By refusing to broadcast the Honorary Awards for the fourth year running, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has given the cold shoulder to luminaries of film history. Perhaps we should return the favor.
This is not a clever list of “Top 10” reasons to ignore, criticize, or make fun of the Academy Awards. Right now I’m only interested in one deeply unfair and indicative reason. That said, a brief bit of background may be in order…
About eighty-five years ago, the Academy was established as a studio-run guild – the producers were seeking to stem trade union growth within the film industry. The awards ceremony was one of the group’s earliest gestures, so from its very formation there was a top-down, conformist nature to the awards, an element of condescension as the bigwigs patted their underlings on the head. Though the members themselves were voters, votes were cast within a context created and facilitated by the industry’s elite. However, this also meant that the Academy expressed Hollywood’s view of itself at the highest levels.
Over the years, for better or worse, the Academy has become, if not a beloved institution, at least a widely influential and famous organization. People pay attention to its actions – and the ripples produced by the Academy Awards can ultimately have a tsunami effect on the public’s perception of movies and the movie business. Over time, the Awards ceremony has, in addition to honoring the favored films of a particular year, established and maintained a vital link between different periods in its own history.
Through enjoyable and well-intentioned (if often cumbersome) montages, and more importantly through the presence of living and deceased legends and icons on the ceremony’s stage and screen, past Academy events clearly implied some continuity between cinema’s past, present, and, presumably, its future. Certainly there are questionable undertones to these gestures: does the present live up to the past (and do latter-day celebrities deserve to ride their predecessor’s coattails)? And from the other side, is history being over-idealized in the Academy’s gauzy nostalgia?
Maybe so, yet ultimately these tributes were important and valuable – particularly the Honorary Awards, which could rectify past oversights or snubs (think Alfred Hitchcock or Orson Welles, receiving special achievement awards at the end of Best Director-free careers). In an environment where intense marketing, profit margins, and the hype machine determined what “matters,” space was created for the vital traditions and accomplished figures of film history, many of whom were unjustly ignored by the Academy in their prime.
Hindsight is 20/20 – one reason the roll call of such trophies is more illustrious than a list of actors and filmmakers awarded for contemporary films. Look at 2010, for example. Honorary Oscar recipients included historian Kevin Brownlow, actor Eli Wallach, and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard (arguably the greatest living director). They were bound to outshine just about anyone else holding a trophy at night’s end.
The same was true of Thalberg Award recipient Francis Ford Coppola, responsible for some of Hollywood’s greatest triumphs – you’d think if anyone deserved center stage on the town’s signature night, it would be him. Yet all of these people have been shunted out of the spotlight in the interests of a broadcast increasingly focused on being “hip” and “of the moment”: Brownlow, Wallach, and Coppola were honored at a private ceremony in November 2010. (Godard, rightly, ignored the self-important yet condescending event.)
In 2013, for the fourth year running, the Honorary Awards will not be included in the Academy Awards broadcast. Presumably, this is so the show’s producers can liberate more space for corny and instantly dated jokes, bad musical numbers, and appearances by starlets and celebrities who will be probably be forgotten within the limited lifetime of the ignored, elderly Honorees.
The irony is extreme. With the advent of Netflix, the Criterion Collection, and the internet, the classics have become more accessible than ever – now is the perfect time to introduce home audiences to cinematic icons who contributed to this history. Instead, the Academy has decided to flip off the past – its own history, as well as that of the industry and the art form it ostensibly honors.
My own history with the Academy Awards goes way back. I started following the Oscar race in the spring of 1991, when I was 7 years old, too young to have seen most of the films nominated yet fascinated by the process and the hubbub. I devoured books on the Academy, casually memorizing the Best Picture winners of every year. To this day, if someone names a year I can tell them instantly what won – always a popular party trick.
For twenty years I watched every single broadcast, either live or via VHS tape the following morning – even the first year that the Honorary Oscars were first axed from the show. But not this time. If anyone wants to start a petition or spread the word, I’ll sign on…but of course I doubt it will make much difference. My personal boycott is less an effort to change anything than an individual statement: enough is enough.
