The Revenant is the Donald Trump of this years Oscars.Credit Image by Kimberley French / 20th Century FoxLast year was a terrible year for Hollywood, and the few good high-budget and high-publicity films were, for the most part, left on the sidelines of Oscar nominations, which is why, for the unveiling of awards this Sunday, I have very few dogs in the fray. The upside of this indifferent neutrality is objectivity: without enthusiasm for a particular candidate, its easier to look dispassionately at the nominees and make predictions accordingly.Early on, I figured that Spotlight was a shoo-in, until the tide of chatter (or a vague wind of enthusiasm) seemed to flow in the direction of The Big Short, if for no other reason than that people get tired of saying Spotlight and want to know the feeling of saying The Big Short. (I think that this is what hurts long-time or presumptive electoral front-runners as wellthe sheer craving for variety.) But now Id give the edge to The Revenant, the last of the three films to be released (it came out on Christmas), for several reasons that seem all the more relevant to the Presidential campaign.
The Revenant is the Donald Trump of the trioits vain, crude, and blustery, and therefore distinctly different in tone and affect from the other two films, which are familiarly mainstream Hollywood entertainments exactly as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are mainstream elected officials. (The Big Short is ever so slightly more idiosyncratic because of its brief, didactic celebrity interludes; for its come-from-behind pursuit of Spotlight, lets say that its the Rubio in the Oscar race.) The Big Short and Spotlight will, I think, in effect, split the social-naturalist vote and let The Revenant hold the Academys entire chew-and-yowl wing and come out with Best Picture.
The Oscars are especially strange this year, because theyre tainted, multiply, by their exclusionsof nonwhite actors and filmmakers, of movies about nonwhite characters, and, not coincidentally, of some really good movies, ones far better than the nominees. Almost every year, the awards are mere homonymsa decree of best picture thats unrelated to the years best picture, and so on down the list of winnersbut, this year, their reality gap is all the more conspicuous in, once again, its resemblance to the Presidential campaign. Where an elected President is the President of the entire country, of all the people, this years Oscar winners (even those which, like these three Best Picture contenders, are works of overtly liberal cinema) will come off as the equivalent of the Republican nomineea winner chosen both among and by a rather exclusive and ideologically self-defining group of mainly white people. Studios spend copiously to advance their films chances at the Academy Awards, but, this year, I suspect that some of the nominees think its an honor that they could do without.
This may be the most reasonable explanation for a dramatic turn of events in the Best Actress category. The award was Charlotte Ramplings to lose; all she had to do for several months was nothing, and it would be hers, for 45 Years. But,in January, on French radio, she called complaints about the absence of black nominees racist to whites, added that One can never know if this is really the case, but sometimes perhaps the black actors didnt deserve to make the final list. And that was that. The Oscar that was virtually already hers slipped from her hands. It will, I think, reappear in the grasp of Brie Larson, for Room. (Id prefer Cate Blanchett, in Carol, to either, for her gestural precision, sculpted diction, and fierce stillness in the title role of Todd Hayness film.) At the time, I wondered what in the world possessed the intelligent and worldly Rampling to say something so ignorantand imprudenton a live broadcast. Perhaps not wanting to win a tarnished award, she did the most effective thing that she could do to sabotage her own chances without actually committing a crime.
More on the 2016 Academy Awards.Of course, Leonardo DiCaprio will win Best Actor, for The Revenant; he ate the raw liver. That ought to become the new catchphrase for doing whatever it takes, going the extra mile, enduring all necessary rigorsa phrase that will supplant the one Ive long used at home, about eating the cockroach (heres the anecdote). What eating the liver has to do with acting remains to be seenits certainly not in evidence in the movie itself, despite DiCaprios formidable artistry. He works hard for the moneyand maybe thats the point. The overtone of acting is play and fun, not work. In most roles, actors could be imagined to be living it upfor all their talkative emoting, they may as well be wearing smoking jackets and using cigarette holders to enjoy the well-paid comforts of their quasi-idle, quasi-effete profession.Viewers pay good money to watch an actor take his bemused leisure; viewers typically work much harder for their money than actors do. The physical rigors of a performance such as DiCaprios in The Revenant reverse the terms for once. The demanding, even dangerous exertions of the role are immensely flattering to viewershe put himself through all that for the sake of my entertainment. But whats in it for the Oscar voter, the Academy member who is presumably above such flattery, and is rather on the side of the flatterer than of the flatterees? Just thisdespite DiCaprios talent (of which Im a great admirer), this performance doesnt depend on talent, but, rather, on sheer effort, on will power. Few actors, few directors, few set designers, few in any category have DiCaprios pure natural virtuosity. But anyone can eat the liver. A DiCaprio victory would prove very reassuring to those who vote for him; it would be a self-addressed message of hope.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/my-2016-oscar-predictions
