Do Oscar Predictions Hurt or Help Films?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 2:00AM 
Sasha Stone has begun her Oscar Roundtables again this year at Awards Daily. It's kind of like The Film Experience's annual Oscar Symposium only more regular, more crowded, and less a back-n-forth discussion than a collection of statements. I'm always happy to be invited.
One of the questions she asked was whether we thought it was insane to predict as early as we do and if that helped or hurt films to be assumed for nominations before anyone had even seen a frame of film. To which I responded:
Being seen as a Future Nominee ahead of time 100% helps you if the achievement is somewhere in the wide fuzzy area between “sure thing” and “for your consideration” because you can take on a sheen of “nominatable” or “worthy” that you might not have earned on your own. It’s really not that much different from the advantage of being a proven brand like a Streep or a Scorsese or whomever. You don’t have to earn a place on the board with your new work. You’re already a game piece. You just have to worry about winning. It’s taken as gospel that we as viewers are supposed to assume that some filmmakers and some actors are just brilliant every time and our only job is to decide “very brilliant” “somewhat brilliant” or “not one of their best but still brilliant”. I’m only half joking. This is a very real problem I think in honest discussions of merit.
I love Mark Harris's response
I’m not sure I’d chart it on the sanity/insanity spectrum. But it does seem a little like the equivalent of the comment-board guy who posts “First!” and then has nothing else to say. Obviously, it’s naïve to think that quality is the only thing that figures into an Oscar win. But it’s just as naïve to assume that quality matters so little that you can make a judgment without even seeing the movie. Isn’t half the fun of writing about the Oscars the chance to write about the movies themselves? Why deprive ourselves of that?
Anyway, other questions and answers are over there so read up.
I'd love to hear your take. Do you think it hurts or helps films to be predicted as Oscar threats? Does it affect your enjoyment at all when you're watching a film with months of buzz chatter already absorbed in your system?
Oscars (11), Punditry
Reader Comments (15)
If I hear a film is a front runner for Oscar Nominations I expect the film to validate those claims and when it doesn't, my opinion of it is definitely more skewed than it would normally be. In short, being predicted as a future Oscar nominee or winner effects my enjoyment of those types of films (the same thing goes for highly regarded older films).
As for it affecting the film in terms of the awards season, I say it definitely does and you have no better examples than Munich and Atonement. Both were considered to be early favorites for the top prize but when they weren't huge critical/commercial hits, they went from front runners to barely getting in.
it didn't help Sally Hawkins that year sadly enough. :(
Yes, I think it's a bit insane to predict things without having seen the movies (remember Nine!) but it's a kind of self-inflicted insanity, so I guess it's enjoyable at the same time.
I think being predicted as an Oscar contender definitely shapes the way yo see that film, you have instantly set some expectations, whether they're good or bad depends only on what you think about Oscars. For instance, would we all collectively have a different opinion about Crash had it not been an Oscar contender and just a middle of the year release?
And I think the timing, the moment you choose to see a movie is essential for your perception.. How many times do we try to catch up with a movie that had a lot of momentum/charm at a specific time and when we do, we don't get what all the fuzz was about?
Curiously enough, I don't think this Oscar contender status affects actors and actresses. An actor can be the frontrunner for the entire season and still win, see Bridges who won without being a spectacular performance, unlike Monique's and botth were frontrunners the entire season. And also, when everything is said and done, when we see a movie knowing that it won the Best Actress oscar or any other acting category, we tend to appreciate better the rewarded performance, even if we don't get it, we tend to think it's us not them :). I'm not so sure it happens with the movie as a whole in the case of BP winners. I think we still expect the Oscar movie, the epic, the drama, the highlighting soundtrack that tells us when to cry. And if it doesn't fit into that pattern, we think ok, this was a good movie, but not to win Oscars.
BTW, talking about predictions, I think it's the first time I'm right in predicting Spains's submission for the Foreign Language film category. It'll be Pa Negre, the first one to represent Spain that is in Catalá.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Pa/Negre/elegida/Academia/Cine/luchar/Oscar/elpepucul/20110928elpepucul_1/Tes
I don't know if it hurts movies but clearly it doesn't help them. This is not cinephilia anymore, it's pure gambling.
Totally. Sometimes I get tired of a movie months before I actually watch it.
Seemed to hurt Marilyn Hack in Home for Purim.
