The 96th Oscars is over. There are no surprises, no upsets, no surprises. Everything is what people have expected.
" Oppenheimer " was undoubtedly the biggest winner at the awards ceremony, winning 7 out of 13 nominations, including the four major awards of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor, almost sweeping the list. Received all major Oscar awards. The other protagonist of "Barbie Highmore" that caused a box office storm last year, " Barbie ", only won a mediocre award for Best Original Song, but other than that, nothing was gained.
In addition, Emma Stone once again became the Oscar-winning actress. At the age of 35, she became the focus of the audience after winning two awards; "Music Master", "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "My Life in the Past" were in dismal performances, and did not win a single award; "Stay in School", "American Novel" and "Falling Judgment" won Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay respectively; "What kind of life do you want to live " and "Godzilla-1.0" It became the only unexpected surprise in the audience, defeating "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" and "AI Creators" to win the Best Animated Feature Film and the Best Visual Effects respectively.
The reason why everything is expected is because the major award ceremonies before the Oscars have already "spoiled" everything. The four major trendsetters of the American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Critics' Choice Awards, and American Trade Union Awards have helped the Oscars write down the standard answers, and there is almost no difference in the winners' list.
This kind of blandness and boringness means that Hollywood is returning to conservatism and caution. Faced with the impact of new ideological trends and industry crises last year, the Oscars chose to carefully retreat to the safe zone and select suitable works to reward according to the established academic style. In sharp contrast, the 74th Berlin Film Festival has just come to an end not long ago. Political factors are rushing to win the Golden Bear Award, and off-site topics have overshadowed the work itself.
Today's world-class awards seem to be heading down two completely different paths: one conservative and the other radical. However, either way it means that the discussion of the film itself at the awards ceremony is slowly waning. Correctness has become the prerequisite for quality, and safety has become the benchmark for awards. In such an environment, the lack of creativity makes everything worse.
Oscars return to conservatism
As early as this year's Oscar nominations, the controversy began.
"Oppenheimer" received 13 nominations, including many heavyweight awards. However, among the 8 nominations for "Barbie", there were only two heavyweight awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor. The core character of the movie Retta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were not nominated for Best Director and Best Actress, and the Best Original Screenplay award became the Best Adapted Screenplay award. As soon as the nomination of
was announced, it aroused widespread heated discussion and indignation from the outside world. For a film about the awakening consciousness of women, the female creator was not nominated. This also formed an intertext between the film content and reality. Actor Ryan Gosling publicly protested, "Without Barbie, there would be no Ken, and without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, there would be no "Barbie." The biggest reason for celebrating movies."
This dissatisfaction has brought to the surface the long-term "superficial correctness" of Hollywood. Hollywood's support and recognition of women's works have not progressed as imagined, but are entering a stage of regression. According to a new study from the University of Southern California, only 30% of the top 100 box office movies in 2023 will star or co-star women, which is the lowest proportion in a decade and a 44% drop from 2022. In the originally severe creative environment, the situation of female creators, like "Barbie", has once again reached the edge.
Amid the noisy external comments, "The Hollywood Reporter" analyzed the industry crisis behind the entire incident - beyond the simple gender perspective, unconscious biases still continue to interfere with audiences paying attention to works other than white people, and diversity issues are also covered up. .For example, Greta Lee, the star of "The Past", also did not receive a nomination. Some netizens sarcastically said, "After "" swept all major awards, do the academics feel that their "Asian mission" has been eliminated? Finished?"
But it was clear that just a few years ago, Oscar was still showing its enterprising side. "parasite" became the first non-English film to win the Oscar for best picture, "Hearing Girl" became the first Oscar-winning streaming film, and Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress in Oscar history. Compared with the earlier "Moonlight Boy ", "The Shape of Water" and "Green Book", these performances have made the outside world realize that it is opening up its own rigid boundaries. However, judging from this year's performance, the Oscars, which have always emphasized diversity, are actually not as progressive as the public imagined. The academy still abides by its own selection rules.
Justine Trier, the director of " Falling Judgment ", is the only female director nominated for Best Director, but did not receive the same recognition at the Oscars as she did at Cannes; the heroine of " Killers of the Flower Moon " Lily Gerard As the only minority nominated for Best Actress, Reston did not break history by becoming the first Native American actress in Oscar history.
This kind of prejudice is not just reflected in gender or race issues, but also an inherent prejudice against movie genres. In a conversation with Margot Robbie, she also clearly foresees everything. She once mentioned that it is more difficult for comedies to win awards, and the Oscar's bias against comedies has long become a consensus in the industry. Since "Bridesmaids" in 2012, the outside world has criticized the academy for being too stubborn in accepting comedy. "The Atlantic Monthly" once commented that there are only Woody Allen-style intellectual cultural satirical comedies, or some weird comedy elements. The movie can be accepted, "This prejudice misses many well-made and shocking movies."
More than ten years later, the Oscars still have not let go of their prejudice. "Variety" commented, "The Academy has never had a particularly strong sense of humor. , usually prefer 'serious' movies like 'Oppenheimer' to comedies like 'Barbie.'" For "Barbie," the only thing the Oscars may accept is Ryan Gosling singing on stage Dancing to "i'm just ken".
