AQ Redux: Elitism at the Oscars

This is one of my failed columns. It was a piece on the Academy Awards in 2008.

I was trying to satirically deconstruct the film geek's obsession with awards. For some reason, they need the validation of seeing their favourite movie gain the accolades of award shows.

Winning or losing an award should not change how one feels about a piece of art. If you don't like the film that wins best picture, so what? I used to care, I used to get outraged until I realized how idiotic it is.

I do believe the Oscars are a farce and it's a damn shame that producers get the credit at the end. Sure without the financial backing a lot of these particular films wouldn't get made but that doesn't mean films would stop. The role of a producer is to make money and play it safe. The best picture award should go collectively to the director, writer, cinematographer, etc. Make it a Stanley Cup like thing where it's on display with names added each year. I sill love the movies, but a lot of movie fans piss me off.




Elitism at the Oscars
by
Jason Wilson


Elitism and entertainment are difficult to separate.

The indie music crowd turns its nose up at anyone who started liking Modest Mouse after 'Good News for People Who Love Bad News.' Similarly, film geeks will chastise those who love Michael Bay action movies.

I fall partially in the latter group.

When Titanic won the Academy Award for best picture I wanted to vomit. All opinions aside, L.A. Confidential is the better film.

The Academy Awards are scrutinized more than any other award show. No one cares who wins a Grammy or a Golden Globe or especially a People's Choice award because what do people know?

The Oscar carries prestige to movie geeks, and we all expect our choice to be the one that takes the cake.

No such luck.

Maybe this year is different. Honestly, I would not be disappointed if any of the best picture nominees won.

Even Juno, a film I found to be quirky for the sake of being quirky with very little substance, would not disappoint due to my adoration of Jason Reitman and his rock-solid cast.

The front runner, No Country for Old Men is a technically sound, visually stunning film chock full of suspense. The Coen Brothers elected to end the film with subtlety. It was purposely vague to provoke a long term effect that would have been absent with a 'wrap up all the loose ends' ending. It also would have been untrue to the Cormac McCarthy novel.

It should win, but it could fall victim to "the Scorsese Effect."

"The Scorsese Effect" applies to a film/director/actor that is clearly deserving but is then passed over.

Martin Scorsese's history at the Awards has been mixed. He has only won the best director prize once, for 2006's The Departed.

In 1981 he lost out to Robert Redford, an actor turned director. In 1991 he should have won for Goodfellas, but again was thwarted by an actor thinking he's better than he is. Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves.

The difference is No Country's competition includes There Will Be Blood, an equally deserving picture from Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights).

If either film goes home empty handed, it will be a tragedy.

The situation is rife with peril as other nominees could sneak into contention at the last minute like Crash and Chicago in recent years.

The night will toil through the rhetoric of celebrity as the stars gather to celebrate their wealth and to a lesser extent, the art of cinema.

Teasers of the best picture nominees will be shown as people guess who will win while Jack Nicholson pops another valium and tries to remember where he is.

Everyone will smile as the producers of the winning film jump on stage to accept an award for something they had little or no part in creating. The biggest award of the entire ceremony goes to those who deserve it the least...such is the folly of being an artist.

Oh sure, Anderson or the Coens could have a moment in the sun a few commercial breaks earlier, but it's the producers who stand victorius at the end of the evening. It's a parable of life and the working class. The bosses celebrate the spoils of the hard work done by those beneath them.

Celebrate the writers, actors and directors...the producers don't need our applause and they don't deserve it either. They already have our money.

Reluctantly I predict the outcomes and analyze where I went wrong. I labour over the idea of who truly deserves it and who should have stayed at home.

All opinions aside, No Country for Old Men was the best movie nominated, but I'm no elitist.