Now that the dust from the recently held 85th Oscar Awards has settled, I would like to point out what I believe to be flaws in the selection and eligibility process.
Over the past few years, I have come to observe certain practices and trends that tend to enhance a nominee’s chances be it an actor or a film.
Film Release Date
The Oscars are usually held in February or March. Most people’s long-term memory is short (excuse the pun). Ergo, it follows that movies released closer to the Oscar ceremony (typically December) will be fresher in our memories than movies released earlier on in the year. Consequently, the newer/later releases will be revered much more than those released earlier on in the year. Movie studios, actors and directors have cottoned on this fact and therefore exploit it. Several examples abound: War Horse, Lincoln, Black Swan, Milk, This Must Be the Place, Gangs of New York, There Will be Blood, Django Unchained, Nine and the yet to be released The Monuments Men, slated to be released in December 2013.
To avoid this sort of rigging and interpolation, the eligibility period should end at the end of the month of October. Pegging the end of the eligibility period at 31 October will go a long way towards levelling the playing field. If not, studios invariably favour only a particular set of actors to have a real chance at the Best Actor & Actress awards. It is important to note that several of adult Daniel Day Lewis’s movies for have all premiered in the month of December. The same goes for Sean Penn.
Disregarding/Discouraging Actors’ Unnecessary Sacrifices
It is usually appreciated when actors strive to deliver authentic performances. For example, visiting a mental hospital to observe the patients in preparation for a role that involves playing a mentally deranged character. Such efforts have usually won actors the most coveted award: Best Performing Actor & Actress.
In recent years however, many actors have increasingly been engaging in such ‘dodgy’ practices and go to great lengths to publicise their efforts. The commonest practice is to achieve weight loss by extreme means. Tom Hanks underwent weight loss in preparation for his role as a marooned FedEx man in Castaway. Thankfully, he didn’t win the Best Actor award despite the same strategy winning him the Best Actor award for his role as an AIDS patient in the 1993 movie, Philadelphia.
More recent examples include Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables. Apparently, both Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway underwent intensive weight loss and strict diet regimen in a bid to make their performances look more authentic. Jackman allegedly went without water for thirty-six straight hours to make his appearance as Jean Valjean the prisoner and parolee look more real.
Hathaway on the other hand allegedly subsisted on oatmeal paste for an unspecified period in preparation for the impoverished Fantine.
Another ploy used by actors is to actually learn a craft that the character they are meant to play is proficient in. Natalie Portman supposedly learnt ballet in preparation for Black Swan. Though she won a Best Actress award for the role, it later emerged that the feet shown during the ballet scenes actually belonged to Sarah Lane and Kimberly Prosa, two professional ballet dancers. Also during filming, she allegedly suggested forfeiting her trailer in order for the production to be able to afford a medic. While I understand that the budget was a comparatively paltry $13m, you’ll have to wonder if the several Hollywood unions and even the movie studio would allow a film production to be mounted without an on-site medic. For one thing, the accounting team would not allow it mostly because of insurance purposes. Aronosfsky also went on radio to say Portman paid for her ballet lessons out of her own pocket for seven months until the film found investors. He went on to say the film only got made due to Portman’s dedication and enthusiasm. Considering the films budget of All this was a carefully crafted ruse to big-up Portman’s performance.
It is clear that actors have been abusing this method all in an attempt to game the Oscars. As I said earlier, an authentic performance is always appreciated but such sacrifices and methods should not be used when makeup, stuntmen and body doubles would suffice. Hugh Jackman’s gaunt appearance could have been achieved with makeup and effective use of costumes. The same goes for Anne Hathaway and Tom Hanks. Some of these sacrifices even fail to hold up under scrutiny.
If we are to reckon that such ‘sharp’ and unnecessary practices are okay, then Christian Bale should have won an Oscar for his performance in The Machinist. No other actor has lost as much weight as that for a role. Luckily for him, the same tactic won him a Best Supporting Actor award for his turn in The Fighter. Likewise, Keanu Reeves should have won a Best Actor award for his role as Neo in The Matrix. He underwent extensive martial arts training for the role and became extremely proficient. In other words, there is more to good acting than losing weight and learning ballet dancing.
Splitting the Best Picture Award into Two Genres
I think the Best Picture category is too restricted. As it is, certain categories of movies never stand a chance due to their genre. In order to avoid the present meat or potatoes conundrum, I think there should be a Best Picture Category for Drama/Comedy and one for Action/Science Fiction.
If I had Decided the 85th Oscars
This list/section is purely academic. It contains what I believe should have been the winners in certain categories.
Best Actor
As I said in an earlier article, many people are confusing their love for Abraham Lincoln the man with the actor, Daniel Day Lewis and his portrayal of the famed president in Lincoln. The real best actors of 2012 are Denzel Washington in Flight and Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables.
Best Actress
I’ll go with Jennifer Lawrence simply because I’m unable to think of another notable performance by any other actress in 2012.
Best Picture
While Argo is a very good movie, it doesn’t hold a candle to Les Miserables and Django Unchained. And I would pick Django Unchained as the best picture of 2012.
Best Animation/Cartoon
To me, the best cartoon of 2012 is Wreck-It Ralph. The plot of Wreck-It Ralph is as innovative as that of 2005’s The Incredibles. Brave certainly didn’t deserve it with its humdrum plot.
Best Original Song
I have said before that Adele’s Skyfall is overrated and that the best 007 song is Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger. So good it was performed at the Oscars. Need I say more?
Best Supporting Actor
You really can’t fault Christoph Waltz’s performance in Django Unchained. I’ll discuss this category in more detail in the next category.
Best Supporting Actress
As far as I’m concerned, the nomination of and eventual win by Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress is the most controversial aspect of the 85th Oscars. What can I say other than I’m very miserable about it. I didn’t know that cutting your hair and losing some weight was all it took to win a Best Supporting Actress award. Don’t get me wrong, Anne Hathaway is a talented actress that has come a long way from The Princess Diaries. To me her best performance ever is in One Day. Her other notable performances include her roles in Love and Other Drugs and yes, The Dark Knight Rises. That being said, I see nothing exceptional and memorable in her portrayal of Fantine; it is technically proficient but nothing more. To cap it off, she had just 15 minutes of screen time. I cannot help but think that the Academy had already decided on awarding giving her an Oscar even before the release of Les Mis. Not that we haven’t seen that before with George Clooney’s Best Actor win for his role in Michael Clayton. To be brief, Clayton was an ordinary movie with a casual performance from Clooney. The only exceptional part of Michael Clayton was the opening scene in which the ever brilliant Tom Wilkinson delivers an engaging and equally brilliant self-directed harangue in a monologue.
If 15 minutes of screen time in a movie of 150 minutes is worthy of consideration for Best Support Actress, then Samuel L. Jackson’s stellar and superlative performance in Django Unchained is also worthy of a nomination. And he should have been nominated but Christoph Waltz would still have come out on top due to his lengthier performance. At the time of the nominations, I hadn’t yet seen Les Miserables. Now that I have, I think her nomination and eventual win is nothing short of a coup and a farce.
Conclusion
With the way the Oscars are currently being conducted, I am forced to say skill and talent are not the main criteria for winning an award. To turn the rhymes of DMX,
There’s more to a role than shaving your head. More to an actor’s life than dropping your weight.
How right Kate Winslet was.
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