A few weeks ago we directed you to an Owen Gleiberman piece focusing on the perceived Best Picture battle of “Avatar” vs. “Up in the Air,” that it was a battle of film culture significance. Obviously, as Gleiberman notes in his recent “my bad” post, that doesn’t appear to be the race anymore, and I’m as guilty for boiling it down at that time as anyone.
If one is still inclined to boil things down to a “race,” then it appears more likely that it is “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar,” and as I noted following the former’s PGA victory, that makes for an incredibly compelling clash of filmmaking values.
“It’s low budget, efficient, muscular independent filmmaking versus blockbuster, groundbreaking, high octane studio entertainment,” I wrote at the time. “It’s level-headed political realism versus archetypal political grandstanding. It’s character versus idea. It’s measured theatrical meditation versus visceral theatrical experience.” And Gleiberman is now saying virtually the same thing.
He writes:
I said that the battle between Up in the Air and Avatar would be the most symbolic Oscar race since Forrest Gump vs. Pulp Fiction back in 1994/1995…Okay, Up in the Air, while a respectable hit, didn’t forge quite the emotional connection with a lot of the audience that I’d wanted it to. But even if I did have the wrong movie, I think I had the right point: With The Hurt Locker now having all but vacuumed up the year’s critical acclaim, and with Avatar having just this week become the top-grossing domestic movie of all time, Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker is an awesomely symbolic race (and not just because James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow were once married). It’s a clash of size, values, popularity — of essential notions of What Movie Art Is in the 21st century.
Indeed. All true. But the horse race thing is SO January at this point. Yet again, the media are failing to register the significance of the preferential voting system and how it actually hurts a film like “Avatar.” This isn’t a two-horse derby. It could get very interesting before all is said and done.
Comments
12 responses to “Gleiberman’s mea culpa”
Gleiberman’s analysis of the race was clearly off-base at the time — and I don’t buy that “The Hurt Locker” and “Up in the Air” are symbolically exchangable at all. Nice that he can admit he was wrong, at least.
He’s obviously trying to bend things back to the will of his earlier thesis, but I don’t think that original thesis was so off base, actually.
I must say – you – and a few others I don’t read as religiously – are making the Best Picture race more interesting than I expected this year. You are conveying to me that the preferential voting could stir things up. I think some people are thinking INGLOURIOUS might benefit – I’m actually thinking UP IN THE AIR might. Wouldn’t that fluster Gleiberman!! I know his point was to compare the two as dichotomies but, still, it would be kinda funny, on a small scale, if, after all this, UP IN THE AIR won anyway. Or – oh my! – THE BLIND SIDE won!!
Gleiberman had it half right. I have long felt and still do that AVATAR is not nearly as strong in voters’ minds than THE HURT LOCKER and UP IN THE AIR. So I would say that the real race is THE HURT LOCKER vs UP IN THE AIR and that is actually (save the headlines) a much more interesting race in my opinion.
Unfortunately unless something other than The Hurt Locker or Avatar wins, we’ll never know the extent of the preferential voting system played in the Best Picture outcome. Since the vote outcome isn’t released, we ever know what did or didn’t come close to winning.
This “shift in the landscape of the Academy” or “dawn of a new Oscar era” or whatever pundits like Glieberman love to blather on about will only last until the next big-budget epic wins Best Picture in a couple years or so, at which time, guess what? It’ll once again signal a “shift in the landscape of the Academy” and “dawn of a new Oscar era”. You can literally look at every single Best Picture race over the last 50 years and make up a story about how the victory signaled some vague and momentous shift in the landscape of Oscar history.
“Okay, Up in the Air, while a respectable hit, didn’t forge quite the emotional connection with a lot of the audience that I’d wanted it to.”
The reality is, amongst the general public (admittedly not the greatest arbiters of cinematic taste), “Up in the Air” barely registered any sort of connection at all. Critics and bloggers likely saw the disappointing box office performance of “The Hurt Locker” as the death knell for its chance of victory, but thankfully it has sustained itself all year long as the truly worthy small-scale alternative, and I say that as a moderate fan of “Up in the Air”.
I tend to agree with Mike. Each Oscar year is its own story, and rarely has much bearing on the next. When people talk abouta win for “Avatar” signalling some massive shift in Academy voting, they conveniently ignore the fact that populist crowdpleasers won in 2003 and 2006.
I still hope that in the next month that Academy members play inglorious basterds again and realize it’s the best picture and best directed picture of the year. If Waltz is such a shoo-in, who do you think got him there — Tarantino’s masterful direction and script.
Can someone explain me why people keep saying Up in the Air didn’t make a connection with the audience? Everyone I know love it and make a strong connection with the stor.
@A.
For some reason, to many, 75mil+ at the box office is chump change. Sure, compared to Avatar or The Blind Side it’s fairly small. But for a film like Up in the Air, hell, for most Oscar bait movies, anything over 60mil is fantastic.
I don’t think anyone is making that argument that up in the air didn’t connect with people, if they are, they are incorrect, otherwise, it wouldn’t have made 75 million and counting.
The only films that follow the oscar path — getting the correct nominations, etc — are Hurt locker, Precious and Inglorious Basterds and I hope that Basterds is victorious — as it also has the box office — but truly it is the best picture of the year.