Any institution which ignores or disrespects its own history – especially when that history is far more bountiful than the present – merits only contempt and scorn. Despite its troubled and mixed legacy, the Academy Awards served as an intermittent beacon, reminding millions of viewers that the motion picture medium was an art form as well as industry, an art form with a rich and powerful history – created by legends, living and gone, illuminated on Awards night. This coming Sunday, all is dark – the beacon will be turned off.
And so will my TV set.
Read the discussion following the original version of this piece, which appeared in 2011
Farran Nehme, the Self-Styled Siren, recently said it best on Twitter: “Chaplin accepts honorary Oscar, 1972, & gets 12-minute standing ovation. Now, he’d be sent to ‘Governor’s Awards.'”
Watch his deeply moving appearance below, and recall that this occurred only twenty years after Washington, with Hollywood’s concurrence, exiled him for his left-wing political views. How despicable that the industry no longer considers moments like this worthwhile.
Nice piece. One of the great things about living abroad is they’re not broadcast, so the temptation isn’t even there. That’s a context that is easy to forget, and one AMPAS would like you to–that outside the U.S. and U.K., no one gives a shit about the Oscars.
Didn’t know that the Oscars have/had little international broadcast, which is rather amusing given their self-importance. I recall hearing some statistic about their “worldwide numbers” – was this in fact based only on U.S./UK, or are there a handful of other countries that broadcast them too? Perhaps Jaime could help here – are they on in Chile?
Bravo, I wholeheartedly agree this.
I will probably leave a comment at the end of the piece elucidating my thoughts on how & why I differ from the “eh, who cares, it’s just the Oscars?” opinion but for now, thanks, Bobby.
The Oscars is run by wankers for wankers, applauded only by the knobjockeys who lick up to them at every turn as if they’re God almighty. Thank God they’re only on in the middle of the night over here so I can avoid them easily. The BAFTAs I have to be more careful to avoid.
As far as I’m concerned you can’t have it both ways. Too many people seem to be saying “we know the Oscars are worthless, but we’re still going to get excited about them.” Sorry, that doesn’t wash. They’re worthless, period. And getting excited about them is just giving the game away that you really think they are important. The Oscars are Hollywood’s way of congratulating themselves on how wonderful they are. And as long as people keep getting excited about this shit, the longer Hollywood will continue to get away with such turgid, moral repugnance. Only by not watching, by turning off, until TV companies will no longer support this self-congratulatory sycophantic charade, will they even consider waking up to their own irrelevance. Tuning in gives them that relevance. By watching you are supporting them and rubberstamping their importance.
If they want our respect, it’s simple.
1 Make great films, based on great scripts and ideas, not films to make money or films designed to make Hollywood feel how liberal and caring they are that are designed to win awards.
2 Once these films are made, use your bloody intelligence to pick the right bloody films and performances. Make it meritorious, not who licked the right people’s arsehole and greased the right corrupt palm.
3 Just give the awards out with no ceremony. Just announce them and send the awards by Fedex to the recipients with a note saying well done.
As for the Honorary Awards, to be honest they should be scrapped. Essentially they’re there for the Academy to say “whoops, we’re xenophobic twats, we’d better give this guy an award before he dies on us”. If they think so low of them as to screw it up and not give them award the right way, don’t demean it further by giving them an apologatory award. “Thanks, Mr Godard, here’s your award, now we have to get back to preparing a banquet for Ron fucking Howard.” the people who receive honorary awards are often more worthy than every other winner in the main ceremony combined. Some people are just too good for Oscar. Winning an Oscar means you’re accepted and your career will disappear.
For example, remember the films and performances Philip Seymour Hoffman gave leading up to Capote and those since. Likewise Reese Witherspoon before and after Walk the Line.
Condescension on this matter again. Sorry but you CAN have it BOTH ways! Joel had it BOTH ways for a long long time until he was tired of the matter with the honorary awards. There is nasty cynicism afoot in the comment section here that does not speak for the entire country, nor the world in fact.
