C’mon, The Blind Side – a compendium of gooey clichés posing as a movie – is actually in the running for the top cinematic achievement of the entire annum? Of course, that was the populist intention when Oscar decided to stretch its short list to novella length – not just five but 10 best pictures to choose from. The charitably (okay, commercially) minded will proudly insist that such expansion widens the talent pool. The less sanguine will fret that the pool is in danger of being diluted, and the downright cantankerous, the slot occupied by many card-carrying critics, will liken the whole thing to watering down near-beer.
Turns out they’re all right.
To understand why, let’s ponder the list and do some quick culling. Judging from the trophies handed out at previous, non-Oscar schmoozefests, it’s easy to zero in on the core quintet of nominees, the flicks that would have been included had the short list remained short. And they are: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Precious and Inglourious Basterds. Nor is it any coincidence that the directors of these entries – respectively, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Jason Reitman, Lee Daniels and Quentin Tarantino – all earned themselves nods in the best helmsman (and helmswoman) category.
Now you can have a healthy debate about the relative worth of this fivesome – all have merits, all have flaws – and, such as it is, that’s the traditional fun to be had in every Oscar ritual. In this case, the obvious David-and-Goliath contest pits Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, an accomplished independent taking us on a white-knuckle tour of Iraq, against Cameron’s Avatar, a techno-rich blockbuster already amassing gazillions at the turnstiles. Even better, the fracas enjoys some extra-curricular frisson from our knowing that Ms. David and Mr. Goliath were once wedded in unholy matrimony.
Of the remaining five, the widening-the-pool crowd can look with justifiable enthusiasm at an exemplary trio. Up might otherwise have languished in the animated ghetto, and eminently deserves its promotion, further proof of our topsy-turvy era, where adult films are awfully childish while kids flicks are acting all grown-up. And both A Serious Man, a seriously black comedy from the Coen brothers, and An Education, a nuanced coming-of-age tale from a Nick Hornby script, deserve recognition in this or any year.
Much iffier is District 9. The dilution-theorists will point to it, a merely entertaining aliens pic with allegorical pretensions, as a primary exhibit in their decline-and-fall scenario. The box-office zealots will maintain that there’s a measure of intelligence in this yarn, sufficient that the film has earned the right to wear its “Oscar-nominated” label through the rest of its pecuniary life. That’s at least arguable.
What isn’t is the inclusion of The Blind Side, one of those supremely false true stories wherein a white Southern woman adopts a big homeless black kid and soon transforms his refrigerator bulk into a football prodigy. Here, the defence is only and purely commercial: This thing has made money and a popular movie is by definition a good movie. How can it not be, when lots of people want to see it, when it so obviously fuses the show and the business to satisfy criteria as important as anything simply aesthetic?
To be sure, if the “best” in Best Picture is to retain any artistic meaning, The Blind Side has no place in this parade. But, in truth, the dichotomy it underlines, between art and commerce, is itself too easy and somewhat false. For example, to return to David and Goliath, there’s a definite dose of art in Avatar (Cameron is a knowledgeable thief of resonant archetypes) and there’s a strong injection of commerce in The Hurt Locker (Bigelow repeatedly and shrewdly mines the old ticking-time-bomb plot for ready suspense). Even, especially, in great pictures, these lines are judiciously blurred, and, despite the complaints from the cantankerous, maybe Oscar’s expanded list allows us to better appreciate that long-standing tension.
Finally, a parting word about the cultural implications of these 10 selections, what they say about how we live now. On the surface, war is a recurring trope (Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, District 9), as are the Obamaesque themes of hope and inspiration (Precious, Up, The Blind Side). Interestingly, though, by far the darkest messages are embedded in the ostensible comedies. A Serious Man is near-nihilistic in its ending and Up in the Air is a rom-com whose failed hero is left to continue his successful executions – axing workers from their once-gainful employment.
Ironic, isn’t it? For escapism, go to the war zones – to Cameron’s bellicose future, to District 9’s apartheid Africa, to Tarantino’s bombastic take on the Nazis. But for relevance, for a real downer, travel the comic high road and find tragedy in the laughs.
