Oscar – sold to the studio with the biggest promotion?

The film industry, in the form we understand today, is approaching its centenary. The first attempts to organise and standardise production, distribution and exhibition date from around 1910/11. A few years later, the first Hollywood studio majors began to appear in nascent form (Universal and Paramount in 1912). But it was not until 1927 that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed as “an organised group to benefit the entire film industry”.

The Academy held its first Awards Dinner in 1929. This celebration of achievements in American filmmaking was similar to that of many other professional and trade organisations. However, the American film industry was already represented to the world at large by the Motion Pictures Association of America (the MPA outside America). The MPAA was set up in 1922 by the major Hollywood studios and the six surviving studios are the only current members. If the Academy celebrated the artistic and technical achievements of its members and the MPAA celebrated the commercial success of the studios all would be well. But for the last 10-15 years this distinction has disappeared. Now, the Academy Awards are little more than a promotional exercise for the studios and their ‘independent’ affiliates.

Harvey Weinstein (The ‘Sun Tzu of Oscar warfare’ according to the New York Times) has a lot to answer for. His success in ‘winning awards’ and a high profile for supposedly specialised films during his time at Miramax changed the game:

Between 1993 and 2004, Miramax amassed 220 Academy Award nominations, winning 3 Best Pictures and 53 total Oscars, and the company’s canny marketing efforts produced 11 films that grossed over $100 million domestically. (from Yahoo Movies)

Weinstein effectively created a new category of ‘crossover’ films packaged to appeal to Academy voters. (Does anybody now seriously think that a film like Shakespeare in Love in 1998 should have won one Oscar, never mind the seven it did win.) The studios now routinely select films for an ‘awards release pattern’ in the Autumn and around Christmas and spend millions seeking first nominations and then votes from Academy members. Most of these members are based in the US or the UK and the whole farrago has now sucked in the equivalent UK BAFTA (British Academy) ceremony which has moved dates to be just before the Oscars with almost identical nomination lists and celebrities (thus turning away from celebrating small scale British industry achievements to some extent). If you want to see how the Academy works, the Oscars website includes all the eligibility rules and the rules for promoting your film – it’s not the film that wins a prize, it’s the promotion.

I have no problem with awards as such or with audiences enjoying the hoopla. What concerns me is the distortion of distribution and exhibition practices and the fact that most awards ceremonies are now based on a false premise. I recognise three legitimate groups of voters – professionals, critics and cinema audiences. Each of these groups is able to make a judgment on films from a particular perspective without studio interference. Of course, how voting might be organised is an interesting question. I like the idea of an international audience award (this year’s winner, Mamma Mia?) but I’m not sure how it could be done.

The international nature of film is also a problem. The Academy solves it by focusing primarily on American financed films, but offers a sop in the form of a ‘foreign language category’. The criteria for inclusion in this category are different to the other sections and I think the award is patronising. When a ‘foreign language’ film does receive a nomination for one of the main awards, it is usually for a film with an American connection. This year the mainly Indian cast of Slumdog Millionaire had an outside chance of recognition (and did indeed win an ‘ensemble’ award from the Screenwriters Guild). When else does an Indian actor of the calibre of Irrfan Khan get a chance to be recognised? Perhaps Hollywood and Bollywood should get together – they’ll have to some day.

My other gripe is the distortion of release schedules. This means amongst other things that audiences outside the US don’t get a chance to see some of the nominated films until the nominations are already declared or indeed the ceremonies are completed. This is doubly the case for those ‘foreign language’ nominations. This year The Class, Revanche and Departures have all yet to be released in the UK. (Some nominated films from previous years have never been released in the UK.) The release schedules are aligned to North American awards schedules and, more precisely, Academy voters – we, the audiences, don’t seem to matter.

I never watch the Oscar ceremonies, so I won’t be getting excited at who wins and I certainly won’t be influenced in deciding whether to go to see a film on the basis of whether it is nominated or whether it wins. The Academy Awards have lost any credibility for me. I did discover however that the Academy website offers a list of films that have been officially deemed eligible for consideration. Looking down the list and basing my judgment only on the films I saw in cinemas in 2008 (a list of 69 titles) I’d be interested in making some kind of award to each of these four films:

Un secret, Gomorrah, Hunger, The Edge of Heaven. I’m sure there would have been others if I had had a chance to see them – and if they had been on the list.

Read more on The Academy's History.

Roy Stafford is a film lecturer and writer working on film education with cinemas in the North of England. Roy was also the editor of In the Picture magazine from 1990 to 2008.