September is here at last. Two festivals are about to decide the fates of several films in the running for Oscar. In Venice, judgment calls have already been made on The Ides of March, W.E. and Carnage. Telluride starts tomorrow and there will even more of these first impression snap judgments coming out. I’ve been covering the Oscar race for going on twelve years now and I can tell you that it just gets more and more bizarre every year. We all really have to stop and take a breath, not be so eager to jump in and say: in or out. In the end, we’re still talking about works of art, films that have taken years, some of them, to get made. Writer, actors, directors, crew, composers, costumers – they’ve put a lot of time and effort into the films we’re all seeing. Is it really fair to simply write them off because a few people responded unkindly? Conversely, with perverse reverse psychology, the hype of premature admiration can sometimes destroy a film. While it can often lift a contender into the Oscar race for nominations, by the time the actual voting comes around, the film feels deflated. It’s a crazy, dirty game and it’s weirder than it’s ever been.
With so many bloggers traveling to film fests with sketchy vetting of credentials, it becomes a strange guessing game of gauging the taste of the tastemakers. When the ultimate aim is a blatant quest to find the “Oscar movies” the process becomes an exercise in futility; especially since the Academy simply cannot be trusted to name the best of anything in the world of cinema. So pundits have to have two piles. One pile for the stuff that’s really great and one pile for the “Oscar movies.” It is always a miraculous thing when the two converge. Last year’s slate of ten films didn’t produce a stinker in the bunch. All ten were very good films, perhaps even representing, dare we say, an honorable sampler of the year’s best offerings.
Something in me clenches when I start reading tweets and reviews that dismiss films out of hand because they aren’t living up to the artificially imposed Oscar hype. After the Ides of March played in Venice most were saying it now had no Oscar prospects. But then one of our most reliable handicappers, Dave Karger, insisted that it’s the first surefire Oscar contender of the year (you know that blurb is going to go out on the adverts). The fact that it will or won’t be an Oscar contender is really beside the point. Right now, the focus should be on how good the movie is.
As festival season rolls out, I always stop to remember what the whole point of Oscarwatching is. It seems to me there are two kinds of Oscarwatchers out there – there are those who only want to predict what the Academy will choose. These are mostly reliable pundits who can separate their forecasts from their personal feelings and therefore are good at predicting – Dave Karger, Pete Hammond, Kris Tapley, Anne Thompson. And then there are those who care more about seeing the better films being rewarded than being right about how the Academy thinks (“People will think….” “What I tell them to think.” – Citizen Kane). We used to call this “shoulding.” Those who think the Academy SHOULD pick better films and reward better directors and diversify their choices and not behave like lemmings and watch all of the films and give a damn about the history of cinema in this country and live up to the high honor that is bestowed upon them by the media and the public – shouldn’t winning an Oscar mean something? Really mean something? It’s so secret that we here at AwardsDaily try to play both sides of the board, but find ourselves gravitating toward the latter group year after year.
You see, predicting without emotional attachment is harder than it appears. But if you really only care about what the Academy will do I can’t see maintaining interest in the race for very long. For me, the heart is involved whether I want it to be or not.
We don’t know yet where our Best Picture winner is standing. We don’t yet if we’re looking at a year where a great film will win or a film that produces real tears will win.
We don’t yet know what the fate of the Ides of March will be. We can assume, based on the reactions so far, but let’s say, for instance, the movie makes a lot of money here in the US. That, too, will shift its weight on the scales of perception. When George Clooney and Ryan Gosling start to hit it hard that will shift things even further.
As for the fate of Madonna’s W.E. – you’re probably looking at a costume nod perhaps. The thing about Madonna is that they’re never going to cut her any slack. She will always be laughed at when she tries to do anything but dance around in her underwear. It’s just the good and the bad of what and who she is. She’s made her bed and not only has to lie in it — she can expect to be handcuffed spreadeagled to the headboard.
As for Carnage, again, one hates to write off anything when it’s only hit Venice. But buzz is buzz and a few negative reviews early on can undermine a movie badly. It can be derailed before it ever even finishes its trajectory to nationwide theaters. While we can do little to rescue a film that may be faltering, there’s no reason to drown a newborn kitten in the bathtub. We can certainly have the patience to let initial reactions gestate and look beyond the thumbs up/thumbs down mentality that makes the whole practice of the festival circuit sorting hat such a shallow enterprise.
If you don’t see a lot of negative reviews posted here and a lot of declarative statements like “W.E. dumped out of Oscar contention,” that’s because this site, I, we, Ryan and me, do not delight in such pile-ons. To me, all of the hopes and dreams of a few brave artists willing to put it on the line to do something original is a cause worth celebrating, not a decree to demand perfection. The news comes fast and furiously. Many of you will have already found out via Twitter whether the blogerati attendees are liking this movie or that. My only hope is that we continue to look deeper, to raise the bar of Oscarwatching higher, to infuse the sleazy circus with a little respect for the people who do what none of us have been able to do: create. For better or worse.
And now, let the madness begin.