81 Oscar Winners
As ever when a 21st Century Oscar weekend approaches, the blogosphere is abuzz. Everyone who doesn’t actually have a say in who will win an Oscar is having a say about who will win an Oscar. But we at Touching From A Distance are different. It would be unfair of us to use our endless connections within, and peerless understanding of, the film industry to accurately predict the winner of every category. It would remove all excitement from Sunday’s ceremony for our readers and so be a crime akin to printing spoilers for The Sting. Instead, rather than speculating about the 82nd Academy Awards, we’re in a mood for reflecting on the biggest winners at the previous 81.
Unless you’re an Oscars obsessive who has given brain room to an encyclopaedic repository of Academy Awards trivia, it’s often more difficult to guess what has won Oscars at previous ceremonies than to guess what will win them at the next. Even without being certain, most would assume that Casablanca, Gone With The Wind and The Godfather had been voted Best Picture – but far fewer would guess that Hollywood once thought Gentleman’s Agreement, Marty, The Life of Emile Zola or The Great Ziegfeld to be the very best and most important picture it produced in a particular year.
Here, set to a soundtrack of Oscar-winning songs, is a look at the first 81 films to earn the Academy’s number one award. It’s too simple to play ‘spot the outrageous omissions’, so play ‘spot the unexpected inclusion’ instead.
N.B. For those insistent upon pulling a prediction out of us, we’ll make an exception for Best Picture. Both Simon and I are certain that Avatar will take the most sought-after statuette at Sunday’s ceremony – but only Simon thinks it deserves to.
Hopefully, you’re both off-target, and THE HURT LOCKER will triumph, and for Best Director. Jeff Bridges, Best Actor; Sandra Bullock, Best Actress; Christopher Waltz and Monique Best Supporting Actors; Up in The Air, Best adapted screenplay; The Hurt Locker, best original screenplay.
I love a gamble – any takers?
What about A Serious Man as an outside bet for best picture? Okay I agree The Hurt Locker is the best film but I think Avatar Is “BEST PICTURE” , IMO The Academy won’t be able to ignore the spectacle of the movie and it’s HUGE box office success.
Agree about Jeff Bridges I luved Crazy Heart but you do have to suspend your disbelief that a babe like Maggie Gyllenhaal would fall for a sweaty drunk has been C&W singer. But it is a fantastic performance.
Anyway I’m starting to get really excited!
Sorry Scott forgot to say really great post
Shawn I think you are right regarding ‘The Hurt Locker’. It will win. One reason it has superseded Avatar in the awards stakes is possibly down to how apolitical it is. There is murmurings it was recut for the more conservative bent. For a war film it staunchly refuses to make a moral judgement – some might say this is a good thing. Whereas ‘Avatar’ is clearly anti-imperialist (some would say naively so) and in terms of story, fairly old-fashioned despite the glamour of 3D. Another factor might be the unethical lobbying of academy voters the French producer of ‘The Hurt Locker’ is guilty of. I am personally in two minds. While I enjoyed ‘The Hurt Locker’ very much (it reached heart-pounding levels of tension) ‘Avatar’ moved me and created that sense of adventure and escapism that has been missing in cinema since the first Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. For me ‘The Hurt Locker’ missed something by avoiding the issue of questioning the reasons for the military presence in Iraq. Every Vietnam war film worth its salt had a political layer to it, why not this? It is an incredible action film. But it fails as a war film because it does not address the wider issues of the invasion. ‘Avatar’ on the other hand, while failing as a taut, economical story, succeeds in marrying its genres of science fiction, love story, and war – with which it creates a theme that endures beyond the film itself. It resonates. I cannot remember anything beyond ‘War is addictive’ as a purveying theme in ‘The Hurt Locker’. I found it thrilling, seductive and adult, while ‘Avatar’ was messy and childish but somehow transcendent. I wanted to return to the world I had just left.
Maybe they should both win and Cameron and Bigelow could get up and collect the award together? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing. It’s not like they have any personal history together…
Me, too, I’m excited. It’s like a high noon shoot out, this duel between Hurt Locker and Avator. I will go to my grave defending HL against Avator, Jesse – the moral judgement in Katherine Bigelow’s film is in the action, and the characters, and the emotional connections, rather than the polemic, which is the reason I found it such a visceral experience. Besides, it cost nothing in comparison, and that in itself is an achievement to be lauded in our times.
