By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
The Races – Presiential & Oscar
There is a tendency towards self-loathing in our industry, whether entertainment journalism or the various areas of the film business. After all, they are only movies … right?
But the basic notions of human behavior apply to all endeavors, whether they seem more or less trivial. Rich oil men can be as self-absorbed and disappointed with the world as movie stars. The publicists at the White House have pretty much the same job to do as the personal and studio corporate publicists, albeit with very different stakes. And the wide range of coverage in the movie world, from gossip to hard news, is reflected in the Washington Press Corps, who deal with personality as often as policy these days.
And so, reading more coverage of the last few weeks of electioneering and the internal arguments in the Clinton and Obama campaigns, I also recognize the desperation on the part of journalists to put a bow on it ASAP. Things are redefined week by week, yet every week, there is a search for "The Answer."
What it really reminded me of, in my bi-focalled myopia of these last few months, was how the Oscar season presents itself.
When it comes to covering that beat I have, over the years, found that my informed intuition has always bested my logical analysis. After five years of fairly close analysis, I have found myself learning that the season comes in a series of waves, not any major event … including that the quality of movies is only one factor amongst many equals.
The connection back to politics is that the election, before the primaries started, was about Hillary and Barack on one side and a throng of voices that were essentially disconnected from the Bush Administration on the other. The line I believed in, for worse, was that Hillary was too widely disliked to win the big election against a personable, popularity-tested Republican who would not be weighed down by the Bush years. But she was also too smart, experienced at politicking, and well funded to be kept from the nomination. I think, from my experience of chatting about it with people and reading endlessly on the subject for a year, that my opinion was, at least in principle, fairly widely held by centrists who were not selling either party’s line.
As for Obama, the feeling seemed strong that he too was desperately vulnerable as too young, too inexperienced, and too Black.
But something has changed. And it’s not the facts. Clinton and Obama have not become any smarter or dumber. Hillary’s release of a tear showed vulnerability … but it also pushed some further away, believing at the gut level that it was a manipulation as strongly felt as the "vast right wing conspiracy." Good Guy Obama was being watched not shaking Hillary’s hand at Bush’s final State of the Union address. But these are narrow variations.
What has changed is the belief that one is safe believing in Obama … or McCain, for that matter.
We are still a long way from the nominations in both parties and there is a lot of water built up behind the dam, waiting to barrel under the bridge. But you can feel the change out there as Obama shifts from being the underdog who might be a future president to being the frontrunner and Clinton actually benefiting in a clear way from suddenly playing the underdog. The problem for Clinton, which is a boost for Obama, is that many people will never believe in her as an underdog, which makes the alternative increasingly attractive.
Back to the Oscars …
6000 people voting for their favorite in a field narrowed by the structure of the system and the limitations of the group’s values.
The reason that the Oscars, which almost never pick the best film of the year – even among American features – remains so iconic is that they always seem to pick a movie that People really like. It would be unfair to say that they always pick the easy movie. They don’t. But when the dust settles, the never seem to pick a movie that isn’t well liked by the mainstream.
And as we wander through the process each year, awards fortunes rise and fall on an odd combination of expectations and commitment and profile and acceptability … just like in the election cycle.
Being "The Frontrunner" has been trouble for a lot of candidates in both arenas. What we see in the awards game is that a front-runner that has large, rippling muscles can survive all comers. Lord of The Rings 3, Titanic, Forrest Gump, and Chicago are all recent examples. The one big front-runner shock in recent memory was Saving Private Ryan, which was taken down by a feel-good showbiz movie that was able to sell voters the idea that Ryan was really just that opening battle sequence and that he rest wasn’t as special. It isn’t really true. But it worked and with six months of distance between SPR and the hot-at-the-time Shakespeare In Love, the heart got what the heart wanted.
Being the underdog is no great shakes either. Getting the nomination has to be enough for most films that are out there fighting for position. This year, Juno is in much the same place that Little Miss Sunshine was last year. It has four Independent Spirit Award noms and will win three, losing only in Director to Julian Schnabel or Todd Haynes. And then, it will likely win the consolation prize Screenplay award on Sunday night … unless Tony Gilroy is given that consolation prize.
The structure of the race is different as the two sides in the Presidential race square off after narrowing the field, but again, the principles hold.
Weinstein/Swartz/Lundberg were masters of narrowing a field that hadn’t been narrowed. Every year, we were told – and most of the media dutifully reported – that the race had come down to two titles, one invariably the Weinsteins’. Of course, this was almost always a lie. But as noted above, in the case of Ryan vs Shakespeare, narrowing the field changed the battle
and made an unwinnable fight amongst five films a winnable fight between two.
