Some new Oscars in search of artistic quality | Oscar Awards | Cinema

Two years is a short time, but three can begin to form a symptom, and even create a trend. Since the Hollywood Academy cast networks abroad to add members to its institution, three seasons ago, two things have happened that can be concatenated. First, the Academy became much more global, because of the more than 9,000 members with voting rights in the Oscars, nearly a quarter, more than 2,000, reside outside the United States, when before it was a much smaller number. . And second, and much more important, that the winners of the best film award in these last two years were formidable, irreproachable, adult, complex and daring.

parasites, by Bong Joon-ho, a South Korean production that fused social drama, black comedy, criminal intrigue and thriller of moral horror, seemingly irreconcilable genres. AND Nomadland, by Chloé Zhao, a bleak portrait of contemporary economic and social calamities, with relevant documentary nuances, with just one professional actress and full of street people playing themselves.

Last year there was talk of Minari, the typical beautiful, conventional, light and hopeful film that pleases everyone, as a possible last-minute winner. The previous one, that role of a beautiful although somewhat superficial candidate, was played by 1917. Neither of them won; The most artistically stimulating did so, when before the globalization of academia, in 2019, Green Book, With those same hallmarks, it had won the main statuette compared to more important works in the history of cinema.

This year, until a few months ago, it seemed that he was going to play that role belfast, but the annoying surprise of recent weeks, especially after her victory in the Producers’ Union, is that the one to win that award is CODA, a title with three nominations, among which is not the one for best direction. A pleasant, friendly, small, almost trivial story, and a remake almost copied from a recent French production, with an unusual addition: it could be the typical mass film that may not be passionate, but that does not generate a great rejection, if it were not for the fact that almost no one has seen it.

So the ideal—for the Oscars, for cinema, for art, for prestige and to confirm that initial symptom—would be for him to win. The power of the dog, a capital work, subtle, exciting, profound and of enormous artistic expressiveness. If so, the concatenation of Parasites, Nomadland and Jane Campion’s film would be on the path of taking us back to that mythical period between 1967 and 1979, surely the best in the history of American cinema, and of cinema for that matter, with triumphs of works as seasoned as midnight cowboy, The godfather and The Godfather II, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Annie Hall and abundant presence of memorable works among the candidates.

mask actors

With the acting awards we are in a situation similar to that of the pleasant film, complex film dichotomy: the choice between the mask role, with striking makeup and physical and vocal composition, presumably spectacular, and the character who, on the other hand, must offer a great variety of registers from a certain naturalism to reaching the depth. The favorites, of course, are Will Smith, for the insubstantial and forgettable The Williams method and Jessica Chastain, for the awful Tammy Faye’s eyes. Two mask papers. Now, how encouraging it would be if we did not give in to that widespread fallacy and Benedict Cumberbatch, for The power of the dog, and Olivia Colman or Penélope Cruz, for The dark daughter and parallel mothers, respectively, will take the award.

In a year with a historic Spanish presence in the major awards —Javier Bardem and Alberto Iglesias, in addition to Cruz—, the great revelation is, however, that of Alberto Mielgo, until recently unknown to almost everyone, candidate for best short film animation by the wonderful The Windshelter Wiper. Another commitment to art, risk and the escape from what is comfortable. The one that could guide a new Academy with fewer compromises, that of these last two years, and not that of the triumphs of A Beautiful Mind, Crash, Slumdog Millionaire and some more disasters.