Well,* for a few hours *they were paid to do one job, and one of them flubbed. During those hours, the guy should have focused on nothing but his particular task at hand.
If La La Land had won, this post could just as easily have said:
[QUOTE=Alternate Reality]
*Moonlight, La-La Land, Hacksaw Ridge, *etc. were “A” movies in terms of cinematography skill, etc… But there can only be one winner, and so if one movie celebrates Hollywood nostalgia with a flattering presentation of the entertainment industry that the Academy Award panelists/jury care about harder than the others, then it is likely to get that little extra boost to put it over the top, going from “A” to “A+” in the selection process.
[/QUOTE]
Right, but as **Velocity **said, during the ceremony they had one job.
[quote=“TonySinclair, post:257, topic:780905”]
This trend has been noticed.
[/QUOTE]Bwahahahaha! This is exactly what I was worried about.
Velocity writes:
> . . . the Academy Award panelists/jury . . .
This is an odd way to describe the people who vote on the Oscars. The people who vote for the Oscars are the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. That’s about 6,000 people. The people who vote for the set of nominees for the entire Academy to chose from are all those members of the Academy who are in the same field as the category they are choosing the nominees for. Everybody in the Academy nominates for Best Picture. There’s several categories (Foreign Language, Documentary, and Animated) where the nominees are chosen by a committee. You can argue about the overall composition of the Academy, but it’s not a small group, which sounds like what calling them a panel or jury seems to mean.
You and AK84 are simply wrong. Moonlight is an example of super high-quality creative filmmaking. La La and Hacksaw…are not. If the makers of Moonlight had applied their skills and passion to the storylines and themes of either of these other films, than it would have won.
(Occasionally, what you two posited HAS been a factor – Crash, for example – but even in that case, a complicating factor was how “Los Angeles” was a familiar and beloved theme for Oscar voters, as well as the “politically correct” themes you alluded to.)
Of course, to make such an argument, one has to ignore all the B Picture winners that did not have messages. Like LOTR: ROTK, Titanic, Million Dollar Baby, Gladiator, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Argo, and Birdman, just to name a few from the past 10+ years.
There is said to be an alternate route to Best Picture, which is to celebrate Hollywood itself, or the moviemaking process. That would knock out Argo, arguably Birdman, and one you didn’t mention: The Artist. And it would have accounted for La La Land had it won. But your other examples still make up quite a few recent exceptions.
Although La La Land was not my favorite nominee, I’ll dispute what you said here. I thought the song and dance scenes, especially, were highly creative and imaginative while at the same time evocative of the golden age of Hollywood musical cinema. It was not as good as Moonlight in other ways - I’d argue that the acting in Moonlight was superior, and the screenplay itself was more original, but I would certainly hold up La La Land as “super high-quality creative filmmaking” while agreeing overall that Moonlight was the superior picture.
Personally I thought Arrival, Moonlight and La La land were all superior films, well above the quality of the average Best Picture winner, while Hidden Figures was a well-made but ultimately conventional “message film”. Of these, I liked Arrival the best but Moonlight was definitely the underdog film, not least at the boxoffice, so I am glad it won.
I had Moonlight first and Arrival second of the six I saw. I didn’t see Manchester by the Sea, Lion, or Hacksaw Ridge.
Well before one can do that, one has to see if those films beat out a similarly skilled movie without a political message. I’m not saying that Velocity is correct, but he clearly framed it as a factor in a tie breaker like situation. So the appearance of winners which did not have a message doesn’t actually prove anything.
Hmmm…good point.
I heartily disagree with lumping “La La Land” in with “Hacksaw Ridge.” “La La Land” was legitimately very creative, and must more inventive and daring than Hacksaw Ridge.
I thought “Hacksaw Ridge” was just okay, and, frankly, I was surprised it was nominated. I cannot think of a single element of cinematic art, except visual effects, in which it was not way better than “Hacksaw Ridge.” HR was a perfectly acceptable, professionally made movie, but if there was a single thing about it that was particularly inspired, I don’t know what it was. It felt like someone trying to make Saving Private Ryan again and coming up way short.
The funny thing is that I just didn’t feel like “Moonlight” was a message movie.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***
Honestly, what about it says “this movie has a political agenda”? Is it that all the actors were black? Gosh, I sure as hell hope not; we can’t seriously be saying that having a cast that isn’t white is in itself a political statement, can we? That’s pretty much wearing a T-shirt saying “Being white is the normal thing” - especially in a film that is about black people, but is obviously not about being black. Unlike “Twelve Years A Slave,” the point of the movie is not black people being oppressed by white people. You could have shot the same basic story with actors of any race. Make 'em Brazilians in the bad part of Sao Paulo, or Maori in Auckland, or Mohawks living just outside Montreal, and you can make the same basic movie with some minor dialogue adjustments.
Is it that the protagonist is gay? Well maybe that’s a better case, because the story is in part about him dealing with the fact that he is gay. But not entirely. “Moonlight” is about more than “a man accepts that he’s gay.” The movie is about the need for a person to connect to other people; the film is about Chiron’s struggle to do that. His difficultly in finding a person to love romantically is part of that, but if you think through the movie’s events, it doesn’t actually deal with that all the time. His lack of connection is also demonstrated though his relationship with his mother and his unofficial surrogate mother figure, his latching onto Juan as a father figure and subsequent loss of that connection, the fact that he has almost no freinds at school and is bullied, his lack of trust in teachers, his machismo persona as an adult… I could go on. The movie runs for two hours and the fact he’s gay doesn’t occupy 30 minutes of that as a topic, if even that.
So is it a “message” movie just because the protagonaist is gay? Again, I sure as shit hope not. What is accomplished in that regard, anyway? He doesn’t overcome any barriers to being gay. He’s still gay and he hasn’t convinced the world to treat him better. What happens at the end of the movie is he connects and forgives. THAT is the point of the movie - the connection between human beings, and the fact that we all desperately need that. We need parents, friends, lovers. Connection to other people completes us and a lack of it is a terrible hole in our hearts. In Chiron you see a person who lacks connections, and when one is made, circumstances and bad luck tear it away, or it’s flawed horribly in some way. The movie brings us to a conclusion where there is hope that he may have connection, that those holes in his heart might be filled.
Note if you will the conclusion of the film; it is Kevin who holds Chiron and comforts him. Why is that? It’s because in the course of time Kevin has learned to make connections; he has a son, whom he loves dearly. He has the capability to bridge the gap between the two, because he has made connections. This mirrors, of course, the scene where Juan holds Chiron in the water - again, Juan is the one with the capability to make a connection, to bridge the gap between himself and Chiron, because he has those connections in his life. The image of Chiron being physically supported is a metaphor for all types of support, including emotional.
Trust me; “Moonlight” stands up to repeated viewings. Barry Jenkins doesn’t waste a moment; every frame, from the first to the last, is meticulously planned. His use of camera movement, focus, and mise-en-scene to reflect and emphasize characterization and emotional states is nothing short of magnificent. In terms of cinema as visual art it’s just heads and tails over the competition. This is a movie that should be used in classes on how to make movies. Whatever Barry Jenkins wants to make next, I’m gonna see it.
Is “Hell or High Water” a message picture?
Agreed, and with your whole explication of it. The movie is about an isolated boy and then man trying to connect. And for me, whether he was successful mattered to me in a way that I’m not used to finding in movies.
For sure, although I liked it fairly well. It’s got all the subtlety of a sledgehammer with its “banks are the root of all eevul” message.
Then I don’t think we have the same definition of a message picture.
How do you mean?
Fair enough! 