Oscar wrap
Mar. 6th, 2006 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI didn't see any of the best pictures this year except the one that won.
Let me save you the time of reading the full rant if you choose: Crash in no way could possibly have been the best film of the year. There's just no way. It was not nearly as political as Good Night and Good Luck, not so personal as Brokeback Mountain, not so push-button issue-hot as Munich, and not nearly as character-driven as Capote.
Now, bear in mind, that's how it appeared to me based on reveiws for the other films. My basis for rejecting Crash is that it did not compare in reviews to these other films and my own experience watching it found it sadly lacking. It's not, contrary to the speech of the producers, a film about tolerance. It is decidedly about intolerance, hatred, and morality (more lack-thereof, you ask me) at gun point--literally. Not a single person in the whole film was genuinely appealing, with the exception of the Latino father, and he was set up for fucking sainthood by the film by virtue of being a good father. It was a one-sided portrayal set up so that the man who was racist about his being a Latino (and therefore crooked) was shown to be "evil." Everyone hates in Crash, seems to be the message. Oh, except for this one guy. Go him.
Otherwise, the film is a hodge-podge of dramatic scenes screwed over by heavy narrative and emotional manipulation. Instead of asking you to accept nuanced portrayals, they throw in disparate elements: a racist cop is also a concerned son (something that I don't think takes any stretch of the imagination as racism in no way excludes or exists outside of filial piety); a white woman mistrusts the aforementioned saintly Latino but considers her Hispanic housekeeper (at whom she shouts and treats like a second-class citizen) her "best friend;" an Iranian man combats insults and insinuations that he's a terrorist yet gladly buys a weapon to get respect and hunt down his enemies. It's impossible to like one single character. They're all reprehensible. The conflicts or the 'crashing into each other' often present huge opportunities for dramatic tension, but the tension fizzles or is bent and twisted into a convoluted ending that redeems no one.
Best picture my ass.
As for the rest, I'm shocked Clooney won, though I thought his speech was one of the best of the evening. I wish Felicity Huffman could have won. Hers was a role that was so out there, so far removed from Charlize Theron's gogging-for-an-Oscar bit, or Judi Dench doing-her-same-old-shit routine, or Keira-fucking-Knightly MUCKING UP ONE OF THE GREATEST HEROINES IN LITERATURE, or Reese Witherspoon's pseudo-imitation of a real person. I really am starting to resent the biopic for its monopoly on the Oscars the past two years. I won't say that Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Reese Witherspoon were just aping real people, but it's something of a cheat where there's audio/visual record of the person you're meant to be portraying. Versus actors and actresses who have to bring to life a character who doesn't exist outside of the fiction. I think it's a lot harder to take a character who has no history but that we learn of in the film and play him/her so thoroughly it's as though they have as many long years as real people than it is to do a half-imitation, half-embellishment of a historical figure.
Yes, I realize there are lots of people who won for being historical figures. I have no problem with historical figures that are sufficiently removed in time or not recorded outside of written record to be breathed with new life, but really, someone of whom videos and audio recordings remain, or who might still be alive when the biopic is made? How can you separate a performer who becomes the character from someone who copies mannerisms and tone well enough to mimic accurately? It's the difference between lifting up new artists and celebrating Elvis impersonators. I won't say the actors/actresses who've won of late don't deserve it. Only that I wish more credit could be given to the craft and skill it takes to move a purely fictional character from the realm of the scripted/written sketch to a living, breathing, flawed person. Making the unreal real should be more celebrated than taking the already existing and making it Hollywood.
End of Rant.
Jon Stewart, COME BACK NEXT YEAR. Dear Lord, he was hilarious. I love him to death anyway, so maybe I'm biased, but he was genuinely wonderful. He didn't let Hollywoodism hold sway nor did he thumb his nose at it like Chris Rock did. The montage bit was cute, though I think his humble smartest-guy-in-the-room schtick was better still. His play with Clooney was to die for. Clooney's gonna be the new Jack Nicolson with his comic timing. I love The Daily Show-style clips sneaking in there, too. Jon, you are the king.
