It’s a little over a week old, but I only just noticed Mike Goodridge’s rather interesting column at ScreenDaily, in which he offers yet another take on the Academy’s expanded Best Picture field. (Is it even a month since the announcement? It feels like we’ve been talking about this forever.)
Unlike many, Goodridge is wholeheartedly in favor of the move, which he sees as a potential corrective to the more cynical manipulations of Oscar campaigning. I don’t necessarily agree with that conclusion, but I found myself nodding while reading the setup for his argument, in which he traces the Academy’s motivation back to Harvey Weinstein’s earliest campaigning days.
Though Weinstein is now regarded as the poster boy for disingenuous campaigning, Goodridge looks back to a time (one many pundits seem to have forgotten) when he was a force for good on the Oscar trail, using his unsurpassed savvy to get deserving indie underdogs into the race.
In the early 1990s, it was thanks to Weinstein that edgy arthouse works like “The Crying Game” and “The Piano” became major Oscar players. Meanwhile, Miramax also gave a well-deserved leg up to foreign-language titles like “Three Colors: Red” and “Il Postino.”
However, Goodridge argues, Miramax’s spectacular awards success in the latter half of the decade brought about a change in the way Weinstein chose his Oscar ponies, as he largely abandoned more challenging indie fare in favor of ill-received middlebrow mush like “The Cider House Rules,” “Chocolat” and “Finding Neverland.” (One could even argue that Weinstein began to get his kicks out of defying critical opinion rather than riding it, as we saw this year with “The Reader.”)
Other studios began to take his lead, throwing their weight behind soft, generic “bait” rather than trickier critical darlings — a theory that doesn’t entirely hold up when you look at 2007’s comparatively gritty Best Picture slate, but certainly makes sense in relation to this year’s snoozer of a lineup — in which, aside from “The Reader,” a “Frost/Nixon” coasted through to the final 5 despite only mild enthusiasm from critics and audiences alike.
Goodridge argues that a wider Best Picture field is a healthy solution to this kind of over-cautious campaigning (and voting), and could encourage more of the risk-taking of Miramax’s earlier days:
Studios and independents alike have come to work the Oscars like a mathematical formula and audiences can feel the cynicism in these ‘prestige’ productions, often from classy plays and novels such as Doubt and Revolutionary Road. Thank goodness for Slumdog Millionaire which felt like the only authentic offering in a year of awards torpor.
So maybe, just maybe, the Academy decision to open the Oscar field will persuade producers and studios they don’t need to design films for Academy voters any more, that they can focus on projects of integrity and originality which general audiences can discover like those Miramax films of old.
I’d like to agree with him, but I can’t help thinking the exact opposite might be true. Surely a doubled Best Picture field only makes it twice as easy for studios to secure nods for Academy-tailored bait — we all know that heavily campaigned “just-miss” contenders like “Dreamgirls” and “Cold Mountain” would have made the cut in a field of ten, hardly the kind of adventurous inclusions Goodridge is calling for.
If it becomes that much easier to successfully campaign typical Oscar bait, will studios put more effort into campaigning for less Oscar-friendly fare, or will they simply become complacent? I fear the latter.
Comments
19 responses to “How Harvey corrupted Oscar”
What ultimately makes the expansion worthless is that the Best Director slate is still exactly the same. That is an immediate tipoff that the Academy is simply doing this as a cynical ploy for ratings rather than to diversify competition.
I mean, really, let’s say your predictions are correct and Clint Eastwood, Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow, Rob Marshall and Lee Daniels get the Best Director nods; who in their right mind would think that The Lovely Bones or Amelia have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning?
Basically what they’ve done is made Best Director more valuable a nomination than Best Picture and expanded the slate from 5 to 5+5 more to boost ratings.
Kris’s predictions, not mine. But point taken.
I think there’s a possibility we may still occasionally get Best Director nominees without a corresponding Best Picture nod — I’m unconvinced that a film like “Vera Drake” would have made a Top 10. Which would only narrow the slate further.
I think you’re right Guy. The same goes for Mulholland Drive who I’m sure had many hardcore fans, but my guess is it would have been lucky to make the top 10. But maybe the 9th or 10th spot, who knows? Same goes for Short Cuts and maybe Three Colors: Red.
I disagree with your reasoning of Dreamgirls and Cold Mountain as arguments against the ten lineup. Surely, these two are exceptions that disprove the rule. Almost rare occasions where the Academy did get it right (a little) by not falling for the studio oscar bait trap…
Its the “lower 5” that will likely offer more diversity, even though a big studio push that just missed the “top 5” will squeeze something out of the lower 5 (or that might end up being a top 5 vote getter, and the ned result will be the same). In the end it wont matter, well never know which 5 out of the ten nominated films got the most votes anyway.
There will now be room for films that we always knew wouldnt have the power to make best pic, but can rake up some nominations in major categories to prove they are one of the years best, even if not enough people have seen em. Films that really did deserve a spot on the year’s best list.