Standard Oscars
"USA Today" commented on this year's Oscars: "90% of the content of the ceremony can happen at any awards ceremony in any year: mild jokes, expected winners, boring speeches..."
Oscar's awards routine As it became increasingly clear, the audience has gradually lost interest in it. Today, the Oscars have been at the bottom of the ratings for several consecutive years, less than half of the 55 million viewers at its peak. However, the announcement of the awards, which was framed under the established standard answers, made the award ceremony lose the most basic suspense, and everything seemed more boring.
is one of the four major Oscar "outposts" award ceremonies, and its winners list is almost the same as this year's final list of Oscars. The contrast among the ten awards including Best Picture and Best Director is even more obvious, with an overlapping rate of 70%-90%. Especially at the British Academy Film Awards, 20 awards completely overlap with the Oscars, while only 7 were the same last year. The improvement in the accuracy of
"outpost" has further weakened the novelty that the Oscars bring to the audience. At the same time, it also means that Hollywood's tastes have converged, making the entire awards ceremony lose the possibility of diversifying themes.
It is not unreasonable for "Oppenheimer" to win several awards. After all, it has both box office and cultural influence. As one of the best directors in Hollywood who balances commercialism and authorship, Nolan's polishing of "Oppenheimer" deserves recognition. He himself has also stated on various occasions that "Oppenheimer" is his pinnacle work.
But even so, the type of "Oppenheimer" also reveals the limitations of the award-winning dimension. "Biopics of white male historical figures" have always been the favorite genre of academics, such as "The Theory of Everything" and "Darkest Hour" The success of "The King's Speech" has already explained everything, and at this time, Nolan has dedicated a work that is in line with academic preferences. Compared with the previous "Dunkirk" or "Inception", It also lacks a certain degree of innovation.
This kind of innovation is even rarer among this year's nominated works. Typical conservative works such as "Stay in School", "Music Master" and "American Novel" are contenders for this year's best film. There are 10 nominated films. There is no sense of competition, and "Oppenheimer" deserves the title without some more convincing competitors.
At the awards ceremony, John Cena appeared "naked" in order to pay tribute to the streaker in 1974 - a joke fifty years ago. Rather than treating an insignificant on-site accident as the focus of this year's tribute, Oscar should pay tribute to himself thirty years ago, such as "Forrest Gump", "The Shawshank Redemption", "Pulp Fiction" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" "Fierce competition between", a true "movie year" is still remembered repeatedly today.
When awards lose their meaning in selection
The Berlin Film Festival, which came to an end not long ago, also experienced a lot of controversy. Various current and political events off-site have taken turns to become the real protagonists of the film festival. First, the winners continued to express political stances, and then hackers attacked the festival's official website and posted anti-Semitic content. Various incidents have pushed the Berlin Film Festival to the forefront, and the film itself has received less attention than before.
Most of the three major European film festivals have encountered similar situations in recent years. Various demonstrations and speeches outside the venue have turned the film festival into more of a large-scale political show. In 2022, on the Cannes red carpet, the French feminist movement group les colleuses held black smoke and pulled a list of female deaths to attract the audience's attention.
As a film carrying a certain ideology, it is inevitably the main channel for expressing political opinions. Especially in the current environment filled with various ideological conflicts and war conflicts, works have more desire to express themselves. However, when the film festival's focus on politics far exceeds the consideration of the film itself, the credibility of the selected works is generally greatly reduced. In recent years, the three major European film festivals, after "The Clown" and "Parasite", have not produced widely recognized works, and they are all more or less ideologically controversial.
The turmoil in the external environment will inevitably push film and other art forms forward. The essence of radical expressions under various attitudes is to seek safety. Similarly, for capital, they are also trying to find a kind of safety. , and safety for them is "conservatively correct."
Hollywood creators are all aware of the creative crisis caused by this conservatism. Not long ago, Villeneuve, the director of the "Dune" series, said in an interview with "indiewire", "We are in a very conservative era, where creativity is restricted and everything is related to Wall Street. What saves movies should be freedom and Take risks."
Hollywood in 2023 has experienced an unprecedented industry crisis-when it is unable to create current movies, it can only choose to chew on past materials. According to the Radio Times, the number of sequels and remakes has been increasing since 1993, with a 700% increase in the past 25 years.
Due to the collusion of internal and external factors, Hollywood's creative power has plummeted, and audience interest has plummeted. There will only be two works with over $1 billion in 2023. Before the epidemic, this number basically remained at more than five.
Today's various award ceremonies have lost their original meaning, and the Oscars, which claim to balance artistry and commerce, cannot achieve the balance. The nature of the reward is weakened, leaving only the celebration of the reward.
At this year's Oscars, when the 83-year-old Al Pacino presented the award for Best Picture, he did not make any jokes to lighten the atmosphere, nor did he name the 10 nominated films one by one. Instead, he directly read out the words of "Oppenheimer" name.An anti-routine form that seems to express a kind of exhaustion: This large-scale Hollywood annual meeting is so boring and boring. In this case, let's start your celebration.
