Neil Calloway says that whoever wins this award season, it might not make a difference to their career…
The Directors Guild of America Awards and the BAFTAs were last weekend, the Oscars are next weekend, we are right in the middle of award season. I hope you’re keeping your best dress or tuxedo clean.
Whether Boyhood, or American Sniper or Grand Budapest Hotel triumphs, you can guarantee one thing; in the larger scheme of things, it does not matter in the slightest.
Stanley Kubrick died with just one Oscar to his name, for the visual effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Charlie Chaplin fared better, with three; two of those honorary awards and the third a shared one for best score in 1973. That’s right, Charlie Chaplin was making films for almost sixty years before he actually earned an Oscar.
At best, award ceremonies are a snapshot of the film industry, and wider society at the time they are awarded. They say nothing dates like the future, but a close second must be the awards.
Look at what won in 2005; Million Dollar Baby won Best Film, and Clint Eastwood Best Director, and given that he’s nominated again for American Sniper, it proves Eastwood’s staying power and that it is possible to recover your film career after the nadir of interviewing an empty chair at a political convention. The acting awards are a different matter; Jamie Foxx won Best Actor (for Ray) and Hilary Swank won Best Actress (her second) for Million Dollar Baby. Neither of them have had bad careers since, but neither have they even come close to being nominated again.
I’m sure they’re happy they won, but it hardly changed their career. Would Foxx have been turned down for White House Down had he not won an Oscar? I doubt it.
Women, and young women in particular seem to suffer if they win an Oscar. The lack of good roles for women in Hollywood is laid bare when you see what a young actress does next after winning for her role in an independent film. Angelina Jolie got Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted, and went on to make Tomb Raider. Charlize Theron won for Monster, and then made Æon Flux. Halle Berry won for Monster’s Ball and then won a Razzie for Catwoman. I doubt any of those actresses would say their Oscar changed their career.
The 67th Academy Awards took place in March 1995; less than twenty years ago. They say a week is a long time in politics, but looking at who won then, twenty years is a lifetime in Hollywood. Forrest Gump all but swept the board that year. Not a bad film at all, but hardly a classic, and certainly not as influential as Pulp Fiction, also nominated that year, or as good as Three Colours: Red, which got nominations for Best Director and Screenplay. The Shawshank Redemption was also nominated for several awards that year, and has had more of a shelf as a schmaltzy feel good film than Gump has. Films that were nominated and even won in the past would not get a look in now.
The film critic Anthony Lane says films should be reviewed on the day they open or not for fifty years, and that seems about right when it comes to awards. It’s certainly true of the BAFTAs. Ten years ago, these films were nominated for Best British Film; Dead Man’s Shoes, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Shaun of the Dead and Vera Drake. A good list, so what won? None of those, because it was won by My Summer of Love, a film all but forgotten now. It may have made sense at the time, but now it sticks out as a perverse choice given the company it was in.
If Birdman or Boyhood win next weekend, I’ll be happy and I’ll claim that the Academy are geniuses and appreciate great films. If The Imitation Game wins, I’ll just say it’s all a fix and Academy voters just get their housekeepers to fill in the ballot. Award season is good fun, but looking back in ten or twenty years I think we’ll be surprised at what films we thought were best.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future installments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtW2LRPtQY&feature=player_embedded&list=PL18yMRIfoszFJHnpNzqHh6gswQ0Srpi5E
Originally published February 15, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