Also, I want to clarify: my predictions, Hurt Locker and Supporting Actors aside, are what I THINK will win, not what I WANT to win. And if you think A Serious Man has a chance in hell, Simon, then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. IMO, Carey Mulligan should get the best actress, best actor Jeremy Renner, best adapted screenplay Precious. Oh, and A Prophet for foreign language film. Also, if you have to suspend your disbelief about Maggie Gyllenhaal falling for Jeff Bridges, you are clearly not a girl, Simon.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if the awards, other than Best Picture, go as you predict, Shawn. I’d actually be mildly surprised if Cameron took Best Director. But far more importantly … what do Simon and I we get if we win the gamble?
Haha! That’s some cracking analysis Jesse. Having avoided much Oscar speculation in my post … I must admit I am a sucker for it!
Sorry Shawn – I didn’t see your last two comments until after I’d posted. I think you’re absolutely right to stress the difference between picking who or what you think will win Oscars and who or what actually should.
Beyond those films we think should win Oscars and those we think should there is, for me at least, often a category of even more deserving films that seem always to be out of contention. Even before nominations are announced I tend to find myself talking about which of the ‘Oscar films’ should win, not which films should win. I think, for example, that Russian Ark was the best film of 2003 (and very probably of the last decade) but it seems nonsensical to ever talk about in relation to the Oscars.
Shawn Just puffing the family film.. Actually I think the best film I saw in any language this year was A Prophet, a complete masterpiece, The Godather of the noughties?
I believe “The Hurt Locker” will win. However, I would personally pick “Up in the Air”, a film that has no chance.
I see that everyone thinks it’s between “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” when in fact “Inglorious Basterds” can easily sneak in and end up with 3. Afterall, Harvey is backing it up and we all know what his campaigns are capable of. “Inglorious Basterds” will win Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Mark my words it’s a lock in these 2 categories so if it wins Best Picture it’ll end up with 3.
I doubt “Avatar” will win though. I can’t recall any film that won Best Picture and a bunch of technical awards without any acting wins, screenplay win or Best Director. It just never happened before and I can’t see it happening now.
Hmmm… you get the satisfaction of knowing that you were right, Scott, and are more hooked into the zeitgeist than I am. And Simon, you’ll be validated. And as for me, I will be so disappointed if Avatar gets it, because it will be an award for making so much money. Let’s all de-brief on Monday morning, and hopefully talk about the frocks and jewels.
Good points Wael. I actually think the precedent for Avatar winning without taking any acting awards is Cameron’s other ‘biggest movie ever made’, Titantic: it took 11 Oscars and none of them were for acting. Also, The Lord of Rings Trilogy took 17 awards, including of course Best Picture, without a single win for acting.
Good idea Shawn – see you back here on Monday! And let’s hope you’re prediction is better than mine.
Good points everyone and Wael thanks for dropping by. Is Roger E going?
Agreed let’s pick it up Monday to discuss the winners the speeches and the frocks..
I thought Avater, although visually stunning for a while, suffered from the five most dreaded words in film – written, directed and produced by. The problem I have with them is that they imply the absence of any editing function, not in the sense of a film or sound editor, but with someone to provide sage advice about what may or may not work in the script and the film.
Now, perhaps James Cameron is a film savant but I thought the film became repetitive – way too many vertical swoops which is one of the big problems with 3D) – and would have been far better with an hour cut off it. I don’t think work can be a truly great film as opposed to great spectacle if it could be improved by a cut of that magnitude.
A side remark on the politics of war since this has been brought up with regard to the Hurt Locker. The idea that the imperial army would have been defeated is utterly ludicrous. Indeed, it is almost offensive given that only a year ago we saw 1,385 Palestinians killed by an Israeli Army that lost 13 (using figures from B’Tselem.
Easily the best new film I’ve seen in the last year was the White Ribbon by Michael Haneke. Its cinematography was stunning. If only because of the content I was reminded of The Tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermanno Olmi and I think it will wear as well. As do so many films its greatness transcends the Oscars.
I find this true of many prizes like this. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame needs the Rolling Stones more than the Rolling Stones needs the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Similarly, the Oscars need Martin Scorcese more than Martin Scorcese needs – but not wants – the Oscars.
Excellent point about the Oscars needing certain filmmakers more than those filmmakers need Oscars, ndm. I’ve considered an entire post on this very argument. The best evidence to support it is the lifetime achievement Oscar, which is so often given to someone (Hitchcock, Chaplin, Welles…) who constructed an incredible career whilst being being idiotically overlooked by the Academy.
