There’s been an awful lot of online sniping at the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Association for having the audacity to look beyond the obvious Oscar fodder and reward deserving foreign-language performances by Kim Hye-ja and Niels Arestrup (not to mention Olivier Assayas for Best Director).
David Poland described the choices as an “overreach,” Jeff Wells resorted to his usual “dweeb” jabs, while tired accusations of “snobbery” and “contrarianism” did the rounds.
I was going to express my annoyance at this narrow take on things, but since I pretty much anticipated the issue in last week’s Long Shot column, I held back. Thankfully, Variety critic and LAFCA voter Justin Chang, responding to a comment by Scott Feinberg in a Hollywood Elsewhere thread, has neatly said everything I wanted to say on the matter.
Chang’s elegant defense after the cut.
Your earlier use of the word “snobbish” to describe some of LAFCA’s selections is quite telling. I don’t know what it is about these performances that inspires such knee-jerk contempt, but I’d argue that our willingness to look beyond the awards-season boundaries dictated by the studios is exactly the opposite of snobbery. There’s something refreshingly egalitarian about recognizing that the best performance may have been given by an actor from South Korea, or Romania, or France, and inviting a wider audience to experience the rewards of that achievement. (Or, to quote Anton Ego, “Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”)
It’s far snobbier, in my view, to expect an organization of critics to stick with standard notions of what’s award-worthy, or to positively revel in the idea that “This is the first and last you will hear of either of those people this awards season,” as if the marginalization of exceptional work were something to be desired.
Unless, of course, you honestly believe it should be the function of critics not to evaluate the films and performances in a given year as comprehensively as possible, but rather to act as a reliable barometer of what the Academy will pick come February. If that’s the case, I submit that you’ve somehow confused our job with yours.
I can do no better than that. Cheers, Justin.
[Photo: Magnolia Pictures]
Comments
34 responses to “Defending LAFCA”
Agreed. I think I understand Feinberg feeling like LAFCA is saying, “No, the best performance of the year is actually in this movie that only we’ve seen,” but it’s the point of the critics awards to judge on merit and not confine themselves to outside expectations. If the best performance of the year came from a Korean film, then I’m glad they embraced that choice.
very well put, mr chang! I couln’t agree more. I’m from Denmark and I must say, that it is somewhat baffling to follow the Oscar race, because there is so much “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (as I said, I’m from Denmark, the homeland of Hans Christian Andersen, so I hope I’m excused…) about it all. Most bloggers and commentators seem to objectively believe or live by the notion that only American films released between august and january qualify as “Best Movie in the World!” I’m glad that I liked The Hurt Locker and likely future winner, The Social Network, so much, otherwise this whole thing would be utterly depressing…
I was especially amazed by the recognition of Kim Hye-ja, who gave such a complex and wonderful performance in “Mother”, one of my favourite movies this year.
There is no doubt that she deserves this Award, but unfortunately the Academy is not far sighted enough usually to embrace performances from foreign language films or independent productions.
And I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Chang for pointing out that those Critics Circle Awards are NOT meant to be a prognosticator for the Oscar outcome, but independent enough to reward what they feel is the best of the year – and very often, quite frankly, their winners lists are much more impressive than the Oscar´s.
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This is part of why I dislike journalists who engage in pure awards season punditry. A lot of them start to believe that cinema ONLY exists for the Oscars, and everything that doesn’t revolve around it is automatically worthless. I pray that In Contention continues to avoid that curse.
The worst offender is David Poland – World’s Dumbest Movie Blogger™ – who seems (along with Tom O’Neil and Jeff Wells) to be on a personal mission to make the celebration of film achievement as cynical and disheartening as possible.
Plus, it’s flat-out BORING to see the same Oscar contenders over and over in the “precursors.” Sometimes I feel like the announcements of some of these critics’ award winners aren’t even worth it. Gee, The Social Network wins another Best Picture prize? What a shake-up. Oh, look, Colin Firth takes a prize from Such-And-Such Association. That’ll mean…absolutely nothing in the Oscar race, but hey at least it’s a contender!
I’m also really disappointed that Kris decided to applaud a particular type of argument on Poland’s thread that even he has expressed frustration at hearing. I guess the awards season makes us all crazy from time to time…
In a year where most critics groups seem like robot drones following one master, how on earth could anyone, let alone “journalists”, complain about LAFCA’s picks? I’m absolutely baffled.
That last paragraph is music to my ears. Bravo, Señor Chang.
