Gold Rush

It’s clear things have gone awry in Oscar land when In the Bedroom supporters at Universal-cohort Miramax Pictures are contacting Oscar voters and bashing Moulin Rouge for being “trite, ridiculous, simpleton cinema.” This is according to 20th Century Fox, of course. But regardless of the artistry one finds in a dancing Nicole Kidman or a plate-throwing Sissy Spacek, 2002 is proving to be the peak of the Oscar’s political shenanigans. As nominees are garnered primarily through ad campaigns or favors to filmmakers whose turn is “up,” this year it seems the studios are more concerned with making sure nothing wins rather than recognizing a real achievement.

At the center of the struggle is Ron Howard’s sugary biopic and Oscar frontrunner A Beautiful Mind, which has been the subject of an ongoing smear campaign by rival studios. Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge pounded the film’s subject, John Nash, for his supposed “anti-Semitism,” and ever since the film’s release it has been attacked for ignoring Nash’s apparent bisexuality and his illegitimate child with Jeannette Walls. Add to the mix the constant Moulin Rouge backlash and Gosford Park director Robert Altman’s unfortunate comments (essentially ruining his chances) calling Titanic “the most dreadful piece of work I’ve ever seen in my entire life” and fellow Oscar powerhouse American Beauty “badly acted and directed,” and we have nothing less than a big, angry mess of behind-the-scenes squabbling.

Quite ironically, the smear campaign will probably increase A Beautiful Mind’s chances of nabbing the top prizes. Universal chief Stacy Snider’s expert response to the campaign has molded the issue into an attack on Nash himself, which will naturally make the hearts of Oscar voters melt with sentiment for the aging mathematician. It has moved far beyond the movie, which itself is a rather boring, clichéd piece of film-flam. Howard embraced practically every heart-tugging Hollywood tradition to make a film not only lacking historical accuracy, but more importantly lacking conviction and ingenuity. The performances were dry and predictable, the script yawned at every turn and Jennifer Connelly acted more intensely in the sci-fi bore Dark City.

In more general terms, however, many of the patterns deviate little from previous years. Ridley Scott received his apologetic Black Hawk Down director nom for not winning for Gladiator last year, the brilliant Mulholland Drive was saluted for David Lynch’s sake despite being shafted in other major categories, Russell Crowe will probably win again as another apology for not grabbing a statue for The Insider (his only really great performance to date) and most surprisingly Baz Luhrmann was ignored for Moulin Rouge, despite the fact that it contained the most rigorous, interesting direction of the year, not to mention being nominated for everything else.

It seems they got something right this year though. Mind’s fellow nominations in the Best Picture category (Gosford Park, Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings, In the Bedroom) are all solid, admirable films, and are probably the best group of pictures the Academy has nominated in years. The acting nominees are for the most part deserved, and despite Jennifer Connelly’s probable win, the prospect of Halle Berry and Denzel Washington winning for their brilliant performances are exciting in the least.

Still, the Academy’s biggest blunder is their embracing of the studio advertising machine, which sometimes allows subpar films to get in the mix (remember the horrendous Chocolat?), and subsequently breeds increased ignorance towards great small films or ones that weren’t box office hits.

2002’s best film, Steven Spielberg’s critically debated and audience-panned A.I., was unsurprisingly ignored by the Academy (except for in the visual effects and score categories). The public’s (and the Academy’s) reaction to A.I. is indicative of a grander thought on the state of American cinema. A.I. was the only film last year that was in any way daring (except for perhaps the jarring L.I.E.), but not in the way traditionally, and quite annoyingly, associated with new stylings of cinema. It didn’t have violent deaths or envelope-pushing sex scenes which seem to be the staple of “daring” American cinema, but rather Spielberg took a huge risk by looking ridiculous in his quest for a sublime resolution. His A.I., which was co-developed by Stanley Kubrick, is a tightly-driven, beautiful examination of man’s responsibility toward their machines, and subsequently said more about human nature than any film since Spielberg’s own Schindler’s List. Not to mention the total ignoring of Donnie Darko, which deserved a screenplay nomination more than anything else this year.

But leave it to Oscar-hungry studio drones to really much things up. It’s not rare that the Hollywoodized Academy overlooks things, it’s even arguable that they represent a majority meshing of critical and public opinion. However, they don’t need to be quite as obvious about caring so little about artistic value. When it comes down to the winner of a bitter gossip match over historical accuracy, the value and long-running reverence of the Oscars is completely undermined. One thing should be asserted this year: Rather than voting based on whether or not a film is historically justified, or some other absurdly irrelevant reason, perhaps they should vote on how good something is. A radical idea, but perhaps ready to be tested after all this Beautiful nonsense..