Monthly Archives: February 2020

The Academy Awards are tonight but are they just an opportunity for the rich and famous to slap each other on the back, or do they really say something important about the world? Writer at Large Neil Mackay takes a closer look

ITS Oscars Night. The world will stop this evening to watch a carnival of wealth, adulation, fame, talent, glamour and most of all power. It is a night bestowed with global significance. Millions around the planet see it as the cultural and artistic heart of the year. Were told that the Oscars matter.

But is that true? Do the Oscars say anything about the world we live in, about our culture, our society? Or is it all, as the cynics believe, just an empty, gaudy show that signifies nothing?

Who decides?

First of all, lets be clear what the Oscars are. Like their British equivalent, the Baftas, the Oscars are an expression of how a very narrow sliver of society sees both culture and the world at a specific moment in time. When it comes to the Oscars, that sliver of society is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

It is the academys roughly 7,000 members who hand out the gongs. All members are part of the film industry directors, cinematographers, producers but actors make up the biggest proportion, 22%.

Of the academys active voters, 94% are white, 77% male and 54% over 60, and about one-third are former Oscar nominees and winners. Given were in Hollywood, the academy also has a liberal bias. Right-wing movies unless youre Clint Eastwood dont get far.

For such a youthful art form as cinema, the old, white, wealthy, male demographic is jarring and it lies at the heart of the Oscars diversity problem, with not enough black or female artists up for awards.

The question of race

The movie Green Book, which won Oscars in 2019 for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali, is a good case study when it comes to liberalism and diversity.

In an elevator pitch it sounds the perfect pro-diversity film: a white, working-class man learns to be a better person by working for an intellectual black man.

The only problem is the film was hammered for its white saviour narrative. In the film, the black guy only learns about himself thanks to

the white guy. Green Book was criticised for perpetuating a fantasy that racism only happened in the

past its set in the 1960s rather

than today.

Green Book is a perfect example of Hollywood trying to be liberal, but falling on its face with a story about black life filtered through white eyes. If the academy wanted to hand the Best Picture Oscar to a good film about race last year it could have awarded BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee.

American power

So the Oscars represent a very narrow worldview. They also represent a very American worldview. Of course, America is the planets cultural powerhouse, but the Oscars crowd out the vast majority of films which dont come from the English-speaking world.

The rules have a built-in bias against foreign films. Any contender for the big awards Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay must play for seven nights in LA. That might be hard for a brilliant but broke filmmaker from Africa or Asia.

The nominee for Best Foreign Film doesnt have to open in America but it does have to be its countrys official selection, which in itself is a mountainous task of networking, campaigning and schmoozing.

The schmooze

Speaking of schmoozing thats the other problem which erodes belief in the Oscars having real cultural significance. If you want your film to win you need deep pockets.

Winning an Oscar is all about campaigning and campaigning costs. In 1967, Doctor Dolittle was a turkey. Over budget, critically hated and a box office disaster, it still managed to get a Best Picture nomination, and eventually won Best Song and Visual Effects after 20th Century Fox launched a champagne-fuelled charm offensive for Academy members.

In 1999, the schmaltzy Shakespeare In Love beat Saving Private Ryan when Harvey Weinsteins studio Miramax spent an unheard-of $15 million on an Oscar campaign.

Money, however, does not buy cultural significance, or lasting appeal. Who cares about Shakespeare In

Love today?

The golden age

So the Oscars have more than their fair share of problems and its hard

to argue that the awards, as a whole, have something consistently significant to say about the world, culture

and society.

However, that doesnt mean individual Oscar-winning films arent important. Many speak directly about societys big issues, the problems confronting the world and the changing shape of culture. When the Academy gets it right which isnt often it gets it very right.

The seventies is a good era to explore after all, its the golden age of modern cinema. In 1979, Kramer vs Kramer swept the boards, winning five Oscars including Best Picture. It stars Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, and tells the story of their divorce. The film focuses a lot on their child, Billy, caught in the middle.