Who gives a shit? Stay home and play checkers. I could care less. I stated why I watch and enjoy the show every year and it has nothing to do with my perception that the awards have any residule value or that they even have any value for the year they are announced. Nobody is asking anyone to play the game, and what the intellectuals on this thread voice here is nothing that my 15 year-old son Sammy hasn’t figured out. The Oscars have given me a welcome opportunity to spend time with friends I only see once a year, to get some good laughs at the expense of the show, and to realize that for all it’s worthlessness and hypocrisy, it’s part of the culture. What I resent is the attitude and the pompousness from those who think by avoiding and condemning them, they THEY are especially insightful and so concerned about the artistic process.
Lighten up. Give it a break. None of you are better than anyone here. The Oscars are a worthy guilty pleasure, and for one night a year, they offer up entertainment within that parameter.
I don’t need to be judged or told by anyone else I ‘can’t have it both ways.’
I’ve been having it ‘both ways’ since 1968 thank you very much.
I’m having it both ways today too. I’m taking my kids to the Film Forum to see Chaplin’s THE CIRCUS this morning and then bringing them up to the annual Oscar party. They are excited about both, having seen and loved the Chaplin before, and much enjoying the aspects of the awards that involve comeraderie and a marked absence of deep thinking.
I do NOT object to anyone clinging to their smug attitudes here, but I do take issue when I am told what I should or should not be doing. I’ve explained myself for many years, as has Dennis, and Jason and many others who can get beyond the condescension.
The awards are a ‘guilty pleasure’ and as such bear no guilt. Joel’s reason for not watching them the last few years as he states in his wonderful piece has to do with a specific pointed omission, not as a philosophical objection. He watched the show for many years before the policy change, and no doubt was able to derive the same laughs and competitive thrills as many of us. The calls here that mean to change the world with acute crusader styled bravado are laughable, as is the lecture on ‘moral repugnance.’ But this is what happens when you get talked down to. The equating of ‘watching and enjoying the show’ with ’embracing it’s implications’ is a bold face untruth. I know many people who watch it every year and still laugh roundly at it in the end, and they are intellectuals well beyond some of the people here.
Note: Bobby J.’s innocuous brief comment in no way is being referenced here in my reponse.
Sam you keep saying you don’t care about the Oscars, yet you defend it from naysayers with the force and aggression normally reserved for stuff like The Artist and War Horse. It’s obvious to everyone here that you do care and love the Academy more than you let on. I found Allan’s comment to be a rather fair observation. Lets also look at some unavoidable facts before you say that the Academy doesn’t have any value for you.
Of the 9 Best Picture candidates this is where you ranked them on your list of best films of the year….
#2 Life Of PI
#4 Les Miserables
#5 Zero Dark Thirty
#6 Lincoln
#10 Django Unchained
Not to mention ****1/2 ratings and high nearlies rankings for both Argo and Amour. This leaves just 2 out of 9 films you actually find disappointing. It seems like your taste falls quite in line with the show these days. Half your list is made up of Best Picture candidates. Nothing wrong with any of this by the way, just pointing out some facts. And unlike the Oscars you do appreciate art cinema and difficult works like The Turin Horse. I just don’t buy that the show is a completely inconsequential diversion for you….
Sam, for what it’s worth (and I know you didn’t take it this way), the piece is not meant to stand in judgement of those who choose to watch. Someday, if the circumstances are right, I would certainly enjoy making an one-off exception to my boycott (or perhaps I wouldn’t need to, due to a change in policy, wouldn’t that be nice…) to experience your Oscar party in the flesh.
Maurizio, to be perfectly honest I am really not bothered by whether or not you “buy” anything here. I stated on Monday’s posted interview at the Boulevard Diner that I have known for nearly five decades that the essence of the awards from an artistic standpoint were negligible. You have attempted with equal vigor over the past few days of trying to link the “attention” I give the Oscars to some kind of hidden validation of the actual choices they make. Really? So then, after ARGO wins tonight by your reasoning I will immediately embrace the group’s consensus, and proclaim ARGO as the best film of the year. Screw THE TURIN HORSE, OSLO, AUGUST 31ST, THE DEEP BLUE SEA, THE IMPOSSIBLE, HOLY MOTORS, THE KID WITH THE BIKE and MEA MAXIMA CULPA then. All of those were either top ten for me or very close to that. I follow the awards with attention, in the same manner that I follow the N.Y. Film Critics Circle, the BAFTA’s, the Globes, the Caesars, and every other awards group. As a movie lover I enjoy following award shows and the arc of the year-end accolades. I am not asking you to watch or attend anything, I am just trying to tone down your condescending snarky attitude, which seems to always attempt to put yourself on a higher moral plane. Watching the Oscars to me is like watching the Super Bowl–it’s a cultural event. I neither believe that most of their winners are deserving than I believe that the team who wins the Super Bowl is really the ‘best’ team instead of just a team that got ‘hot’ at the right time. It’s competition. I enjoy the behind the scenes machinations, while distancing myself from embracing the actual ethics. I feel I have a right to do this, as I follow every awards group with equal attention and because I make my choices after seeing almost 200 films in the theaters each and every year.
