New Oscar rules are an outrage, cries DONALD CLARKE
If you want to announce controversial changes to the qualification regulations for Wimbledon, then it would be wise to do so in December.
Similarly, the best time to announce radical alterations to the Oscar procedures is deep summer. If you can manage to do it 24 hours before the most famous man in the world dies then so much the better.
Sure enough, last week, at a point almost equidistant between this and next year’s ceremonies, the Academy of Motion Pictures announced that, from 2010, the number of nominations for best picture would go from five to 10.
"That smug jerk in The Irish Timesisn't going to bother writing a column about this stuff in July," they undoubtedly cackled. Think again, fatheads.
Now, quite a few wise readers – many of them committed film fans – will shrug their shoulders uninterestedly and point out that they have never taken the Oscars seriously and they don’t intend to start now. Yet numerous trivially minded, propeller-headed nincompoops (like me) have been faintly outraged by the news.
Why, it's as if Fifa announced that the next World Cup would be played on ice. Or if ITV declared that future contestants in The X-Factorwill have to perform while dodging small-arms fire (not a bad idea, actually).
Nobody has any illusions about what is going on here. Over the past few years, audience figures for the ceremony have been in serious decline, and the organisers clearly believe that the dearth of box-office smashes in the shortlist is to blame. The ultimate outrage came this year when The Reader, a middle-brow film that received indifferent reviews, was nominated ahead of The Dark Knight, an intelligent slice of populism that opened to genuine raves.
We can now be fairly certain that Star Trekwill make the grade next year. Michael Mann's Public Enemiesis also in with a shot. Heck, you might even see The Hangoverstumble into the runners' enclosure. All three films are better than flaccid Oscar-winners such as A Beautiful Mindor Out of Africa, so no meaningful decline in standards is guaranteed.
The change does, however, interfere with a long-established tradition. It is true that, during the first two decades of the Oscars, there were often more than five nominees. (Indeed, in 1935 there were a full 12.) But for the past 60 years, we have become content with a neat, digestible five nominees.
We don’t watch the Oscars because they honour the best films. We certainly don’t watch them because they offer the most tasteful dance routines. No. We watch them because they have always been there and because (for those of us under 70, at least) they have always been the way they’ve been. I don’t much care for Christmas or turkey, but I’m damned if I’m going to eat anything else on December 25th. I’ll wear the stupid paper hat too. Why? Because I’ve always worn the stupid hat.
Time to begin a Campaign for Real Oscars.
