The
Oscars are anti-cinematic and one of the foremost enemies of artistic
film. The ironically named Academy of
Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is a syndicate of star-struck sycophants of
vapid self-righteous celebrities who enjoy congratulating each other for being the
most wonderful people in the world since Jesus.
The Oscars are a popularity contest.
The voters have no concept of cinema as an art and do it great harm by
rewarding only the most transparent politically-correct preachiness, big
box-office, and schmaltzy heart-tugging.
It’s pretty easy to prove that the Academy Awards have no
credibility. Directors who never won
Oscars include: Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz
Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, to name
just a few. Being overlooked by the
out-of-touch Academy seems to not be an insult at all but a badge of
honor. The great William Friedkin, (who
actually does have an Oscar or two),
recently described the Awards as “the
greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself.” My hero is George C. Scott, who refused to
show up and claim his award for Patton,
calling the ceremony “a meat parade.”
Folks
in the business say that this middlebrow film world can be tolerated because
when you make or help make something insipidly commercial, it may provide you
the money or power to make something personal and artistic. I don’t agree. “Ye shall know them by their fruits,” and the
predominant fruits here are thousands of horrible, forgettable, unoriginal movies
every year. Cast and crew use the above
excuse to take the edge off the shame of the dreadful movies they work on, and
they never get around to doing the creative things they claim to be
planning. Bryan Singer, for example,
probably didn’t grow up dreaming of making popcorn movies, but now that’s all
he does. The money is too good and the
glory too intoxicating; yet his prime years are zipping by and he will likely
die without having contributed anything to film aesthetics. François
Truffaut and Robert Altman, conversely, couldn’t bear the idea of wasting a bit
of their precious time and energy on anything they didn’t care about deeply,
and they suffered for it. Altman
referred to his films as his children and refused to name a favorite. Does anyone imagine Michael Bay
A solution
to this mess would be to stop issuing awards and for films to be made without any
hope for profit. If it was impossible to
get rich making movies, the pretentious loudmouths who are choking film to
death would shamble off in search of other media to plunder, and only those who
actually care about cinema would remain.
This will never happen, of course.
The movie business, as it is, persists for the exact reason capitalism
itself does; every self-centered, short-sighted aspirant out there is holding
out hope that someday he will get his turn at the top of the heap, to claw his
way into the 1% if only for a moment.
Never mind that the rigorous art form Ozu, Renoir, Hawks and Buñuel practiced, and spent their lives honing, no
longer even exists.
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