The State of the Race – Tilting at Windmills

There has never been an Oscar year on record that had such strong opposing forces at play – when the critics stand in unison behind one movie, as they did with No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker and now, The Social Network, they are essentially saying — “we know this movie isn’t an ‘Oscar movie’ and we know it doesn’t have a prayer of being named Best Picture of the Year by the Motion Picture Academy but here it is, your best picture.” Knowing this, the Academy sometimes balks at that choice, and has for decades. But for every once in a while, the movie the critics love and the movie the Academy loves are the same. The critics are taken by films that push the boundaries of cinema, that, in fact, make cinema history. The Academy are taken by films that move them; they aren’t so interested in film history. They make their own history, of course: first woman to win Best Director, first African American to win Screenplay, first African American to win Best Actress; their history is more about breaking their own stodgy rules that have been in place way too long by a group of voters who are, sorry to say, way too stuck in tradition to be of any real use to Cinema history.

Their history is Oscar history and thus, those who love the Oscars tend to love their choices too. Those who love great films though? They’re more apt to fall in line with the critics choices. And on and on and on it goes. The Great War.

It will remain one of the most divisive years on record and it may result in a split vote, but probably not. Despite David Fincher winning, I’m sorry to have to say it again but I’m going to say it again, despite a record number of wins for Best Director heading into the DGA and then famously losing the DGA, but then winning the BAFTA – the chances of Tom Hooper winning the Oscar for Best Director are more likely; if Hopper doesn’t win it, he will become the first director heading into the race with 12 nominations for Best Picture, having won the DGA, but then losing the Oscar as his film takes Best Picture. As you know, Steven Spielberg won the DGA for Saving Private Ryan, which lost to Shakespeare in Love, and Ridley Scott did not win the DGA for Gladiator.

The best example for this year is Chicago, which did win the DGA and then Best Picture, but lost Director to Roman Polanski; The Pianist didn’t have half of the support behind it that The Social Network has. It came up suddenly from the outside. And Chicago? It had already won the Globe and the Critics Choice, something the King’s Speech did not do.

You will not be able to find another year when the vote split between Picture and Director matches this year. It would be a rarity and a one-off, even weirder than Gladiator’s win. It is much more likely that the wins will go down: The King’s Speech and Tom Hooper, The Social Network and David Fincher. History is on the side of the latter, funnily enough, as it’s never happened, since 1943, that a film won swept the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics and the Golden Globe and not won Best Picture. Please be clear on that: it has never happened. Scott Feinberg repeats the amazing stat for all to see in a post called Never Forget. It HAS happened that a film won the PGA/DGA and SAG and lost Best Pic and Best Director — twice, Apollo 13 and Braveheart.

We know, though, that Braveheart was the more emotional film, while Apollo 13 was the more respectable, critically acclaimed one. It still has a passionate group of fans, Braveheart does. It wasn’t a particularly embarrassing choice by the Academy.

What is worth noting is that throughout the years when there were ten nominees for Best Picture — not once did the Best Picture winner match the only two critics groups that were around then: the NYFCC and the NBR. When those two matched, another movie won Picture. Moreoever, you see some interesting factoids:

All but two of the years that had ten nominees showed a split between critics and the Academy, sometimes the critics chose the more lasting film. ¬†Sometimes the Academy chose the more lasting film. But it’s hard to not look at that stat and see the King’s Speech as the obvious choice; does it not look exactly like one of these winners? Mrs. Miniver? How Green was My Valley?

Since 1943, when the Academy switched to five Best Picture nominees, the preference for Best Picture STILL differed greatly from the critics. But at this point, when the Golden Globes came into be, you never had a film that won those three and didn’t win Best Picture (though extremely rare even still):

*BIG THANKS TO MARSHALL FLORES for his exhaustive work on these charts.

It’s a hell of a stat, that one there. ¬†A handful of films have won Best Picture without winning any of the major groups: many of these also won Best Director from the Globes, and one from National Society. ¬†The two that didn’t win either of those won, of all critics groups, the Kansas City Film Critics, again, none of these the King’s Speech has managed to do.

So, if The King’s Speech wins, it will be a film that has won Best Picture with the least amount of critics awards since 1944. ¬†It can only then be compared with films that won when there were fewer critics awards overall, from 1943 backwards. ¬†Even Crash had won the Chicago Film critics, my friends.

I want it to be clear to you, Oscar watchers, how rare and unprecedented this year is for many reasons but specifically for the reason that it has, quite simply, never happened before.

