Winners and Losers
I don’t want to expend too much energy on it, but I thought I might chime in briefly on the results of Oscar Night 2010. I didn’t catch the first part of the ceremony, but I caught the rest once I ran out of better things to do. Here is a list of observations, culled either from the broadcast itself or from summaries of the parts I missed.
1. An honorary Academy Award for Gordon Willis.
This guy’s work with low-exposure photography on the Godfather movies is legendary. That he hasn’t been acknowledged for it until now is shocking, even for the Academy. Was he even nominated for the first two? I don’t think so.
2. Best Film Editing goes to The Hurt Locker.
This will be one of the many remarks I’ll make in this post over how The Hurt Locker, for all its virtues, has no business beating Inglourious Basterds in a number of categories. This is one of them. The Hurt Locker features the “run ‘n’ gun” style of shooting and cutting that I’ve come to despise. It’s not much of an offender—it manages to maintain its coherence—but at the same time, I’ll take the classic technique and clarity of Inglourious Basterds any day.
3. Best Cinematography goes to Avatar.
No. No no no no no. This is one gaffe on the Academy’s part that isn’t just a matter of taste, but of pure, factual wrongness. I won’t deny that Avatar’s stunning images are commendable, but cinematography—by definition—involves actually shooting the footage with a camera. Cinematography is the art of manipulating and capturing light through the lens. Avatar’s visual wonders are almost exclusively dealt with through computer animation. Cameras have nothing to do with it. If there ever was a reason to not take the Oscars seriously…
4. Best Original Screenplay goes to The Hurt Locker.
Is The Hurt Locker really a writer’s movie? It seems to me that you don’t see The Hurt Locker for the dialogue or the story developments, but for the visceral experience of spending time in a bomb suit in the streets of Iraq. The Academy has a tendency to give certain movies a “sweep” of the categories, as a matter of putting as much of its dubious clout into one cause as it possibly can. In this particular case, it looks like The Hurt Locker is the lucky winner. There isn’t much else of an explanation for why this award didn’t go to A Serious Man or (yes) Inglourious Basterds, which are much more written movies.
5. Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz, Best Supporting Actress for Mo’Nique
Shockingly, these are the winners I was pulling for in these categories.
6. The John Hughes and horror movie montages
Somebody please convince me that these two show padders weren’t a complete waste of time. Clips from mostly bad horror movies? A tribute to a man who was a fine enough writer but an unremarkable director? I realize that pandering to fair-weather viewers is the theme of this year’s Oscars (just look at the size of the Best Picture category!), but isn’t this too obvious and counterproductive?
7. Best Actor goes to Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
Sometimes people praise a movie when they mean to praise an actor. Crazy Heart is one of those movies. I’m not sure it deserves the acclaim it’s gotten, but Jeff Bridges more than pulls his weight, and he’s an excellent actor overall. And you have to love a guy who uses the word “groovy” in his acceptance speech.
8. Best Director goes to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
I think I might be getting blue in the face. I’m actually not going to deny that this is a well-directed film. The atmosphere and the tension isn’t in the script or the acting, but in the way the images are put together and the way it pulls us in by our shirt collars. That’s the hand of the director.
That said, Bigelow over Tarantino? Hurt Locker over Inglourious Basterds? Remember, we’re talking about direction here, and if The Hurt Locker pulls us by our shirt collars, Inglourious Basterds sits us down, gives us a shoulder massage, feeds us, and slowly strangles us in the meantime. In a good way.
9. Best Picture goes to The Hurt Locker
I suppose this was predictable. What wasn’t predictable was the four seconds it took for Tom Hanks to appear, open the envelope, and read the name. Check it out when they cut to the backstage camera. Kathryn Bigelow didn’t even have time to get to the snack table before her movie’s name got called. I realize the Academy is raring to break the glass ceiling by showering a female director with as much praise as possible. But when you factor in all that praise, the choice of song, and Streisand’s comment about making history, it all smacks of condescension. It’s one of those calculated superstar moments.
I don’t think it’s at all diminishing to Bigelow, her excellent movie, or her tremendous talent to say that, either. I think it’s diminishing for the Academy to ignore actual merits in favor of imagined ones.
That’s probably all I have to contribute to the discussion over this year’s cavalcade of acceptance speeches, unconscionably expensive clothing, and badly scripted comedy routines. Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker for victories perhaps partially deserved, and my sincerest condolence to Quentin Tarantino for the 100% undeserved losses of Inglourious Basterds. I don’t know if it truly is his masterpiece, but it—along with the criminally overlooked A Serious Man—is one of 2009’s movies to see.