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BEST PICTURE
by JOHN HARKNESS
A BEAUTIFUL MIND
In a sane world, A Beautiful Mind would have toppled ignominiously
into obscurity, but hey, we're talking Oscars.
Sanity has nothing to do with it. Credit to screenwriter Akiva
Goldsman and director Ron Howard - they've taken an extraordinarily
interesting and difficult character, the mathematician John Nash, and
turned his life into a Hollywood inspirational. Possiblities: A
Beautiful Mind sweep, picking up picture, director, screenplay, actor
and supporting actor, leaving the tech awards for The Lord Of The
Rings; A Lord Of The Rings sweep - picture, director, supporting
actor, most of the tech awards; everything all over the place, and
the most deserving pictures win in the right categories.... Naah,
forget that one, never happens.
GOSFORD PARK
One of the startling elements of In The Bedroom is the way that it
reminds us how few American films deal with class in any realistic
way. Gosford Park reminds us that English films often deal with
nothing else. Altman's infamous floating camera - no actor can ever
be sure whether he's on or off camera, due to the director's canny
use of the zoom - forces his casts to be "on" all the time, every
take. This accounts for the bustle of his mise-en-scène, particularly
in a country house movie like this one, with 30-odd characters
jostling one another for screen time.
Altman is past 70 and still tackling new genres - the energy and
inventiveness of Gosford Park shames most directors 40 years younger.
What will hurt it with the Academy membership is, ironically, the VHS
screener that was sent out, which handles the film's complex sound
mix very badly. Old Academy members + muddy soundtrack + a spectrum
of Brit accents = a bunch of old people in Palm Springs saying,
"What? What did she say?"
IN THE BEDROOM
Fundamentally, the argument against In The Bedroom's winning is that
it's been 13 years since a film won best picture without a
best-director nomination, and In The Bedroom doesn't have the kind of
sentimental, feel-good nostalgia that worked for Driving Miss Daisy.
A portrait of a marriage under unbearable stress following the death
of a child (a formula that scored two decades ago for Ordinary
People, which racked up similar praise for its acting and similar
nominations), In The Bedroom is basically too small to win best
picture in the current climate, though it may well win an acting
statuette or two and has a genuine shot at best adapted screenplay.
In its favour, it's a kind of movie the Academy has often honoured,
the realistic adult drama, which they do, I suspect, to assuage their
consciences over all the hard work they put into making Bubble Boy.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS:THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
Peter Jackson may have the same sort of rep as Baz Luhrmann -
Antipodean oddball visionary - but the thing that works in The Lord
Of The Rings' favour is that so many of its virtues are producers'
virtues - its monumental size, endless location shoots and financial
daring in committing $270 million to a nine-hour, three-part movie
that, if the first episode tanked, could scuttle a studio. It's a
visionary gamble that paid off. Whatever happens with The Two Towers
and The Return Of The King, the trilogy is in profit.
Historically, the film with the most nominations tends to win the
best-picture Oscar - a dozen or more nominations indicates
broad-based support in multiple branches of the Academy, and no film
with 13 nominations has ever lost best picture. However, operating
against Fellowship Of The Ring is the longstanding prejudice in the
Academy against the fantasy and science fiction genres.
MOULIN ROUGE!
Winner, Producer's Guild Award
Directed by Baz Luhrmann in a style suggesting that his Ritalin
prescription ran out very early in the production, Moulin Rouge!
assaults the audience with a frenzy of activity, hiding the fact that
he has a musical with a lot of dancing in it that stars principals
who are not dancers. Militating against Moulin Rouge's chances, it's
an incredibly divisive movie - people love it or hate it. And it's
very rare for a film to win best picture without a best-director
nomination. Luhrmann's omission from the list of directorial nominees
is particularly interesting because, like David Lynch's Mulholland
Dr., his film stands as an act of directorial will, the most directed
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