Intrigue Missing at the Oscars

The Oscars are gradually losing their most attractive feature — intrigue. Even stranger, London bookies still place bets every year on who will get the Hollywood statuettes.

What is there to guess? Anyone watching the Oscar ceremony this year saw nothing unexpected, or almost nothing.

Last year, down to the final, most prestigious awards for Best Director and Best Picture, the ceremony had, if not intrigue, at least some semblance of it.

Most of the public did not want to believe that a humble artistic film about war, “The Hurt Locker,” was capable of beating the almighty “Avatar.” They could not believe their eyes when it did, in fact, win.

But there was nothing particularly sensational about the victory. It had been foretold throughout the course of the Oscar race. This year, even the semblance of intrigue was done away with a month before the ceremony when it became clear that the main Oscar would go to “The King’s Speech.”

The problem is not that the film was heads above the others. High or low, each decides for him or herself. By this, we mean the number of Academy members. This year, 5,755 voted.

The problem is that the Oscars have too many early indicators. First, from December to January a dozen American Critics Associations award prizes, the best known of these being the Golden Globes, which in the media world are often mistakenly called the “Rehearsal for the Oscars.”

Then, in the second half of January the Hollywood professional guilds and BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts hand out their awards. In short, it is a complete tip off.

In this year’s race, “The Social Network,” a film about a fresh, young, Internet billionaire, took the early lead. It earned a majority of the critics’ prizes, including the most important Golden Globes.

As for the guild prizes, none of which are more important than the Globes, the three main guilds, representing actors, directors and producers, placed the film “The King’s Speech” on a pedestal.

The critics, by the way, only recognized the work of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, who played the roles of George VI and his speech therapist.

In order to weigh the power of the guilds, we mention three facts: 1) Almost a quarter of the Hollywood Academy is made up of actors. 2) In the entire history of the Directors Guild, which began in 1949, there were only three cases in which their winner did not receive an Oscar for Best Director. 3) In 70 percent of cases, the favorite of the Producers Guild becomes the winner of an Oscar for Best Picture of the Year. If these three guilds vote as one, the fate of the Oscar showdown is determined beforehand.

Did it not seem strange to those watching the evening’s ceremony that at the end of the presentation of the dozen contenders for Best Picture and the showing of clips from them, in the background was the soundtrack of Colin Firth’s speech as George VI?

No one could know the result of the voting. The sealed envelopes with the names of the winners are guarded like a state secret, but the Master of Ceremonies clearly hinted that the most important film was “Speech.”

What if it had not won? How would the situation have turned out for the sponsor of the ceremony? But it could not have lost. In any case, the Oscars have been sliding down a slippery slope these past few years. Since almost everything is predetermined, there is no real excitement.

The actor’s prizes also matched up and were taken by the anticipated candidates, including, again, the memorable Colin Firth and Natalie Portman, who fearlessly went all out in “Black Swan.”

For some, there was an unexpected award for Best Supporting Actor. How could they award an Oscar to Christian Bale for his role in “The Fighter” when we have the fabulous Geoffery Rush? And how could we choose Melissa Leo, also from “The Fighter,” over the wonderful Helen Bonham Carter, the lovely wife of George VI in “The King’s Speech?”

But here, it is completely natural. That is to say, it was these actors and not Geoffrey or Helen, because they were the prize winners for the Guild Awards.

It is hard to believe, but there was one award that did not go “according to plan,” and that was the prize for Best Original Screenplay. Although the Writers Guild had chosen “Inception,” the screenwriter for “The King’s Speech” was overjoyed to receive the prize.

Amazingly, this year it was possible to not only easily identify the winners, but the biggest losers as well. As we should have expected, it was the Coen Brothers’ film “True Grit.”

The film had 10 nominations, two less than “The King’s Speech.” But it did not win any of the interim prizes in January. In addition, the Coen brothers have four Oscars, and their starring actor, Jeff Bridges, won an Oscar last year.

They have enough for now. In total, “True Grit” won absolutely nothing, tying for the worst Oscar record of the 2000s with the Martin Scorsese film “Gangs of New York,” which also had 10 nominations and won nothing.

The ceremony had only one puzzle; who would win the prize for Best Foreign Film? That is always the riddle of the Oscars. Simply put, the Hollywood nomination does not care, and so the outcome of the voting is always unknown.

But it was the Danish film and not the Mexican, Greek, Canadian, or Franco-Algerian that won. Why? Luck. It was a toss of the dice.

As long as the Academy members and most of the world’s viewers do not worry very much about this nomination, the one, true intrigue of the ceremony is something completely different. How many dresses did the host of the show, Ann Hathaway, wear?

This author may have miscounted, but it seemed no less than 10, the number of nominations “True Grit” received.