As I indicated in my comment to Anne-Marie's pre-Oscars post, this year wasn't one where I felt a strong rooting interest in the awards. In part, this is because the best film I saw in the Oscar year, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, was barely noted in the nominations. But also I think that this year's slate of nominees, particularly in the ???big??? categories, was eminently reasonable, if not exceptional, for its recognition of works with real artistic merit.
Which is not to suggest that the Academy got the year exactly ???right,??? see above, for example, but it is worth remembering that the Oscars are the Industry's awards. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences isn't a critic's circle, or the staff for a film publication or website, and it certainly isn't an idiosyncratic collective of cinephiles. On the other hand, it isn't just the box office top ten, either. The nominations always reflect the tension between art and commerce that runs through Hollywood writ large. So, No Country for Old Men can have a big night in spite of not making anyone rich, but Jesse James, like Children of Men in 2007, was pretty well doomed the moment its studio decided not to promote it. I don't think that it's coincidental that the most notable controversies about this year's nominations were in the documentary feature and foreign-language categories, both of which are relatively marginal in commercial terms.
My overall impression of this year's awards is that they were defined by an almost improbable ???fairness.??? With the exception of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Jesse James, every film with multiple nominations that included at least one shot at a high profile statue, came away with hardware. Not always in a marquee category, but something is certainly better than nothing (and, indeed, I think that Diving Bell and Jesse James were likely sunk for only having nominations in late-in-the-evening and valued-by-the-public type categories).
The biggest surprise of the evening was Tilda Swinton 's Best Supporting Actress trophy. Not at all because she isn't good, on the contrary, see what I wrote about her performance for PopMatters, but because there was no indication that this award would land in her hands. Before the SAGs, it seemed like Amy Ryan, who I also wrote about for PM, or Cate Blanchett were the only real contenders. After the SAGs, Ruby Dee seemed like the dark horse. Swinton's award is exactly the kind of surprise that doesn't happen at the Oscars. In year's past, a win like this would have been a harbinger that a given film was going to have a big night, see Juliette Binoche, but Swinton's honor was the extent of Michael Clayton's wins.
Like many, I was probably most happy with Glen Hansard's and Marketa Irglova's Best Song win for ???Falling Slowly??? (and I can't say enough about Jon Stewart's class in using his role as host to give Irglova a chance to say something on stage after she was unceremoniously drowned out by music, and this after John Travolta's pre-award speech actually seemed to capture why the song should win). This category is often dismal, a virtual lock for Disney in many years, and, if not, then likely some drivel played over the closing credits of some blockbuster. This year the Academy awarded a song that, quite literally, captures the heart-and-soul of a beautiful little film whose makers likely had no thoughts of Oscar until they were nominated.
The recognition for Once, in the only category in which it appeared, leads to me to believe that the sharing of the wealth that happened last night came from an artistically honest place, that Oscar voters looked at their ballots, saw a lot of deserving films and gave some real thought as to what made each of those films worthwhile, and made their selections accordingly. Anyhow, that's what I prefer to believe after a more or less satisfying evening.
Originally posted on:
Short-Circuit Signs