I imagine in a field of ten we’d have see deserving nominations for the likes of Far From Heaven, Little Children, the Sweet Hereafter, the Savages, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Her Majesty Mrs. Brown, Kinsey, In America. In other words, films that, knowing they weer unlikely to make the top 5 against the big guns, were campaigned specifically at other main categories.
I also think that certain blockbusters that don’t seem oscar-y enough but have a major influence on films that follow them might get their due recognition now. Think of not only the ark Knight, but also anything Pixar (Toy Story 2 and Wall-E had genuine buzz), the Matrix (with 4 oscars and a huge impact on many films in the past decade), the Bourne Ultimatum (again, many imitaions pouring in, and in a Lord of the Rings-ey way of awarding it at the end of the trilogy), Jurassic Park (you know it deserves it), etc.
um… yea… the ark Knigt… you know what I mean. There used to be a time when people liked Spielberg enough to allow Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark in, and deservingly so. They’re “only” blockbusters, but will always be more important, memorable, influential, than any Weinstein/Hallstrom thingy. And the same goes for the aforementioned blockbusters.
And indies, to which I neeeeed to add In Bruges, which could have had a shot (same for anything by Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, Fincher before Ben Button, etc)
The ‘lower five’ might not be the actual lower five. If all the nominees were the same last year, except with five new nominees for picture, would anyone think that The Reader was in the actual top five? I mean sure it had the best director nomination but the director’s branch loves Daldry. Look at The Dark Knight, it has 8 other nominations it had to have been in the top five! not.
I balked when I read this from Goodridge: “Thank goodness for Slumdog Millionaire which felt like the only authentic offering in a year of awards torpor.” As a Slumdog-hater, I have a natural aversion to any praise the film receives.
But then I thought, you know, he’s right. As much as I think Slumdog is a so-so film and didn’t deserve to be anywhere near the Best Picture race, it had an authentic following. Moviegoers, quite simply, loved the freaking thing and couldn’t get enough of it. The same can’t be said for any of the other nominees.
Hollywood needs to honor more Slumdogs, aka films that are loved by critics and moviegoers alike. And its not like Slumdog was the only Slumdog last year; The Dark Knight and Wall-E fall into the same category. It’s a shame that those two films were bumped for ho-hum offerings like The Reader and Frost/Nixon.
” you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villan” damnit harvey
Ryan: Quite so. I think the real point Goodridge is making is that “Slumdog” was the only one of the five nominees that wasn’t made with Oscar in mind. We could use more of those.
Erik: I’d love to agree with you, I really would. But I remain unconvinced that the extra five spots will accommodate as much diversity as you and others are arguing — I fear the category will just end up taking more bait. I hope I’m wrong … we’ll have to see.
The reason I have a little hope (a little) is that with the expanded list, the studios behind more indie or edgy fare might feel more empowered to construct a real campaign. I can only imagine how many films were left in the dust because the studio figured “there’s no way this is making the top five.” Now some might be like, “what the hell, let’s go for it.”
The moment I turned sour on Harvey Weinstein’s incessant marketing of his movies to the Academy was when SIL beat SPR for the Best Picture Oscar. It was only compounded when Chocolat, a light, fluffy and inconsequential movie somehow beat out Almost Famous for a Best Picture nominee.
Since then, I’ve viewed every Miramx/Weinstein Bros. movie as a blatant Oscar grab, a view only solidified by The Reader’s nominations this year.
I will state again for the record that I have no problem with “Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan.” Whatever the strategy, for me, the better film won.
(Anyway, both look so limp next to “The Thin Red Line” that it hardly matters.)
Indeed! Shakespeare in Love is actually quite good! It’s one of the best romantic comedies I’ve ever seen.
“I think the real point Goodridge is making is that “Slumdog” was the only one of the five nominees that wasn’t made with Oscar in mind.”
That’s probably the only positive thing I can say for that movie. It was unexpected at first, a surprise at the end of November, but once the guilds and other awards started, it was beyond exasperating. It was almost like this be-all, end-all of 2008. They simply couldn’t think past that movie. And as it slowly started winning every guild award(art direction and costumes too) and every other award, mild amusement turned to incredulity.
In the long run I think, Slumdog will be a foot-note to the year 2008, not the bulk of discussion about it. Th Oscars came up with a choice that was surprising in the sense that no-one saw it coming by even mid-year, but by the time nominations were announced, it was an inevitability set in stone. The Oscars went different, but never rose above mediocrity.
I should have said that I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love and own the DVD, it’s just that Saving Private Ryan is a far superior movie in my mind.
“I’d like to agree with him, but I can’t help thinking the exact opposite might be true.”
Me too. Interesting Read.
Saving Private Ryan < Shakespeare in Love < The Thin Red Line
you are dead right Guy.
Zac, are you aware that Dreamworks actually spent more campaigning for SPR than Miramax did campaigning for SIL?
The better film won, imho.
This is also why I wish Slumdog hadn’t won. People wouldn’t resent it so much. I love it for what it is, regardless of awards.