Your subsequent attempt to link my “taste” with the Academy’s taste is both pointless and hypocritical. You assert that I loved 7 of the 9 films that the Academy nominated for Best Film. Let’s look at this closely:
1. I announced my Top Ten list at the site the very first week of January BEFORE the Oscar nominations were announced.
2. How often is it that ANYONE (yourself included) takes serious issue with the MAJORITY of the nominated films? A simpleton, much less the members of the Academy can easily nominate an impressive slate of films. Rarely are the actual nominations problematic–rather it’s the omissions and final winners that make the entire process a joke. It does not take a rocket scientist to offer up a general short list of what the best English language films are every year. The Academy snubbed THE MASTER and a few others, but the field of nine that they presented was strong and in tune with what most would choose.
You disparage my list as including some of these choices, but conveniently ignore that most people, including the people at the site (Allan, Dennis included) gave very high ratings for 6 or 7 of the 9.
Allan gave four stars or higher for:
Amour *****
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
and 3.5 for:
Argo
Django Unchained
Like me he dismissed SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and BEASTS. As of today he has not seen LIFE OF PI yet.
Dennis gave the very highest praise to:
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Lincoln
Amour
The Life of Pi
…..all of which made his top list, and he liked SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, BEASTS and ARGO more than most here did.
Last year my Top 10 were:
1. The Artist
2. The Tree of Life
3. Mysteries of Lisbon
4. Bal (Honey)
5. Of Gods and Men
6. War Horse
7. A Separation
8. Melancholia
9. Hugo
10. Jane Eyre/Margaret
Of the 11 films that made my Top 10, only 4 were Oscar nominees for Best Picture in their field of 8.
Point is there will always be some uniformity when you are talking quality films.
You, Maurizio also liked:
Zero Dark Thirty
Amour
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Lincoln
……………..quite a bit!!!! And actually reviewed ARGO highly until you found out something about the ending and soured on it popularity. Shall I say that YOU are an Oscar follower now, because YOU liked some “similar” films? What sets you apart? Not liking PI, BEAST and SILVER LININGS?
Please.
This is not a game of who can outdo everyone else for ‘hate’ or who can rain on someone’s parade or show they are smarter by finding “issues.” This is supposed to be having fun and sizing up what each individual thinks is art. Life is too short for negative energy. I follow the Oscars because I love movies. Unlike you I do not see them as a threat, effrontery or moral impediment, but as a fun diversion that for me is conversation fodder for the day it is staged. You are basically a nice guy who I have had fun with in NYC several times, and a very loyal member of this site. (if you were at any point to leave because of hot discussion it would be tragic) but I have been through everything you now bring up as if it were major philosophical revelation many times over. An imbecile can come up with much the same. You are not novel I assure you.
What you describe would be ideal (although I think a ceremony would remain important to better expose/promote the good stuff, once you go there you open up the door wide for hype/ratings to determine the outcome rather than quality, so you have a point). However, in the real world – where this stuff is bound to be tainted by publicity and narrow minds and the rest, I think it’s important to bemoan something of quality that DID squeak through the cracks, which have now been sealed up.
Take Chaplin in ’72 for example. Were the people applauding him in the audience who hypocritically had supported his exile twenty years earlier? Quite probably. His “you kind, sweet people” may be far too generous. And yet there is definitely something of value in his triumphant return to the stage.
I view the Honoraries as akin to the directors whom Scorsese described as “smugglers” in his series on the American cinema…a way of sneaking quality and a perspective on history and art into an otherwise mostly vapid ceremony. There were subversive elements to this, which is probably one reason it increasingly “didn’t fit” and was eventually axed.