LAFCA was THE individual voice this award season, as they boldly went ahead and picked what they thought was the best.
Inspite of their exemplary set of winners, if I were to still make a gripe it would be that thought they are teetering on the edge of a breath-through, they haven’t quite completely broken through and transcended their supposed ‘precursor’ status.
While they are a 100 steps ahead of rest of the critic awards, they are still one step behind the place where they are practically unrelated to and unaffected by consensus of any kind. That one step could have been for example giving Carlos the Best Picture Award over The Social Network.
But that is just nit-picking. Its a miracle that 54 US based critics even got Carlos to a second place finish where in most other awards it was not even present in the realm of possibility.
they chose a NON-AMERICAN winner for Best Actress for a movie with no fancy schmancy campaign and parties that bloggers get to name-drop the attendants??!?!?!!?
That’s MADNESS, I’ll tell you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeesh… these people will always bitch about something… when critics like something mainstream, they’re “sheep”, when they like the Oscar movies, they’re “corporate shills” and now they can’t like foreign films because it makes them “snobby”?!
I like the Oscars as much as the next person, but I definetly love film as an art (awards be damned) a lot more.
I don’t know Guy, I think Wells surprisingly made a very valid point.
If Kim Hye-ja and Niels Arestrup did indeed deliver two award caliber performances, where was all the visual support from various LAFCA members prior to the voting? Why weren’t Mother and A Prophet in the conversation prior to Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor being announced?
Wells concerns may be cynical but they’re also valid.
” Why weren’t Mother and A Prophet in the conversation prior to Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor being announced? ”
Because you only heard the conversation in Oscar prognosticating sites where only films with a good chance are the major points of discussion (principally American). Did you see any forum where LA critics were discussing their favorites of the year apart from their reviews. Reviews are no places for year-end related absolute declarations, hence you might not get a sense of how much they liked certain things. Awards and Lists is the only way you can know what the critics actually think because that is when they make collective assessment in relation to all the other movies they have seen that year.
Not sure what “visual support” you think critics can offer, Loyal. They aren’t publicists, or even bloggers — they can’t force visibility of uncampaigned contenders throughout the season. The best they can do is express their enthusiasm for the work in their reviews, which they did, and then reward it at the year’s end, which they did.
As for why “A Prophet” wasn’t (and still isn’t) in the Oscar conversation, let’s start with the fact that it’s ineligible. As for “Mother,” come on — let’s not be naive. The critics could go door-to-door delivering screeners of that film to Academy voters and nothing would happen.
Loyal, these Awards is how critics can offer that kind support, prior to that point there isn’t much that they can do.
Wells is a terrible man.
Chang’s last line is precious.
Woohoo! Go Chang! He just put into words exactly what I’ve been thinking this whole time. I haven’t seen Mother or A Prophet but I don’t believe critics group need to award the “norms” of American film to please the public, who can act like vultures. This isn’t a say-all end-all, folks. Awarding someone different is good if that group truly believes they deserve it, not, however, if they’re doing it to be contrarians or trying to “shake up” the race.
Maxim, Guy, Red Wine, etc etc
There’s plenty they can do in terms of visual support. This isn’t 1995 where things are limited to print. There are many avenues these days for singing the praises for a film or performance throughout the year, regardless if those films or performances are from 2010, 2009, or 1950.
The LAFCA critics collectively opted to save their praise for Mother and A Prophet until now. Maybe they wanted to go their own direction and set out to do that. Maybe they were swarmed by the opinion of a Alpha Dog critic. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
This certainly isn’t the first time these questions will be asked and it certainly won’t be the last. Wells made a good point. Dislike the man all you want but he made a point worthy of discussion.
Anytime people can be convinced to see a film they otherwise wouldn’t (like Mother), it’s a great thing. And I loved A Prophet so I think it’s an inspired selection. But it’s nevertheless a curious one.
I agree with Loyal. There is far too much self-censorship in promoting smaller movies by people who follow Oscars. Tapley had Enter the Void in his top ten of the year, but did he talk about it once? If he did, it was very brief. No, everyone has to go and write another piece about The Social Network or The King’s Speech.
You’re talking about bloggers rather than critics, James. There’s a difference. Someone like Justin only gets to review a film once.
