Is the media making a Mountain out of a molehill? Or will the Best Picture chances of the year's Oscar front-runner indeed Crash and burn?
Ever since its bow at the Toronto Film Festival, Brokeback Mountain has been the clear favorite to win the top prize at the 78th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, airing live this Sunday, March 5, on ABC. It swept through the awards season, winning 12 Best Picture prizes (no other film won more than two), and when the Oscar nominations were announced, it led the field with eight citations.
Of course, as with any film that simultaneously bucks the trend and becomes too popular, the expected backlash set in. And during the nay-saying, a small whisper started circulating that Crash, last summer's sleeper hit about racial tensions in Los Angeles, could upset the cowboy yarn for the Best Picture Oscar. Led by film critic Roger Ebert, who seemingly spends every waking moment championing Crash (his favorite film of 2005) and who recently compared writer-director Paul Haggis to Charles Dickens(!), the whisper grew into a roar, and now it seems as if Crash might indeed pull off the upset.
Or is that just wishful thinking on the part of its supporters? The "buzz" -- that nebulous entity that's wrong as often as it's right -- claims that LA voters are reacting more strongly to an emotional (detractors would say manipulative) and contemporary story set in their own backyard than a tale that takes place in the high-altitude air of fly-over Wyoming. What's more, the "buzz" also states that Academy voters aren't as liberal as one might expect, and that many members, particularly the older ones, are reluctant to even watch a "gay cowboy" movie, let alone vote for one.
Of course, what the "buzz" isn't taking into account is that Crash isn't exactly a feel-good piffle about nothing; it's about volatile race relations, a subject that, In the Heat of the Night aside, isn't exactly an Academy favorite. After all, this is the group that in 1989 gave the Best Picture Oscar to Driving Miss Daisy, in which a black man is subservient to a white woman, while not even nominating Glory, about heroic blacks during the Civil War, or Do the Right Thing, the Spike Lee masterpiece whose racial complexity makes similar scenes in Crash seem like Sesame Street primers by comparison. This is also the same Academy that loves to lavish buckets of nominations and awards on epic biopics like Gandhi and The Last Emperor yet could only cough up a measly two nominations for Lee's Malcolm X, about as accomplished a biopic as Hollywood has ever produced.
Crash is fine but deeply flawed, and if it wins, history will quickly reveal it as one of the most undeserving films ever to snag the top prize, joining a growing list that already includes the likes of The Greatest Show On Earth, Oliver!, Titanic and Gladiator. Let's hope Academy members think long and hard before marking those ballots.
Here, then, are the contenders in the eight major categories.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Brokeback Mountain, Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana; Capote, Dan Futterman; The Constant Gardener, Jeffrey Price; A History of Violence, Josh Olson; Munich, Tony Kushner, Eric Roth.
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain. An easy call, even if the Capote script did win as many critics' awards as Brokeback. But the year's most celebrated movie will almost certainly be recognized for its writers, who took Annie Proulx's short story and fleshed it out into a richly textured film. McMurtry's status as a legendary author won't hurt, either.
Preference: The Constant Gardener. It's hard to bypass the Brokeback screenplay, but no other movie this past year engaged my senses as much as this adaptation of the John Le Carre novel. Price juggled a piercing love story, a taut thriller and a scathing political expose -- to marvelous effect.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Crash, Paul Haggis, Bobby Moresco; Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov; Match Point, Woody Allen; The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach; Syriana, Stephen Gaghan.
Prediction: Crash. Crash and The Squid and the Whale equally divided the critics' honors, but this marks Squid's only Oscar nomination, dropping it to long-shot status. That leaves a clear path for Crash, whose writer was nominated (and lost) last year for Million Dollar Baby. Haggis' sleeper hit has struck a chord, and this will be the most obvious place to gain recognition. Its only nominal competition comes from Good Night, and Good Luck, with its script by director Clooney and producer Heslov.
Preference: Good Night, and Good Luck. Beyond the fact that it deserves the Oscar for its meticulous recreation of historical events and its ability to mold distinct personalities during its brief running time, Good Night needs further exposure as a cautionary tale about the frightening consequences of unchecked right-wing demagoguery -- the film's as much about today as it's about 1954.
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