As Oscar-season hits a fever pitch, of course lots of people are also looking at the history of the Oscars and what’s won in previous years, and what maybe SHOULD have won in previous years. This is a fun pastime, one I’ve certainly indulged in it myself (as evidenced by this monster post over at Row Three), and there’s certainly nothing wrong with it.
But it does bring to mind something that kind of bothers me about how Oscar-winning films are often seen on down the road, especially those that are popularly deemed unworthy of their Oscars.
The most egregious case in point is How Green Was My Valley. Poor How Green Was My Valley is best known today for being the film that stole the 1941 Best Picture Oscar from Citizen Kane, as if the film mounted a sneak attack on Xanadu and snatched the statuette from Charles Foster Kane’s dying fingertips. Now, don’t get me wrong. If you ask me straight up which film is better, yes, Citizen Kane wins in a heartbeat. But that doesn’t mean that a lovely and evocative film like How Green Was My Valley deserves for its reputation to hang on the fact that some group of people voted to give it an award over seventy years ago.
Bringing it closer to home, I was pretty pissed when The Lives of Others won the Best Foreign Film Oscar over my darling Pan’s Labyrinth. I hadn’t seen The Lives of Others at the time of the awards, but it was nonetheless a TRAVESTY that my #1 film of the year had been passed over. Then a few months later I begrudgingly watched The Lives of Others, just so I could feel justified in my anger. And you know what? It’s a damn good movie. Maybe it doesn’t hit my personal buttons as much as Pan’s did, but it certainly was just as excellent a choice to win the award. And even if it wasn’t, doesn’t it deserve to be watched and judged on its own terms, rather than in competition with another film that it’s only related to because they happened to be pitted against each other for an award?
There are lots of other examples – I happen to think Shakespeare in Love deserved its Oscar over Saving Private Ryan but there are many who don’t, Chariots of Fire (a favorite of mine) is most often remembered as a film that didn’t deserve its Oscar, The Greatest Show on Earth is considered one of the worst films to win Best Picture, and on and on. Sure, The Greatest Show on Earth is a weird choice for Oscar, but ignore the baggage that you think belongs with the words “Best Picture Academy Award Winner” and it’s a pretty rip-roaring good time at the movies.
I’m not saying you can’t consider which films should’ve won Oscars instead of those that did, or that you can’t compare two films based on their both being Oscar nominees (or winners). But ultimately, that’s a fun parlor game, and in the final analysis every film deserves to be taken on its own terms. It doesn’t matter how great a film Citizen Kane is – it doesn’t mean that How Green Was My Valley isn’t also a great film. And it deserves better than the short shrift it often gets as “the film that beat Citizen Kane.” Oscars don’t matter that much. The films are what matter.
Travis McClain
You had cautioned me I might not like this post, so it may surprise you that I agree with you. The issue, as I see it, is that merely passing judgment on awards is an awfully reductive level of discussion. Often, when I encounter that kind of conversation, it’s in some kind of hostile populist tirade against elitist critics and a self-congratulatory industry charade that’s “rigged”.
Simply scoffing at which movies were snubbed isn’t a particularly insightful level of discussion. That kind of conversation is about awards, not movies, and it doesn’t interest me much.
That said, I do believe in comparative analysis. Not for the awards system purpose of establishing “winners” and “losers”, mind you, but in the grand tradition of art studies. How I feel about Monet’s water lilies may very well change depending on whether they’re displayed next to Cezanne’s “Still Life with a Curtain”, or instead next to Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”. I could look at each in a vacuum, of course, but it’s when they’re “in dialog” with one another that different things about them are revealed to me.
I view the pantheon of Best Picture winners as an especially prestigious curated gallery, not unlike the Louvre. Is there meaning to discussing which works make it to the big show? No, though as you say, there is a certain “parlor entertainment” level of fun to be had on that level. There is, however, still meaning to considering the respective merits of the films themselves – just as we would do elsewhere, and for the same purpose that we do elsewhere.
(I hope this even makes sense. I need sleep badly.)
Jandy
I guess I don’t hold the Oscars in as much esteem as you, then. I don’t think winning one is particularly meaningful in any real way. It’s prestigious because the industry says it is and it becomes this self-perpetuating thing without ever really being examined.
