It’s easy to be cynical about the Oscars. The “Biggest Night in Hollywood” — all starlight, statuettes and sadistically shaped dresses. Nothing else sells the myth of filmmaking glamor like a televised L.A. party, but maybe this year we saw some cinematic works worth celebrating.
Over the past ten years, the ceremonies have always been stylish yet laboriously awkward, reflecting the airless atmosphere of 21st century American cinema. The Dolby Theatre gets all dolled up and packed with sweating celebrities, not only actors, directors and screenwriters but athletes, models and online influencers. It’s no secret that Hollywood is experiencing an epidemic of commercialization. Most movies are now made under the stifling control of investors, marketers and media conglomerate executives. Never is the decline of this art form as palpable as when the prestigious Academy Awards applauds lifeless reboots of classic films and action movies about hot people in spandex. These works are more spectacle than substance — as acclaimed director Martin Scorsese puts it, they are “theme park” films — more determined to turn a profit than tell an authentic story.
Now, I’m going to be cautiously optimistic and say that the 2024 Oscars were refreshingly different. This year, the Academy chose to highlight evocative films that mark a post-COVID return to (and revitalization of) original storytelling on the silver screen. Yes, we witnessed the movietok heavy-hitters of Oppenheimer and Barbie, but let’s not forget the smaller movies that received awards this past March.
Former Broadway star Da'Vine Joy Randolph won the award of Best Supporting Actress for her role in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers: a quiet holiday drama about the relationship between a rebellious student and his strict history teacher at an elite boarding school in the 70s. Shot through a 55 mm Panavision lens, the vintage “portrait” aspect ratio expertly frames Randolph's understated and intimate performance as the school’s cafeteria manager Mary Lamb. Every subtle movement of her face carries a hardened tenderness. Her wise delivery of the near-novelistic script is devastatingly raw. The audience watches in silent admiration as Mary warmly encourages both stubborn males to reconcile their differences in the grips of a cold New England winter. Randolph exudes the strength of a steady fire in this career-making role.
American-Polish flick The Zone of Interest by Jewish director Jonathan Glazer won 2024's Best International Feature. I believe the film is an intriguing,and ultimately more effective, comp title to Oppenheimer, both exploring themes of duty and moral culpability in the Second World War. The film is a fictionalized account of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss’domestic life as he lives with his wife and children in a comfortable family house near the concentration camp. The driving force here is juxtaposition. The story projects familiar themes of hatred and genocide onto an uncomfortably docile setting. Eerie soundwork, haunting cinematography and chilling dialogue all contribute to telling an urgent tale ever relevant in today’s polarized society.
On the side of comedy, this was also a phenomenal year. Celebrated TV scriptwriter Cord Jefferson took to the stage to accept the award of Best Adapted Screenplay for his first film American Fiction, a movie based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. The film follows the trials and tribulations of a frustrated professor who writes an outlandish satire of a stereotypical "Black-American" book. To his dismay, his novel is mistaken for serious literature and published to critical acclaim, presenting a sharp commentary on exploitation and hypocrisy in the contemporary world of literature (not unlike the world of film). Jefferson’s acceptance speech echoed this message. Standing on the glittering Dolby stage, he urged studios to invest in more artistry by greenlighting smaller off-beat movies such as his own. “I understand that this is a risk-averse industry” Jefferson notes, “but I want other people to experience [this] joy”.
It's easy to be cynical about the Oscars — but it’s not so easy to be cynical about the medium it celebrates. In his speech, Cord Jefferson wasn’t talking about the joy of winning an Academy Award. He was talking about the joy of filmmaking itself. I’m happy to say that this year, we saw a good amount of praise for original and daring works. Cinema is an artform—not an advertisement. Let's hope Hollywood doesn’t forget that anytime soon.
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