Switching off the Oscars
When it comes to films, I’m pretty committed. It’s not uncommon for me to turn a trip to the cinema into a double bill. I’ll sit through all three hours of The Irishman without looking at my phone. All night movie marathons are something of a tradition. Where films are concerned, it takes a lot for me to switch off. So the feeling I had Sunday took me by surprise. For the first time, I found myself wanting to switch off the Oscars.
Don’t get me wrong, Hollywood’s biggest night has given me my fair share of disappointments. Jokes that have made me cringe right down into the gap in the sofa cushions. Favourites missing out on the big prizes (justice for BlacKkKlansman). Musical performances that miss the mark. But never has the show left me so thoroughly… bored.
This is not a feeling I’m familiar with. In fact, sitting up until 5 in the morning watching Hollywood’s most glamorous hand each other small, golden men is often a highlight of the year. I love the spectacle, I have Strong Opinions on who should win and who shouldn’t, and I’m reminded of all the fun I’ve had watching films in the year gone by. Instead I found myself losing interest, more engaged in the twitter discourse around the ceremony than the ceremony itself. By the last hour I was looking forward to it ending, excited to finally allow myself to go to bed.
This year was always going to be a tricky one. With so many films scheduled for release in 2020 being postponed the field of eligible candidates was sparser. All the likely awards-botherers among the bigger budget class had been punted to 2021, leaving a slate of nominations dominated by indies and fringe fare. That lack of mainstream movies, and the megawatt stars that come with them, meant that expectations (mine anyway) were lower for this year’s show. Somehow, I still found myself disappointed.
With far less familiarity with the nominated films than in previous years (not helped by the fact 3 of 8 Best Picture nominees are still not available over here), what I was really hoping for was some entertainment. I knew that the musical performances had been excavated and relocated. I knew that, once again, the Academy had decided against hiring a host. I still expected a bit of fun. Unfortunately there was little fun to be had. The comedy that usually stitches the ceremony together was sidestepped, the show instead rolling from one award to the next with little in between. There were no clips for the acting categories, no brief glimpse of what these people had done to earn their nominations. There were two humanitarian awards handed out. The In Memoriam raced by at a speed that meant you had a choice between learning a memorialised persons name or their occupation, but no chance of reading both. The whole show felt designed to shine a spotlight on the speeches, with the time usually taken up by comedy routines and musical performances given over to the winners, to save them the indignity of being played off. The unintended consequence was that many speeches said little more than they would have done, but took much longer to do it. Never before have I so desperately wanted an orchestra on hand.
The biggest change to the running order created the night’s strangest moment. Best Picture vacated it’s traditional spot at the end of the broadcast, with it being handed out third from last, leaving Best Actress and Best Actor to close out the show. Frances McDormand rattled off the shortest speech of the night on receipt of her Best Actress statuette, having just spoken as one of the producers of Best Picture winner Nomadland. That just left Best Actor, and the anticipated awarding of Chadwick Boseman with a posthumous Oscar. A celebration of one last extraordinary performance by a man who delivered many in a sadly shortened career. Except the award was instead given to the absent Anthony Hopkins, to a wave of gasps (in my living room anyway).
The shock result was barely able to sink in before Questlove was saying goodnight and the credits began to roll over an ending fit to rival the Moonlight/La La Land debacle for the strangest in Oscars history.
Yes, there were some highlights. Daniel Kaluuya bringing up his parents sex life while his mum looked on in horror gave us one of the few real laughs of the night. Thomas Vinterberg speaking about the loss of his daughter was as moving a moment as I can remember in recent Oscars. And, of course, Glenn Close twerked to Da Butt. These moments injected a little energy into the evening, but in doing so highlighted how pedestrian the rest of the ceremony was.
The trouble is, if you strip everything but the awards away from an awards show, you don’t have much of a show. And if the Oscars is going to continue to be a TV event then it needs to be about more than just the awards. Bring back the musical performances, put some sort of timer on speeches, and for the love of God, hire a bloody host. Because if someone with my levels of cinematic stamina is considering switching off, then really, who else is left?
