They favour weighty works over genre fare such as Avatar and The Dark Knight – no wonder the telecast ratings are in decline
The Oscars have always been a lumbering, unwieldy beast. To win a Golden Globe one needs to convince an electorate of fewer than 100; to walk off with an Oscar, an actor, director or producer must pass muster with more than 6,000 voters. The weight of all these members alone makes it hard for the Oscars animal to turn its head and catch sight of objects in its peripheral vision. Instead it appears fixated on what is directly in front of it: usually movies that have been hyped as worthy contenders from the moment the annual awards season begins at the tail end of each November.
There's also a particular type of film that tends to get picked up. The Oscarly movie is generally one with a certain gravitas that suggests it may stand the test of time: it might be a historical testament (such as Lincoln or Argo) or based on a famous literary proposition (Life of Pi). It might simply be the latest work of a much-studied auteur (such as Michael Haneke's Amour or Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master); or it could be the exciting debut of a youthful, offbeat firebrand (Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild).
What it does not tend to be, at least in recent years, is a movie that many people have actually seen outside critical circles, nor necessarily one that exemplifies modern filmgoing trends. In many ways, the Oscars has become as much of an advertisement for movies that might otherwise go under the radar as Cannes, Berlin, Toronto or indeed the London film festival. That also means it is failing to reflect the wider zeitgeist around it – a fact indicated by constantly falling TV ratings for the ceremony's broadcast in the US.
There is nothing new in the determined myopia of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when it comes to genre fare. The western – perhaps the closest equivalent to the modern-day comic-book movie – was unable to secure more than a single best picture Oscar win (for 1931's Cimmaron) before the 90s, when Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven suddenly managed the feat in the space of three years. How ridiculous that a genre that was once considered throwaway junk should finally triumph in venerable old age when it had lost almost all its youthful vigour. Where were the awards for Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (credited by Eastwood as he picked up his prize) or Anthony Mann's series of five classic westerns with James Stewart, running from 50s Winchester '73 to 1955's The Man from Laramie?
This year, Quentin Tarantino managed five nominations – and could yet take the best original screenplay award – for Django Unchained. In many ways it's a surprise that the maverick film-maker's blood-spattered paean to the spaghetti western, one of the year's best-reviewed movies, has done that well, for Oscar does not like violence. Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver earned a similar number of nods – four – in 1976, but it would be another 30 years before the director won his first personal Academy Award (for 2006's The Departed).
Certain types of genre movies do fare well. Peter Jackson's Return of the King, the final instalment in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, swept the board in 2004 with 11 wins. Surprising? Not when you consider that despite having given the world Hobbits and talking trees, JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth stories are considered reasonably high literature thanks to the author's academic background and fascination with language and myth-telling. John Milius's 1982 fantasy Conan the Barbarian, which is in many ways a better movie, never stood a chance because it was based on a character created by a pulp writer and brought to the screen by an eccentric rightwing gun advocate.
If comic-book movies are the new westerns, then it's hard to imagine that in 50 years time we will be remembering Danny Boyle's lovable but rather lightweight Slumdog Millionaire ahead of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, despite the former having swept the 2009 ceremony. (The superhero film had to be content with just a solitary best supporting actor gong for Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker.)
The same applies to science fiction, which is criminally overlooked year after year. Does anyone (even James Cameron's fiercest detractors) really believe that The Hurt Locker's 2010 triumph over the groundbreaking Avatar will be justifiable to our grandchildren in 2060? This year, one of 2012's best-reviewed films is Rian Johnson's cerebellum-twisting Looper, a movie that predictably failed to pick up a single Oscars nod despite a high-profile Toronto launch. Why? Because it had time travel in it?
If Argo (not even Ben Affleck's second-best movie in a still-nascent career) triumphs on Sunday, with Spielberg's yawnworthy Lincoln and Bigelow's cold-hearted Zero Dark Thirty bringing up the rear, it may be time to start praying to a new awards ceremony deity. Ang Lee's visually spectacular Life of Pi could yet save the day: failing that, who's up for staying up all night to watch the Saturns in 2014?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/feb/22/oscars-out-of-touch-filmgoers
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