One can espouse many theories on why we are reverting to a scenario that hasn’t happened in sixty seven years of Oscar history. ¬†Here are the most common explanations.

1. Critics don’t vote for the Oscars. ¬†All evidence to the contrary.

2. Critics groups don’t matter now because there are too many of them: I am not even really counting any of the newly formed ones – which, by the way, would have to include the guilds (minus the DGA and the Eddie) which have been around even less time than many of the major critics groups.

3. Stats were meant to be broken – Kathryn Bigelow, for instance. ¬†Right, but all stats aren’t measured equally are they.

4. You can feel it in the air.  Yes, you can.  And I can feel it pulsating off the future Oscar columns as we speak.

5. Who cares what the NBR and the Globe think – they’re corrupt and the critics groups are like sheep. ¬†There are very good films and there are great films. ¬†If you put yourself in the position of being someone who judges what the best film is in any given year, you’d better sure you have chosen a great one.

Most of you will and should predict The King’s Speech for Best Picture of 2010. ¬†You have no doubt already decided what your favorite film of the year is. ¬†I know from your contest forms that your favorites split up between Inception, Black Swan and The Social Network (which still has the vast majority of support so far). The King’s Speech has a respectable amount of support — though it’s no big shock that this site would be drawing more Social Network fans than King’s Speech fans. ¬†But we know that when Andy Rooney talks up The King’s Speech on 60 Minutes and when people “out there in the world” are so excited to see it they are driving it upwards of $100 mil at the box office that this movie has captured their hearts for the time being. ¬†So who can argue with that?

I have been mostly unfair to The King’s Speech because the Oscar race almost always feels like a game of poker, or chess. To win you have to know the game better than the audience watching the game. ¬†To win the game you have to know the limitations of your opponent. ¬†It is ironic to me that The Social Network so brilliantly, cleanly and insightfully lays out the nature of winning and losing. ¬†”Is there any way to make this a fair fight?” asks one of the Winklevoss twins at the beginning of the movie. “Not unless we get out and swim.” ¬†They are outwitted, outlasted and outplayed by Mark Zuckerberg who does it on smarts and a ruthless ability to strike at the right moment. ¬†The Winklevoss twins, like King George VI, were born into privilege – all they really had to do was live up to their promise. ¬†King George does it with a little help from his friend. ¬†The Winklevoss twins live out their lives amid the frustrations that often accompany the loser.

Zuckerberg had the better idea and the wherewithall to deliver it and yet he is the more hated of the two protagonists. ¬†We often look for what’s on the surface rather than what’s underneath because our emotions make us feel things we can’t explain. And those feelings are so strong they can’t be reasoned with.

This piece will be met with the usual bitching from you readers: “get over it!” “Why are you so bitter!?” My response in advance is this: I began my website with the question “How could Best Picture not have gone to Citizen Kane in 1941?” ¬†That single question led me to build Oscarwatch back in 1999. ¬†I have spent these eleven years trying to crack it. ¬†I spend my time deep into Oscar history and I am always trying to put that history into the context of the time.

But I am here to tell you that after of these years I have no answer to that question.  There are a few people out there who will insist that How Green Was My Valley is the better film.  The truth is that John Ford had won Director the year before for the astonishing Grapes of Wrath, which had lost to Rebecca.  Awarding him for How Green Was My Valley was payback for that loss.  Also, you can see a clear pattern emerging after Oscar switched back to five from ten or more.  They started listening to the critics more.  Why did they do that?  Did the historical snub of Citizen Kane have anything to do with that?

I am no closer to knowing why they saw fit to deny what has become, by all rights, one of the greatest films of all time than I was eleven years ago. ¬†What I do know is this: we all have different ways of defining our “best.”

History will be made one way or another on February 27.  Either the film with the least amount of critics awards will win Best Picture for the first time since 1943, or the film with the most will not.

Don’t worry about it, Jake. ¬†It’s Chinatown

That great quote reminds us not to take any of this too seriously. ¬†After all, what are we really talking about here? ¬†Great films like Chinatown rarely win. ¬†A moment in time that captures the public perception. ¬†We often confuse our love for a film with its need to be validated by the various groups out there — because that somehow means they didn’t get it right so much but that WE got it right. ¬†Sooner or later the windmill starts to take shape and you recognize it for the functioning machine that it is. ¬†It means no more or less than that. ¬†We can look at it as something more threatening, more important, more of a challenge but in the end, it was our own perception that was our worst enemy.

“Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a¬†brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.

“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.”

“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.”