Hollywood is no country for old men, and although some still
think there will be blood with the actors, the writers’ strike
ended with atonement on the part of the studios. This year’s Oscar
telecast will be Tinseltown’s corroboree, the place where it will
celebrate its own uniquely corrupted Dreamtime.
The event will mark significant changes - and high drama - for
the industry. But the union angst didn’t stop the studios deluging
voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
in a most unseemly manner: mass mailing; expensive, promiscuously
Oscar-vote-targeted ads; handouts in the Los Angeles Times,
in Variety, Hollywood Reporter and many more.
The spruiker crassness reached a nadir with the Weinstein
Company’s truncated DVD offering of I’m Not There, featuring
40 minutes highlighting Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Bob Dylan.
The gist? If you busy academy members and other voters don’t have
time to watch the whole 135-minute movie - then just watch this.
This Reader’s Digest version of movies for speed freaks and
ADHD sufferers is hopefully not a new trend: visualise the versions
for Lust, Caution or Sweeney Todd. It reflects
disrespect to the filmmakers and audiences. Rest assured that
Blanchett read the whole script, folks, so see the complete
film.
Normally, film companies try to maintain some superficial
decorum in influencing academy votes, although the ad blitz,
special screenings with filmmakers, DVD launch parties, promotions
and so on betray the studios’ frenzy. It’s a bit like the drug
companies in America: they harangue TV viewers to buy
prescription-only drugs such as Viagra but the drugs are illegal
unless prescribed by a doctor, and so the ads always say something
to the effect of: “tell your doctor what you are taking”.
Similarly, studios aren’t supposed to lobby or contact voters to
influence their vote. Instead, they spend huge amounts in
publications that anyone can buy but which are clearly aimed at the
academy voters.
Do these ads work? Judging by the millions spent, the answer is
obvious. Many critics join in the carnival. Prostituting their
profession, they go completely over the top with ridiculous
superlatives so they are quoted in ads, promoting their own name
and publication. Many media are beholden to advertisers, so genuine
criticism could become a fossil.
The academy itself, notwithstanding critiques of the Oscar
telecast, has remained classy, not a mean feat in Hollywood. It
regularly stages great exhibitions, dignified memorials to masters
such as Gregory Peck and Otto Preminger, archives film and
documents, honours the art and science of cinema, and is finally
building a cinema museum. It forbids gifts to academy voters.
The Oscars this year have a serious edge, a kind of historical
showbiz vortex, coming on the heels of a three-month strike by
writers against seven conglomerates, against the backdrop of the
presidential election. The best feature film nominations are a
mixed bag, but avoided the barrage of sanctimonious anti-Iraq war
movies that suddenly appeared when George Bush became a lame duck
president. Gutsy move, guys. Couldn’t these movies have appeared
years ago, if true to their intent? Some anti-war documentaries,
not selected by the total academy membership, have been
nominated.
Aside from this self-flagellating, well-meaning and almost
unwatchable anti-war genre, pro-life movies were obvious this year.
Juno is one hip incarnation and it scored. Young girls were
generally encouraged in these films to have the baby under any
circumstances, no matter how dire. So much for Hollywood
“liberalism”.
On the pop psychology front, none of the films nominated seem to
catch the Zeitgeist. Historically, sometimes movies have magically
reflected how most of us feel in some way. Daniel Day-Lewis’s
incarnation of a demonic John Huston in There Will Be Blood
doesn’t exactly catch the vibe of world issues at the moment - or
does it? The film’s heartfelt caricature of a murderous capitalist
harks back to 1930s artists such as George Grosz and John
Heartfield. Javier Bardem’s psychotic terminator with a funny retro
haircut (in No Country For Old Men) doesn’t reflect the
world economy either … well, maybe. Both actors will probably get
Oscars. What these films had in common was a “dark” side,
Hollywood-ese for “specialty” release. No happy ending, rather
formulaically, now means “art”.
The writers’ strike cost the local economy about $2 billion and
flagged the internet juggernaut, itself a key subject of the
strike. US television viewers, repulsed by asinine programming
during the strike, jumped to online viewing in December by a
whopping increase of 34 per cent. Only Disney and Fox seem on top
of the internet universe, although they pale in comparison to
Google’s YouTube, which found a third of the increased viewers.
Significantly, it was the bosses of the most net-savvy studios
(Robert Iger from Disney and Peter Chernin from Fox) who closed the
deal with the writers. Disney particularly is in front, having the
Apple genius and shareholder Steve Jobs on the board. Get ready for
an iOscar.
Hollywood, bipolar between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
since the producer David Geffen promoted Obama in late 2006, will
be waiting for political jokes from the host, Jon Stewart, on Oscar
night. No doubt a subject could be Steven Spielberg protesting
against genocide in Darfur by resigning as an adviser to the
Beijing Olympics. “China disses Spielberg” shouted Variety.
Politics in Hollywood can be an ugly phenomenon. Next fracas is the
impending end of the Screen Actors Guild contract in June, with big
stars brazenly telling their union leaders what to do in ads. This
won’t go down well.
So despite the bonhomie of Oscar night, more scabs are about to
be peeled off Hollywood. Problems persist. The Tolkien estate just
sued New Line, a Time Warner company, for not paying one cent of
its share from the billion-dollar-earning Oscar winner Lord of
the Rings. William Faulkner observed: “Hollywood is a place
where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a
ladder.”
Meanwhile, venerable, naked Oscar, still holding that sword in
front of his privates, must be wondering if someone will ever buy
him some pants. With the millions spent on persuading academy
voters who to vote for, surely the studios next year could at least
also send out a gold G-string for him.
Philippe Mora is a Los Angeles-based film director.
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