Well, that was a surprise at the very end of the Oscars last Sunday, wasn't it? After processing the (pleasant, if such a word is appropriate) shock news that Spotlight won the 2015 Best Picture Oscar, only its second Oscar of the night (but the big prize nonetheless), it briefly occurred to me if her movies had won as few Oscars while still winning Best Picture. It turns out that a few films from very early in Oscars history managed to win Best Picture, but nothing else (e.g. The Broadway Melody [1929], and Mutiny on the Bounty [1935]). But that aside, one wonders perhaps if the choice of Spotlight represented a bit of a "guilt trip" by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, to choose a "socially relevant" film as compensation for the whole 'OscarsSoWhite' situation. Fortunately (again, perhaps not the most fortuitous choice of words), Spotlight happens to be a very fine film on its own merits. I didn't see all the Best Picture nominees, so I can't compare Spotlight with the others. Time will, of course, do its thing, and sift through the various films of a given year. (Just remember: for the 1941 Oscars, How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture. That was the same year that a certain film named Citizen Kane was released.)
Looking briefly at Spotlight, I went into the film as very much an "outsider', in that I'm not from Boston, nor am I Catholic, or religious in general. In other words, I didn't bring any of the sociological baggage of the sex-abuse scandal into my perspective on the movie, but simply looked at the movie with my very superficial knowledge of the scandal as a work of film art. What I saw was a quiet, well-crafted, almost "old-fashioned" film that focused on actors and the story, and avoided sensationalism, blatant special effects and the usual multiplex mega-volume distractions. I also got the general sense that the film was not merely an indictment of the Catholic Church in its cover-up of the systemic repeating cases of abuse, but also an implicit indictment of the clubbiness of the city of Boston, in that just about all the major institutions in the city didn't dare to go there. At the risk of semi-spoiler alert, the film is even wise enough not to spare the Boston Globe itself from that blanket sense of Massachusetts omerta. (Nor does it make the victims all plaster saints.) Eventually, of course, the Spotlight reporters at the Boston Globe did the right thing. The film itself may or may not accelerate further revelations around the world, but film does provide an easy lingua franca that can easily be used in conversation. It seems to have gotten a mini-boost at the box office, if the stats from The Numbers website are anything to go by.
One other surprise, or perhaps surprise / not-surprise / surprise again, was Mark Rylance winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Bridge of Spies. I remember reading that when Bridge of Spies first hit the movie houses, the critics were all full of praise for Rylance, and saying that he was the man to beat for Best Supporting Actor last year. But then Creed came along, with Sylvester Stallone reprising Rocky Balboa in his later years, and Sly got a lot of praise too. So the mindset shifted to thinking that Stallone might be the sentimental choice. But that's not what happened, of course, as Rylance won it after all. That achievement becomes all the more remarkable when you realize, that per Pete Hammond of the Hollywood Deadline website here:
"Rylance didn’t attend any campaign events on his behalf. In other words, no lunch was thrown for him to mingle with either East or West Coast voters. No tributes were arranged to get photo ops showing him holding an award, any award."
You'd think that this was crazy or snubby behavio(u)r on Rylance's part. But Hammond has a more charitable explanation, namely that Rylance wasn't trying to be snobby or sticking his finger at Hollywood, but simply because he didn't know any better:
"The fact is, Rylance isn’t a Hollywood guy. He is a dedicated stage actor, perhaps our finest, and he has been steadily working on the boards since the season began in September where he began an engagement in London starring in Farinelli And The King, for which he was just nominated for an Olivier Award this week. That ran through December. He then went to Boston in January to begin Nice Fish, which he is currently performing eight shows a week in Brooklyn. The fact that he is a working actor, an actor’s actor, ultimately might have played in his favor. He wouldn’t dream of missing a performance if he could help it - even during Hollywood’s high holy awards season."
Hammond closes by saying:
"In these days of Oscar being under siege from all corners, it is nice to see you can win just on the power of the work."
Maybe the same thing can be said of Spotlight winning Best Picture. With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week.....