Billy was a symbol of generation X the first generation to grow up with divorce normalised. The film explores gender roles who should raise a kid and why? womens rights, fathers rights, the growing demands of corporate careerism, work-life balance and single parenthood. Kramer vs Kramer was socially astute and culturally ahead of its time.

That same year Apocalypse Now won two technical Oscars Cinematography and Sound. Today, its Francis Ford Coppolas film which has stood the test of time much more than Kramer vs Kramer.

Divorce is no longer a zeitgeist subject, but Apocalypse Now continues to say something culturally significant: that Western power is dangerous. Often it is films which are nominated for Oscars, but dont scoop the Best Picture award, which make the most interesting cultural statements. In 1980, the academy basically replicated what happened the year before it gave four big gongs to another family drama, Ordinary People.

However, Raging Bull hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made, and a film which has easily outlasted its Oscar rivals only won two awards, including Best Actor for Robert De Niro as the boxer Jake LaMotta. It was a study in toxic masculinity decades before the term was coined.

Sometimes, though, the academy just goes a bit mad like in 1976 when it gave four Oscars to Network but still handed the Best Picture award to Sylvester Stallones Rocky. Network is a brutal, brilliant satire, which still says something culturally significant about the media and society.

War: where it all began

If we go right back to the first Oscars, in 1929, we see the Best Picture winner, the war film Wings, struggling to make sense of the First World War. The US Library of Congress has listed Wings, which starred early screen idol Clara Bow, as a film of cultural significance because it was a real pioneer in the industry.

The following year, 1930, saw cinema still wrestling with the aftermath of war and looming danger in Europe. All Quiet On The Western Front was the big winner. After protests by the Nazi Party in Germany, the film proved its cultural significance by promptly getting banned.

The Second World War profoundly affected the Oscars as neutral America tilted towards Britain. Gone With The Wind although racially unsettling today made clear that war was monstrous. It beat The Wizard Of Oz to the Best Picture award in 1939. Oz, though, summed up better the sense of dislocation, confusion, fear and nostalgia sweeping a world facing global conflict.

In 1942, British and American culture fused when Mrs Miniver which tells the story of an ordinary English housewife during wartime took six Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and Actress (for Greer Garson). Casablanca won Best Picture the following year with a clear message about Americas attachment to Europe: well always have Paris.

The big issues

As the years march on, we see that so many Oscar nominees were commercially successful but artistic non-entities. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, anyone?

Still, a few of the Best Picture winners stand out, capturing perfectly the spirit of the times in which they were made. On The Waterfront, which won Best Picture in 1954, looks at life from a uniquely 20th-century working-class perspective. West Side Story in 1961 used the cover of a musical to tackle immigration.

In 1962, though, To Kill A Mockingbird a film fuelled by the US civil rights movement lost out to Lawrence Of Arabia. David Leans epic is a visual delight, but its a clunking and colonial take on the Arab world.

In The Heat Of The Night, the 1967 drama starring Sidney Poitier as a black detective in the Deep South,

won Best Picture and put African-Americans front and centre. In 1969, homosexuality was explored in Midnight Cowboy, although the film is critiqued for homophobia today.

Mental illness was the theme in

1975 when Best Picture went to One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Gandhi in 1982 turned attention to colonialism. Rain Man in 1988 looked at autism albeit in an exceptionally misinformed way. And American Beauty in 1999 grappled with the crisis in masculinity.

Identity

From the turn of the millennium, it is often who the filmmaker is rather than the film theyve created which makes the biggest cultural statement. The Hurt Locker took six Oscars in 2009 and made history when Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win Best Director. An emotionally astute war film, it signalled the power dynamic between the sexes shifting both in Hollywood and across the west.

Then, in 2016, Moonlight took Best Picture. Its a film about being black, gay and poor, by a black writer-director, Barry Jenkins, and with an all-black cast. Its one of those films which crystallised the time in which it was made in Moonlights case right in the middle of Black Lives Matter.

In 2017, the bizarre fairy tale The Shape Of Water won Best Picture. Beneath the surface lay an examination of female sexuality, with all its quirks and wonders laid bare. Its central character, played by Sally Hawkins, may be mute but the story is about women finding their voice in the world of men.