Whether or not we like it, the Academy exists as an influential institution. I wish it could be used for good as well as ill.
That said, I am increasingly reaching the point – maybe have already – where I think Hollywood is utterly hopeless and that the future of movies – not just aesthetically, but hopefully in other ways too – lies outside of the American film industry, and perhaps film industries in general. I do think if there is not an outburst of creativity on the internet, and all we’re left with is the conventional system, cinema will die as a mass medium, the way theater and literature before it passed from the public eye in any major way. It’s already on that path, and the industry is proving its own pallbearer in this way, whatever its momentary successes.
Hence my own obit on Hollywood months ago which I’d been wantoing to rant about for years. Hollywood is dead.
Well said, Sam. The Oscars are all about industry politics and not quality – this we know. It’s still a fun, glamorous spectacle and – as you say – a part of the culture. For me, as for you, it is also an annual event within a certain circle of friends; our annual party brings us all together every year.
Pat, on the lighter side I remember, on VHS with my cousin, watching the nominee’s reactions when they lost, that split-second before their acting instincts kicked in. Slo-mo on a remote control can reveal a lot, lol.
How true! My favorite moment was in 1974 when Ellen Burstyn was the Best Actress favorite for THE EXORCIST. When they called Glenda Jackson’s name, she very clearly exclaimed “Glenda Jackson?!!!” in apparent disgust. It was priceless!
Thanks very much Pat! We are on the same plane for sure. I will be checking out your site now! Hope you have a great time tonight!
Somewhere I still have a VHS tape of Oscar highlights from ’72-’92 which came packaged with On the Waterfront in the late 90s. One of these years I will put it on instead of the real broadcast! Those were definitely the most eventful ceremonies…the streaker, Brando’s non-appearance, Scott’s non-appearance, Vanessa Redgrave’s political speech, Paddy Chayefsky’s rebuttal, Bert Schneider’s happy telegram from the North Vietnamese government. They don’t make the shows like they used too lol.
Great piece Joel. I don’t see how scrapping the honorary segment matters one iota. The reason they were eliminated is probably because most of the viewers could care less. In fact when I did watch award shows at a younger age with my mother (mostly the Grammys), those parts were the most mawkish and yawn inducing. I think the Oscars probably did a good thing by getting rid of these consolation prizes that everyone understands are simply a way of trying to rectify some past injustice. Streamlining the show and making it sleeker is a definite benefit to enhance viewership. Why should the show look back and give nods to dead (or almost dead) people? Its a glamour production which fixates on current stars and current films. Whatever it once was or intended to be, that’s not what it is now. I think the producers knew what they were doing and probably got that aspect right.
“Honorary Oscar recipients included historian Kevin Brownlow, actor Eli Wallach, and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard (arguably the greatest living director). They were bound to outshine just about anyone else holding a trophy at night’s end.”
I’m sorry but this is wishful thinking by a knowledgable film enthusiast who forgot the actual target audience. I doubt anyone is worried about Godard upstaging George Clooney. Its not going to happen and the general American public does’t care about some old French guy.
The question is, matters one iota to whom? I agree that from a ratings standpoint, the Academy is almost certainly not harmed by axing the Honoraries, although they’re probably not helped quite as much as they think (no matter how they attempt to make the show hip, it’s always going to skew to an older demographic, and perhaps one aging out over time, i.e. I’m not sure the Oscars will be any more important to younger generations than their forebears, in part because caring about movies period and also what “caring about movies” means has changed over time).
My point, however, is that by attaching this thing of value – and introducing viewers, even if it’s the 1 in a 1000 who cares/is curious, to great figures of film they may not have been familiar with in the past, is undoubtedly a thing of value – to something popular, the Academy along with all of the crap it perpetuates was making an important contribution to the film universe. Godard certainly would not have shown up for an Oscar broadcast, and perhaps rightfully so, but if/as they played clips of his work, there would have been somebody out there, some kid or young adult or older person, whose curiosity was piqued.
