Awards/recognitions influenced by societal trends?

Original screenplay is something I believe needs a close look at by the way they are being recognized at various film festivals or at other awards like Oscars/BAFTA.

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I wanted to know how exactly the audience from this small community here look at those movies which are being sometimes not recognized because the way certain regular aspects of our society is setup. To be more precise, are the award commitees/panels being influenced with the set market trends or favoritisms in general public? For instance recent academy awards either for screenplay or best picture/direction seems to be a lot infuenced from the trends in society- e.g., Amour which won Best foreign movie had a fabulous script and I believe it should been the movie to win the Best Original Screenplay. Maybe its part favoritism part human tendencies to favor which is in trend. What's your take on this?

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Can you define these trends in society?

The example you give for Amour is just your belief that it should have won Best Original Screenplay. What more can you offer, to demonstrate that Amour really should have won?

What examples of favouritism occured, to cause Amour to not win Best Original Screenplay? What trend(s) in society were the human judges following, when they decided Django deserved it more?

Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. Either way, there's gotta be some concrete examples to toss out there to back up your belief. What are they?

Keep in mind, the Oscars' judges are only human, and as with any type of art - it is purely subjective. As well, the Academy is essentially made up of the peer group of those nominated, so realistically there are always going to be a lot more factors contributing to somebody's vote. As well, voting is non-compulsory, and they never release vote numbers so you not only don't know how many people have voted, you also don't know enter one nominee lost out by a single vote.

I find awards like Cinemtography much more intriguing as over the last couple of years, films that are VFX heavy have won the award for Achievement in Cinematograpjy (Avatar, Hugo, Life of Pi). Hugo certainly has the most amount of 'real' content, but there's still a lot of VFX. One starts to wonder what 'Cinematography' means in the eyes of the Academy. Certainly Life of Pi is a visually gorgeous film, but most of the amazing visuals are completely done in the computer (such as the amazing reflections on the water, and in fact the water itself - all water shots were done in a pool with a blue screen). That's not to trivialize blue screen cinematography or say that it is 'simple', and I'm not devaluing Miranda's work, but the visuals of Life of Pi are not, in general, what I'd classify as traditional cinematography. Perhaps the award should be renamed 'achievement in visuals' but then the Cinematographer doesn't supervise the visual look of a film throug post, with the possible exception of the colour grade - so who then does the awed go to?

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Zensteve said:

Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. Either way, there's gotta be some concrete examples to toss out there to back up your belief. What are they?

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Admittedly Django and Amour are movies of two different genre but while considering movies in this segment complete treatment of a subject needs to be considered. Technicalities are easy to judge as we do have trained technicians who can troubleshoot a particular issue but it takes a different kind of understanding to deliver on somehing new and that is what which makes certain film festivals stand out and certain famous ones just famous just for its glamour.

Tarantino has proven himself over years no question and Django certainly is good. But when it comes to a platform where it needs to be weighed, certainly DU's plot doesn't go up considering any of the other nominations. To exaggerate probably its a medium-adrenalie period drama with a great cast. We should recognize that this was not a movie made to look at a the plight of slaves where the movie is set. Had it been with a different cast certainly it would have not even received the level of fame it has now.

Sterotypes in hollywood is common and the society just follows it and its fed again with the same stuff thus the vicious circle goes on. Just look at the number of sci-fi/alien/fantasy flicks - add 3D to it - a definite trend. To quote another trend-setter winning award look at the Slumdog millionaire season (when I say trend-setter it may be for an year or couple of years). That movie just won over The Reader for adapted screenplay and best picture - a complete influence of society. SDM had nothing to be praised for the story or direction but it won over The Reader just because of the drama it was able to put up reinforced with the fake moral concern the panel might have had.

jax_rox said:

I find awards like Cinemtography much more intriguing as over the last couple of years, films that are VFX heavy have won the award for Achievement in Cinematograpjy (Avatar, Hugo, Life of Pi). Hugo certainly has the most amount of 'real' content, but there's still a lot of VFX. One starts to wonder what 'Cinematography' means in the eyes of the Academy.

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True, digital revolution with 3D will cross the set norms of the 2D (regular) filming practise and thats why there is a concern as how to classify and recognize actors or works in motion capture and beyond.

It may be trivializing the issue a bit, but I do think giving Oscars for Cinematography in a film where the visuals are actually created on a computer is akin to givin an Oscar to a voice actor for their character's performance in an animated film..

jax_rox said:

It may be trivializing the issue a bit, but I do think giving Oscars for Cinematography in a film where the visuals are actually created on a computer is akin to givin an Oscar to a voice actor for their character's performance in an animated film..

