For Your Consideration

As the Writer’s Guild of America settled their strike with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers two weeks ago, millions around the country rejoiced at the prospect of new episodes of their favorite shows finally returning to television. But no one heaved a larger sigh of relief than Sid Ganis, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Had the strike continued, Ganis would have been charged with the awkward task of orchestrating an Academy Awards ceremony devoid of writers and of actors. Anyone who watched Jon Stewart struggle without his writers on “The Daily Show” knows the man does not have a knack for the extemporaneous.

But thanks to the reached settlement the Oscars we all know and love were carried off Sunday night; Stewart was spared from addressing an empty Kodak Theater off-the-cuff. Instead, the same crowds of stars descended upon the L.A. landmark for the hours-long affair that has of late become synonymous with cringe-worthy musical numbers and ludicrously unnecessary movie montages.

This year proved no exception. Pity the lovely Amy Adams, forced to awkwardly sing her way through “Happy Working Song” and to dance with a Ken Doll come alive during “So Close.” At least Kristen Chenoweth got carried off stage during her musical moment.

And then there were the montages–oh, and there were many. Thanks to the Academy’s desperate preparation for an unscripted ceremony, the audience was treated to a plethora of clips of awards past. I knew it was going to be a tedious affair when Jack Nicholson introduced a montage of every single Best Picture winner—wholly unnecessary and a reminder of how dumb some of those picks were. (“Around the World in 80 Days”? Really?)

At least some of the clips of acceptance speeches from decades ago provided a glimpse into what the Academy Awards were like in the bygone days, before Nicholson was given his perma-spot in the front row. It’s surprising to see the ceremony then as a quiet dinner, where Hollywood came together to privately celebrate the achievements of the previous year.

That’s because the Oscars we know are a beast of a different species. The whole point of the Academy Awards is to celebrate and commend the best of the best in filmmaking. We might take the ungodly glitz and glamour associated with the awards ceremony today as an indication that this function has largely been forgotten—or at least hidden beneath a superficial veneer.

Though I was rooting for the strike to be resolved in time for the show to go on, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the Academy would call a time-out on the more ostentatious aspects of Hollywood’s biggest celebration of itself.

When Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed—and later won the Oscar for—their tune “Falling Slowly” from “Once,” the show became for a moment genuinely entertaining—and from a musical number, no less! These hitherto unknown artists performed their song without pomp or circumstance and delivered the most earnest and hopeful acceptance speech at the ceremony.

But what made that moment so special was that it was so anti-Oscar. Indeed the rest of the ceremony left me entirely spent. I felt like Daniel Day-Lewis at the end of “There Will Be Blood”: completely exasperated, exhausted and left only to proclaim—spoiler alert!—“I’m finished.”

Maybe next year Ganis and crew can take a cue from Hansard and Irglova. Tone down the ceremony a couple of notches, and put those montages on hold. That’s a revelation we can all drink (milkshakes) to.





Jessica C. Coggins ’08, a Crimson arts editor, is an English and American literature and languages concentrator in Cabot House.