Oscar Followup

Well, I got pretty well skunked on my pre-ceremony picks for Academy Awards. Exactly one of my favorites won, Jeff Bridges for best actor. I can't really take issue with what did win, except to be mildly surprised that Up In the Air did so poorly, not winning so much as a technical award. I have a feeling that The Hurt Locker, which did so well last night, will not go down as one of the all-time classics, but then I'm not sure any of the other films up for Best Picture will last either (I actually think that Up In the Air has the best chance for that kind of lasting respect, but what do I know?). I don't mean that as a knock, but it struck me when Tom Hanks noted that the last time there were ten nominees for the top prize, the winner was Casablanca, it kind of put the current crop of films into perspective. One factor has to do with politics, defined in the broadest terms. While The Hurt Locker is certainly topical, it is also almost completely apolitical-- it does not take or even suggest a stand on one of the key issues of the day, which provides its setting, though hardly its theme. I'd argue that Up in the Air does take a stand, on the nature of our corporate culture, and that makes it a gutsier movie (whether it's ultimately gutsy enough to qualify as a classic may depend on what other films come out in response to the current economic problems). To take another example, Avatar certainly is political, but so ham-handed and generic in perspective as to be almost pointless in that regard. People always think of Casablanca as a great love story, but the heart of that movie is in its political stance, which informs virtually every scene in the film, including the seemingly romantic climax. Without doing the research right now (but maybe that's an idea for future posts) , I'd bet that most movies that stand the test of time can be shown to have had similarly strong political or social components-- that is, they are bound to ideas that the filmmakers felt strongly about during the time they being were made. Or at the very least, those are the ones that resonate the most with me (though obviously not the Academy Award voters, at least not as a rule).