The Oscars are a mainstream platform, and by including these voices they offer wider exposure and confirmation of a standard outside that of the box office or memontary hype. As I noted in the piece, this comes with more than a whiff of patronizing condescension but I would view it as a net plus.
I am not yet reconciled, and probably never will be, to the notion that classic cinema, or good cinema, need accept its place on as a margin/niche taste in the movie universe. It wasn’t always so, and it needn’t be now if enough was done to rectify it.
Excellent bit of research on the historical origins of the Oscars, which only goes to illustrate precisely how and why they’re meaningless embodiments of the commercial side of filmmaking, rather than the artistic. I’d be curious to see how many of the other awards out there have similarly dubious backstories.
Probably not as much, because (at least in the film realm) they were mostly concocted to rival or feed off of what the Oscars created. If I remember correctly, the National Society of Film Critics was created specifically to counter not just the stodgy Academy, but was viewed at the time as being the stodgy New York Film Critics Circle (still dominated, although not for long, by the aesthetically conservative tastes of Bosley Crowther in ’66).
I’m thinking more about the various film festivals out there around the world. They’re mostly industrial events geared to exhibit films without distributors and hype up international releases. It’d be interesting to chart the commercial roots and development of institutions like Cannes.
Good question. Wasn’t Venice started under Mussolini, to promote Italy as a cinematic center? I had an awards book once, with the results of every major group from the 1920’s on, and it had some great historical background on all these things.
Thanks for the comments, and some interesting discussions are emerging.
I want to expand for a moment on where I’m coming from. It seems several people feel, understandably, that it’s not even worth concerning oneself with the Oscars, positively OR negatively – and that axing the Honoraries is insignificant as far as the reputation of the luminaries themselves go. To a certain extent this is true. Maurizio’s example of the kids bored by the old geezers is undoubtedly widespread – I remember my own friends, way later than his anecdotal memories (we were all in our early twenties) yawning through a presentation, at some award ceremony or other, to Ossie Davis.
Yet for all of that, there are others for whom these gestures provide open doors. I’ve always been ambivalent bordering opposed to dismissals of popular, mainstream film venues like the Oscar broadcast or the AFI lists. I know that personally, I came to film in large part through these institutions which piqued my curiosity. In particular, clips from Oscar broadcasts and on AFI specials led me to see many classic films, which in turn led me to many others. One of the first film books I ever devoured was a coffee-table tome on the Academy Awards. I am with Pauline Kael on recognizing cinephilia as usually rising from enthusiastic, naive moviegoing as a child – with taste and distinction and aesthetic sensitivity growing through and out of the trash and glamor mixed in with the film industry, rather than outside of it.
For all of these reasons, severing the populist/mainstream present from the rich history of the medium, and its more adventurous, experimental aspects, sets a dangerous precedent. It says “these are separate things, they don’t go together.” As I wrote once in a celebration of movie books, of all stripes, “These are the books that informed me, excited me, provoked me, the ones that introduced me to The Wolf Man and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Taxi Driver and Celine and Julie Go Boating and Le Vent d’Est” – with each of those titles leading in turn to the next. What is true of books is true of other venues as well. Popular exposure is a gateway for so many future cinephiles. And not one-way either; back in the sixties, New Hollywood accepted the influence of the New Wave, which in turn had been influenced by Old Hollywood. Such is what helps the medium grow, not just externally – in terms of admirers and enthusiasts – but internally, as an artistic medium.
I think if the mainstream gatekeepers (whose relevance, while hopefully diminishing, remains) continue to filter out art, experimentation, and history from the movie conversation, and if those who value art, experimentation, and history acquiesce in this filtering and confine themselves to the margins, the cinema is doomed. It has always been a fusion between the popular and the esoteric, along with other dichotomies like illusion and reality, spectacle and intimacy. Either everything is cinema, or nothing is anymore.
Just my 2 cents.
If Hollywood weren’t so chauvinistic, the Foreign Language category would be dropped and films from all around the globe would compete together. Nah, celebrities like Costner and Ron Howard would still be rushing to the podium to collect their statuettes, while Bela Tarr and David Lynch would remain frozen in their seats, dumbfounded at the asininity of it all.
Yeah, if anything that would probably only serve to highlight what Allan would call the xenophobia, sadly.
