It's that time of year again: awards season. Each ceremony brings different opinions and lots of surprises, some good and some bad. The season's culminating ceremony, however, is also its most predictable. That the Academy Awards are traditionally previewed with articles that split "what should win" and "what will win" into separate categories is telling of what is usually to come: they're going to get it wrong. For fans of experimental, art house and even independent cinema, there is very little to enjoy in watching the highest profile middlebrow film of the year hailed as the "best picture." In fact, anyone who enjoys cinema of controversial nature of any kind will likely be disappointed by the Oscars. While it is going to be difficult for the panel to ignore what I, in my humble opinion, believe to be the best picture of the year so far in director Steve McQueen's masterful "12 Years a Slave" (although it is still very early in the race with many contenders still to come), I've learned to expect nothing. In honor of the upcoming awards season, here are the greatest injustices of the Academy Awards of the past several years:
2012:
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| Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" was largely ignored by the Academy. (Photo by Jürgen Fauth) |
Best Actor was equally as disappointing. Many consider Daniel Day-Lewis to be the greatest actor in the world today, something I believe to be true. His portrayal of Abraham Lincoln is transformative, but 2012 should have been the year of the return of Joaquin Phoenix. Credit to the Academy for nominating him in spite of a high profile interview in which he called the ceremony "bullshit," but a completely unbiased panel would have rightfully given him the award. His performance in "The Master" is the stuff of legends; it is very reminiscent of a young Marlon Brando, both in range and commitment. Day-Lewis's Abraham Lincoln is flawlessly executed, but Phoenix's Freddie Quell is far more compelling and the psychological commitment far deeper. Day-Lewis's win was expected by most, but not rightfully so.
Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most talented young actresses in the world today and it is damn near impossible not to love her persona, but to be perfectly frank, I would have been satisfied with any of her competitors winning Best Actress, just not her. This was a close race to be sure. Jessica Chastain's Maya was a revelation and the driving force of "Zero Dark Thirty," Emmanuel Riva's Anne effectively broke hearts and records in "Amour" (the oldest ever nominee for the award), Quvenzhane Wallis's Hushpuppy was powerful enough to deserve a win without the feel-good story bias involved in her age and even though Naomi Watts's role as Maria Bennett in tsunami tear-jerker "The Impossible" was brief, she handled the considerable physicality of the role with grace. Lawrence was the middlebrow choice of the pack, so of course, the panel handed her the award. In truth, while nothing was wrong with her performance as Tiffany, there was nothing truly captivating about it; all four of her competitors were, in one way or another, thoroughly compelling.
I'm not sure where the Academy was going with their choice in nominees for Best Director. No Paul Thomas Anderson? No Kathryn Bigelow? The race was not legitimate from the start, and like Best Picture, the deserving nominee, Haneke, was not awarded.
Just a notably bad year in a collection of bad years for the Oscars.
2011:
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| Michael Shannon's career-best performance in "Take Shelter" was snubbed by the Academy. (Photo by Flickr user Nicogenin) |
Another year in which the four major categories just flat out stunk. I have an unconventional pick for best film of the year, and I fully understand that many may not share this point of view, but the best thing I saw in 2011 was Jeff Nichol's "Take Shelter." Yes, it is a lower budget independent feature, but the output is all that should matter, and there was nothing else in 2011 quite like the psychological punch of "Take Shelter." Not to give it Best Picture is one thing, but no nomination? Good old Academy. Likewise, no nomination for Michael Shannon in the film's lead role was an atrocity. While I don't like the absence of the movie in the Best Picture line up, I expected it. This was unexpected and wrong. One would be hard-pressed to find a greater level of intensity in a performance than Shannon's.
As for those actually nominated, Terrence Malick's beautiful and ambiguous "The Tree of Life" deserved the win, and in history will be considered the cinematic achievement of 2011. Then there's "The Artist," perhaps the most middlebrow nominee of the past decade. There is nothing special about it (in fact, I find it to be flat out boring and grossly overrated). Even if you didn't watch the ceremony, you could have guessed which one the Academy would chose. "The Artist" also won Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin); it did not deserve either.
Best Actress was the only category not plagued by an "Artist" nominee, yet the panel found a way to stink it up anyway. Kirsten Dunst gave the best performance of the year (as well as her career) as Justine in Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (which was also wrongly ignored for Best Picture and/or Director), but of course, she was not nominated. In what was otherwise a somewhat barren year for actress nominees, I felt that Michelle Williams did enough as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn" to deserve the award. But the great Meryl Streep was also nominated. She's an all-time great, but her turn as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" is not one of her best performances. In this case, she won the award not based on merit, but because of her reputation.
2010:
This year wasn't as bad as 2011 or 2012, but still the major awards were safe as can be. I see "127 Hours" as the best film of 2010 based on a virtuoso performance from James Franco and the fact that there has seldom been a film so inspiring in history. This is likely to be viewed as another unconventional pick in the eyes of many, but since when has "conventionality" been a defining quality of great cinema? Anyway, 2010's Best Picture winner, "The King's Speech," is solid, but not the best film of the year. If not "127 Hours," I would have liked to see Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" take home Best Picture and Best Director. "The King's Speech" got both. It also got Best Actor (Colin Firth). Let's be real: watch Franco cut his own arm off and then watch Firth simply stutter away for two hours and you tell me whose performance was more compelling.
2007:
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| Both "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men" were shot in Marfa, Texas at the same time. (Photo by Flickr user Movie Stars and Rockets) |
I'm skipping 2008 and 2009 because there was nothing I felt strongly enough about to consider an injustice those years. 2007, however, is the home of, in my eyes, the biggest Academy Award injustice of the past several decades. Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is the best film of the past 10 years. That is probably the most steadfast opinion I hold in contemporary cinema. "There Will Be Blood" features the greatest performance in the career of the greatest actor of this generation (Day-Lewis), an incredibly interesting and creatively adapted screenplay by Anderson, one of the most effective minimalist scores I've ever heard by Radio Head's Jonny Greenwood and countless other flawlessly executed cinematic intangibles. It is the reason Anderson is my favorite contemporary director.
2007 was a landmark year in cinema; it's not common that two all-time great films are released in the same year, but that is exactly what happened with Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" (interestingly enough, the two were shot within miles of one another in Marfa, Texas at the same time and smoke from the set of "There Will Be Blood" interfered with a day of shooting for the Coens). Both are great, but "There Will Be Blood" is greater. As a result, it should have taken both Best Picture and Best Director. "No Country" took both, however, and in any other year it would have been well-deserved. But not 2007.
2007 was a landmark year in cinema; it's not common that two all-time great films are released in the same year, but that is exactly what happened with Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" (interestingly enough, the two were shot within miles of one another in Marfa, Texas at the same time and smoke from the set of "There Will Be Blood" interfered with a day of shooting for the Coens). Both are great, but "There Will Be Blood" is greater. As a result, it should have taken both Best Picture and Best Director. "No Country" took both, however, and in any other year it would have been well-deserved. But not 2007.
