Lately there’s been some talk about what factors really matter when trying to win an Oscar. Last week those rascals Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond over at The Envelope took me to task for declaring that Frank Langella, Sean Penn, and Mickey Rourke were the leading contenders for Best Actor this year. They argued that those three guys aren’t particularly known for their warmth, and Pete wondered how nicely Rourke in particular would “play with the Academy” over the next few months.
I see where they’re coming from: An awards campaign truly is similar to a political campaign at times, and one’s deportment certainly comes into play. I think it’s fair to say that Marion Cotillard’s tirelessness and charm in supporting La Vie en Rose didn’t hurt in her recent eventual Best Actress victory over Julie Christie. And who knows how many nominations Russell Crowe has squandered over the years by shoving awards-show producers or chucking hotel telephones. But then again, I wonder if Penn’s win for Mystic River (after he didn’t even bother to show up for the Golden Globes) proves that conduct doesn’t matter that much.
Last week you all proved that you’ve got strong opinions when so many of you took issue with my post on Obama’s victory and how it may affect this year’s race. (I really didn’t think I was opening such a can of worms with that one!) So I’m curious to hear what you think about this. Do you have to be a nice guy to win an Oscar? Does an actor’s off-screen behavior only make a difference in a close race? Or is it only about the performance and nothing else?
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I think it should matter only on the performance of the actor but Im not that stupid. It basically is a popularity contest. The Academy looks down on great movies just becuz of their Genre (I.E. Comic Book Movies)and the only want things that are up to their old timing standards. I hope this year is different but it proly wont so Ill tune out again
I just feel like I should be the mandatory French guy who has to say that Marion Cotillard completely and utterly deserved her Oscar (even if the movie itself wasn’t that good), otherwise, y’all gonna be disappointed
That said, off screen politics do come into play. To keep my example in light of President Elect Obama, I don’t think that both Halle Berry and Denzel Washington winning the same year was a coincidence.
But maybe i’m just overly cynical.
The Oscars (and entertainment awards in general) are contests with absolutely zero judging criteria: of course they are going to be completely arbitrarily bestowed. Any type of election that comes down to basically “which did you like better” will always be a popularity contest.
The thing that really boggles me is that even though I and everyone else that has even the barest notion of how Hollywood operates should know better than to give a damn about the Oscars, but I still do. Every freaking year I get my hopes up that the year’s best work will get recognized and every year I’m dissappointed.
I believe that the academy does try to reward the strongest performances, however there truly are times when “risky” artists are robbed due to Hollywood-as-a-business politics. Tom Hanks likability probably scored him more nominations than may have been earned, while Sean Penn’s brilliant acting has been overlooked several times. As an another example of the academy “fearing” some performers/risky portrayals, Cher was given an Oscar for her comedic role in Moonstruck, while her amazing performance as the mother in Mask was ignored. It would seem as though the academy does try to avoid certain actors for as long as possible, and then when the bias becomes obvious, they throw nominations/awards to the same actors for “lesser” achievements.
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In a perfect world, the only thing that would matter would be the strength of each performance in each category every single year.
However, as you’re all perfectly aware we don’t live in a perfect world and it would be totally naive to think an actor’s off-screen behavior doesn’t work against them.
I just think that it’s one of MANY factors (that have little to do with performance) that decide who takes home the statue. These include a performer’s body of work, past Oscar snubs and nominations and, yes, off-screen behavior.
You can say, Penn won despite not being the warmest guy in the world, but he had the whole “past nominee who’d never won an Oscar” thing working for him, which sort of balanced things out. Another example is Eddie Murphy, who doesn’t have the great rep in the world, losing to Alan Arkin, who’s been around a while.
In short, off-screen behavior is, sadly, another one of those things that decide who gets an Oscar and have little to do with acting.
It’s kind of a popularity contest but more like a clique. Actors and small movies can be nominated (i.e. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Savages) ONLY if the actor is beloved by other actors (the biggest voting bloc) AND the movie has buzz (unexpected popularity like Juno, a critical wave, or a money campaign in the trades.)
This is the only way to explain the clustering of nominations around buzz movies. Even though people complain small movies are nominated I think TINY movies should be if it were ONLY about merit.
For instance, rent this year’s SLEUTH. Michael Caine should be nominated for Best Actor for that, he was spectacular. The movie deserves no other nominations. But you never see that — a single nom from a tiny movie. Why? The movie has no popularity – no buzz – no traction.
I think if you rack up enough appreciation as an actor and have enough cred to your name you can compensate for the lack of personality or arrogance thing (i.e. Sean Penn). But, I think it you’re still trying to make a name for yourself as a quality actor (i.e. Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line) you can’t afford to be flippant about how much an award would mean to you. I think the lack of graciousness and excitement about your movie will be the kiss of death in the end.
Fact is, who really cares what we think? No one, which is why the ratings for Oscar have been going further in to the hole. We don’t get to vote, I almost never agree on who wins- it’s like a big night of people patting themselves on the back for making movies so depressing/boring/nonsensical that they deserve praise because no one was willing to pay to watch them. It’s not ‘art’, it was contrived to win an award!
You know who the host of the Oscars should be? Sidney Poitier. Or Lauren Becall or Ruby Dee or all of them- not a comedian who chooses that night to stop being funny. Can we not wait for the greats to pass away before we give them the respect they deserve. They inspired the current actors to act; why not let them hand them their awards? I’d tune in for that, winner be darned.
If it were really a popularity contest, they wouldn’t ignore such great work from Sarah Jessica Parker and the dark knight. They would actually choose popular films but they seem to go out of their way to reward little seen films and ignore great performances in big films.
Katherine Hepburn said the right actors win but usually for the wrong role. That could easily apply to Paul Newman, Alan Arkin and Sean Penn. Christian Bale has never been nominated. Kate Winslet has been nominated 5 times but never won. Sometimes, the academy passes over someone, thinking “hey, he/she is young, they’ll get nominated again.” maybe, maybe not. I’d really love to see Heath Ledger not only get the nod but the win.
I think it’s actually a male skewing dominated contest — most of the nominees are usually movies that are geared towards women rarely get nominated anymore. Is there more men in the academy than women?
Yes, I believe the Oscars are a little corrupt, but not just against bad boys. I’m still pretty sure that Jim Carrey was snubbed for The Truman Show a few years back if only because Hollywood didn’t want him to abandon comedy for serious work. Why? Because he was the biggest cash cow in comedy at the time. Just a conspiracy theory, but a reasonable one, I’d say.
I’ve always found the Golden Globes to be 10 times more accurate anyway with both movies and tv.
It seems that every year there is a lot of hype that gets certain people nominated. I have that thought that in some years it was more about popularity or the great adertising done for a particular actor than actually merit.