Choosing Hope Over Fear – The 2008/2009 Oscar Nominees
Very few people were brave enough to pull The Dark Knight from their Best Picture predictions list, but when BAFTA went with The Reader over The Dark Knight, doubt began to weigh heavily on the minds of all Oscar bloggers. It was not an unexpected snub, just disappointing one. Yes, we all would have liked to see The Dark Knight become the first superhero film nominated for Oscar’s top prize, if only to honor one of the many superhero movies that dominate mainstream cinemas today.
But it’s not just a superhero thing. Not really.
The Dark Knight is a beefed-up, mainstreamed No Country for Old Men, which better captured the mood of the Bush era than that of the emerging Obama era. The Best Picture nominees this year are hopeful and reflective, lacking the ruminations on violence that represented the nominees of the last few years.
Slumdog is a motion picture for a global world, a breathless fairy tale romance that takes place a world few would have acknowledged until recently. Milk is about a gay rights activist who inspired people, who gave them hope. Frost/Nixon shows us a president’s admission of guilt for crimes committed while in power. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button demonstrates the medium’s potential in 21st century Hollywood where visual effects are treated like the editing or the cinematography instead of as the main attraction.
And then there’s The Reader.
I didn’t like The Reader, but here’s how Roger Ebert reacted to the movie:
I believe the movie may be demonstrating a fact of human nature: Most people, most of the time, all over the world, choose to go along. We vote with the tribe.
The Reader also has us witness what it’s like to attempt to heal after enduring psychological wounds created when we go against our better instincts. Sure it’s a Holocaust movie, too, butThe Reader reaches beyond horrific period in world history, a rarity for a picture of its type. Whether it suceeds as a whole or not is a matter of opinion.
Let’s not forget that Clint Eastwood was not nominated today either for Gran Torino, a film that is near as good as his Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby. In Eastwood’s place in the acting category was The Visitor‘s Richard Jenkins. Jenkins playing a widower who comes back to life thanks to the illegal immigrants he finds living in his long empty apartment is more in tune with the mood of the moment.
When you kill the crown prince of Gotham or are redeemed in the manner Eastwood’s character is in Gran Torino, you can’t expect the Academy to respond. No, not in these times. Nor could anyone expect Revolutionary Road, likely the most soul-crushing picture of the year even if it is the best, to get much Oscar play. Winslet’s Best Actress nomination for The Reader instead of for Rev Road is further proof that the Academy rejected the darker themes in favor of a cautiously hopeful set of nominees.
Whether it’s Rocky or In the Heat of the Night, Mrs. Miniver or The Departed, the Academy’s choices enable us construct a cultural time line. That’s the real value of the Oscars. They aren’t populists. They aren’t progressives. They have one eye on the medium and the other on the message. This helps the Academy create a narrative of our time not unlike the stories they tell in the cinema. With that in mind, they succeeded today.
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