Why the Academy Awards Don’t Matter/ Why I Love the Academy Awards

Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Academy Award in 1939 (12th Ceremony) for Gone with the Wind.

George Lucas (a person who’s Star Wars didn’t win Best Picture in 1977) said that the Academy Awards are purely political. That artistic merit is not part of the equation in selecting nominees or winners. Just studios vying for their film to be recognized and lobbying hard to do so. There is quite the furor over this being the first time in a while that African American actors nor directors have been nominated in any of the major categories. (Lucas is a big supporter of African Americans in films, see his produced Red Tails) Selma was nominated for Best Picture (I find this nomination very deserving, despite the film not being perfect) and Best Song (which I would want to win, except for ‘Everything is Awesome’ from The Lego Movie is just too damn much fun). Last year was a high water mark for black people in film. At least in terms of recognition with a gold statuette. 12 Years a Slave won going away. And it wasn’t an easy year by any stretch. All of the nominated films were terrific and only Gravity I felt had a chance to dethrone the eventual winner. Everyone can feel great about this film winning. I think it defies Lucas’s pronouncement. I think here artistic merit matches the recognition.  A black (British) director and actor were nominated, a black woman (British) won for Best Supporting Actress. If anything British people dominate our awards. They tend to be white. When they’re not they benefit from a society without as harsh a past towards people of African descent and from a culture with great acting traditions.

The most important nomination last year was that of Barkhad Abdi, a Somali-born Minnesota transplant. He has two films set for release in 2015. That is a huge success for Africans in film. So while I understand people are dismayed at the fact there are absolutely none this year, know that just because they weren’t nominated it doesn’t lessen what they did. Ava DuVernay made an excellent film, she is a top notch director.  David Oyelowo will be getting interesting roles in all sorts of movies from here on out. They already won. Next year, depending on the quality of the competition expect African Americans or Brits to regain nominations. This year was an excellent year in film. I saw one film that was nearly entirely African-American, I liked it more than Selma, yet no one talks about it. The Retrieval was amazing. It is on Netflix. Go and watch it ASAP. It was made by a white director, but had amazing performances by Tishuan Scott and Ashton Sanders. I hope they end up in larger films. But even if they don’t it doesn’t lessen the artistic impact of their work. So circling back, in this instance George Lucas is right. It’s political. The Retrieval was a small budget film made by a young director that didn’t have the heft of the subject of Selma, or the other nominees. The Retrieval deserves recognition too.

Spike Lee (great filmmaker and obnoxious human being) made an excellent point (and in the process pumped up his own ego). In 1989 Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture, featuring a great performance from Morgan Freeman. However, Lee’s Do The Right Thing was not even nominated. I think most people agree in hindsight that Do The Right Thing was the best and most important film of 1989. Driving Miss Daisy isn’t taught in film schools, Do The Right Thing is on every film class curriculum. That film didn’t need a gold statue to become meaningful, or its director to go on to make great films and be at the forefront of African American filmmaking. Despite that there’s no hiding that the Academy hasn’t been friendly always to African Americans in film. I just don’t think because there aren’t any nominees for 2014 impedes the progress made in 2013. I also don’t think in the big picture that it matters. If you want to find great African American films and performances they’re out there. You just might have to research and look a bit harder. All the furor does ignore great films that are nominated in perceived lesser categories that aren’t ‘white’. The documentary Virunga which I reviewed on the blog got a deserved nomination. And also Best Foreign Film nominee Timbuktu from the great Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako.

Stepping aside from the issue presented above, it’s even easier to see when you go back and look at the films that won Best Picture over the years and realize that the winner is political. Or that the obvious better film was not selected. Or even when nothing nefarious occurs, just that there are too many good films in a given year and choosing the ‘Best’ is a pointless endeavor. Many foreign films in the early years are clearly better but aren’t included as Best Picture candidates. Renoir’s Grand Illusion lost in ’38. ’39 was an absolute glut of amazing films, Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington all lost. CITIZEN KANE lost in 1941! So did The Maltese Falcon. Double Indemnity was looked over in ’44. 1950 saw Sunset Boulevard go unrecognized. ’64 came and Dr. Strangelove did not win. The Graduate lost in ’67. 1974 had Chinatown and The Conversation, a year as dominant as 1939. Taxi Driver lost to Rocky in ’77. Apocalypse Now didn’t win in 1979 and Raging Bull in 1980. Goodfellas was ignored in 1990. Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption were passed over for Forrest Gump in 1994. Fargo missed out in 1996. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN lost in 1998! And in 2005 every single film that was made was better than Crash, yet that disaster won. And these are just films that were nominated but didn’t win, not to mention all the films that were too small to get seen by the right people to even earn nominations.  Despite all this I love the awards. I love them because it does bring films to my attention. I love them for the controversy they can create and the discussions that enter the culture about them and the films. I like shiny things with gold.

