Like all great American movie lovers,
we look to the Oscars to reveal to
us which films are considered the best for any given year. The
nominees and winners of each respective year go on to produce large
profits and carve out their place in film history. But how do you
want to define your generation’s best films? Do you want to leave
it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a secret
handshake organization of bloated dinosaurs, with its meager
6,000 or so members, or do you want to characterize your era’s own
film legacy? With a specific task in mind, we have chosen the latter.
The Academy of Motion Picture Art and
Sciences is comprised of 6,000 plus members with an average age of 57
years old. A great many of the members come from a much older
generation, that at one time were able to define their own canon.
But today we are left with an old-fashioned minority
to select the greatest movies of the year, and with such, film
culture will ultimately stagnate and its vitality will be
threatened. In order to maintain relevancy, new blood must be
introduced to breathe life into the discourse. However, these
concepts are not new, as evidenced by the famous 1941 Oscars in which
the seasoned Hollywood director John Ford’s How Green Was My
Valley was selected over the young upstart Orson Welles’
groundbreaking Citizen Kane as Outstanding Motion Picture. In
the 70 years since the film’s release, Citizen Kane has
become the standard against which all films are judged. Though it is
a great film, Ford’s How Green Was My Valley has fallen
among the generic masses of great American movies; left behind by
previously overlooked films that are now considered among the
greatest.
Throughout the history of the Academy
Awards, eight foreign language films and three partly foreign language
films have been considered for the Best Picture award. This
institutional bias creates obvious limitations, and once again
establishes a unhealthy environment for the growth of the art form.
Furthermore, comedies and genre films such as horror, science
fiction/fantasy or animation are rarely acknowledged by the Academy.
Another mark against certain films can be strong subject matter such
as extreme violence, overt nudity or strong language. In addition to
all this, the Academy has demonstrated an aversion to avant-garde
concepts or structures. Given such, the Academy tends to vote for
films based on their emotions or affiliations; leaving out films
unrecognized for their genius and contributing to the languishing of
film as an art form. A new term,
"Oscar bait," has entered the film lexicon and is used to describe a
film with a “important” subject matter and a big name cast, that
is designed to appeal to the sensibilities of the Academy based on
past winners.
Our goals for this project are simple:
Randomly select a year in film; compile a list of well-received films
across all genres, cultures, languages, production values, etc.; view
and analyze each film with certain guidelines in mind. Does the film
hold up over the time period that has passed? In order to maintain
greatness, does the film need to introduce innovative concepts, or
refine a well-tested technique or style? Does the film momentarily
allow you to step outside your world, and into a realm of new
experiences? With principles such as these, we are able to establish
a criteria for a great motion picture and test them against any
movie we watch.
For our first subject, 2006 has been
chosen. We feel five years is enough distance to look back and
reevaluate the catalog of cinema throughout that year, and appraise the
celebrated results of the Oscars. We have selected the five films
nominated for Best Picture along with other well-received films of the
year that may have deserved additional consideration, but for
limitations mentioned above, were not given proper attention. Each
film will be discussed and analyzed with regard to the principles we
feel make a timeless film.
Here is a list of the five nominees
with their directors (with the winner in bold) that we will be
focusing on to begin with:
- The Departed – Martin Scorsese
- Babel - Alejandro González Iñárritu
- Letters From Iwo Jima – Clint Eastwood
- Little Miss Sunshine – Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
- The Queen - Stephen Frears
-Ryan Sallows & Joshua Albrent
Next time: Our first review featuring the
globe-spanning triptych drama Babel, directed by Mexico’s
Alejandro González Iñárritu.
