This torn page journeyed backward through time to find us. |
by David Cornelius
The following is an excerpt from the book “Still Crazy About Oscar: The Academy Awards 1927-2042,” by Thurnwall Quarterpants, a respected film critic from The New York Doritos Times. These pages, ripped quite roughly from the book, apparently fell through a wormhole in time and arrived on my kitchen table this morning. From what I can gather, this is from the chapter on 2000-2009; the segment is titled “The 78th Academy Awards: The Irrelevant Oscars.”
…but unlike the previous two years, which not only gave us big winners that are still much admired and discussed today, but also featured many nominees that have stood the test of time as well, the line-up for the 2005 awards paled in comparison. This is understandable, considering that no film won more than three awards, suggesting that no single film captured the culture then or now.
Of the five Best Picture nominees, only “Munich” is still widely discussed today, if only as part of a greater dialogue concerning filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s career. “Capote” is remembered only for its fascinating lead performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman (who, for his work here, would win the first of his two Oscars) and Catherine Keener (who lost in the Best Supporting Actress category to Rachel Weisz; Keener would be nominated three more times but never win) than for the film itself, an admirable but slightly average biopic about author Truman Capote during the time he wrote his final novel. “Good Night, and Good Luck,” meanwhile, is seen mostly as the launching point for George Clooney’s successful writing and directing career; that he won an Oscar for a completely different film that year (Supporting Actor for a potboiler titled “Syriana”) is something more for the footnotes and trivia buffs, as it would become the first of Clooney’s four Oscars (and his only one for acting).
The apparent frontrunner going into the evening’s ceremonies, meanwhile, was “Brokeback Mountain,” a low-key drama about two cowboys falling in love in the mid-20th Century. The film caused a bit of a stir in its day, but today it is viewed as too dated, a commendable but shaky effort to sell the nation on a mainstream homosexual story. (Its overly delicate handling of the material reveals a timidity that now seems quaint, while its old fashioned shyness over male nudity despite the subject matter is a fine example of where sexuality in American cinema was at the time.) “Brokeback” led the Oscar season with the most nominations - eight in all - but failed to win a single acting award for its three nominees. Its only wins came for Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Musical Score.
It was argued for a while why the film lost the Best Picture prize. Was it because the Academy was not yet willing to tackle such a then-controversial issue? This is questionable - after all, Hoffman’s win was for playing a gay man, albeit one whose sexual life was not a major part of the story. Was it because the film had not grabbed the cultural zeitgeist as tightly as some had believed? Probably not - it was the most talked about of the five best Picture nominees, garnering the kind of water cooler discussion most smaller films only wish they could achieve. Was it because aggressive Oscar campaigning put the spotlight on the evening’s surprise winner, “Crash?” Possible, but only barely - “Brokeback” came with a publicity blitz just as equally impossible to ignore as that of “Crash.” Why, then?
That’s an answer that has eluded film scholars for decades. Of all of Oscar’s great surprise upsets, all the rest are, in retrospect, easily understandable. “The Greatest Show On Earth” and “Around the World In 80 Days” were both major critical failures, but both were also enormous box office successes, breaking records and winning over the general public. Their triumphing over smaller critical darlings can be viewed as the Oscars as Popularity Contest. “Shakespeare In Love,” on the other hand, was up against the critical and box office juggernaut that was “Saving Private Ryan,” yet it emerged victorious, many claim due to an overly forceful marketing campaign. Meanwhile, titles like “Chariots of Fire” and “Driving Miss Daisy” were actually strong front-runners in years featuring close races, making them unlikely but also unsurprising winners.
But “Crash?” The film’s victory remains a mystery, especially in modern times, where the film is remembered (by those who remember it at all) as a melodramatic clunker. The title is almost always rolled out by those wanting to grumble about how the Academy often drops the ball, and the film’s win is even viewed as a bit of a punchline in some film buff circles - “at least it’s not ‘Crash,’” someone is likely to say every time a mediocre film wins Best Picture.
The film - an overwrought, sometimes ineptly presented bit of social commentary that follows multiple characters as they confront prejudice over two days in Los Angeles - was well regarded at the time, but not remarkably so. Its box office take was minimal, and while it found greater success on the home video market (this was the golden age of DVD, so much so that the Oscar telecast contained several awkwardly placed comments from embarrassed-looking presenters regarding how watching a film in a theater is better than watching it at home), the movie was by no means a major hit. It was, at the time, a movie that was liked by many but loved by few, the kind of thing that would pass for greatness only to those who don’t see many movies that often.
It convinced enough Academy members, though. The film would also win for Original Screenplay and Film Editing - both expected victories. Its other expected win, in the Best Song category, led to another upset, this time with “Crash” on the losing end; “In the Deep,” a mediocre bit of navel-gazing, lost to “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” (from the film “Hustle & Flow”), a mediocre rap song that, as the title suggests, comes from an age when hip hop music still glorified prostitution, exploitation, and greed, a far cry from what it is now.
Despite a large cast, only one performer from “Crash” would earn an acting nod. Matt Dillon, playing a bigoted police officer, lost in the Supporting Actor category to Clooney. It was the only other nomination for the film, a fact that once again reveals the film was not as beloved by the Academy as its top award may imply.
With only three Oscars, and none for direction or acting, “Crash” has since gained infamy in Oscar history as one of the “lesser” Best Picture wins. Unlike other honorees that are held in esteem despite low trophy counts - “Grand Hotel” (with its legendary single win), “Casablanca,” “The Godfather,” “Rocky,” etc. - “Crash” is viewed alongside “Greatest Show” and “Around the World” as an anomaly, a fluke win from an overly unimpressive year. In fact, in a poll held for the 100th anniversary of the Oscars asking critics and the public to rank all the Best Picture winners, “Crash” ranked 98th on the critics’ list and 96th on the public list.
But then, the 78th Academy Awards were a bit of a dud all around. Only two other films could be considered big winners, and at only three wins each: Peter Jackson’s bombastic remake of “King Kong,” which took home the two Sound awards and the Visual Effects trophy (in a oversight that still seems inexplicable, the final “Star Wars” film went without a nod in this category), and “Memoirs of a Geisha,” a period piece that flopped with critics and at the box office but looked pretty enough to win three technical prizes. The telecast itself was a bit of a bore, with another of producer Gil Cates’ latest time-saving experiments failing (this time, he tried playing music the very moment a winner began his or her acceptance speech; the result was so obnoxious and disliked that the gimmick was never tried again), and with host Jon Stewart’s nervousness trumping his comic abilities (he would eventually loosen up, of course, as evident in his five more turns as emcee over the next ten years). All around, it’s viewed as one of the weakest years in Academy history, and if not for the occasional “Crash” criticism that still pops up every Oscar season, this year would be forgotten entirely.
Fortunately, the following year would see a vast turnaround, with major wins for…
And those are the last words on the page.
link directly to this feature at http://www.efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=1765
originally posted: 03/07/06 06:41:09
last updated: 03/31/06 17:07:44
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