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Not quite as extreme as your example, but Black Swan drew a fair bit of discussion as to the merits of best actor, when it was someone else's dance performance with Ms. Portman's face digitally planted on. It was much more than a quick body-double shot, and definitely not in stunt work. Still thinking about that one, actually. Heh.

At any rate, I'm getting offtrack from OP's thoughts on how Amour got robbed. The clear-up explanation didn't seem to help much, for me at any rate.

I'll stop rambling.

Zensteve said:

Not quite as extreme as your example, but Black Swan drew a fair bit of discussion as to the merits of best actor, when it was someone else's dance performance with Ms. Portman's face digitally planted on. It was much more than a quick body-double shot, and definitely not in stunt work. Still thinking about that one, actually. Heh.

At any rate, I'm getting offtrack from OP's thoughts on how Amour got robbed. The clear-up explanation didn't seem to help much, for me at any rate.

I'll stop rambling.

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At least with Black Swan, the majority of the performance was Portman herself, and it was even her face 'transplanted' onto the dancer double, so it was still her 'performance' even if it was not always her body. But, would you give an Oscar to Tim Allen for his amazing 'performance' as Buzz Lightyear? Similarly, would you give an award to the 'body-double' of Audrey Hepburn in this commercial, even though the actual performance of the person was completely created in a computer? Link: http://www.framestore.com/work/galaxy-choose-silk-chauffeur

I don't mean to demean Miranda's work, as I think he is great, and a great artist. But, it seems when it comes to Oscars (here's where I'll try to tie it back into the OP ), sometimes it seems they go to those who are perhaps 'more deserving' for their body of work, or simply seen as more deserving, rather than because the work in which they are nominated for is necessarily better than the others nominated.

The Oscars are always political and always subjective. Sometimes you think 'that movie/person/team really deserves it', other times you think 'really?'
I personally thought Quvenzhané Wallis' performance was amazing, and whilst I have a high level of respect for Lawrence, I'm not sure that her performance in SLP was necessarily any better than Wallis' in Beasts.

But anyway, I'll also stop rambling

jax_rox said:

At least with Black Swan, the majority of the performance was Portman herself, and it was even her face 'transplanted' onto the dancer double, so it was still her 'performance' even if it was not always her body. But, would you give an Oscar to Tim Allen for his amazing 'performance' as Buzz Lightyear? Similarly, would you give an award to the 'body-double' of Audrey Hepburn in this commercial, even though the actual performance of the person was completely created in a computer? Link: http://www.framestore.com/work/galaxy-choose-silk-chauffeur

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Could the animated rotoscoped likeness of Keaneu Reeves win Best Actor for A Scanner Darkly?

Could the motion capture work of Andy Serkis in Rise of Planet of Apes or LOTR win a Best Actor Oscar?

Should they?

I don't know the answer. If it's yes, then there's also nothing wrong with giving Best Actor to voice-talent, either. If not... then the question is, just how much exactly non-actor is allowed? I still think the Black Swan question is worth thinking about, because it does raise that "how much" issue.

I'm sure it will all be settled by whomever has the best funded Oscar campaign, when the time comes.

Zensteve said:

Could the animated rotoscoped likeness of Keaneu Reeves win Best Actor for A Scanner Darkly?

Could the motion capture work of Andy Serkis in Rise of Planet of Apes or LOTR win a Best Actor Oscar?

Should they?

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It's interesting to ponder: Surely a motion-captured or rotoscoped performance is much more of the actor's performance than simply voice acting, but your question of 'how much' is a good one. If we are to allow digital characters to win, or even be nominated for Best Actor, then we should allow voice actors as well - what are these characters without great voice actors?

Interestingly, motion capture work such as that from Andy Serkis in LOTR and The Hobbit is somewhat similar to the type of cinematography undertaken in Life of Pi (and Avatar) - essentially the 'blueprint' for the VFX artists to work from. So then, why will we so readily hand awards to the cinematographers of such movies, but not the actors? On the other hand, if we're not recognising the actors who provide 'blueprints' over other actors, why are we recognising cinematographers who provide 'blueprints' over other cinematographers? And again, I don't mean to demean anybody's work here - I'll re-iterate that Miranda's and Serkis' work is amazing, whether on VFX films or not - it's more of a question of what, exactly, is the award for?