When you say "hurts or helps" Nat, do you mean within the awards bodies/industry, or at the box office/general public and/or critics?
For me personally (as a filmgoer), I think starting the conversation so early does create both a sense of fatigue and disappointment. There's that sense of excitement beforehand, and then oftentimes a huge letdown - however, that is true as well of any film one gets excited about beforehand. See: Baz's Australia, (or Nine as iggy mentioned); in that case, I think the assumption with Australia beforehand was that it was going to be an "epic" (and we had lots of love for MR) and therefore an awards player. Certain types of films do seem to draw that sort of traction. (I certainly thought Atonement would be one of them.) So I would agree with those commenters here who say that going into a film expecting it to be "Oscar material" and finding it lacking can perhaps create a greater sense of dissatisfaction with the film than if I went in knowing nothing at all. (But pre-release "buzz" of any sort has the same effect, I suppose.)
There is also a sense of disappointment for me when the conversation starts months ahead and the possibilities seem almost endless as to might-be nominees (I am always interested in the Best Actress and Supporting Actress catagories), and there seems for a time the chance for AMPAS to do something really different and interesting - then it slowly starts to boil down to the one or two nominees we are basically being told are going to win, as the critical groups nominate the same people over and over in their rush to be "Oscar precursors" (but that's a subject for a different day); so that by the time the Oscars have arrived I find I have generally lost all interest. We know who is going to win so with rare exceptions there's no fun, no excitement or suspense to be had anymore.
And then there's the moments of excitement when a favorite film, actor etc's name starts popping up, as for instance Jennifer Jason Leigh's did before Margot at the Wedding was released and her name was showing up on your list and others early as a possible contender - then the film was release and her name disappeared because people/critics didn't "love" the film as much as they thought they would. Which really had nothing to do with JJL's performance in and of itself, which was indeed layered and nuanced and might have been seen in an entirely different light had their not been pre-conceived expectations about the film beforehand.
I would compare the predicting process to a kind of marketing. Although it lends a certain expectation to a film's worth, it neither hurts nor helps. And I don't believe there is any threat involved. Academy members voting for films are likely to cast ballots that are influenced by their hearts, friends, and industry contacts -- not by prediction lists.
The game/frivolity of predicting Oscar nominees seems to have evolved from the pedestal on which we film buffs have put the Academy Awards. "They're important, so let's see if I can figure out who will be in contention before the actual nominees are announced." Period. With so many of us interested in the ultimate list of nominees, predicting has become an unstoppable train as we often blindly anoint films we haven't even seen.
As for inhibiting my enjoyment of a film that has been predicted as a nominee, it absolutely does not. I still end up with my own opinion and feelings about a film -- regardless of what the prognosticators have been saying or touting. A stinker is a stinker, and a film that moves me or stokes my imagination or intellect will do that regardless of what others may think or predict.
The one thing that often gets in the way is personal bias towards a particular director or actor who has been predicted. But it's only natural to root for those who have created or performed in memorable films of the past -- or to be suspect of those who have not.
And having read the entire discussion (in my mind it's not a "roundtable" unless everyone is sitting in the same room together having an actual conversation, btw), I found myself disagreeing (or agreeing to disagree) with some of the responses to question #2. The new rules may make it easier for groups of voters within the Academy to promote a beloved film, but that assumes there are such cliques or groups to begin with.
I found it interesting that when discussing "gender is not relevant" everyone mentioned Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker - which is certainly not a traditional "female" film, and women should be able to direct any sort of film they want, as should men. But that's the film that "made history" as someone said, and for the first time the Best Director Oscar was given to a woman - for the FIRST time in it's freakin' history. Demographics matter even when people think they don't (especially when they think they don't, a la "I'm a white liberal and I have no prejudices!" Nonsense.)
I also found it interesting that 11 out of 12 critics included in this conversation, discussing the unimportant of gender demographics, were men. Not to be churlish, but I can't help but notice the "demographics".
And I'm not sure I feel safe in presuming that the voters are mostly "liberal" - judging from the Crash/Brokeback debacle, I definitely would not presume that. (Or from the way Michael Moore was booed because of his anti-war comments when he won the Oscar - you hand the award to a very left-wing political filmmaker and then are suprised when he makes left-wing political comments onstage when he has the attention of millions of viewers?)
