I Tweeted about this yesterday, so if you read it there, sorry for the redundancy. I just felt like expanding on the thought and offering it up for your comment here.
Last year when the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced, a little film that few outside of the Toronto and Venice film festivals had seen popped up, deservedly, in two acting categories. The film was “The Hurt Locker,” and until a theatrical release in June of 2009, it did not appear to be an awards hog of any sort.
If the tables had been turned and Kathryn Bigelow’s war drama had been eligible for this year’s Spirit slate, you can bet it would have shown up for Best Picture, Best Director, probably even Best First Screenplay. Hell, they may have even attempted to find room for Brian Geraghty, and of course, Barry Akroyd’s cinematography would have been in the mix.
The point is this. If ever you had doubts that a given film awards season was an echo-chamber, a series of events that feeds off of itself, an ouroboros of unoriginal thinking and locked-inside-the-box considerations, this ought to go a long way toward dispelling those doubts. Is the film so many are loving this season any different than the one the Indie Spirit committee laid eyes on last year? No. But everyone plays follow the leader this time of year and the Spirit committee would have either felt obligated or seen the film in a different light in the wake of its critical success, and that kind of phantom influence really kind of irritates the hell out of me.
Guy went on at length about this point in one of his insightful Long Shot columns a few weeks back, but it keeps popping up for me this season and I wanted to bring it back out and dust it off one more time. Idle commentary for a Monday morning.
Comments
8 responses to “Proof that the Oscar season is an echo-chamber”
An interesting point, but I would argue two things:
1) and I know this is debatable, but 2009 was a much weaker year for film than 2008. To put this into perspective, the Best Picture nominees at last year’s Independent Spirit Awards were Ballast, Frozen River, Rachel Getting Married, Wendy and Lucy, and The Wrestler. All of those films were very well-recieved and an argument *could* be made for all of them to have edged in over The Hurt Locker.
2) The same “follow the leader” mentality of the awards precursors happened with Slumdog Millionaire, but I don’t remember you bemoaning that very much. It was me and others who bitched about how “boring” that season eventually became. Obviously the tables have turned and now MY favorite film of 2009 is racking up the critics’ prizes. My point is that it’s much easier to rail against the “echo-chamber” of the Oscar season when your pony isn’t in it.
It was boring, yeah, but I thought it was the best film of the year, so why would I be too loud about it? It’s annoying if it’s “follow the leader,” not if people are actually picking their honest to God “best” film of the year, and whether I agree with how it goes down or not, I’ll never agree with HOW it goes down.
Well, I do find it somewhat telling that THL got little mentions at last yrs. Indie ceremony, and yet is this INSANE front-runner (with the other 2-3) this year for the Big Oscar win when it hasn’t made much $$. I don’t get it. Where did all this yrs. buzz come from? People like THL that much?
So how did it get nominated for a Spirit award in 2008? Did it have a limited release or just play the festivals? If it just played the festival circuit, doesn’t seem like it should have been eligible? What is eligibility criteria about release for the Indie Spirit awards?
JJ: Critics are driving it considerably but the film just finally came into its own, I suppose.
Kris,
What you said in #2 is exactly what Robert Hamer was saying. Because you don’t think The Hurt Locker is the best film of the year, you think it’s an echo chamber. But it wasn’t bad when it was Slumdog, which you thought was the best.
Then you admitted that when you agree, it’s OK, but only then.
god thats true, very good point kris
THE HURT LOCKER is a great film, it deserves recognition. I would say, however, that the critic love for it seems a little overkill and I think that what Kris is saying rings true and his Spirit Award example hammers home his point: Awards season creates sheep. Sheep follow. When one big group anoints a film, it makes it easier for others to follow suit. Voters get that way too, liked frenzied honeybees flying in a swarm. Studios wouldn’t pay big money to consultants to create campaigns for their awards hopefuls if there wasn’t some kind of tangible formula for why campaigning works, at least most of the time. The Hurt Locker has benefited from campaigning, and the fact that the director has shown up to the opening of an envelope to promote her movie. They’ve worked very hard. And now people are paying attention. Bummer is that they didn’t pay to see the movie in a cinema, which is really what it’s all about.