Perhaps that's more of the issue - there's never been a clear indication of what each award is really for; how it's defined and how they pick a clear 'winner.' Whether there actually is criteria or not, we may not ever know, but as far as we know one member of the Academy could be voting based on who they think did the absolute best performance, meanwhile Academy member number 2 could be voting based on who they are (or aren't) friends with. We'd like to think not, but it's possible isn't it, when the people voting are your peer group?

Or perhaps it's that too much importance and prestige is put on the Oscars...

jax_rox said:

At least with Black Swan, the majority of the performance was Portman herself, and it was even her face 'transplanted' onto the dancer double, so it was still her 'performance' even if it was not always her body. But, would you give an Oscar to Tim Allen for his amazing 'performance' as Buzz Lightyear? Similarly, would you give an award to the 'body-double' of Audrey Hepburn in this commercial, even though the actual performance of the person was completely created in a computer? Link: http://www.framestore.com/work/galaxy-choose-silk-chauffeur

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Wohhhhhhh, that is impressive. We are now living in an age when the Ministry of Truth, say, could tell us, or more probably, future generations, that John F Kennedy said or did this, whatever they want, or that Winston Churchhill said or did that, whatever they want...and look for yourself, we have the actual, historical video of him doing this or saying that, whatever they want...

The "Historical Documents," they may call them. And who will know the difference when technology like that used in the Galaxy commercial are used for other, political reasons and for purposes of propaganda?

Howdaya like that?

=)

jax_rox said:

It may be trivializing the issue a bit, but I do think giving Oscars for Cinematography in a film where the visuals are actually created on a computer is akin to givin an Oscar to a voice actor for their character's performance in an animated film..

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Its not just about voice as far as performance capture movies or those which blend animation and game technology is considered. Consider Tin Tin for example.

Apart from the confusion as whom to be recognized for such characters (actor or the artist/technician team), it is also about the outlook award panels have towards such roles when they have real actors playing a lead or support roles. Its obvious that real performace by actors have more weightage. Awards commitees should start considering such roles as a team work and recgnize the actor/ artist/ technician.

jax_rox said:

The Oscars are always political and always subjective. Sometimes you think 'that movie/person/team really deserves it', other times you think 'really?'
I personally thought Quvenzhané Wallis' performance was amazing, and whilst I have a high level of respect for Lawrence, I'm not sure that her performance in SLP was necessarily any better than Wallis' in Beasts.

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Yeah, Lawrence was another trend based award which was awarded definitely it should have been for Riva or Wallis.

Getting back to the original question -

Zensteve said:

At any rate, I'm getting offtrack from OP's thoughts on how Amour got robbed. The clear-up explanation didn't seem to help much, for me at any rate.

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I was trying to focus on the trend of movies being selected in Oscars/BAFTA/GG. I agree Oscars is much of a biased one since you have voting and not a critical panel deciding the winners. Personally I believe Oscars is more of an annual extravagant get-together for AMPAS and would suggest that any serious movie maker/critic should not get bothered by these. Just look into the gossips/trivial movie tabloids making news on a particular movie and guess what you have a nomiation for that year in the gossip smoke - I would point to Slumdog for this.

For this year, consider Silver Linings Playbook. As far as I know this book didn't make it any big within the readers community. Still, O'Russell went on to make it a movie with an appropriate selection of various trend factors (consider casting) and sure it turn was a success - again a vicious circle of feeding and get fed.

If entire AMPAS is let to decide these recognitions as it has been happening it would just reflect the society and the trend of similar movies being made and recognized would continue. The flooding of 3D sci-fi/fantasies or the violence glorified in comics etc. just shows the same.

I believe its hard to explain unless you start linking various small factors, the business motives, politics invloved, lobbying, etc.- well, rambling continues.

Major motion picture awards are fickle, biased, political, short-sighted, discriminatory, and just plain no fun! Fuck 'em all! That's not to say that they don't often honor some truly great films, but they also ignore a great deal more of films that are also great, and the criteria used to decide which films are serious enough to be considered is ridiculously arbitrary, to a point which renders the awards practically meaningless.

Where's Whedon's and Goddard's nomination for Best Original Screenplay, for Cabin in the Woods?! Seriously, no love whatsoever?!

Awards are stupid. Filmmaking is an art, not a competition.

Cracker Funk said:

Awards are stupid. Filmmaking is an art, not a competition.

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Certialnly true as far as the commercialized movie making is concerned. Well isn't money and probably the glamour of the show business that degrades the art form? TO a certain level thats true with music too.