The State of the Race: Making Room for Cannes

It is always disappointing to see great films hit Cannes only to lose momentum by the time they hit the nasty game known as the awards race. It’s always disappointing anyway to see how such an array of great films can get winnowed down to the lowest common denominator and what those “best” films ultimately mean at year’s end. What do they mean? They mean they’re “Oscar movies.” Your average person on an airplane, for instance, could click a whole category of Oscar movies and get essentially the same movie: male protagonist overcomes obstacles to achieve greatness.  That’s true if the greatness is ignored for decades (Argo) or if the greatness is ironic (Birdman). It isn’t so much the recognition of success as it is the overcoming of obstacles that tends to earn votes for upvote minded viewers.  The shortness of the season, the hopelessness of civilization overall – who knows.  Last year’s winner, Birdman, was the rare exception to the recent trend however and perhaps there’s something to cheer about there (even if Boyhood should have won).

Like 12 Years a Slave the year before, Birdman is a hard film to criticize. It was so good. It was so dark. It was so funny. Most reasons to resent its win are not necessarily to do with the quality of the film so much as the reasons it won – that annoying habit of industry rewarding films about itself, the endless self hug.  Beyond that, Birdman is a great film that deserved recognition.  So we enter this year’s Oscar race wondering what fresh hell will present itself when the Producers Guild announce. What wonderfully memorable, successful film will be rejected as Gone Girl was, what hideous ways the white male demographic will marginalize the efforts of women and minority groups.  We wait, we wonder, we scratch our heads.

Meanwhile here comes Cannes.  While we don’t yet know if there is a film like The Artist or No Country for Old Men in the woodpile we do know that one great expectation is Todd Haynes’ Carol, with what will surely be a breathtaking performance by Cate Blanchett (because why wouldn’t it be).  That is probably the film — other than those vying for Foreign Language — that will have Oscarwatchers paying close attention.

I’m not holding my breath but I secretly hope that genre films like Ex Machina and Fury Road might creep into the Oscar race, both for their sake and for mine. Aren’t you tired of the traditional Oscar movie by now? I know I am. I know every time I see those movies on an airplane I want to run in a different direction.  Can they try to stop voting for films the way they vote for politicians? Who makes us feel good about ourselves most?  Perhaps.

The things I’m looking most forward to is inhabiting a world that is far removed from the Oscar race, a world that would probably laugh at anyone who said “Oscar potential.” It’s never easy predicting what the Cannes juries will do or which films will stand out, but their prominence is almost bigger than the Oscar race by now – just think of how big Xavier Dolan and Mommy got, though snubbed by the Oscar voters.

It took a village of Jennifer Aniston hating critics to fight for Marion Cotillard in Two Days and One Night in spite of that film being mostly ignored in Cannes last year. Though well reviewed it wasn’t talked about and Cotillard did not win Best Actress.  Still, once the paltry slate of Best Actress contenders eventually materialized critics decided to rally behind Cotillard.  Thus, if you’re coming to Cannes with star power you might be recognized come Oscar time for doing great work, even if it isn’t the most buzzed at the fest.

Sight unseen, the contenders that look most promising ARE Best Actress contenders out of the gate. Besides Blanchett there’s Cotillard again for Macbeth, Charlize Theron for Fury Road, Salma Hayek in The Tale of Tales, perhaps Rachel Weisz for The Lobster.   On the Best Actor side of things there’s Joaquin Phoenix in An Irrational Man, Tim Roth in Chronic, and Matthew McConaughey in The Sea of Trees.

We start out each Oscar year with much hope. That it ends up in a massive consensus vote with thousands of people from all walks of life deciding what’s best always limits the choices.  My small hope is that this year will be a little bit better than last year. Just a little bit. It doesn’t properly start until Venice/Telluride but Cannes is still far enough out that the films themselves can be appreciated whether they have “Oscar potential” or not.

I hope you’ll take this ride with me. I fly out tomorrow.