Behind the Red Carpet

Are the Oscars the Reflection of the Modern World Crisis?

Those who say that Oscars are completely insensitive and cold-blooded are so awfully wrong - Oscars committee is very sensitive, especially to the terrorism issues and perhaps that was the reason why this year nominated "Babyl", which slightly ironically showed what can be taken for the terrorism and made a couple of jokes on the famous "happy ending" thing, didn't win the award, because there are rules to be followed. The rules according to which the potential winner must be far from any political criticism of the god-blessed country America, in case there is violence in the film there shouldn't be thedirty details of the fights and bruises must be harmonically placed on the face and perfect oiled body of the character, at least one of the protagonists must be sexy and attractive, there must be some villain absolutely deprived of any positive traits and there must be some dramatic and insoluble problem


By ANNA TKACH
from Kiev, UKRAINE


Before writing this article I hesitated whether I should devote the major attention to the clothes, celebrities appear in on the Red Carpet, than to the film festival itself. Indeed, the dresses the stars arrive in seem truly to be much more important than the movies themselves (but there is some tacit logics in it - ironically the attires are much more interesting than the films those celebs acted in). Their clothes is discussed, criticized and becomes the top gossip and topics of the numerous articles and reviews. Oscar awards seem rather to be a defile show than the movie awards ceremony.

Naturally, the simple question arises: why this festival/award handing praising doubtful and somewhat far-fetched ideals is much more popular than other international film festivals and awards being much more true to life and honest? I guess this question can easily be ranked with such questions as why the death of ONE ex-playboy model and a lap-dancer from the lethal combination of the slimming pills and some meds was actively disputed all around the globe while HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS starving people in Africa still fail to draw the attention of the world community to their desperate conditions; why the fabricated scandal around the Iran's nuclear works managed to acquire the status of a warning and not provocation; why the awful and merciless encroachment in Iraq is still considered to be "promotion and maintenance of democracy" and not a massacre and rude invasion of the country. Those all are rhetoric questions, which can be characterized by one trait - most of the people know the answer, but just somehow it is considered to be politically and whichever other means incorrect to answer them.

Defile Show instead of the Movie Awards Ceremony

What is especially wonderful about Oscars is that this ceremony is so much in its place in Los Angeles, with it's superficial glamour and pomposity, and being by far the most famous film festival/cinematographic award in the world it seems to be the perfect illustration to the saying that very often it is only the worst things that lie on the surface.

Of course there are many other film festivals which might have a bit more sophisticated view on the whole concept of cinematograph and have much more profound and insightful film screenings, but they might show and award such films as "9/11", as Cannes did, which obviously reveals many uncomfortable if not facts then at least inferences about the origin of the notorious conflict thus making the festival somewhat not that nice and smooth as Oscars are; there is the international Moscow festival, but again, too many films which don't have that sweet happy ending or, as it became fashionable recently, the snotty, heart- and at the same time logics breaking plotline like the oscar-awarded block-busters "Titanic", "Gladiator" and the company have, but instead show that people can be BOTH good and bad and that sometimes (well, obviously not in the god-blessed U.S.) can encompass many other colours except for black and white, and that sometimes life can be boring and slow and not always a breathtaking whirlwind of events; there are the Berlinale and Viennale festivals, but unfortunately they also screen and award contradictive movies in which it does not seem to be necessary for the leading actress in the movie to be impeccably sexy after the sleepless night, on her deathbed or having spent days in less then human conditions; there, of course, is the Sundance festival, but how a festival held in Utah can become so popular as the one held in Los-Angeles and, in addition to this horrible and irreparable geographic defect does not make the show out of the guests' and nominees' outfit (perhaps because the focus is more on the movies and the ideas which these movies transmit)?!; there are also absolutely non-mainstream and original festivals held in Venice (which, by the way, is one of the oldest film festivals), Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary, Paris, but these characteristics seem to be their major and fatal drawbacks, moreover these festivals seem to have this unnecessary habit to overload the viewers with new questions and offer them a different angle to view life from, they show ingenious metaphors which require not only background but also will to be digested.

The Rules

And, again, in all those festivals the jury MUST watch ALL the films before assessing them, which is not a requirement for the Oscars jury, which, of course does not prevent them from being objective.

But those who say that Oscars are completely insensitive and cold-blooded are so awfully wrong - Oscars committee is very sensitive, especially to the terrorism issues and perhaps that was the reason why this year nominated "Babyl", which slightly ironically showed what can be taken for the terrorism and made a couple of jokes on the famous "happy ending" thing, didn't win the award, because there are rules to be followed. The rules according to which the potential winner must be far from any political criticism of the god-blessed country America, in case there is violence in the film there shouldn't be the dirty details of the fights and bruises must be harmonically placed on the face and perfect oiled body of the character, at least one of the protagonists must be sexy and attractive, there must be some villain absolutely deprived of any positive traits and there must be some dramatic and insoluble problem (for example the guy feels that something is wrong with his family, but he still does nothing to check his anxiety, two people love each other but one leaves for no obvious reason. Why not check? Why leave? Come on, that's not so important, that's the drama after all).

It's quite clear that everyone has his/her real life and obviously real problems so the purely entertaining attitude to the movies has it's logical background but when this entertainment occupies 95% of the attention and concern thus replacing all the other aims and means this entertainment slowly turns into a besotting brainwashing.