I Can't Deny the Fact That You Hate Me ... You Hate Me
[The subject heading is a reference to Sally Field's exclamation after winning her 87th best actress award for A Place in the Heart (1984) -- which is strange because I don't think she's even been in that many films, or that there's been that many Academy Awards ceremonies.]
Last night's Academy Awards just reaffirms the fact that Martin Scorsese will never win a best picture award or a best director award for one of his films. It just won't happen. Think about it: the Oscars have a history of giving awards to undeserving people for past awarding blunders--William Holden's award for Stalag 17 (1951) was an apology for not giving him the award for his performance in Sunset Blvd. (1950); Denzel Washington's award for that poor, over-the-top copy drama Training Day (2002) was an apology for giving the award to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992) the year he should have won for his magnificent performance in Malcolm X; another example might be Russell Crowe winning the award for Gladiator (2000) when it was really his performance in The Insider (1999) that he was being awarded for.
Now, Scorsese's best days are long behind him. Though Gangs of New York (2002) and The Aviator (2004) were excellent movies (The Paper Cat doth disagree with me on yonder opinion), there are about 7 other Scorsese films that could have or should have, in good conscience, been selected as best picture or best director: Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More (1974), the incomparable Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), the underrated, comedic variant of Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy (1982), After Hours (1985), and his greatest achievement in film, GoodFellas (1990). Today, Scorsese can't even get sympathy votes for his films, even though they were generally better than the competition. (I mean, the fact that Million Dollar Baby won completely mistifies me--The Aviator and Sideways were superior films.) And, to add insult to injury, a "boxing movie" (which is really a [spoiler alert!] euthenasia film with boxing in it) won the awards for best picture and best director (Million Dollar Baby and Clint Eastwood, respectively) while Raging Bull (also, a film about a man's self-destruction under the guise of a "boxing film") was snubbed back in 1981 by Robert Redford's great-but-not-great-enough-to-be-a-masterpiece Ordinary People. I mean, who, today, talks about Ordinary People? The only time that film comes up in conversation is when I feel like putting down the film American Beauty in my more cynical moments (which is good, but similar content matter is handled much more intelligently and subtly in Redford's movie). Moral: Scorsese will win a lifetime achievement award.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hitchcock and Kubrick never won best director (I think Hitchcock won best picture with Rebecca). In other words, I just blathered on about nothing for two lengthy paragraphs. I apologize. I'm sure The Paper Cat will rub this post in my face to show y'all out there how "un-elitist" I am--how my pseudo-intellectualism is really just a front for my shy, boyish populism. In the meantime, I'm getting very worked up about how the time machine I got for $8 at Lucy's Thrift in DuPont Circle has rewritten all my "love letter" songs into "stalker email" songs. WTF? This will be addressed in the next post.
posted by holly go-heavily @ 11:42 AM
2 Comments:
Yes, I too am utterly baffled by Mr. Eastwood winning Best Director over Mr. Scorsese. I think "Million Dollar Baby" is indeed a very good movie (albeit not the best movie of the year...but then again, neither was "The Aviator", but I digress). If you watch both films back-to-back, you'll quickly realize (unless you're a cinematic retard), which movie was the more difficult of the two to create (should one go forward with this, I highly recommend "The Aviator" first, seeing as how you'll be so bummed-out after "Million Dollar Baby" is over, you might consider self-sacrifice yourself). I believe any competent director could have made "Million Dollar Baby," whereas "The Aviator" could have only been made the way it was by Martin Scorsese. Don't get me wrong here, I highly respect Eastwoood, thinking he is a very good filmmaker, who has even achieved greatness once ("The Unforgiven" ranks #3 on my list of greatest westerns ever made), but he just did not deserve the Oscar for this good, but not great, film. It's sad but Scorsese will indeed more than likely join the ranks of Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock as one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived who never won an Academy Award for directing. WTF???
Martin Scorsese (to the Academy Award Judges): But, I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to fuckin' amuse you?
Academy Award Judges: ....
MS: How am I funny, like a clown? What is so funny about me? What the FUCK is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny.
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