Phillip Lopate and Geoffrey O'Brien
The Oscars: New Year's Eve and Election Night Combined
By Phillip Lopate
Posted Monday, March 19, 2001, at 12:06 PM ETDear Geoffrey,
Oscar night approaches. Are you excited? A part of me is, just as I can't seem to shed the childish excitement of going to a movie after all these years. Movies continue to fill me up; I'm not disappointed in them because even the disappointing ones seem to leave me with enough visual/emotional residue of landscapes and cities or erotic longing for the beautiful people on-screen, and there are always at least a dozen or two actually quite novel, brilliant, and artistically satisfying films every year. I don't believe at all in that notion of "the death of cinema"; it's actually quite robust, except that now I have to trawl for my pleasures in a much wider arc, following the careers of Iranian and Chinese filmmakers whose difficult-to-pronounce names I might have previously found enough reason to dismiss them.
There is a widening gulf between so-called esoteric, marginal, festival cinema and the stuff that goes into mainstream distribution. For instance, just last week I saw two terrific films at a French series at Lincoln Center: Esther Kahn, by Arnaud Desplechin (it's actually in English, starring Summer Phoenix), and Chantal Akerman's adaptation of Proust's La Captive. I could say much more about what makes both these films exceptional, but it'll be a minor miracle if either finds a distributor or an audience. I'm beginning to feel like a dirty old man who frequents weird places for my movie kicks (museums, art houses like Film Forum, tapes and DVDs loaned like samizdat, hand to hand). On the other hand, I continue to check out the big releases that everyone is talking about that have $10-, $20-, $30-million budgets just for promotion and that end up being featured for the Academy Awards. ("Academy" is an interesting word in this context because there is something academic and very studied about big hits like Gladiator or Erin Brokovich; they seem like the fruit of graduate film studies programs.)
Oscar Night has become for me something like a cross between New Year's Eve and presidential Election Night: I start out ever hopeful, and then I usually get dragged down by my alienation from the popular vote. (I'm still trying to process the Gore-Bush election, where I sided with the popular vote and still lost.) There's often the depressing momentum of a landslide, the big picture unfairly scooping up the little awards as well as the major ones. And by the time the Best Editing award is announced (almost always it's linked to Best Picture), the suspense is all over. I fear that happening this year with Gladiator, my least favorite of the five finalists.
Usually I watch the Oscars at home, but there have been years past when I went to a friend's house and score sheets were handed out and prizes given to the one who came closest to picking the winners. It's always an odd, torn experience, trying to watch the screen while drinking and chatting with people around you. I just got an invite to a film-critic friend's house for this year's event, and he writes, somewhat defensively, "not to honor the Oscars, which I find terminally silly, but just as an excuse to get some good people together for some drinks and fun." I myself don't find the Oscars terminally silly; I'm afraid I still watch them like some German émigré sociologist, hoping for clues to the American temperament. That is, when I'm not trying to stare down the cleavage of some presenter. I have practically banged my head against the screen and given myself a black eye, getting so close to some of those gowns. Perhaps the television set of the future will be like an X-ray machine, giving us glimpses of the bodies underneath the clothes. But I digress. One time I invited this woman I was having an affair with to attend a speech I was giving, which happened to be on Oscar night. She swore she would come, then blew me off, of course, and when I went around to her house afterwards, full of reproach, she answered, "How could you expect me to skip Oscar Night? I always watch the Oscars!" At the time I thought her shallow and unloving, but now I see her point. Lovers come and go, but these rituals give us the through-lines of our lives.
I promise to tell you in a later message which are my personal favorites up for Oscars and which films I've liked the best this past year or so (most of which were not nominated for anything). But let this be a start for now.
As ever,
Phillip
The Oscars: New Year's Eve and Election Night Combined
By Phillip Lopate
Posted Monday, March 19, 2001, at 12:06 PM ETReader Comments From The Fray:
[Thursday Notes from the Fray Editor: So Phillip Lopate came into the Fray too, to answer the A.O.Scott post below, and Mr Scott answered him, and then David Edelstein thought it was all getting too friendly, and really we recommend you read the whole thread (starts here), no actually we are imploring you to read it, because it is one of the great Fray feuding threads, with posts titled "A.O. Wimps Out" and "By God Mr Edelstein" and a mention of effete drivel. There are special extra insults from star posters and others, plus this unmissable summary of the action from Fray favorite Joseph Britt ("What are these people arguing about? [Is it]... that anyway House of Mirth was supposed to be grim, a bummer and/or a downer but is nonetheless worthy for other reasons, so the Times' critics' criticism is wrong. Have I got it?"). Neill Hamilton--a trouble-maker if ever we saw one--tried to help Mr Britt out, below.]