This years nominees

So what of tonights Best Picture nominees? Do they speak to our times? Certainly some do. Joker is perhaps

the film with most cultural clout.

Some see it as a comment about

the left-behind, gun nuts, socially awkward losers and the alt-right.

Thats mistaken, but even if it were

true it would show a film unafraid of tackling the big social questions.

What Joker really explores is the increasing isolation of modern life, the breakdown of community, the corruption of decency in an amoral world. In the era of social media, hate, and disinformation, Joker couldnt be more of its time. It speaks directly to the experience were all going through right now.

However, its unlikely Joker will win Best Picture though Joaquin Phoenix should be a cert for Best Actor. Joker is too edgy for the academy to give it the top prize.

The most likely winner is 1917. Wartime heroism wins awards think Schindlers List and The Pianist. The only thing that wins more awards than wartime bravery is Meryl Streep nominated a record 21 times.

Sam Mendes First World War film does speak of something prevalent in our society nostalgia for a glorious past. The veneration of the past lurks within the rise of Western populism. Thats not to say 1917 isnt a good film, it is its just that it says something a little disturbing about our current cultural obsessions.

The gangster epic The Irishman sees Martin Scorsese return not just to form but also old ground as he rummages through the undergrowth of toxic masculinity again. Jojo Rabbit, a dark fairy tale about life in the Hitler Youth, may seem quirky (the Fuhrer is our childhood protagonists goofy imaginary friend) but its also back on safe Oscar territory: wartime heroism.

Like Greta Gerwigs multi-nominated Lady Bird in 2017, Little Women (also by Gerwig) continues

the rebalancing of the cultural scales

by telling stories specifically about women and by women. The Netflix movie Marriage Story is essentially a Kramer vs Kramer reboot for millennials.

Ford v Ferrari finds itself in the slot marked well-made film that no-one particularly cares about. Still, it had enough star power to ensure nominations. In terms of cultural import, its functional. Think The Big Short from 2015 nominated for five awards, won one. In a decade, few will remember it.

Quentin Tarantinos Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is fun, but its really just an in-joke for Tinsel Town. For comparison, theres Robert Altmans 1992 movie The Player it too was Hollywood on Hollywood and earned a clutch of nominations. Again, few remember or care today.

Parasite is the oddball in the mix. Firstly its foreign and although foreign films rarely make it into the Best Picture category, the last few years saw things change with The Artist, which inexplicably won in 2011, and Roma, which inexplicably lost to Green Book last year.

Could a South Korean comedy-horror win Best Picture? If were judging a film on what it says about culture and society then Parasite should be a leading contender. If you want a movie which explores lifes inequalities and the deadly nature of the rich-poor divide, then pick Parasite.

Who emerges as top dog all depends on whether this is a year when the academy gets it right, and rewards a film which explains where we are right now when it comes to culture and society or if the academy gets it wrong and just slaps a gold star on what it thinks is an important film, but is in reality just an ephemeral piece of entertaining fluff which says nothing about the world.

See the rest here:

The Oscars 2020: do they really matter? - HeraldScotland

When Bong Joon-Ho went onstage to simply accept the Academy Award for Easiest Global Movie for Parasite on the 2020 Oscars, he concept his night time used to be achieved. Im able to drink this night till subsequent morning, he stated gleefully. He had already gathered one Oscar sooner than that, for Easiest Authentic Screenplay.

However as an alternative, Bong would go back to the degree to gather two extra trophies: one for Easiest Director, making him the second one Asian to win that award, after Ang Leeand one for Easiest Image. Parasites disappointed win within the greatest class of the night time, over frontrunner 1917, made it the primary overseas language movie ever to win Easiest Image throughout 92 years of Oscar historical past.

