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Strive
for excellence despite risks Ahh, the Oscars… Amidst all the pomp and circumstance, J. Lo’s horrific hairdo and Joan Rivers’ attempt to make it all about her failing career, it’s really quite easy to forget the reason everyone’s there in the first place is to honor the art of making film. Apparently the Academy forgot that too. The only thing more conservative than the dress at Sunday’s Academy Awards was the limp and unimaginative choice for best picture. But before we get into the perpetuation of the status quo, it’s worth mentioning that the Academy Awards got a few things right. Halle Berry and Denzel Washington both wholly deserved their acknowledgments, not because of the statement it made about the Academy’s (and to a larger extent society’s) final acceptance of mainstream African-American leads, but because there were no two better individual performances this year. And how about Sidney Poitier? There’s a man with more class than the entire room. But when it came to best picture I don’t remember being that disappointed since the Senate watered down finance reform and I found out Rena Sofer was no longer going be appearing on TV’s “Ed.” “A Beautiful Mind” certainly isn’t a bad film (if you’re willing to absolve it of the fact that it neither portrayed schizophrenia nor John Nash’s life within driving distance of reality) but it had to be the least imaginative and the least interesting of all the pictures nominated. It was the “vanilla” of the category. One can’t help but feel that it succeeded not on its own merits but on the fact that is was the least extreme, the least definite and therefore, the least disagreeable. I’m not trying to forward an idea that great art has to be extreme or offensive, but when the category included films that push accepted boundaries, it’s disheartening to see them settle on the lowest common denominator. “Lord of the Rings” and “Moulin Rouge” were examples of epic, visionary filmmaking that broke free of the intrinsic preconceptions of their genres. “In the Bedroom” and “Gosford Park” were tight and nuanced works of intricate and finely detailed storytelling. These were all films that took risks in a strive for greatness. Conversely, “A Beautiful Mind” came across as an exercise in the safe choice. There were no risks taken, no choices made that might be uncomfortable, or questioning. Everything about the movie seemed calculated to fall just within the status quo and garner the most Academy votes by appealing to the largest sample of the population as possible. This isn’t a movie that tried to earn an Oscar so much as protect its chance at one. This choice seems indicative of a mood that’s come over the country in the last months. Ever since Sept. 11, liberals and conservatives have been rushing for cover faster than Billy Graham at a bar mitzvah. The middle right has become the new camping ground for anyone desperate to hang onto their job. But where does this leave our political and cultural climate? Of course extremism can be exceedingly harmful, and we’ve all witnessed the result of radicalism left unchecked. But great acts and great ideas are made by people unafraid to stand up, say what they mean and take the flack for it. The dissent is the greatest American virtue we posses. The mentality in art (and politics) should be to risk failure by striving for excellence, not simply to protect mediocrity. If we’re afraid to be courageous and visionary and break from the traditional roles we place on ourselves it could very well be another 39 years before another African-American man is justly recognized for his work. Tim
Dragga is a junior political science major from Lubbock. |
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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