While the posts appear to be trading blows about the movie The House of Mirth, it appears that they are arguing about certain hidden issues. A.O.Scott is arguing that the New York Times is not as fun as a frat party, and never will be if he can help it. Edelstein is arguing that he prefers Gillian Anderson in the X-Files, altho' he misses Mulder. Zeit for some reason wanted to talk about the only Art movie he has ever seen, and Lopate's point is only known to him. I hope this helps.
--Neill Hamilton
(To reply, click here.)
[Wednesday Notes from the Fray Editor: Some rumbling in the film critics' ranks here. Did the New York Times diss House of Mirth like frat boys? A.O.Scott says no, below. And Slate's movie critic David Edelstein is in The Fray arguing too. There are comments on individual films throughout. To take random examples, a defense of Manhattan, and the excellent question "Where was Wonder Boys?". (If there was a post agreeing that The Leopard is one of the best films ever made, we would feature it too.) Microcinemas are discussed here. And (we are filing under the heading "good to know if true") how posting on The Fray can protect you from Alzheimer's, here.]
Mr. Lopate writes:
House of Mirth got lambasted by the New York Times critics for being a downer, as if they were reviewing for their college frat paper.
What is his source for this ridiculous contention? There are three film critics at the Times: Elvis Mitchell, Stephen Holden, and me. To my knowledge (and his), Mitchell has never written about House of Mirth, and my only published remarks about the film came in a Slate "Movie Club," in which I said that while I admired Davies's visual technique, I found the movie emotionally inert. So perhaps Mr. Lopate is referring to Stephen Holden's review, which ran when House of Mirth was shown at the New York Film Festival. But while Holden did describe the movie's depiction of New York society as "grim" and "bleak," he did not fault (much less "lambaste" or "despise") House of Mirth for its somber mood. Rather, he thought Gillian Anderson was miscast as Lily Bart, and found most of the secondary characters one-dimensional.
The implication that "the Times critics" favor shallow, feel-good pictures will be laughable to anyone who bothers to read the paper, and will certainly come as news to the makers of Erin Brockovitch, Gladiator, Finding Forrester and Chocolat, all of which we treated pretty roughly. Perhaps the only articles in the Times Mr. Lopate reads are the ones he writes himself, or perhaps he fell asleep over the paper and dreamed up a team of shallow critics to serve as "Breakfast Table" straw men. In any case it's too bad that, in his desperate need to preserve a sense of intellectual superiority, he has so egregiously smeared and misrepresented the work of other critics. I guess I'd rather be middlebrow and literary than highbrow and illiterate.
--A.O.Scott
(To reply, click here.)
Timesaver: Oscar night in a nutshell.
Armey Archer, Joan Rivers and Spawn, scores of "stars", 30% ridiculously over-dressed, 30% under-dressed in designer slobbery, 30% appropriately dressed but ill-coiffed, indoctrination through a summary of historical significance, popular clips from this year's movies, witty, left-leaning banter from an officious host, audience shots of actors (22% of all shots include Jack Nicholson), more witty banter including rolling blackout jokes, irrelevant awards for tech-geeks, makeup people and unknown music industry wonks, more witty banter including Dubya jokes, slow tease with clips from best movie nominees, slightly more "important" awards, tacky musical and dance numbers, more witty banter probably including J-Lo dress references, more shots of Jack, building suspense, complete overuse of the words "vision, brilliance and genius," sappy "thank yous", lifetime achievement award to somebody who's more talented than all the nominees put together but just never had the right PR people, annoying, hand-wringing, impassioned political statements by "stars" with furrowed brows, salutes to the independents (who are the only people doing anything new, anymore), building suspense, more witty banter about events that occurred earlier in the night, best film award, a little more irrelevant bullshit and two weeks worth of water cooler talk
--Johnny Hotpants
(To reply, click here.)
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
SPONSORED CONTENT
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
Is It More Important for Your Turkey To Be Organic or Local?
Why Gift Cards Are a Terrible Gift
Is Sarah Palin's Approval Rating Really as High as Barack Obama's?