The Obama wave of the moment is driven as much by endorsements as by actual results in the primaries. But why are the endorsers finally coming out of the closet for Obama? Because they now believe he can win and also now believe that he is the best chance of the Democratic Party to win in November.
Endorsements in the Oscar universe come from critics groups of every level of actual critical thinking. NY and LA split on No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood … but then the realization that both films could be nominated if the focus narrowed led to wins for
Blood in other groups, and in the end, National Society of Film Critics. This meant that Blood was endorsed as a vote that would not be wasted … it was worthy. And a critics’ movie got in … even though No Country was already "The Critics Movie."
In the election cycle, Clinton, as a woman, and Obama, as a Black, were both coming in as agents of change. And we will have the first non-white-male presidential nominee for the two major parties in American history, no matter what happens. Wow. But they both couldn’t run as agents of change. So Hillary emphasized their difference … that she had, on paper, more experience than Barack.
There Will Be Blood didn’t shy away from its artiness, pushing buzz phrases, "I have a competition in me" and "I drink your milkshake" that push it way over the top for many voters. Meanwhile, No Country For Old Men stuck with "Friendo" as their most extreme beat and used box office power and the longer history of the Coens as Oscar racers to be the arty mainstreamer.
Meanwhile, nominee Atonement has shifted its feel in ads, pushing the lushness of the images while using more modern music in spots to make it more accessible.
And Michael Clayton is the natural winner of this year’s race, but while the laid back strategy has worked in tandem with the quality of the film to get them this far, they haven’t gotten the endorsements from the critics or quite the box office that No Country has gotten, so it needs to present itself somehow … and doesn’t seem anxious to do so. It could be the John McCain of the awards season, but so far, it feels more like Mitt Romney … good looking, presidential, and just a little too undefined to grab the reins.
Atonement is the John Edwards, good looking and appealing, but just not taken seriously enough to win.
And while some would say that Juno‘s pregnant teen makes it the Edwards, it is really the Dennis Kucinich… the smart, funny underdog that looks a little odd dressing up like the grown-ups at the party but has a really attention grabbing young woman centerstage.
That makes There Will Be Blood the Mike Huckabee of the race … a little crazy, kinda exciting … and not winning.
So No Country, slow, steady, popular, a veteran, carrying some weight but showing some flexibility … the McCain.
And there is no Obama out there this year, in awards season. There were hopes for The Obama in Sweeney Todd, Charlie Wilson’s War, American Gangster, and maybe a couple others … but none had the mighty charisma that was needed. (In the case of Gangster, the sin of the movie was visited on the Denzel … talk about a role that demanded a nomination but was hamstrung by the white guy who spent the movie bringing and trying to bring the black man down.)
Like the political campaigns, analyzing what went right or wrong after each primary, the awards consultants do the same. Like the polling … that so often turns out to be wrong, both worlds are the same. Like the emotional resignation that comes just hours after the sugar high of hope, both worlds are the same.
And the pundits – so many pundits – do their best to analyze and oversimplify and to "be right." But it’s never as simple as "it’s the movie" and it’s never more complex than the movie. Like a tear shed can turn Mrs. Clinton from a robot into one of us for a week or two, so a couple of critics awards make There Will Be Blood a serious Best Picture candidate or a fast start at the box office actually makes Juno into the Little Miss Sunshine of this season. The timing of these moments, which both can and cannot be controlled, are critical to their success. Neither would far well with the relentless four month push of No Country or the tortoise run of Michael Clayton. And Atonement? There simply was no place else for that constituency to go in the "primaries." Had Focus’ Lust, Caution or their Eastern Promises been more successful or played in the second case as more of a "women’s movie," the studio’s candidate may well have been different.
In years like last year, people wonder how a The Departed ends up winning. And we can break down the pieces. But it isn’t ever "the mood of the country" or "the inevitable choice" or even "the best movie" (though I love that film). It is all the little pieces floating around and the pliable nature of the public and the reality we most often forget, that you don’t need 51% of the votes to win, just more than any other candidate.
When this is all over, if No Country wins, watch for the stories about how the dark movies are taking over the Oscars because of Iraq … and laugh at them. Literally hundreds of movies didn’t even make it into the primaries. And some, but not all, of the finalists were really in the race to the end.
And in that end, there is just one winner. There is a President. And there is a Best Picture. And that is where the journey really is different, as the former’s journey is really just beginning … and the latter’s is one for history.
