound of Music come the same year as Bonnie and Clyde and In the Heat of the Night, would Sound of Music have been passed over? Who knows. Its a beloved musical, one that people still watch today, and I think it would’ve stood a darn good chance of winning in 1967, had it been released then or even with 1969. Harris really admits as much when he talks about the 80s being indecipherable.
Hi Guy,
I get what you’re saying when you write –
“We really all should have seen a prospect as Academy-friendly as “The Reader†coming — most of us, in any case. After one bleak, anti-populist Best Picture choice, too many of us assumed that indicated some kind of shift within the Academy, whereas “No Country for Men†was as much an anomaly, dressed in just enough Academy-friendly prestige, as “The Silence of the Lambs†was 16 years before it. It was a diversion rather than a new direction, possibly owing to the fact that 2007 had less to offer in terms of “typical†Academy fare than most years.”
I happen to think, though, that “The Reader” is anything but “typical” Academy fair, unlike say “Defiance” or “Australia,” which are very carefully designed viewer-friendly type movies. Daldry’s movie contains: explicit sex between and youth and a nazi, a pervasive sense of guilt (implicit in Kate’s character and explicit in Ralph Fiennes character), moral ambiguity, weighty issues about law and morality, and did I say some hardcore sex? These themes, to me at least, are generically complex and more probing than pandering.
I sort of see what you’re getting at regarding the film’s potentially (I must emphasise that last word) edgy content, but I still think Daldry’s safe, tasteful treatment and the very arch, Actorly (capital intended) performances make it a thoroughly middlebrow, Academy-pandering effort.
And sorry, but that sex is NOT hardcore.
LOL. fair enough. but if you’re going for “A”ctorly performances and middlebrow efforts then I think you have to include: frost/nixon and milk into that category, thank you very much. i loved milk, but come on… it’s shot totally conventionally (replete with a swelling oscar-baiting melodramatic score) and a lookatme i’m playing gay performance.
Oh, I totally include “Frost/Nixon” in that category, so we’re in agreement there. Maybe “Milk” to an extent, but I think it’s slightly more interesting in execution (though I wish Van Sant had made it rougher at the edges), and the acting is a hell of a lot better, than either “F/N” or “The Reader.”
i don’t know about that acting comment just because i think kate winslet is brilliant in ‘the reader.’ sean penn is pretty remarkable. i always love your posts, btw.
I’m not a great fan of Winslet’s work in “The Reader,” but taking that aside, I don’t think “The Reader”‘s ensemble compares to “Milk”‘s. Onbiously Penn is terrific, but the more I think about it, the more impressed I am by Brolin’s work in particular.
Glad you enjoy the posts. Always nice to hear.