Justice Scalia's Most Eccentric Habits
Adam Lambert's Refreshing Non-Apology on the CBS Early Show
Democrats Have a Lot To Be Thankful For
Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Thursday Notes from the Fray Editor: So Phillip Lopate came into the Fray too, to answer the A.O.Scott post below, and Mr Scott answered him, and then David Edelstein thought it was all getting too friendly, and really we recommend you read the whole thread (starts here), no actually we are imploring you to read it, because it is one of the great Fray feuding threads, with posts titled "A.O. Wimps Out" and "By God Mr Edelstein" and a mention of effete drivel. There are special extra insults from star posters and others, plus this unmissable summary of the action from Fray favorite Joseph Britt ("What are these people arguing about? [Is it]... that anyway House of Mirth was supposed to be grim, a bummer and/or a downer but is nonetheless worthy for other reasons, so the Times' critics' criticism is wrong. Have I got it?"). Neill Hamilton--a trouble-maker if ever we saw one--tried to help Mr Britt out, below.]
While the posts appear to be trading blows about the movie The House of Mirth, it appears that they are arguing about certain hidden issues. A.O.Scott is arguing that the New York Times is not as fun as a frat party, and never will be if he can help it. Edelstein is arguing that he prefers Gillian Anderson in the X-Files, altho' he misses Mulder. Zeit for some reason wanted to talk about the only Art movie he has ever seen, and Lopate's point is only known to him. I hope this helps.
--Neill Hamilton
(To reply, click here.)
[Wednesday Notes from the Fray Editor: Some rumbling in the film critics' ranks here. Did the New York Times diss House of Mirth like frat boys? A.O.Scott says no, below. And Slate's movie critic David Edelstein is in The Fray arguing too. There are comments on individual films throughout. To take random examples, a defense of Manhattan, and the excellent question "Where was Wonder Boys?". (If there was a post agreeing that The Leopard is one of the best films ever made, we would feature it too.) Microcinemas are discussed here. And (we are filing under the heading "good to know if true") how posting on The Fray can protect you from Alzheimer's, here.]
Mr. Lopate writes:
What is his source for this ridiculous contention? There are three film critics at the Times: Elvis Mitchell, Stephen Holden, and me. To my knowledge (and his), Mitchell has never written about House of Mirth, and my only published remarks about the film came in a Slate "Movie Club," in which I said that while I admired Davies's visual technique, I found the movie emotionally inert. So perhaps Mr. Lopate is referring to Stephen Holden's review, which ran when House of Mirth was shown at the New York Film Festival. But while Holden did describe the movie's depiction of New York society as "grim" and "bleak," he did not fault (much less "lambaste" or "despise") House of Mirth for its somber mood. Rather, he thought Gillian Anderson was miscast as Lily Bart, and found most of the secondary characters one-dimensional.
The implication that "the Times critics" favor shallow, feel-good pictures will be laughable to anyone who bothers to read the paper, and will certainly come as news to the makers of Erin Brockovitch, Gladiator, Finding Forrester and Chocolat, all of which we treated pretty roughly. Perhaps the only articles in the Times Mr. Lopate reads are the ones he writes himself, or perhaps he fell asleep over the paper and dreamed up a team of shallow critics to serve as "Breakfast Table" straw men. In any case it's too bad that, in his desperate need to preserve a sense of intellectual superiority, he has so egregiously smeared and misrepresented the work of other critics. I guess I'd rather be middlebrow and literary than highbrow and illiterate.
--A.O.Scott
(To reply, click here.)
Timesaver: Oscar night in a nutshell.
Armey Archer, Joan Rivers and Spawn, scores of "stars", 30% ridiculously over-dressed, 30% under-dressed in designer slobbery, 30% appropriately dressed but ill-coiffed, indoctrination through a summary of historical significance, popular clips from this year's movies, witty, left-leaning banter from an officious host, audience shots of actors (22% of all shots include Jack Nicholson), more witty banter including rolling blackout jokes, irrelevant awards for tech-geeks, makeup people and unknown music industry wonks, more witty banter including Dubya jokes, slow tease with clips from best movie nominees, slightly more "important" awards, tacky musical and dance numbers, more witty banter probably including J-Lo dress references, more shots of Jack, building suspense, complete overuse of the words "vision, brilliance and genius," sappy "thank yous", lifetime achievement award to somebody who's more talented than all the nominees put together but just never had the right PR people, annoying, hand-wringing, impassioned political statements by "stars" with furrowed brows, salutes to the independents (who are the only people doing anything new, anymore), building suspense, more witty banter about events that occurred earlier in the night, best film award, a little more irrelevant bullshit and two weeks worth of water cooler talk
--Johnny Hotpants
(To reply, click here.)