The Oscars are generally a tedious multi-hour self-congratulation by the established acting industry inexplicably popular with the American public. But touted as the “most international of Oscars”, this year’s show vowed to be different. With a record number of foreign film nominations accompanied by the most ethnically diverse group of nominated actors, the academy seemed to finally recognize the talent in non-Hollywood productions. Alas, at last night’s awards ceremony, they couldn’t manage to fully pass up lesser-quality, traditional Hollywood films.
At first the evening looked promising. Pan’s Labrynth, a Mexican film, was nominated for 16 awards and received three (best art direction, cinematography, and makeup) within the first hour, which were dedicated to “all the filmmakers in my country [Mexico]”. The excited cast received a slap in the face later in the evening when the award for best foreign film went to The Lives of Others. While the Academy was grudgingly willing to give up minor awards to a Hispanic film, it couldn’t neglect its Anglo-European heritage for the big one.
This pattern was repeated throughout the evening with smaller awards conceded to the international population of nominees while saving the larger awards for the tradition of Hollywood. Letters from Iwo Jima picked up an award for best sound editing, while Babel received one for best original score. The Blood of Yingzhou District won best documentary for a short subject, The Danish Poet received an award for best animated short film and West Bank Story won best live action short film.
Yet a series of faux pas starting with some of Ellen’s well-intentioned jokes began the night’s downward spiral back to the safe and tedious celebration of old American cinema, showcasing Hollywood’s lack of consideration for foreign films. Ellen’s first jokes about the degree of diversity at the awards ceremony were well intentioned, “Spain is in the house, Japan is representing, I think I see a few Americans as well…of course I’m talking about the seat fillers.”
Then she mistakenly referred to Penélope Cruz as Mexican instead of Spanish. When The Departed received its award for best adapted screenplay, the work it was based on, Internal Affairs, was cited as Japanese instead of Chinese. There wasn’t even an attempt to translate Ruby Yang’s portion of the acceptance speech for The Blood of Yingzhou District. Although given Clint Eastwood’s botched translation of Ennio Morricone’s acceptance speech for his honorary statuette in Italian, that decision by producer Laura Ziskin was probably less painful for the audience.
As the longest Oscars yet slowly rolled to an end, the international films it heralded were nowhere to be seen. Alan Arkin took the award for best supporting actor for his role in Little Miss Sunshine, Jennifer Hudson took the female version of the award for her character in Dreamgirls, and Forest Whittaker and Helen Mirren won best actor/actress. Although blockbusters were scarce among this year’s nominees (Little Miss Sunshine, an independent film, was the highest grossing nomination) the most blockbuster-esque film of the group, The Departed, picked up the awards for best director and best picture as the Academy finally hit bottom.
The drudging ceremony reaffirmed that the Academy is still too pompous to fully appreciate the diversity of today’s cinema.
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