Selma: Bridge Over the River Alabama

Ava DuVernay’s Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic, Selma, is a successful effort. It’s ultimately more than just a biopic of the civil rights leader, but he’s such a powerful man it’s hard to not focus on him even when he’s not on screen and the story moves around to others. The film feels the same emotionally as the recent Angelina Jolie film Unbroken. In fact that title could have been transplanted here to the same effect. The emotion is earned by earnest acting and good pacing. I really enjoyed how the film focused on the events in Selma, Alabama during 1965, to the march to Birmingham, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. This style of story reminded me of what Steven Spielberg did in Lincoln. In that film the great director focused the story on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery exactly 100 years prior to the events in Selma. Because of this focus on the singular event it made the story meander away from King at times to bring in what was happening at the White House, in the Alabama’s Governors office and with the police. King also was back in Atlanta at times so then the narrative went to check in on other civil rights leaders. It was during these moments the film slowed down and became too typical of the genre. I would’ve preferred if DuVernay found a way to stay with King, or to just cut away to see the other organizers. I don’t think we needed Lyndon Johnson or George Wallace’s perspectives in this. I really like DuVernay as a director even though I might not have agreed with all her choices. It’s great to have an African American voice and a female voice direct one of the more important pictures of the year.

Another similarity to Lincoln is that just like Daniel Day-Lewis was called in to play Abe, another Brit, David Oyelowo, was tapped to play MLK. (Oddly enough Oyelowo also had a role in Lincoln as an African American Union soldier.) Apparently only British people are suited to play America’s greatest heroes. There was a little part of me that really wished that an American got this part, but Oyelowo quickly made me forget about that. His accents and mannerisms didn’t seem exact, but I think being too exacting could have been too distracting. Oyelowo made MLK into a man with feelings and desires instead of just speeches and marches. There was a real danger that in portraying MLK it would just be a series of uplifting speeches and while there is plenty of quotes to inspire here, it is the quiet moments that really win you over. I think that he could earn a nomination for an Academy Award, but he would be the 5th choice likely behind Keaton and Redmayne certainly, and likely Cumberbatch and Gyllenhaal as well.  Other standouts in this gargantuan cast (some 34 roles) were the rapper Common (though I suppose you can’t just call him a rapper after this and his terrific role in the TV series Hell on Wheels) and Andre Holland a Alabama native who has also been so great in the TV series The Knick.

One thing that I took issue with was some of the framing choices that DuVernay made. It seemed that she was too heavy handed with showing figures from a high or low angle. This was used to obvious effect to show a person as vulnerable or in control and angelic or demonic. MLK was of course (and deservedly) portrayed as a saint throughout. Filming him from above when he is giving a commanding speech or telling others how to successfully make a peaceful protest to show his moral superiority. Reverse shots were from below to show the perspective of his audience, to show how they admired him. All other visual cues seemed very standard. Like DuVernay didn’t want to innovate or show off to keep the focus on King and the seriousness of the story. I think some flourishes would’ve served her and us well. We all know the story of King so taking time to be more artistic would’ve been nice.

The only time he was shown as less than a hero was in scenes with Coretta where he could be leaving his family behind or risking his life instead of being with them. This was also used to the exact same effect in Linclon with Mary Todd Lincoln. Though her mental illness brought in a far different perspective than Coretta. In fact there is a scene early on with Coretta Scot King with another supporter when she discusses that she is not prepared for a march, the supporter tells her about the horrible history of their people in America and how that is all the preparation she needs. It was a scene that set the tone and stuck with me throughout. Despite moments of inspiration I couldn’t help but find the film visually un-engaging at times. The stills I chose to share with this review are those from straight on and during marches. I enjoyed when King was shot in this way so as to make him just one of the crowd, one of the marchers. It showed the heroic actions that all those marchers took and not just King. It makes him seem more a man of the people. At the same time it fills the screen and gives a sense of gravitas. These shots were my favorite as were those that took place on the bridge into Selma.  The scenes of police brutality were handled well on the bridge. It could’ve been too heavy handed or even gruesome visually, instead DuVernay made the brutality emotional. The gruesome and grotesque were internalized.

It’s surprising that a definitive film about MLK hasn’t been made until now. Though the wait was worth it, this is the definitive film about him, and it is that because it is not a traditional biopic but instead focuses on the singular event in Selma. If you don’t know that much about King you owe it to yourself to see this film. If you know all there is about the speeches and the marches, then see this to know the man. It might not garner all that much awards attention (though it could given the coincidental timing of the unfortunate news events that echo loudly while watching this film), but it is still a good historical event film that cries out to be seen.