Over the next few days people will eagerly tell you American Beauty has the best picture Oscar in the bag. After all, it’s hard to think of a film that has ever come out to such a rapturous reception from critics and public alike. It’s the screamingly obvious choice. But if it wins it will be bucking the overwhelming trend of the last decade.
In the Nineties, only one film with a wholly contemporary setting won the best picture award. That was The Silence of the Lambs in 1992. But that film broke all the Academy Award conventions so thoroughly – going for terror rather than tears – that it remains the exception that proves the rule.
Otherwise the best picture contenders over the last 10 years represent a voyage through time that starts with Forrest Gump’s dash through recent United States history and goes all the way back to Braveheart, rewinding through World War II (The English Patient, Schindler’s List), the Edwardian era (Titanic), the West (Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves) and Elizabethan England (Shakespeare in Love).
Last year there wasn’t one nominee set in the present: Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Life Is Beautiful and Elizabeth.
It is possible there are people who really think all the best films of recent times have been period pieces of some kind – but probably only James Ivory and his closest friends. And there are cruel critics who point out that for many members of the self-selecting Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, World War II is a contemporary event and the sinking of the Titanic the recent past.
But you get closer to the truth by examining the institutional logic of the Academy. The Oscars function as a third way in cinema. Unlike the critics, the Academy is not keen on Martin Scorsese and doesn’t look kindly on subtitled films. Unlike the film-going public, the members aren’t drawn to big explosions, horror movies, Austin Powers or sexually frustrated teenagers.
Instead the Academy is the defender of a middlebrow notion of quality. There’s a reassurance about costume dramas, a feeling that they will never become dated. You can feel the sheer craft of the production – costumes, sets – in a way you can’t with a realistic contemporary film: one of the reasons The English Patient beat Secrets and Lies and Jerry Maguire.
History is a McDonald’s-free zone. In movies, more often than not, the past looks exquisite. This year, the picturesque past is represented by The Cider House Rules and The Green Mile, but without the panache of previous period Oscar-winners.
The Cider House Rules is set during World War II but has nothing much to do with the war. It is hardly a costume drama, and the fact that it deals with the issue of abortion makes it still very contemporary – too contemporary, perhaps – for the US today.
The Green Mile, based on the Stephen King story, is set in the Thirties, but it is so obviously a fantasy (miracles on death row) that it doesn’t really matter when it is set.
At any rate, neither of those movies is really strong enough to carry off the best picture Oscar. Neither is The Sixth Sense, despite its surprise success. It is a ghost story, after all – not a favoured genre for the Academy.
The first sign that the historical trend is being bucked is the lack of a nomination for The Talented Mr Ripley. On the face of it, it’s a natural for an Oscar: it basks in its gorgeous Italian locations, has a soundtrack full of jazz – and the luxury of Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett in supporting roles. Director Anthony Minghella has the pedigree of having already directed a best picture (The English Patient).
On the surface it looks perfect. But the feeling is that The Talented Mr Ripley is a little too nasty. Whereas The English Patient had the tear-jerking moments that the Academy loves, Ripley has murders that go unpunished, not to mention a creepy, sexually ambivalent (anti-) hero. And then there is the way the story relies heavily on a notion that Americans would rather not admit: that they, too, have a vicious, distorting class system.
But American Beauty and The Insider also have an eye on the drawbacks of the land of the free. American Beauty – accurately dubbed Fight Club for grown-ups – takes apart the everyday lies of the American dream, while The Insider explores its institutional corruption.
This year it looks like the Academy is going to have to pick a film that says something harsh about America … or choose The Sixth Sense. And even that film – in the scenes set in the dreary, faded flat that Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette live in – has a mood that harks back to the social realism of the era when Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and Ordinary People (1980) won best picture in successive years.
The Insider has all the drawbacks of a recent true story – too many credible witnesses springing up, claiming the real story was very different. So if we rule out The Cider House Rules and The Green Mile as not strong enough to take best picture, and The Sixth Sense as too much of a genre piece, however clever, that brings us back to American Beauty after all.
American Beauty is clever, bleak, funny and very much of the moment. All in all, the kind of film that never wins the best picture Oscar. So this time it just might.
The 72nd Academy Awards will be screened on M-Net on Monday March 27 at 7pm