In the Numbers

Really?!

If I were to be totally cynical I would say that the Academy Awards (Oscars) are more of a film industry convention than a ceremony to award works of cinematographic art.  You're probably thinking that if not the cynical in me, it’s the resentful, given that my favorite film, Amour, took home only one Oscar.

But, I’ve been reflecting on the outcome of Sunday’s Oscars and I don’t think it’s just resentment.

It is no secret how much the members of the Academy are “wooed” by the big studios to earn their votes. Not because these studios are great lovers of art, but because this too can be part of revenue enhancement and a great marketing strategy to earn more money for their films. And earn they do. An article I read put in numbers: from nomination day through the week before the Oscars, this year the nine Best Picture nominees increased their domestic box office grosses earning over $305 million dollars. Quite a boost just to be nominated!

If we look at the winners in Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, specially the few “surprises”, to see if there is a correlation between Oscars won and dollars grossed by the films, we just might discover, from the economic perspective, that the Academy voted right on target:

Django Unchained , the homage to the spaghetti Western (the Academy’s words, not mine) won two Oscars, more than the far superior Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook!  Christoph Waltz won Best Actor in a Supporting Role over the heavy weights and previous Oscar winners Robert De Niro, Philip Seymor Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones and Alan Arkin, all of them in stellar performances. Jean Louis Trintignant and Dwight Henry (Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild supporting actors) weren’t even nominated, despite having won prestigious film awards for their fabulous acting. And I won't even go into Anne Hathaway's win. Where is the logic? It’s there, from the industry’s point of view.

Another surprise was Ang Lee’s win for Best Directing for Life of Pi over the amazing Michael Haneke.  Lee is a wonderful director and I have enjoyed many of his films, but Life of Pi was not his best work. It has been, however, the best grossing film of all the nominated making $583 million dollars last year. So Life of Pi, the top grosser, took home 4 Oscars, the most earned by any one film, followed by Les Miserables that grossed $394 and won 3 Oscars and Django Unchained that grossed $380 million and won 2 Oscars.  Amour made a “measly” $18 million and took home one Oscar, and Beasts of the Southern Wild that only made $12 million consequently took home….zero.

Amour has won all the major film awards that exist outside the United States and many here as well. It not only won the Palme D’Or, the top prize  at the Cannes Film Festival, but it swept the Césars taking home Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing and Best Cinematography; it also cleaned up at the European Film Awards, wining Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Screenwriting. So it is really surprising, to say the least, that it took only one award at Sunday’s Oscars.

What makes it shameful is that Amour won less awards than Django Unchained, Les Miserables and Life of Pi, films that even here in the United States were not given the greatest of reviews by the top American film critics. Going by numbers again: the aggregate of the top American film critics gave Amour a 98%; Les Miserables a 55%, Django Unchained a 76%, and Life of Pi, while better, only got an 88%.

Astoundingly enough, Amour took home less Oscars than Skyfall! And while I thought Skyfall was a great James Bond thriller, it is not a work of art. That this action movie would win more Oscars than Amour makes economic sense when you realize that Skyfall grossed over 1 billion dollars worldwide.  But what should weigh in the members of the Academy’s votes: how much a film grossed or how valuable it is as a work of art?

The film industry (including all its branches) generates over 80 billion dollars a year; certainly not negligible. It’s no wonder that it can put on a show where the First Lady of the United States shows up to hand out an award. Has the scale tipped a little too much in favor of the industrial side of movie making and away from the artistic? The cynical side of me looks at all these numbers and the sorry result of Sunday’s show and thinks it does. Is this something new? I guess not really, but there have been years where it hasn’t felt as dishonorable. And I don’t think it’s just the resentful cynic in me writing. It’s in the numbers.

 

Film	Worldwide Grosses (in millions of dollars)	Oscars
Life of Pi	583	4
Les Miserables	394	3
Django Unchained	380	2
Lincoln	224	2
Argo	206	3
Silver Linings Playbook	159	1
Zero Dark Thirty	104	1
Amour	18	1
Beasts of the Southern Wild	12	0
Skyfall	1,108	2