For Your Consideration...

Should art be judged? We can ponder the woulda, coulda, shoulda but the key reality is that it will be. Or should that be has been, as the perennial awards season has just unfolded upon us, with last Sunday’s Oscars being both the king and kingmaker. But film is an emotive art form, a reflection of life. Its abstract virtues of light and sound mould human emotion. How can we pin a medal upon such a thing? Films are judged by individual viewers in their unique intrinsic way. No two snowflakes are the same: where one sees Titanic (winner of eleven Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards) as a perfectly beautiful crystalline orb, I see a pissy yellow stain melting through a white winter blanket. Vive la difference! But why this ethos of competition in the world of the arts? There are myriad answers all depending upon where you stick your pin in the cultural map. It can play pedestal to emerging artists or act as an industry circle jerk, pulling on each other’s egos. This is where creativity and commerce collide.

A filmmaker who sat firmly on the creative side of this confrontation lends his name to Edinburgh International Film Festival’s (EIFF) principal award, recently reinstated after an absence in last year’s programme. I spoke to EIFF’s new Artistic Director, Chris Fujiwara, on the importance and philosophy behind its Michael Powell Award. For Fujiwara the character of the man and his work feeds into the ethos of the competition. “It’s very important that the award was named after Michael Powell. He was a director who was... making films that he believed in and which expressed his personality and his own obsessions, his own view of life, of art. Michael Powell is the epitome of a personal filmmaker in a commercial environment and I think he’s a great model for filmmakers today.” Previous winners include Moon, Fish Tank and Control. Independent visions all, and voices who gained strength through EIFF. “It was an important step in the careers of a number of filmmakers who are now huge names in the British film industry. It came as an important time for them and it gave them that boost, little or big that made it possible for them to continue.” The intended function of the EIFF awards is that of a searchlight, making emerging British film visible to the world while tying that filmmaker to a certain tradition of integrity and innovation in cinema represented by the name Michael Powell.

Glasgow Short Film Festival (GSFF) holds an equally lustrous beacon above its own competition. Bill Douglas’s name adorns their awards and his spirit of honesty and innovation in filmmaking acts as aspiration. Festival Director Matt Lloyd argued the point that these awards are rare reward in a section of the industry with little or no financial incentive. This is in sharp contrast to the Oscars where goody bags of an estimated $85,000 are handed out to the world’s wealthiest entertainers (Christopher Moltisanti took the right approach to those). GYFF simply offers friendly competition while putting aspiring filmmakers and those who can take their careers forward within the same four walls.

Emerging film was less visible at last week’s Academy Awards. While the Michael Powell Award acts as a nourishing soup, the Oscars are like force feeding a fat kid cake. Only the plumpest, squawking chicks are heard as they mobilise full scale campaigns for success. Around 6000 Academy members' heads must be turned and champagne dizzy minds moulded and manipulated (Harvey Weinstein's a legend in this regard). Some take full page ads in the Hollywood press suggesting... commanding... pleading the Academy to ‘Consider...’ them, as did Melissa Leo just last year. Unseemly perhaps, but Leo surely considered the reality of being unfairly trumped by the younger Kate Winslet in 2009 before embarking on this self promotion. Hollywood, a selling industry, understands the sales pitch.

It is not only the nominees who are pushy; the institution itself has projected a distinct image of its awards to the world. The Academy has fostered a belief of their awards history as the canonical ledger of cinema. In the great American tradition of the Baseball ‘World’ Series, their individual prizes claim best actor, best film or director.  This triumph of solipsism works to the exclusion not only of world cinema but also a rich independent film market within America’s own borders. There is nothing wrong with celebrating your own achievements, the issue here is that Hollywood’s hegemony means that for many it is cinema rather than just a single industry within the vast global community of film. The Academy cannot lay claim to cultural ownership of the motion picture arts. Yet they do demand attention. Chris Fujiwara stated that awards stimulate creative dialogue. Lloyd also spoke of the level of discussion awards brought to GSFF. Debate over potential winners, the rights and wrongs of shortlists and even jury members adds a certain narrative to events. The actual ceremony may seem a finale, but it does not bring down the curtain on debate. The Oscars gather more column inches than any film festival but instead of bringing unknown pleasures to our screens they ordain mainstream cinema successes. Their award is a badge of quality proudly worn on posters and DVD sleeves.

But can they always get it right? Awards mirror their creators and judges. Has fear of sex led to Michael Fassbender’s Oscars shame this year? A reversal of this morality saw old gunslinger and jury head Clint Eastwood take credit for the blood soaked Pulp Fiction’s 1994 Palm D’Or. Political and moral bias of the time reflect upon decision making which will be carved in stone. Temporary belief dictates permanent record and this record has often been one of gross injustice. The American public needed a healing balm for racial tension in 2006 more than it cared for gay cowboys. Crash emerged the undeserved winner. Were Milk’s 2008 prizes acts of contrition, or am I merely a crazed conspiracy theorist? Next I’ll be saying that Raging Bull’s 1980 snub was punishment for Taxi Driver's menacing influence on prospective Reagan assassin, John Hinkley Jnr. Hollywood is marinated in political subtext. It oozes over the collective thought process. It would be an interesting experiment to revisit past awards in today’s environment. I’m sure the judgments would reflect more upon our times than the pieces of cinema made to compete.

I feel that awards should be an afterthought rather than a purpose. I imagine Meryl Streep was sold her role as Thatcher through its Oscar potential. Of course she eventually celebrated the triumph of her will in playing that Iron Lady, toasting the thrill of victory with stolen milk and baby tears I presume. I suppose I’m a naïve crusader. Tarkovsky did not need to worry about ticket sales, only the iron Soviet fist. His awards were not gongs or statuettes but the ability to remain making films, and those he created were works of genius. Now, I’m not suggesting oppression as a whip for our creatives. My point is that the filmmakers who stretch and advance the form are often those whose aspirations are less gold plated. 

The notion of judging objective works of art still seems alien to me but the process has value when performed in the more altruistic fashion of EIFF and GSFF. I shouldn’t paint too holy a picture as the competition element of both festivals gathers column inches for the events themselves while attracting performers and directors to attend. However the first words out of both directors' mouths related reassuringly to creating a voice for those with none (or at least weaker vocal cords than the mainstream). Fujiwara saw this importance as primary. “Through them the festival can fulfil its mission in supporting filmmakers who are doing good work. This is all the awards are about.” What we must remember is that there are machinations behind every decision, some innocent individual preferences, some more sinister moral and political bias. We the audience remain the ultimate arbiter. Now don’t get me started on those acceptance speeches...