Film Crit Hulk: The Oscars aren't about the Best but the Most

All the way back in 2011 Film Crit Hulk wrote a blogpost that I still think about a lot. In it, Hulk lays out how most people, when talking about film, focus on tangible details and in doing so often miss the real issue that's bothering them. We all watch films. We have seen loads of them. And if we see a film that on some level isn’t working the way it should, we can usually tell. But unless you are a professional working in the industry, or a film scholar, chances are that in analyzing the problem you focus on a tangible detail, something that clearly stands out, instead of the real problem which is often more technical. 

Examples of tangible details are: focusing on how an actor looks instead of how they perform, confusing beautiful imagery with good cinematography, or assuming that strong dialogue automatically means good screenwriting.

In the middle of the blogpost Hulk shares a theory about the Oscars, that beautifully summarizes his concept of tangible details. The Oscars are not given to the best in filmmaking but to the most instead. I often want to point people to this particular blogpost but, back in ’11 he was still writing his columns and blogposts in actual hulk-speak (all caps, poor grammar, sentences like: HONESTLY, HULK FEEL LIKE HULK JUST NOW STARTING GET COMFORTABLE WITH FILM CRITICISM) -which makes it almost unreadable for a lot of people.

So I’ve decapitalized and edited this section from Film Crit Hulk’s original blogpost and want to share it with you here. If you enjoy it and are up for a challenge, I do recommend reading the full piece, which is still available on the old Hulk Blog. 

There’s an old adage about the Oscars: you just switch the word “best” with “most.” After seeing the voting process up close, let me tell you, it’s absolutely true. Most Acting. It’s always the big, bombastic performances that win. Voters love tangible evidence, like an actor putting on weight or “going ugly.” Even extreme examples of method acting will do. Or perhaps Most Costume Design? Pick your period piece du jour! Most Screenwriting: pick the movie with the most memorable dialogue, ignoring character motivation and storytelling 101 stuff. Just look for the things average moviegoers know the writer did. Heck, even Most Picture works. Look how many flawless films have lost to the most epic one. The most obvious example is L.A. Confidential vs. Titanic. And Titanic at least had some kind of historical relevancy. There is a reason so many other Best Picture winners don’t go on to become historical greats.

But the best example of this “tangible details” theory is always the Academy Award for Best Editing. Every year it goes to Most Editing, usually a film with lots of rapid cuts or multiple storylines. It’s sad, really. The best editing is usually completely invisible. When you do notice it, that’s actually a problem, unless there’s supposed to be a literal thematic deduction made by a cut (think the bone/spaceship transition in 2001). So how the hell do you even judge editing? I think Tom Tykwer’s Heaven might be the best-edited movie ever, but most people have no idea what I’m even talking about. You may think Tykwer’s Run Lola Run is a much better example, but that’s just because it’s a movie where the editing/style is hyper-tangible. And meanwhile, those who have actually seen Heaven say things like: “It’s so slow and boring!” But please, if you ever watch it, pay attention to the editing. It knows exactly how long to hold a silence. Great stuff.

This editing analogy also applies to mainstream films. I mentioned Titanic earlier, and I think the editing is one of James Cameron’s secret weapons. And no, I’m not talking about the length of the movie, but rather the style within the scenes. I might give Cameron a lot of crap for other well-deserved reasons, but I actually think his individual scenes are edited wonderfully. He’s the anti Michael Bay in this arena. His cuts are very deliberate and well-paced. He never relies on two shots when one will do. His cinematography always has a great sense of geography, and his editing conforms to that. He never ruins geography by cutting close too often. But when people talk about what makes Cameron’s action scenes so good, most refer to the what that is happening, not the subtleties of the how. I would argue that what they’re subconsciously responding to is the really well-executed action mise-en-scène.