Philip French on the Oscars
This year the Colin Welland Award for Chauvinistic Hubris goes to the Times for its headline 'Billy Elliot takes on Gladiator'. That is to say, our own little Oscar contender with nominations for best direction, original screenplay and supporting actress is a formidable challenge to a picture with 12 nominations including all the major categories except best actress and supporting actress. The Alice in Wonderland Prize for Condescending Solicitude goes to the nominated Julie Walters, who said of her non-nominated co-star Jamie Bell: 'It's a shame, but he's only 14 - he's got the whole of his life ahead of him. And if you win an Oscar at 14 what have you got to look forward to?' You no longer have to wait for Oscar night to get buried in sentimental showbiz garbage.
Britain is the only country that annually asserts its right to be a contender in what is in effect and intention a ceremony to celebrate the achievement of the American cinema as art and industry. No continental countries expect to figure in the nominations (other than the Best Foreign Film). Australia, which has a bigger movie industry than ours, will not be proclaiming 'The Aussies Are Coming' just because two Australians - Russell Crowe for Gladiator, Geoffrey Rush for Quills - are among the five nominated for Best Actor.
In fact what is most striking about the Oscars this year is how unparochial and international they are. At the very centre, with respectively 10 and 12 nominations each, are Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Ridley Scott's Gladiator, which deserve their acclaim for offering visual entertainment on a scale that only a large screen in a big cinema can accommodate. But just as important, one is directed by a Taiwanese filmmaker, working with a largely Asian cast and crew, though with an American co-screenwriter, while the other is directed by an Englishman, working in Europe with a largely British cast and British cinematographer. In fact, of the five cinematographers nominated only one - Caleb Deschanel for The Patriot - is American, and he was working on a film directed and produced by Germans.
Indeed, if the arts reporters were to scrutinise the nominations they would discover that British talents, if not British movies, are represented in virtually every category. Take Chocolat for instance, which has nominations for best film, actress, supporting actress, adapted screenplay, and original score. This is an American-financed Hollywood production - but it's set in France, based on a novel by Joanne Harris, who lives in Barnsley, and directed by a Swede, Lasse Hallström, working with a British crew. The film that should get the award for Best Documentary Feature, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, is an American production, but deals with the experience of Jewish refugee children taken into pre-war Britain, and is narrated by Judi Dench.
One thing that's pretty certain about the Oscars is that afterwards critics will say the awards went to the wrong people, or to the right people but for the wrong movie. I doubt if they'll say that about Julia Roberts (should she win for Erin Brockovich) but if Russell Crowe is honoured for his muscular Maximus, they'll be saying his whistle-blower in The Insider was superior.
There are occasions, I think, when the Academy voters are swayed by local and national sentiments, and two are likely to occur this year. I'd be astonished if Tinseltown can resist giving a statuette to a performer with a much-loved Hollywood parent - Goldie Hawn's daughter Kate Hudson as supporting actress in Almost Famous. And it wouldn't surprise me if the Oscar for Best Original Song goes to the nation's troubadour, Bob Dylan, for 'Things Have Changed' in Wonder Boys. Dylan should have won in 1973 for 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' from Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but he wasn't even nominated.