As a film critic, I have complicated feelings about Oscar season, a baggy calendrical concept that now includes every month of the year, from the indie-film discoveries of the Sundance Film Festival in January to the awards voting by critics’ groups in December. The complaints about the Academy Awards are as well rehearsed as the acceptance speech of a surefire victor: The most deserving nominees seldom win, and the most inventive movies of the year typically get no nominations at all. The voting process is so opaque and so subject to external influence— barraged by ever more expensively managed PR campaigns and buffeted by political and social forces far outside the Academy’s garden walls—that to say the prize has little to do with the recognition of artistic merit is to join a weary chorus. And yet the whole cinematic world dances to the rhythm of the Oscars' baton, and I refer not merely to the film industry itself, but to a sprawling satellite economy of run-up awards, Oscar-branded media coverage, fashion marketing, and social-media conversation.
This story is from the April 2023 edition of The Atlantic.
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This story is from the April 2023 edition of The Atlantic.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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