I believe like an overly opportune second in historical past is occurring at this time, one of the crucial movies manufacturers, Kwak Sin-ae, stated whilst accepting the award.

bong joon ho watching an oscar in awe percent.twitter.com/s2SjwHZUUW

Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) February 10, 2020

Long past are the times when overseas movies most effective stood a possibility of opening to coastal cinephiles. Parasite has proven that overseas language movies may also be unifying blockbuster occasionsand its good fortune is evidence of the truth that, as director Bong Joon-Ho himself stated on the Globes, If you triumph over the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, youre going to be offered to such a lot of extra superb movies.

Launched at the same time as with many structural adjustmentstogether with the arrival of streaming and concerted fashionable efforts to champion rangeParasites runaway good fortune may mark a pivotal turning level for overseas language movies, and particularly Asian ones, in The united states. It is a massive breaking of a mental barrier, Janet Yang, a veteran Hollywood manufacturer, tells TIME. This wall weve constructed, wherein non-English language motion pictures had been restricted no longer simply in liberate or field place of work however in folkss minds, is being cracked.

However Parasites good fortune additionally arose from an overly explicit set of instances that is probably not simply replicable. And in Korea and somewhere else, a brand new crop of Asian filmmakers is operating laborious to be sure that Parasite isnt only a temporary bout of glory however the get started of a brand new international generation.

Issues had been very other for overseas language movies initially of Yangs multi-decade profession. When she arrived in Hollywood within the 80s, Asian-language movies, specifically, werent even thought to be an opportunity for mainstream broad liberate. Theyd be advertised differently. It used to be all about getting the Asian target market out, along side the distinctiveness pageant crowd, she says. Indie vendors that are actually lengthy long past, like New Yorker Motion pictures and Circle Motion pictures, funneled world movies to theaters like New Yorks Movie Discussion board, the place they discovered good fortune with erudite and adventurous audiences.

However those movies had been most commonly low-budget, low-grossing distinctiveness affairs that hardly made a dent on the field place of workand obtained even much less popularity from the Academy Awards. Whilst Hollywood likes to consider itself as the middle of the movie global, 92 years of Oscar nominations strengthen Bongs declare that the Oscars are very native. Simply 12 overseas language movies have ever been nominated for Easiest Imageand maximum of the ones movies depicted a enormous historic tournament or determine, whether or not its the Holocaust (Lifestyles is Gorgeous), Global Warfare II (Letters from Iwo Jima) or Pablo Neruda (Il Postino). The Academys possible choices pointed to the concept electorate valued the fashionable lives of folks around the globe not up to their historic or American opposite numbers.

In 2000, Ang Lees Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon exploded to $128 million on the North American field place of work, turning into the highest-grossing overseas language movie produced in a foreign country on the American field place of work. The 18th-century martial arts movie, the primary Asian-language film and most effective different one but even so Parasite to land a Easiest Image nod, confirmed that audiences can be keen to learn subtitlesbut additionally bolstered the concept the one overseas movies price taking note of had been those who instructed unique or historic tales. Over the following couple of years, different martial arts movies like Hero and Kung Fu Hustle effectively replicated Crouching Tigers good fortune, however did little to make bigger the scope of overseas language movie in The united states.

Whilst Lee used to be stringing in combination a run of multilingual epics, a brand new technology of Korean filmmakers used to be in the middle of its personal golden age. Emboldened by means of the rustics increasing democratic rights and flush with money from chaebolshuge family-run conglomeratesa bunch of auteurs led by means of the trio Bong Joon-Ho, Kim Ji-woon and Park Chan-wook rose within the 90s with movies like The Quiet Circle of relatives, Joint Safety Space and Barking Canine By no means Chew. In 2004, Parks Oldboy turned into the primary Korean movie to win the Grand Prix at Cannes.

But it surely used to be Bong, specifically, who would chart a trail towards world stardom via a suite of savvy strategic possible choices. Hes ready to suppose 10 years forwardhe understands the trade very, rather well, Jason Bechervaise, an leisure professor at Korea Soongsil Cyber College who additionally wrote a Ph.D. thesis on Bongs paintings, instructed TIME. In 2013, Bong crossed over to Hollywood with Snowpiercer, his first English-language movie, which raised eyebrows for being one of the crucial first movies to return to streaming quickly after theatrical liberate. In 2017, his bilingual movie Okja led to a firestorm at Cannes when target market individuals objected to the inclusion of a Netflix manufacturing within the pageant.

