OK film fans its Monday night, I'm tired, my stomach's been grumbling all day and the Oscar's were another celebration of mediocrity. Since this isn't a blog about sleep or eating disorders I guess I'll rant about the Oscars. For the most part is was just boring. The Guru got all of the big picks minus the screenplay awards. To be honest, as little as I cared for or was surprised by the Oscars it still bothers me that The Hurt Locker won best screenplay over Inglorious Basterds. I was reading one of the many sites that obsesses over all things Hollywood and one comment struck me as both truthful and an explanation for why the Oscars suck. The guy was bitching about the Oscars (sounds familiar) when he mentioned that most of the people voting probably never read all the nominated screenplays. Afterward he joked about how that could be the only explanation for things like Transformers II getting made. But I think it's a very salient point.
Think about this for a moment. The nominations were announced February 2nd which gave the voters about a month to read the 10 screenplays nominated for best original and adapted screenplay. Again, the key here is they would need to read it, not watch it. Now presumably these folks in the biz are actually interested in film so we would assume that they would have seen a majority of the films associated with the big categories like best film, actor, actress and so on. Leaving out best foreign film and documentary, there were 33 films nominated in the main categories. So on top of voting for cinematography, editing, sound mixing and makeup based on seeing all of the nominated films, they needed to also read 10 scripts.
With all of the other categories you can go back in your memory and mentally compare them against each other. Hell, you can listen to the nominated songs and figure out which you think works best in less than an hour. But how many of the approximately 1311 members (22% of the voters) who are actors, notorious for reading only what applies to their character, actually bothered to read each and every screenplay that was up for an award.
I'm way to tired tonight to review Inglorious Basterds, there's just too much going on to give a casual review (unlike The Hurt Locker), but I do want to clarify my point about the screenplays. When I think of a great screenplay, an Oscar winning screenplay, I think of writing that not only creates opportunities for great visual scenes filled with interesting subtext, but also wonderful monologues or dialogues. The Hurt Locker is a fine film and because of its serious issues and timely appearance I can begrudgingly see why it won its awards. But let's compare some scenes. Since both are war films that inherently revolve around tension let's take an example from each film.
For space issues I'm going to post the clips rather than transcribe them, but pay close attention to the scene and the primary tool used to create tension. First up, a scene from The Hurt Locker focusing on the tension inherent in a job defusing bombs. Next we have a scene (the first half is subtitled so you'll have to read and watch unless you're fluent in German) from Inglorious Basterds with a standoff in a bar between a German officer and some undercover allied soldiers. Putting the differences in realism aside (the tones of the two films are for the most part quite divergent), the difference between the two scripts which appear here are consistent throughout each film.
The Hurt Locker is a film about the ongoing Iraq war and a man who diffuses bombs. Very little of the tension or insight we gain about the characters comes from dialogue. This is more of a testament to Kathryn Bigelow's skill as a director than it is the power of the script. Inglorious Basterds creates tensions not only with the threat of physical danger but also with complex scenes of dialogue between waring adversaries who are testing each other for signs of weakness. It doesn't hurt to point out that the lone Oscar presented to Quentin Tarantino's film was best supporting actor for the role of Col. Hans Landa, one of the most memorable and best written characters of the last decade. Instead, one of films most clever and talented purveyor of cinematic delights lost out to a screenplay written by a one-trick pony that most assuredly will disappear as soldiers began a backlash against his exploitative (and not as authentic as you think) film. Congrats again Hollywood, when it comes to both understanding war and honoring talent you almost always manage to screw it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment