12:39PM, Feb 20, 2009
For film fans at Oscar time, there's only one thing better than the ceremony. And that's arguing over decisions made in years gone by. Here the irascible Elliott Noble looks at those movies that failed to make the nominations list, and looks at why the Academy traditionally favours weightier movies.
There are three certainties in life: birth, death, and the annual palaver about which wonderful film has been omitted from the list of Best Picture Oscar nominees. This year, it’s comic-book crowd-wower The Dark Knight.
It isn’t just the fanboys who are up in arms either. You can’t pick up a paper or enter cyberspace right now without someone pointing out the fact that Christopher Nolan’s second Bat is not only the undisputed box office champion of 2008, but is also one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.
Review aggregation site Metacritic award The Dark Knight an average score of 82% (“universal acclaim”).
Best Film candidates Slumdog Millionaire and Milk beat it with 86% and 84% respectively, but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (70%: “generally favourable”) and The Reader (58%: “mixed or average”) fall some way behind.
Similarly, critic monitor Rotten Tomatoes has TDK and Slumdog as 94% equals, with Milk at 93%, Button 71%, and The Reader with a wooden-spoonish 60%.
With eight nominations, the Academy is obviously aware of the Bat’s existence. But apart from Heath Ledger’s posthumous nod for Best Supporting Actor, the rest are all in technical categories, as nominated by Academy members from that particular field (editors vote for Best Editing, composers for Best Musical Score, and so on).
Yet since all members get to vote for Best Film, it appears that the Academy as a whole doesn’t exactly have its finger on the common pulse. A look at Oscar history shows The Dark Knight is in good company.
The Third Man, Bringing Up Baby, The African Queen, Some Like It Hot, Singin’ In The Rain, The Searchers, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Manchurian Candidate, Spartacus, Cool Hand Luke, Ryan’s Daughter, Serpico, Mean Streets, Manhattan, Do The Right Thing, Miller’s Crossing, Groundhog Day, The Usual Suspects: none were deemed good enough to make the Best Film shortlist.
In terms of being snubbed, Alfred Hitchcock was undoubtedly The Master. He never won Best Director, but what’s more astonishing is that ‘best of all-time’ regulars Rear Window, Notorious, Vertigo, North By Northwest and Psycho never got a sniff.
When it comes to the big prize, some genres have no chance. Despite providing some of cinema's most dazzling experiences, sci-fi movies don't tend to go supernova come Oscar time.
The force was almost with 1977 nominee Star Wars, but 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, and The Empire Strikes Back were all lost in space.
Comedy is often acknowledged in screenplay and supporting role categories but by and large, nobody takes special effects or laughter seriously.
On the face of it, The Golden Globes take a much more sensible approach with awards divided into ‘Drama’ and ‘Comedy or Musical’. Like thus competes with like.
Unfortunately, nobody ever remembers the light stuff. Ask most people with a passing interest in movies to name this year’s Globe-winners for best film, best actor and best actress, and they’d probably reel off Slumdog Millionaire, Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet – all for Drama.
But what of their Comedy/Musical equivalents: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Colin Farrell and Sally Hawkins? Forgotten before they got back to their seats.
So maybe the Academy is right to favour overtly worthy fare like The Reader over the comic-book crusading of The Dark Knight. But as The Joker would say: “Why so serious?”
This is the Oscars we’re talking about - the biggest annual celebration of movie-making in the world. As such, it should reflect cinema in all its forms, from the most harrowing Holocaust story to the most in-yer-face blockbuster of the year.
Occasionally it does. Titanic sailed off with 11 gongs in 1998, a feat matched by the final instalment of The Lord Of The Rings six years later. And Chicago was certainly an uplifting choice for a post 9/11 world.
Too often, though, the Academy has been derided for voting for lighter fare: How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane; Rocky over Taxi Driver; Ordinary People over Raging Bull; Driving Miss Daisy… lordy, ma’am, Driving Miss Daisy!
We all make mistakes. But, Heath Ledger’s virtual shoo-in as Best Supporting Actor aside, what is unarguably one of the finest achievements of 2008 will reap none of Hollywood’s greatest accolades outside the technical arena.
In most books, that would be a bit of a howler.
Elliott Noble