I think it’s less a matter of chauvinism or xenophobia, and more a matter of blindly ignoring any kind of movie that didn’t present itself as any kind of market force, which is something that international cinema is able to do a bit moreso nowadays, hence their apprearing a tad more frequently in the nominations. To be honest, though, I think chauvinism or xenophobia would be preferable to sheer, unemotional consumerism.
Wow, what I’m most ashamed of is that this absence went over my head when it first happened.
I never noticed that they took out the honorary Oscars. I heard of Godard and Wallach’s triumphant win, but I never really looked out for the axing from the broadcast. I didn’t watch the 2011 ceremonies, so I was not able to be aware of the real injustice done to Hollywood’s legacy then neither. But now that I am aware, this really shows where the Academy’s intentions now truly lie.
I watched it in 2010 despite the axing. Kind of glad I did, as I was with the Picture/Director awards that year (while I wouldn’t necessarily say Hurt Locker was the best picture of ’09, it was the one I would most want to see win if that makes any sense). But even then I found it grating, and particularly the shot of Bacall in the audience, that they couldn’t even bother to bring a bona fide Hollywood legend up on stage. By the following year I was not deeply invested (I liked Social Network, though not as much as I do now, and hadn’t seen King’s Speech or many others), and last year even less so (I missed out on most of the nominees). This year, though I actually saw even less new releases than any other, I was interested in the controversy and discussion surrounding the films, as well as the names behind them (it strikes me as a much stronger year than last, if I can judge such a thing without having seen most of the films). And I did just catch Zero Dark Thirty the other day and liked it quite a bit. Nonetheless, the honorary thing pisses me off enough to stick to my vow.
OMG, you are all a bunch of whiny bitches, jesus, get a real problem…
Is that an Oscar up your ass, or are you just happy to see us? 🙂
Bravo, brilliant and a highly relevant piece Joel.
During my school days I used to love following the Oscars. They are after all, as you aptly noted, immensely popular. But, over the years my views have become mostly in-line with what you’ve mentioned here. The Oscars are, if not anything, distressingly conformist. One can almost predict which movies they will give a snub to – either by not nominating them or not giving them the final award. Nothing could be more illuminating that this year’s awards.
Argo and Life of Pi are decent films all right. But Argo winning over a far superior film like Amour or Ang Lee winning over someone (Haneke) he wouldn’t be able to even close to in his dreams, is a joke all right. But then, both were crowd pleasers and easy to like by the voters. Argo, after all, showed the good guys (the Americans) outsmarting the bad guys (the Iranians) is something the voters would have loved to death – so I’m not really surprised at it winning the top award. And yes, the idea of “foreign film” is ridiculous too. In this regard, the acerbic statement that Leos Carax gave upon Holy Motors winning the Best Foreign Language Film from Los Angeles Film Critics Association, is highly memorable, and hence I’m pasting it below.
“Hello, I’m Leos Carax, director of foreign-language films. I’ve been making foreign-language films my whole life. Foreign-language films are made all over the world, of course, except in America. In America, they only make non-foreign-language films. Foreign-language films are very hard to make, obviously, because you have to invent a foreign language instead of using the usual language. But the truth is, cinema is a foreign language, a language created for those who need to travel to the other side of life. Good night.”
But then, at the end of the day, this is a popular (and a populist) award and the voters are possibly anything but serious cinephiles, and so the omissions or snubs can still be understood from a rational standpoint. But, giving a cold shoulder to the legends being conferred with Honorary Awards is both sad, disrepectful and disturbing. And hence I can very well understand the grief and anger you felt while writing this essay. The condescension bit is particularly apt in this case. After all, what can one expect from rich, uneducated upper class old goats making those disgusting decisions – people who wouldn’t even know who the Godard’s or Bergman’s or Mizoguchi’s of the world are. Sad!
Anyway, like Allan, it’s easy for me to skip the awards as well. They are shown on Monday mornings in India, and Oscars certainly aren’t something I would miss my work for, despite the allure for glitz, glamour and corny speeches.
The only thing more boring than the spectacle you view the Oscars as, is the opinion that The Oscars are themselves boring. Do what you do and don’t watch them. And leave us who love them alone.