Let me save you the time of reading the full rant if you choose: Crash in no way could possibly have been the best film of the year. There's just no way. It was not nearly as political as Good Night and Good Luck, not so personal as Brokeback Mountain, not so push-button issue-hot as Munich, and not nearly as character-driven as Capote.
Now, bear in mind, that's how it appeared to me based on reveiws for the other films. My basis for rejecting Crash is that it did not compare in reviews to these other films and my own experience watching it found it sadly lacking. It's not, contrary to the speech of the producers, a film about tolerance. It is decidedly about intolerance, hatred, and morality (more lack-thereof, you ask me) at gun point--literally. Not a single person in the whole film was genuinely appealing, with the exception of the Latino father, and he was set up for fucking sainthood by the film by virtue of being a good father. It was a one-sided portrayal set up so that the man who was racist about his being a Latino (and therefore crooked) was shown to be "evil." Everyone hates in Crash, seems to be the message. Oh, except for this one guy. Go him.
Otherwise, the film is a hodge-podge of dramatic scenes screwed over by heavy narrative and emotional manipulation. Instead of asking you to accept nuanced portrayals, they throw in disparate elements: a racist cop is also a concerned son (something that I don't think takes any stretch of the imagination as racism in no way excludes or exists outside of filial piety); a white woman mistrusts the aforementioned saintly Latino but considers her Hispanic housekeeper (at whom she shouts and treats like a second-class citizen) her "best friend;" an Iranian man combats insults and insinuations that he's a terrorist yet gladly buys a weapon to get respect and hunt down his enemies. It's impossible to like one single character. They're all reprehensible. The conflicts or the 'crashing into each other' often present huge opportunities for dramatic tension, but the tension fizzles or is bent and twisted into a convoluted ending that redeems no one.
Best picture my ass.
As for the rest, I'm shocked Clooney won, though I thought his speech was one of the best of the evening. I wish Felicity Huffman could have won. Hers was a role that was so out there, so far removed from Charlize Theron's gogging-for-an-Oscar bit, or Judi Dench doing-her-same-old-shit routine, or Keira-fucking-Knightly MUCKING UP ONE OF THE GREATEST HEROINES IN LITERATURE, or Reese Witherspoon's pseudo-imitation of a real person. I really am starting to resent the biopic for its monopoly on the Oscars the past two years. I won't say that Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Reese Witherspoon were just aping real people, but it's something of a cheat where there's audio/visual record of the person you're meant to be portraying. Versus actors and actresses who have to bring to life a character who doesn't exist outside of the fiction. I think it's a lot harder to take a character who has no history but that we learn of in the film and play him/her so thoroughly it's as though they have as many long years as real people than it is to do a half-imitation, half-embellishment of a historical figure.
Yes, I realize there are lots of people who won for being historical figures. I have no problem with historical figures that are sufficiently removed in time or not recorded outside of written record to be breathed with new life, but really, someone of whom videos and audio recordings remain, or who might still be alive when the biopic is made? How can you separate a performer who becomes the character from someone who copies mannerisms and tone well enough to mimic accurately? It's the difference between lifting up new artists and celebrating Elvis impersonators. I won't say the actors/actresses who've won of late don't deserve it. Only that I wish more credit could be given to the craft and skill it takes to move a purely fictional character from the realm of the scripted/written sketch to a living, breathing, flawed person. Making the unreal real should be more celebrated than taking the already existing and making it Hollywood.
End of Rant.
Jon Stewart, COME BACK NEXT YEAR. Dear Lord, he was hilarious. I love him to death anyway, so maybe I'm biased, but he was genuinely wonderful. He didn't let Hollywoodism hold sway nor did he thumb his nose at it like Chris Rock did. The montage bit was cute, though I think his humble smartest-guy-in-the-room schtick was better still. His play with Clooney was to die for. Clooney's gonna be the new Jack Nicolson with his comic timing. I love The Daily Show-style clips sneaking in there, too. Jon, you are the king.
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Date: 2006-03-06 06:29 am (UTC)I can't believe it won. There wasn't any call for it. No stand out performances, not really, no brilliant scenes or wit. WTF?