April 2, 2015
On Academy Award Nominations
and the True Value of “Best of” Lists
Contrary to what many would have you believe, there is no “best
film” of 2014. For that matter, there is no best film of any year. What there are in any given year are lists of movies that individuals liked more than
others. It seems only natural that some of these lists reveal an interest (some
would say bias) in smaller, more
independent films and that others skew in the direction of films that were
popular at the box office. However, at the end of the year, one particular list
is given much more importance than it probably deserves. I am referring of
course to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s annual list of
nominations, from which one film is selected as the best picture of the year.
The thing is this list is no different that any other. It is not more accurate
that Peter Travers’s or Leonard Martin’s, and it is not superior to one found
on a popular movie blog or on your best friend’s Facebook page. All of these
lists are variations of the same thing, a list of personal favorites, and as
the saying goes, there’s no accounting for taste.
This year the nominations for Best Picture of the Year
created quite a stir, and yet what the argument essentially came down to was
this: A film that many people liked was
not nominated in as many categories as people thought it should have been. It
even inspired a rather telling hashtag, oscarsowhite. This isn’t a new occurrence. People
have made the same argument over the years about countless films. In fact, it
was the snubbing of The Dark Knight
that made the Academy decide to nominate up to ten films instead of the five it
had been nominating since 1944. (The hope was also that the inclusion of more
mainstream films would lead to higher ratings.) What made this year stand out
to many people was the selective nature of the uproar. People seemed to be focusing
on the exclusion of a single film and not a number of them. Yet based on their reviews
and/or popularity, it seems that a case could also have been made for many other
films from 2014, films such as The Lego
Movie, Under the Skin, Only Lovers Left Alive, Chef, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Obvious
Child, Cavalry, Gone Girl, Goodbye to Language, Dear
White People, Beyond the Lights,
and Top Five. Many of these films
were either critical or commercial hits; some were both. However, the argument
over snubs was focused almost exclusively on one film, Ava DuVernay’s Selma.
Like many of the films I have just listed, I have not seen Selma (It has not opened in Taiwan yet.),
so I cannot say whether I would have included it among my favorite films of 2014
or not. However, the fact that it was nominated has ensured that I will
eventually see it, just as I will one day watch the rest of films nominated for
Best Picture of 2014. I say this because the Academy Award’s list of nominees
did for me what I believe all such lists are supposed to do – to generate interest.
Still, all too often these days we look for people who confirm what we already
think and we dismiss or ignore the opinions of those who disagree with us. This
is true in both politics and religion, and it is true in movies. Sadly, many
people dismiss “best-of” lists if they don’t contain their favorite films.
Truth be told, I have my own list of Oscar grievances. For
example, I have no great love for Titanic
or Gladiator, preferring instead As Good As It Gets, Traffic, and Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon, and I consider the Academy’s treatment of The Ice Storm and Letters from Iwo Jima to be nothing short of criminal. I have also
never forgotten that the far superior Farewell
My Concubine lost out to Belle Epoque.
However, I must also say that I am grateful to the Academy for bringing the latter
film to my attention in the first place. Had it not been nominated, it is
highly unlikely that I would ever have heard about it.
And that to me is the point of a list, be it a list of the best
100 films of all time, the ten best films of the year, or the top ten comedies
or dramas. A list should inspire; it should pique interest. It should say to
people, “These are films that we liked a lot and that we think are worthy of your
time.” We won’t all agree of course, and ten years later, a film that resonated
with viewers may seem cold or insignificant. However, what determines whether a
film continues to be seen has little to do with how many nominations or awards
it received. What matters is the quality of the film, and it is this that will ultimately
determine whether films like Selma, Lincoln, and Brokeback Mountain continue to find audiences in the future.
On the day the Academy Award nominations were announced, one
of my childhood friends expressed his disappointment on Facebook, saying that
none of the films that were nominated were movies that he had seen or wanted to
see. I find this comment sad, for it suggests a disinterest in new and
different things. It also reminds me of the numerous comments online that
justify indifference to a particular film by saying that not everyone is looking
for Citizen Kane when they go to the
movies. Sometimes, they argue, people just want to see things blow up for two
hours. I get this. I do. However, a list should be a starting point, a beginning
to a conversation. It should not be the final verdict or an affirmation of what
one already thinks. After all, what exactly can be gained by that?
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