That the Oscar for Best Director was never given to Alfred Hitchcock diminishes the award far more than it diminishes Hitchcock. Honorary awards are given, predominantly, to tie the Oscars to a filmmaker whose ‘failure’ to win either a single Oscar, or sufficient numbers of Oscars, in competitive categories threatens to make the Academy look ridiculous (and, worse in their eyes, irrelevant) in retrospect.
All of which brings us neatly around to “The Origins of the Acceptance Speech.”
http://is.gd/9Qr6W
I love the touching tribute to ‘Scar.’
The montage of clips looked interesting but by 1938 I was starting to get seasick from all the zooms in and out on the stills. This technique has got to be the “bold, outline shadow font” of the digital video editing age.
I love that sketch David. I think I would explode from happiness if, on Sunday, an Oscar-winner were handed his or her award and told, ‘You make words now.’
I totally take your point about the zooms ndm. If you don’t like that video, but are keen to see a montage of all Best Picture winners, YouTube does have roughly 18476 other videos that all do the same as the one I embedded. My experience of trawling them, though, teaches me that each one contains something certain to give the viewer a headache by You Can’t Take It With You.
That’s true Scott but keep in mind that “Titanic” also won Best Director, and “Lord of the Rings” had both Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay wins. “Avatar” winning Best Picture is hard to believe since it’ll be winning without 1.Any acting win or noms 2.No screenplay win or nom and 3. no Best Director win since it’s obvious Bigelow has it in her pocket.
That never happened before.
Scott Jordan Harris -
I certainly wasn’t intending to criticize your choice of video. I know from personal experience just how hard it is to find the right YouTube video.
Also Lord of the Rings won 11. Deserved 17 though ;)
Yes, you’re right Wael. I should have been more specific in that I didn’t mean Titanic and LOTR aren’t exact precedents, but my guess is they’re precedent enough. As I implied in the post, though, I certainly wouldn’t mind being wrong!
I think the trilogy took 17, didn’t it Wael? Wasn’t it just Return of the King that took 11?
Oh, no offence taken at all ndm! I certainly didn’t watch every possible video: just picked the best of those I did see!
So you still think “Avatar” will win? :) Both you and Simon have your minds fixed on that hehe. We’ll see. One thing is for sure…a day from now, I’ll be posting: “I told you so..” :)
Haha! I do still think Avatar will win … but I’d be glad if you’re able to post ‘I told you so…’ in a day’s time! :)
I meant ‘I didn’t mean Titanic and LOTR are exact precedents’. Damn misleading double negative typo!
Countdown to the ultimate “I told you so”: About 7 to 8 hours.
:)
Simon, I’m sure Roger will be there. He’s been complaining about no room service at the hotel in front of the Kodak theater :)
Scott why not boost the views with a late (all 24 categories) predictions list :)
Wael i do hope you’re right, I watched The Hurt Locker again this week and it’s without question a very classy movie, my heart say The Hurt Locker but my head still says Avatar.
Why don’t we just pinch your list, seems comprehensive enough if wrong on best picture :)
http://cinephilefix.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/my-oscar-predictions/
Funny that Sandra Bullock win a Razzie and Oscar in the same weekend.. That would be a first I’m sure and one for the Oscar trivia collectors if she does .
Everybody says Avatar or Hurt Locker will win why isn’t anyone saying Inglourious Basterds…Am i the only one? Scott back me up please haha…I know @Wael Khairy is all about Hurt Locker :-)
Haha! Thanks for you comment Julliette. I would love to say I think Basterds will win the big one, but I don’t. I’d be thrilled for Tarantino if it did though.
Wael might be all about Hurt Locker taking Best Picture, but the two of us stand united on just how much we expect (and want) Waltz to take Best Supporting Actor. And not JUST because we want him to say, ‘That’s a bingo!’ in three different languages in his acceptance speech.
Wait for it….here it comes:
I TOLD YOU SO! :)
Haha! You certainly did! I certainly misjudged the mood there.
As I said on Twitter:
‘Hurt Locker wins. @LDNCalling and I bow to @waelkhairy88 and Shawn Slovo.’
Well done to Kathryn Bigelow and ‘The Hurt Locker’ a throughly well deserved winner and well done to Wael & Shawn, you called it guys..Everything else was fairly predictable except I’m shocked that ‘A Prophet’ didn’t get best foreign film.