I think the real question here is whether these LAFCA wins are arrived at by an honest critical weighing of all the performances, or if what Justin Chang calls “willingness to look beyond the awards-season boundaries dictated by the studios” is actually more of an ideological INSISTENCE on doing that. Which the year-after-year pattern of this seems to suggest, and which in its way is as bad as just picking your winner from among the “For Your Consideration” ads. I’m not sure I believe that a desire on the part of some members of this group to appear iconoclastic plays no part at all in these choices.
In Contention, where the grown ups reside.
Two acting wins have raised such a storm about the LAFCA. What about NSFC when it gave Best Picture to Waltz With Bashir? Or what will happen if it happens to give Best Picture to Dogtooth this year (which I hope happens)?
Please don’t forget that LAFCA also handed Best Picture/Director/Screenplay to The Social Network like everyone else. If there was a conscious desire to go left-field we might have seen different choices in the big categories.
It still boils down to people finding it unfathomable that the critics thought Mother and A Prophet contained the best performances of the year, they are of course lying and playing games.
Hell, just looking at that photo makes me want to see Kim Hye-Ja’s performance. I suspect she’s probably deserving of some recognition. As are the others.
It’s so dumb that people expect critics to love what the “zeitgeist” is telling them to love, or whatever.
Robert: It wasn’t so much applauding Poland’s argument as seeing a buried thesis in there and understanding it. He was clearly fumbling and trying to define what he meant and ended up vacillating to various extremes, but there’s something to his central point that the middle ground is being abandoned in favor of the obvious, near-populist choices and the obscure, more fringe selections. Very much like the film industry itself, to be honest.
James: I’m sorry, but you’re flat out wrong to lump me into your self-censorship crowd. First of all, I saw Exit Through the Gift Shop and Enter the Void very late. Like, within the last month late. I think I’ve been very vocal about films, however obscure or fringe, that I’ve liked over the years so I’d appreciate your not confusing the circumstances.
And anyway, I, too, applaud Chang (a fellow Trojan — FIGHT ON, Justin!) for his response. He nailed it. And it’s a point I’ve made in support of critical kudos that go their own way for a decade now.
Fair enough. I guess I just get worried sometimes that you’re going to become him down the road.
@red_wine
I am usually a silent viewer on these boards, but I’ve been championing Dogtooth ever since I saw it, and have it as my best film of the year. I wonder if you have a top 10 list for this year?
I noticed that a lot of the films on Slant Magazine’s various top 10 are streaming on Netflix, which is great, because I live in a town of 40,000. A town of 40,000 that still gets films like Dogtooth, Mother and Exit Through the Gift Shop, but it takes a long time.
Guy, what is the difference? Guys like Ebert blog and the writers here write reviews.
Writers like us don’t belong to organisations like LAFCA. I’ll give you Ebert, but not many of his critic peers have his audience for a blog.
Cahiers du cinema’s 2010 Top 10:
1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
3. Film Socialism
4. Toy Story 3
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox
6. A Serious Man
7. To Die Like a Man
8. The Social Network
9. Chouga (aka Ainour)
10. Mother
I can’t even believe people are complaining about this. To me, complaining like that borders on evil, not even joking. I mean, to suggest that all film awards should toe the line and award only the prime Oscar contenders is not merely stupid, not merely ultra-conformist, but in defiance of everything true movie lovers stand for. By stating this case, Wells, Poland, and Feinberg have actually accidentally let slip that they’re not really lovers of film at all, merely frauds, pretenders. And so is Loyal for defending this utterly terrible argument.
Brian,
I have seen less than half of the must-see films this year but my Top 10 would be something like this (alphabetically)
Carlos
Certified Copy
Dogtooth
Enter The Void
I Am Love
The Kids Are All Right
A Prophet
Tournée
Toy Story 3
Wild Grass
Out of these, Enter The Void and A Prophet are the only films I’d rank above Dogtooth which I agree is one of the great films of our time.
I applaude the LAFCA for their recipients this year. People must start opening their minds. The USA its not the center of the world and of course its not the center of the movie world.
I really think its great this people choose to look outside the Hollywood community. There is greatness outside those mind walls.
I think on both sides, focusing on being a “conformist” or “non-conformist” is not how awards should be given out. Just reward whoever you think is the best, and if it lines up exactly with the Academy’s choices, great, and if it is exclusively foreign films that not a lot of people have paid attention to, that’s great too.
I’m no such thing. Don’t be so Angry Shark.
the first LAFCA best actress award went to brazilian actress Florinda Bolkan in a De Sica movie, so they have recognized performances by foreigners since the very beginning…