This chaos is all excellent information for Bong as a result of they speak about him, and extra folks turn out to be conscious about who hes, Bechervaise says. Having won a global profileand plenty of top profile pals and admirers like Tilda Swinton and Quentin TarantinoBong ensured that after he returned to Korea to make an absolutely overseas language movie, the sector would nonetheless be paying consideration.

On the similar time, American audiences had been additionally seeing extra faces of colour on their monitors because of the erosion of conventional gatekeepers in movie and tv. In 2015 and 2016, #OscarsSoWhite exploded on Twitter after two consecutive years of all-white performing nominees, main the Academy to announce an initiative to double their selection of feminine and minority individuals by means of 2020. In 2018 and 2019, social media campaigns helped carry Black Panther and Loopy Wealthy Asians to very large field place of work returnsor even non-blockbusters like Roma (in Spanish) and The Farewell (in Mandarin and English) fared higher than anticipated because of insistent strengthen from communities of colour.

All of those successes confirmed manufacturing corporations and vendors that larger illustration used to be, if not anything else, a wise financial transfer. It used to be on this local weather that the distributor Neon got here to the fore as a emerging powerhouse that invested each in English and non-English movies. In 2019, they launched 4 well-received overseas language movies, together with Parasite, Honeyland and Portrait of a Woman on Fireplace.

Whilst conventional movie manufacturing corporations and vendors warmed to a broader vary of releases, in addition they obtained a push from streaming products and services, whose doable subscribers may come from any place on the planet. In 2016, Netflix put a stake down in South Korea, spearheading no longer simply Okja however the zombie collection Kingdom and the romantic teenager drama Love Alarm. Their set of rules positioned Okja in the similar style cluster as Mad Malesthat means that audience with out a enjoy with overseas language movies would possibly nonetheless be triggered to observe it, and provides it a possibility from the relief in their sofa. Within the coming years, the Jap truth display Terrace Area and the Spanish language drama Narcos: Mexico would turn out to be international phenomena.

In Would possibly, Parasite opened at Cannes to an eight-minute status ovation, sooner or later successful the pageants peak prize. In October, the movie opened within the U.S.and because of rapturous critiques, word-of-mouth campaigns that integrated the efforts of Gold Areaan Asian American group that had shaped in 2018 to spice up Loopy Wealthy Asians on the field place of workand the entire components discussed above, Parasite claimed the biggest-ever opening for a global movie within the U.S.

In fact, it used to be no longer simply those exterior components that drove Parasites good fortune, however the high quality of the movie itself. Whilst the film is distinctly Korean in its solution to horror and humor, its incisive exploration of inequality hit the zeitgeist on the actual proper second. Asymmetric distribution of wealth is a illness all of us reside with, anyplace youre, Suk-Younger Kim, a theater and function research professor at UCLA, tells TIME. Its one thing we will be able to all relate to. This topic subject material increased the movie from a neighborhood Korean tale into a bigger wave of films exploring the similar topicfrom Burning to Us to Joker.

And it may possiblyt have harm that the film used to be shot in a emerging middle of tradition and type because of the expanding dominance of Okay-pop. Seoul is a cultural hub: a modern position that extra folks wish to consult with and learn about, Kim says.

Due to a shrewd rollout from Neon, Parasite endured to excel on the field place of work right through the autumn and achieve momentum into awards season. The awards season good fortune of Roma the yr sooner than had eased the trail, as had the the larger range throughout the ranks of the Academy. Since 2015, the proportion of feminine Academy electorate has risen from 25 to 32 %, whilst the selection of minorities has doubled from eight to a nonetheless paltry 16 %. This yr, the invitees hailed from 59 nations.

