Dear Academy, do not correct what is not broken



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Does anyone have any difficulties at the Academy of Arts and Film Science?

Throughout the year 2018, the organization – of which more than 6,000 members are expected to represent the best of the profession of producer – has committed a series of missteps, including the decision to Hiring, then disengaging, Kevin Hart to animate the broadcast of the Oscars and to limit the number of nominated songs played in the show. Perhaps the most misguided move of all was the suggestion to create a new category of "best popular film," a year in which it was clear that successes as well known at the box office as Black Panther and A star is born would be nominated without being placed in a curve.

Fortunately, this test balloon quickly jumped. But this week, the president of the academy, John Bailey, announced another victory: to reward the broadcast of the February 24 program at three o'clock, four prizes would be awarded during commercial breaks, speeches of the day. acceptance being retransmitted live and broadcast later in the show. According to Bailey, it is expected that between four and six different branches will be affected each year; the leaders of the Academy sections who "generously chose" for shakedown were short films, make-up, cinematography and editing.

"The display habits of the Oscars are changing rapidly in our current multimedia world," Bailey said in a letter to members on Monday, "and our show must also evolve to continue to promote motion picture films at home. A world audience. "

It is quite ironic that Bailey is one of the most experienced and experienced in Hollywood. respected cinematographs. But his badertion that the marginalization of his own profession would increase the "world audience" of the Oscars is directly contradicted by the remarkable fact that all the nominees this year have a deep interest for the world: Lukasz Zal, of the war cold from Poland. Alfonso Cuaron from Mexico is Mexican. The Favorite British production film directed by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, was photographed by Irishman Robbie Ryan. A star is born [Liberté] has its roots in the Philippines. Caleb Deschanel has been nominated for his excellent work on the German film Never Look Away .

The Academy inflicts serious damage to film literacy at a time when we are overwhelmed with images to decompress and interpret. While filmmakers and stars are usually the public faces of our favorite films, the film is a well-known collaborative medium. Even the most idiotic and selfish, the Oscars reminded viewers that hundreds of people spent thousands of hours of hard work demanding the construction of worlds in which we can dive with unfailing ease or marvel amazed . They helped to demystify a creative process often imagined as arising from the front of an author.

Even more offensive, two of the categories chosen for the cutting block – cinematography and editing – are undoubtedly the fundamental elements of film grammar. . These are literally what makes animated images move. As Guillermo del Toro aptly wrote in a critical tweet, "cinematography and editing are at the heart of our business.They are not inherited from a theatrical tradition nor from a literary tradition They are the cinema itself.

That an academy nominally devoting itself to the celebration of its technical and aesthetic excellence could thus blithely betray its most basic values ​​is only slightly more disturbing than the fact that it is about the guys supposed to be the best in the industry: visual storytellers with a successful developmental instinct. , narrative, emotional punch and, above all, optics. How could these showbiz veterans be so unbalanced when it comes to finding a satisfying show of three hours?

As is the case when one of their goals is a failure, the direction of the academy does not seem to understand their audience. While Oscar's ratings have been declining for years, we have seen increasingly desperate attempts to win back fans and recruit younger viewers, by testing different hosts (James Franco and Anne Hathaway, hi) and blocking television broadcast with stunts involving selfies. visit of clueless tourists and stars going to a multiplex auditorium nearby to throw sweets. But people have never watched the Oscars for pizzas and other distractions. They look for a number of reasons – fashion, celebrity, kitsch pop culture – but mostly because they love the movies.

This is a lesson that Hollywood has to learn over and over, from Black Panther . Successful films such as A Quiet Place (nominated for sound editing): If you serve your intelligence with ingenuity, ingenuity, novelty and respect for the values ​​that are dear to them, the resulting film will transcend the niche. and gain universal appeal.

Rather than immerse oneself in false populism, the academy should adopt the role it likes to boast as an exclusive group of sages and referees of technical prowess. Serve their fellow moviegoers through a live, sophisticated and meaningful show, and others will get in tune. The Oscars should at least double their efforts to honor inferior crafts, perhaps with excerpts from the nominees explaining in two or three lines how their colleagues contributed to their respective films and helped create the visual experience and emotional of the public. What we would lose in a brazen role-playing game, we catch up with an insiderism that is not alienating but uplifting, attracting the most casual spectators of the Oscars

That the academy continues to flee its ideals high claims once again reveal a tension – some might call it the hypocrisy – that has animated the organization since its founding in 1927, between its neat image carefully crafted as an august pantheon and its true mission as a vehicle marketing dedicated to "the success of film promotion," as Bailey so frankly put it in his letter. "This has been our main mission since our inception 91 years ago," he wrote, "and it's the same thing today."

In other words, our greatest publicity for ourselves must continue, preferably within the budget and on time. . If the academy is serious about the latter – and if it has any interest in preserving the notion that it is as invested in the brilliant as in the ballyhoo – it may perhaps ask a publisher .

(c) 2019, The Washington Post [19659002] (With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from a feed syndicated.)

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