Thomas Edison once wrote ‘genius is 99% perspiration and 1 % inspiration’ which may not be technically mathematically accurate but we all get the point. You can’t just be talented, you’ve also got to put the effort in, something that’s lost on most of the England football team. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does believe in Edison’s theory and they’ve often showed it with their choice of Oscar winner. Yes, there’s been the young whippersnappers like Anna Paquin and Tatum O’Neal but there’s also been the nod to the established star, who’s toiled, made many movies, done their time and deserves a statuette, sometimes more for their career than the film they’re actually nominated in.
As Sandra Bullock said collecting her statuette for The Blind Side: “Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?”. A fair question considering Bullock’s acting in the Blind Side was superb, but for many her acceptance speech had a twinge of truth, she was a popular, established star, who’d ‘earned’ her award.
There are exceptions to the rule of course, Richard Burton was nominated six times yet never won an award, surely he’d earned one along the way, while tonight will see Julianne Moore sit applauding the winner with a forced smile for the fifth time should she fail to win- personally I think she actually will. Why? Because she’s earned it.
Judi Dench won a best supporting nod for a glorified cameo in Shakespeare in Love, which many felt was compensation for missing out on the best actress award for Mrs Brown the year before- Helen Hunt won for As Good As It Gets- a choice of whimsy over substance if you want my view.
Even Dench had to admit on collecting her Oscar: “I feel for eight minutes on the screen I should only get a little bit of him.” Perhaps the award was for more than the eight minutes…
In 1986 when Paul Newman famously won for The Color of Money, even he had to admit it was more of a lifetime achievement nod, than for his work in that particular film.
This year the Academy has been given an advantage in the acting category as almost every single nominee is an established star who’s more than earned their time in the Oscar limelight- ironically only Eddie Redmayne is something of a young pretender yet probably the most deserving of a win.
It’s not just actors or actresses who can receive Oscars based on their careers rather than their nominated film, take Martin Scorsese, who directed Newman in the Color of Money, for example. No director deserved an Academy Award more than the man who’d brought us Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas to name just a few of his masterpieces- the latter two actually being robbed of the Best Picture award.
As Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas took to the stage, it couldn’t have been more obvious Scorsese was finally going to win Best Director if he’d been the only nominee. The irony was that not only was The Departed, probably Scorsese’s sixth best film, or thirteenth worst- it arguably wasn’t actually the best movie that year and therefore hardly the best directed. Despite having a British bias, I’d say Stephen Frears was robbed for The Queen, while even Paul Greengrass probably shaded his American counterpart with the overlooked United 93.
Scorsese had earned his Oscar and now was the time to give it him, after all imagine if he never actually won one when the likes of Bob Fosse and Kevin Costner had….
Of course those who miss out can always wait for a lifetime achievement award, but as Peter O’Toole declared when he was offered it –following eight unsuccessful nominations, it’d be better to ‘win the lovely bugger outright.’
Tonight’s ceremony will see Hollywood laud over whoever wins but don’t be surprised if it’s the 63 year-old Michael Keaton and the 54 year-old Moore who end up scooping the main acting awards, after all, they’ve earned them.
As Edison said sometimes an Oscar win is 99 good performances and one that comes at the right time, or words to that effect….