However the films momentum used to be additionally carried by means of Bong Joon-Ho who led the way in which as a witty and charismatic presence at the circuit. He temporarily turned into the principle tournament at many Oscars events and generated headlines for his extraordinarily quotable speeches. Its not possible to not be charmed by means of him, evidently, Yang says.

In January, Parasite turned into the primary overseas language movie to ever win the SAG Award for absolute best forged of a movement image. Behind the scenes, Choi Woo-shik, who performs Ki-woo, used the platform to open the door for the following technology. Instead of us, there are such a large amount of legends available in the market in overseas nations, he stated. I truly in point of fact hope that once this second, possibly subsequent yr, we will be able to see extra foreign-language movies and Asian movies.

Whilst the SAG Awards had been a thrilling bit of popularity, the Oscars had been any other topic. It used to be broadly anticipated that Parasite would fall to the closely appreciated 1917, that means that the primary non-English Easiest Image winner must wait a minimum of any other yr. However Parasite pulled out a shocking disappointed, a lot to thrill of many on-linewho christened themselves the #BongHiveand the celebs within the target market. When the manufacturers attempted to show the lighting fixtures out on a display that ran part an hour extra time, the gang roared at them to let Parasites group end.

I dont truly consider in God however God bless Tom Hanks for main the price to stay the lighting fixtures on in order that Bong Joon-Ho and the #Parasite team may end talking and completely experience their victory. #Oscarspic.twitter.com/hawx8PKMcL

Jay Thomas (@ThisJayThomas) February 10, 2020

However Parasites absolute best image win does no longer ensure lasting alternate. The Korean movie trade has not too long ago turn out to be stagnantwith admissions plateauing since 2013and top-heavy, with many blockbusters taking over an expanding quantity of house at theaters. (Ultimate yr, a Korean Movie Council find out about stated that on any given day, 67.5% of all screenings can be occupied by means of the 3 maximum screened movies).

And whilst any film by means of Bong, Park and Kim draws fashionable pastime, the remainder of the rustics filmmakers are a long way much less identified around the globe. The trade, globally a minimum of, is closely reliant at the auteurs, Bechervaise says. He worries that the instances that ended in their ingenious upward push arent replicableand that younger filmmakers is not going to most effective need to deal with the trios lengthy shadow, however festival from the onslaught of world content material arriving in Korea because of streaming products and services.

However for some Korean filmmakers, Parasites good fortune is already inflicting a trickle-down impact. On the 2020 Global Movie Pageant Rotterdam remaining week, the director Kim Yong-hoon spotted a transformation in the way in which folks had been having a look at his new movie Beasts Clawing at Straws. I for sure felt this larger international pastime, no longer most effective from the pageant programmer however from the target market, he wrote in an e mail to TIME via a translator. Those world movie trade folks now realize that there are many excellent filmmakers in Korea.

Beasts Clawing at Straws received the pageants particular jury award, whilst any other Korean movie, Yoon Dan-bis Transferring On, received the Shiny Long term prize. At Sundance, Lee Isaac Chungs Minari, which is about in Arkansas however spoken most commonly in Korean, made a giant splash, successful the Target market Award and the Grand Jury Prize for the dramatic class. The Steven Yuen-led movie, produced by means of Brad Pitts corporate Plan B Leisure, can be dispensed by means of A24, which effectively introduced motion pictures like Moonlight and Woman Chicken.

So any person hoping to search out the following Parasite receivedt have to seem a long way. The Fact, Hirokazu Kore-edas first non-Jap-language movie, stars two French legends in Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche and arrives in March. On streaming, Alan Yangs Tigertail, which is most commonly delivered in numerous Chinese language dialects, will arrive on Netflix, whilst an adaptation of Min Jin Lees Pachinko in Jap and Korean is within the works at Apple. Due to Parasite, all of them find a way to make an have an effect on no longer simply at Movie Discussion board however throughout america and the sector.

I believe Parasite is usually a milestone and on the similar time a motivation to the following technology filmmakers, Kim Yong-hoon says. It is a massive alternative.

More:

Parasites Easiest Image Oscar Is Historical. Is This the Starting of a New Generation in Movie? - MR Invasion