As far as comparative analysis goes, I think it’s highly valuable to better understand works and put them in context. In other words, in an academic sense, yes, I believe in comparative analysis. I don’t know that I really believe in comparative analysis as a means of generating value judgements. In other words, if you’re putting Monet next to Cezanne next to Picasso in order to understand the continuum of Impressionism into Post-Impressionism into Cubism, yes, that’s valuable. If you’re putting Monet next to Cezanne to say “well, this is better than THAT” and next to Picasso to say “but it’s not better than THAT” without any regards to the different goals and context of each or in some sort of zero-sum game (like the Oscars – one winner, all the rest losers), I don’t think that’s as valuable.
Travis McClain
It’s prestigious because the industry says it is and it becomes this self-perpetuating thing without ever really being examined.
Bang-on. It isn’t that I’m an Oscar aficionado (I’m not). It’s that, for better or worse, the Academy *is* what the industry says are its most prestigious awards. I take it at face value that the industry believes that. It’s what the industry says is its Louvre.
One can reject that characterization, certainly, just as one can call the Louvre “overrated”, but I do think that we should acknowledge that even though it’s a lesser level of discussion, it’s through dissecting the awards – who won, who lost – that we’re best capable of offering an examination of “this self-perpetuating thing”.
That is, even if we’re just talking about the awards for the sake of talking about the awards rather than for the sake of talking about the works being (or not) awarded, there’s still some use to it.
I don’t believe populism has much of a role to play in a meaningful consideration of the awards. Academics, historians and critics are far better skilled to audit the Oscars than is Joe Sixpack, whose crusade against pretentiousness has overrun the web with “democratized criticism”. Joe just wants everyone to know that Transformers is awesome and high art is full of itself. Not very helpful.
I don’t know that I really believe in comparative analysis as a means of generating value judgements.
Again, this is a point on which we agree entirely. My reason for feeling this way is that generating value judgments is a shallow ambition. I’m interested in the process of considering the respective merits of two pieces, and reflecting on their similarities and differences with one another is a helpful way of identifying those merits.
In other words, if you’re putting Monet next to Cezanne next to Picasso in order to understand the continuum of Impressionism into Post-Impressionism into Cubism, yes, that’s valuable.
I don’t think it even has to be that thought-out to be helpful. Simply asking, “How does the Monet engage me/you/us? How does the Cezanne engage me/you/us? How do I/you/we react to the pair of them?” is a sufficient starting place for study and discussion.
If you’re putting Monet next to Cezanne to say “well, this is better than THAT” and next to Picasso to say “but it’s not better than THAT” without any regards to the different goals and context of each or in some sort of zero-sum game (like the Oscars – one winner, all the rest losers), I don’t think that’s as valuable.
Agreed entirely. I would think it self-evident that regarding the different goals and context(s) for the works at hand is integral to the study/discussion process. Maybe not to Joe Sixpack, who cares only whether the movie features enough explosions and boobs to slake his thirst, but to more considered and astute viewers and critics, I would think reflecting on the goals and context(s) of each film is secondhand.
duke_of_omnium
I think another good example is Crash (Haggis, not Cronenberg). Because it “defeated” Brokeback Mountain for BP, it is despised. Granted, Crash is a poor imitation of Altman’s Short Cuts, but it doesn’t deserve the hatred. It’s a decent enough movie (and didn’t have the structural problems that Brokeback did).
duke_of_omnium
I think another good example is Crash (Haggis, not Cronenberg). Because it “defeated” Brokeback Mountain for BP, it is despised. Granted, Crash is a poor imitation of Altman’s Short Cuts, but it doesn’t deserve the hatred. It’s a decent enough movie (and didn’t have the structural problems that Brokeback did).
Jandy
Yes, I think this happens a lot with Crash as well. I happen to dislike Crash aside from its Oscar win (and I’m not a big fan of Brokeback Mountain either, so I have no horse in that Oscar race), which is why I didn’t bring it up, but you’re right, it’s also a film that gets hated on for the wrong reasons a lot of time.