What is our equivalent of the Oscars? Every year, this question sits on my lips as I watch awards season unfurl across the US, a big red carpet snaking all the way to the Oscar podium. This week, at the 21st annual Gotham Independent Awards, “Beginners” and “The Tree of Life” tied for Best Feature. (They could call it “Best Picture,” like everyone else, but then what makes this award for the year's best picture any different from all those other awards for the year's best picture?) The rest of the recognitions come bearing equally distinctive names. Felicity Jones won “Breakthrough Actor” for “Like Crazy.” Dee Rees was recognised as “Breakthrough Director” for “Pariah.” The award for “Best Ensemble Performance” went to “Beginners.” “Girlfriend” got the “Audience Award.” “Better This World” walked away with the chillingly normal-sounding “Best Documentary.” And – in the tradition of saving the best for last – “Scenes of a Crime” was honoured for “Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You.” They could institute an award for these awards themselves: “Best Awards Not Going To Be Announced At An Oscar Telecast Near You.”
Elsewhere, the Spirit Awards, which honour films made outside the Hollywood studio system, announced their nominations. “The Artist” and “Take Shelter” led the pack, followed by “Beginners,” “The Descendants,” “Drive,” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” Finally, The New York Film Critics Circle declared its winners. “The Artist” – the unlikeliest breakout film in these sensation-addicted climes, a black-and-white silent movie about black-and-white silent movies – won “Best Picture” and “Best Director.” Brad Pitt, who, in the tradition of Paul Newman, has segued from a merely handsome star to a serious actor capable of pulling crowds into almost any kind of movie, was recognised as “Best Actor” for his work in “Moneyball” and “The Tree of Life.” And Meryl Streep, who wins acting awards by never letting us forget she's acting, won for her Margaret Thatcher impersonation in “The Iron Lady.” This time, it's a British accent – her 237th, at last count.
These aren't simply listings of year-end achievements. The other critics' awards (LA, Chicago, The National Board of Review) will soon be announced, and these whispers of recognition will accumulate into the great roar of the Oscars, the grandest award of them all. Are these lesser-known awards, then, important only because they influence Oscar voters? No. They are significant because they direct the attention of the movie-going public towards non-escapist cinema. Left to its own devices, a starless drama like “Martha Marcy May Marlene” may not find too many takers, but once the nominated-for tag sticks, it becomes a curiosity. “Everyone's talking about this film. Let's see what it's like.” The lead-up to the Oscars, therefore, is important not because it predicts who will win on the big day – and let's face it; how many Oscar winners from last year do you instantly recall? – but because it sparks a small fire of excitement that illuminates films without caped crusaders and 3-D imagery.
The pre-Oscar season sees a vital surge of films that aspire to greatness (even if they end up not-so-great), and the success of these films at the marketplace is driven, to a large extent, by these pre-Oscar awards. The awards, themselves, are meaningless, the consecration of apples over oranges and pears. But the strategy of releasing non-summery films late in the year, making a tradition of it so that viewers anticipate these kinds of movies in December, bestows on small and difficult films the opportunity to find an audience. Can we do something similar? Of course, we do not make as many non-summery movies, but if we respected our awards more, can we benefit from this model, where the small films, the difficult films, are released just before the Big Awards Ceremony, and spurred by critical recognition we are driven to seek them out? But that big awards ceremony, that singularly significant recognition of talent – do we have it? Hence my opening question: What is our equivalent of the Oscars?
