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| Sunday, 6 March 2005 |
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Oscar 2005 : Stuck in the past by CARYN JAMES
When Chris Rock walked on stage to host the Academy Awards ceremony last Sunday night, he got a standing ovation just for being there - an encouraging sign that the establishment-heavy audience was eager for a show that was fresh and irreverent, with a whiff of the future. That illusion lasted less than five minutes. All those Oscar voters in the audience weren't amused when Rock started taking some mild jabs at the industry, as he did with an early joke that called Jude Law a second-rank star. By the end of the evening, Sean Penn was jabbing back with the pompous comment that Jude Law "is one of our finest actors," a humourless, self-important moment he seized before announcing Hilary Swank as the all-too-predictable best-actress winner for 'Million Dollar Baby'. The Rock-Penn showdown, and the mini-sweep of top awards for 'Baby', create a perfect snapshot of the dilemma the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences faces: it knows it ought to move into the 21st century but hates the idea. Rock's presence alone suggests that the Oscar people know they have to shake things up, if only to compete with the long parade of televised awards shows that now precede it and take such a huge bite out of the Academy Awards' distinctiveness and glamour. But the tepid response to even the slightest irreverence from the host, and the affection for the old-fashioned 'Million Dollar Baby', send a more powerful message: the academy prefers to remain entrenched in the past, clinging to its former glory. That attitude also helps explain why this year's show was even duller than usual. Rock, probably America's funniest comedian, is no fool; he knew better than to try to turn the Oscars into the Chris Rock Show. His few attempts to put his mark on the event fell flat, most conspicuously with a filmed routine in which he interviewed black moviegoers who loved the dopey Wayans brothers comedy 'White Chicks' but hadn't seen best-picture nominees like 'The Aviator' or 'Finding Neverland'. The segment, suggesting that the Oscars are out of touch with a huge swath of moviegoers, hit what is probably the academy's biggest fear, and landed in the audience with a silent thud. Because Rock offered few improvised lines, his best moments came from his deadpan delivery, like introducing "comedy superstar Jeremy Irons," but you don't need Chris Rock for that. He was soon trapped in the straitjacket of a deadly format, which takes the Oscars too seriously for their own good and has undermined promising hosts like David Letterman and Steve Martin. Why would anyone have expected anything different, when the program's producer, Gil Cates, had offered the same old moribund show 11 times before? The very idea of Gil Cates and Chris Rock discussing comedy sounds like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine. And with 'Million Dollar Baby' winning three of the four biggest prizes - best picture, Clint Eastwood's for director and Ms. Swank's for actress - the awards themselves hint at how happy Oscar voters are to linger in the past. The film may be about a woman boxer, but it is shaped by a pure retro sensibility. It's a throwback not only to 30's-era boxing movies but also to other Oscar-winning films about underdogs, like 'Rocky'. 'Million Dollar Baby' is, essentially, 'Rocky' with a tragic ending, the kind of familiar movie it is easy for the academy to embrace. (The grumbling from some advocacy groups about the film's theme of assisted suicide never got much traction.) But in the future the enthusiasm for such an unoriginal film may seem as inflated as the Oscar for 'Rocky' does now. The most original film to gather a handful of nominations this year, 'Sideways', went the way of another fine, innovative movie, 'Lost in Translation', which in 2003 was also nominated for best director and best picture and, like 'Sideways', won only for its screenplay. The fate of 'Sideways', like the choice of Rock as host, says that the academy will let in a breath of fresh air, but quickly close the window before an actual breeze comes in. But the Oscars desperately need to escape the aura of deja vu. After the Golden Globes, the Broadcast Film Critics Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and others, television viewers have already seen Ms. Swank thank Clint Eastwood and her boxing trainer, more than once. They've seen Jamie Foxx win best-actor awards for 'Ray' and have even seen him get teary when thanking his dead grandmother. Not only were there no surprises in the major categories, there was none of the contagious emotion that winners sometimes display. How could Ms. Swank and Foxx not have expected to win? Even the obligatory trickle of tears down their faces seemed more of a prophecy fulfilled - or maybe relief - than a genuine expression of emotion. The most unexpected moment in an acceptance came when the 74-year-old Eastwood thanked his 96-year old mother, who was sitting in the audience. As he said when accepting his best-director award, he had watched Sidney Lumet, who is 80, receive the career achievement award and "I figure I'm just a kid." Eastwood was as charming as ever, and seems to be as creatively alive; great for him. But in the backward-looking world of the Oscars, the idea of a 74-year-old kid is awfully close to the truth. That's the joke that should have hit a nerve. NYT |
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