The Oscars aren't so local anymore...Maybe?
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 6:00PM 
THE ZONE OF INTEREST is the first non-English-language film to win the Best Sound Oscar.
Many consider the Oscars to be the highest honor any filmmaker can achieve. However, as an American institution, they've favored Hollywood fare over world cinema. In other words, for all their aspirations, AMPAS is fairly provincial in taste and the composition of their voting body. Strides are made every year to change that, but it'll take a long time before the Academy Awards shake off the "local" allegations. That said, when the voters expand their horizons, one should celebrate it. This year, they certainly looked past Anglophone American-centric cinema, honoring five different non-English-language features…
To put things into perspective, I looked for the last time as many non-Anglophone films took awards on Oscar night. You have to go back to 2006, and even then, the 79th Academy Awards only passed muster thanks to the shorts categories. For a more polyglot feature selection, one has to return to the 70s and 60s, when world cinema was having a moment of uncommon power against mainstream American culture. Indeed, thanks to those decades, most of the Oscar categories already have some international flavor among their Pantheon of victors. Think of the Italian boom of the early 60s, for example.
Let's celebrate the achievements of non-English-language films at this year's Oscars! The Boy and the Heron is only the second non-English-language film to take Best Animated Feature after Miyazaki's Spirited Away. It's also only the second 2D animation to win a prize that normally values CG and stop-motion techniques above hand-drawn efforts. While 20 Days in Mariupol's Documentary win and Anatomy of a Fall's Original Screenplay are less unique, they're worthy of applause. Also, for the record, while Triet's film has plenty of English dialigue, NEON insists that the majority of the text is in French - not sure I believe them, but that's another matter altogether. With The Zone of Interest's Best Sound win and Godzilla Minus One's Visual Effects victory, only three categories remain, with no non-English-speaking film among its champions.
We still need some linguistic variety in the supporting acting categories and Adapted Screenplay.
Considering those categories' histories, one wonders what nominees could have possibly made history as their first non-English-speaking winners. Valentina Cortese in Best Supporting Actress is an obvious option considering how much that year's winner – Ingrid Bergman in Murder on the Orient Express – made clear she thought the Italian thespian should have taken the prize. However, I can't think of a single possibility for Best Supporting Actor. Regarding Adapted Screenplay, Drive My Car would have made a sublime winner, though All Quiet on the Western Front was probably closer last season. Going further back in Oscar history, we find even worthier nominees. Think about Rome, Open City, The Bicycle Thief, or Z, among others.
Are you excited that AMPAS is becoming more international, or would you prefer that the Oscars remain focused on Hollywood productions?
Reader Comments (6)
Supporting actor has had two foreign-language speaking winners, albeit not in "foreign language films" per se: Robert de Niro in the Godfather Part II and Benicio del Toro in Traffic. Both were featured in foreign-language dominated storylines outside the main English-speaking plot.
I have mixed feelings about this but what I find mostly pathetic is the fact that the audience are sooo Oscar depending to get close to cinema, no matter if is to discover USA or international films
The possitive part of the inclussion of international cinema is the fact that the audience gonna be more interested in films around the world. The negative part: that interest gonna be exclusively to nominated films as it happens actually
Honestly I would prefer that Oscar could it be local because that would help to put in the conversation more indie films from the US (and avoid the necessity of the US to conceive themselves as the center of the world)
And it would be terrific if that interest for Oscar could it be spread to local awards from different countries but, I don't see how the industry could help to catch the attention of viewers to do that
City of God could have been an interesting adapted screenplay winner, sadly it was the year of Return of the King megasweep…
Please ask me again in a couple of months. I'm still frustrated with everryone jumping into the Lily vs. Emma narrative when Fräulein Hüller was right there.
It was only last year that Best Supporting Actor winner Ke Huy Quan won for a performance where a lot of his dialogue was in Mandarin Chinese. It really is quite interesting, Quan portrayed three different Waymond Wangs from three different universes, and it's interesting the use of language differed for all three, as Alpha Waymond spoke exclusively English, Wong Kar-Wai Waymond spoke exclusively Chinese, while regular Waymond spoke a mixture of both.
Mostly excited. The cultural dominance of the USA in the English speaking world is such that any corrective to that I'll view as mostly a positive thing. Consequently, though, the trend of BAFTA drifting towards AMPAS is something I find disheartening. Take a look at BAFTA before they became a precursor (20th, not 21st Century). Their best picture nominees included American films, yes, but you'll also see underrated British and Irish films populating their lists.