I imagine that our penchant for early and frequent Oscar predictions is not unrelated to our complaints that the Oscar season is too predictable. When we spend months considering 10-15 films as potential BP contenders, often dismissing other films as something "the Academy will never go for", it is not surprising when the eventual nominees come from that original group of 10-15.
I tend to think that a majority of the Academy is a lot less interested in the Oscars than many of us. And I can imagine that if you have an Academy member who doesn't spend all year thinking about the Oscars and who, so to speak, "gets behind," he or she would be most likely to check out the films that people online say are the main Oscar contenders. As a result, I'm left wondering if the Academy might be more adventurous if we allowed them to consider all types of films. Imagine if, instead of spending 10 months trying to divine the Academy's rankings of the year in film, we each focused on our own personal rankings, providing more perspective on what films are out there moving audiences. I bet we'd get a lot more Blue Valentines and less 127 Hourses among the final nominees...
I think the "talk" that starts for films and actors early on most definitely translates into something significant down the line, and maybe even Oscar glory. If you're thinking of these people as "brands" (Meryl!), then sure, a certain expectation is automatic, and then a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs as the season progresses, whether the quality is there or not. Most of the fatigue talk is on us though. We don't have to follow these things basically right after the current Oscar ceremony concludes. We don't have to read every blogger or predictor or whatever person is in the know about these things. If you don't watch anything, then you won't care about the buzz. If you only watch the Oscars and none of the dozens of precursors, then you'll always be surprised! And in turn, voters could use their own brains for a change and not rely on the Internet to do their legwork for them. Buzz certainly helps likely contenders, but it's entirely on us if we're fatigued by the end of the season.
I think the only problem with predicting oscars so early is that we only go for films with the prestige factor early on (ie famous/escapable actor, director, heavy subject matter, innovative technology a la avatar). This is why it's so difficult for comedies (like Bridesmaids, The Hangover, etc.) scifi pictures to get nominated nowadays because early predictions usually focus on the dramas or heavy, oscar bait films.
That being said, I find it fun to do these predictions. It's like we are trying to be fortune tellers without the benefits of a crystal ball (or actual mystical powers...)
And LOL at the line Nat used on the site about Batman.
Jackal, the term "self-fulfilling prophecy" came to my mind, too.
I should also add that from a viewer's perspective when it comes to knowledge about a film, less is more. I've been retroactively ranking my favorite films from 2001-2010 this week and I've noticed that some of the movies I feel the warmest towards are movies that I knew nothing about going into the theater-- from 2007, The Orphanage and Gone Baby Gone come to mind. Whether or not they're as good as No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood, they feel more personal to me because it felt like I found them and loved them independently of others.
I think predictions are all in good fun but you have to separate it in your mind from the actual quality of a movie. To me a good comparison would be Box Office. Some films are expected to have a strong Box Office showing and some a weak BO showing. And you can be interested in this, keep up with this, and play games based on this (at least there used to be a fun Box Office prediction game on a since deceased website long long ago). How a film does in regards to Box Office is all played into it's hype and marketing. But you can't let it influence how you feel about the quality of the movie.
No essentially read that back but replace "Box Office" with "Oscar."
More than anything, I think it hurts the movie, but not in the way the studios care. Buzz helps box office performances, because whether or not you don't like it, the thing is, You've seen it! Jackpot! Purpose fulfilled! But where it hurts is the perception viewers have of the movie.
2008 is the perfect example, when for 6 months, everybody talked about only ONE film: Slumdog Millionaire! For six months before its release, when I turned on my computer and checked my favorite movie related websites, all I could see was articles about Slumdog Millionaire, how it was the best movie ever, comparisons to Schindler's List, an instant classic! When I finally saw it, a very weird sensation ran through me. The movie had its strengths, a lot of energy, a solid if very predictable and contrived story, an exotic charm, but I absolutely HATED it! It didn't live up to the hype at all and I was pissed that I was gonna see it win so many Oscars three months later! But the movie wasn't that bad... I would give it a solid B, but at the time of the viewing, I wanted to give it a D.
But returning to the point, most of the time, it helps certain performances and movies that would never be considered otherwise. It's too soon to tell, but if you told me last year that a silent French movie starring Jean Dujardin (who is known in France for a lot of stupid comedies and one or two serious roles) would be in talk of a best Picture Oscar, I would have laughed right at your face! But People still talk about The Artist and that can still happen! That's buzz, baby!