Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Reflections on the Academy Awards
Well, the viewing world—18.7 million people—survived another Academy Awards presentation. The program itself, a three plus hour marathon of Hollywood stargazing, Vegas style theatrics, straight-out kitsch, high fashion, and sometimes genuine unabashed emotion, is, as always, eminently predictable but weirdly compelling. Last week’s program included an actor in a Cocaine Bear (that’s a movie—really) outfit, a miniature donkey, and a very odd performance by Son Lux with Stephanie Hsu and David Byrne. I always find myself watching the show—I’m not sure why.
As we usually do, my wife and I watched as many of the major category nominations that we could this year, but we never quite seem to get to them all. We saw all the Best Picture nominees except for Avatar: The Way of Water and also missed out on Bill Nighy’s performance in Living, Ana de Armas’ turn as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, and Andrea Riseborough’s performance in To Leslie. We saw all the best supporting acting nominees except for Angela Bassett in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Brian Tyree Henry in Causeway. I also managed to review all the Best Pictures nominees except Avatar.
Submitted for your approval:
My wife and I always make it a point to see the Live Action and Animated Short films at the local independent theater. They happened to be nothing short of spectacular this year.
As we sat and discussed the merits and shortcomings of the nominees, I wondered what sort of objective rubric Academy members might be using to decide how one film can be judged as better than another. How can the psychological depth and complexities of Tar be measured against the kaleidoscopic anarchy of Everything Everywhere All at Once? Or the gritty realism and horrors of All Quiet on the Western Front? And how could these be measured against the pastoral melancholy of The Banshees of Inisherin?
The same is true of the directing and writing awards, as well as the editing and cinematography Oscars. Yet the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—and we the viewers—do measure the works of these artists against each other, just as the recording industry hands out Grammys, and the television industry doles out Emmys. We can’t seem to help judging our movies—America loves to have a winner. So, what sort of rubric can we suppose the members of the Academy and the viewing public (informally) use? There has to be some sort of objective yardstick. Right? Or is it a matter of simply liking one film or performance better than another?
Well, there’s money. There’s always the money. Profitability seems to get a fair amount of attention in Hollywood. Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, and Black Panther, Wakanda Forever were the highest-grossing films of 2022, receiving $2.2 billion, $1.4 billion, $850 million dollars—respectively. The first two garnered best picture nominations while Panther received a few lesser nominations.
Maverick is a slick and well-made movie, but there was absolutely nothing new or innovative about it. It was eminently predictable. That type of storyline has been around forever. Its dust had dust. I haven’t seen the other two, but I would be surprised—astonished—if they were very much different than their respective prequels. Not that their profitability was the only factor determining their nominations, but profits do turn heads in southern California, evidenced by the fact that at the ceremony, numerous references were made about Maverick and Tom Cruise getting viewers back into movie theaters.
Company politics play a major role, too. Not only do studios indirectly lobby Academy member voters, they also launch full-blooded campaigns for their products, framing their nominations’ worthiness in whatever narrative is most appealing to Academy voters. It might be a megastar’s comeback. It might be “the right film at the right time.” Once again, politics (read money) is part of the rubric. Lately, and thankfully, issues of racial and gender equity often play into these framings.
But money doesn’t explain all the nominations. The independent films Triangle of Sadness, Everything Everywhere All at Once and Tar were not blockbusters—not by a longshot. Everything only received $104 million at the box office. Tar only grossed $19.5 million. To Leslie, featuring Best Actress nominee Riseborough, grossed only $31,000. Yet it got a major Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Triangle only got $25 million at the box office. Yet they were still recognized by the Academy.
Artistic merit, somewhat surprisingly in the corporate world, seems to at times carry as much weight as money or clout in the Academy rubric. Some of this year’s nominees, including Triangle of Sadness, Tar, Women Talking, and The Banshees of Inisherin were probably about as far away as you could get from a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Yet although they were ultimately winless, their very nominations seemed to affirm the Academy’s commitment toward artistic ingenuity and integrity—a commitment that’s more like a nod than an affirmation.
Of course, there’s as many factors in choosing a winner as there are voters. The humor and Irish audacity of Banshees might have appealed to some voters while the patriotic chest-thumping of Maverick might have garnered others. Brandon Fraser’s stellar performance in The Whale was probably bolstered by the hardships—including wearing a 300-pound prosthetic suit—he underwent in portraying the morbidly obese protagonist Charlie. Oscar has a history of favoring actors whose performances entail physical changes—like Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, Charlize Theron in Monster, or Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, all of whom won acting Oscars.
So, if money, influence, and—to a lesser degree artistic importance—are the fundamentals of this informal rubric of Academy Award wins, what exactly does a great movie look like? Past winners have included independent gems like Moonlight, Marty, and Annie Hall, but also include box-office blockbusters like Titanic and Rocky, paragons of cinematic spectacle like Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, or Ben-Hur, and everything else in between—classics like The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, or Unforgiven.
Then there are the also-rans, those that didn’t win, great films like Saving Private Ryan, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man, ET, and Witness, that were beaten out by lesser films like Out of Africa and Ordinary People.
The truth is that choosing a best picture, actor, or screenplay is anything but a scientific process. It’s not even an objective process—any rubric is so deeply rooted in subjectivity that it raises the question of judging one piece of art over another is even a viable, let alone a fair process.
Is Everything really a better film than Tar or All Quiet on the Western Front? All three are decidedly different experiences. It’s like asking which is the better food, filet mignon or Baked Alaska. There’s really no comparison—but yet we insist on comparing.
So, the Oscars are not reliable, fair, apolitical, or even incorruptible. A cynic might say it’s simply another way of branding Hollywood and the film industry—and they’d be right. And the same could be argued about any of the award shows. So why do we watch them?
The truth is for all its foibles, weirdness, and occasional tackiness, the Oscars are a lot of fun—a definite guilty pleasure. They are inherently money-driven, politicized, and their premise of choosing a “best” piece of art inherently flawed. But they also contain moments of genuine emotion and eloquence like Jamie Lee Curtis’ acceptance speech. They’re fun. I’ll watch them. Every time.