The Awards season once again comes to a close with the presentation of the Oscars in another week.  With it, the final verdict of the previous year in movies.  At least, that’s how the industry itself likes to put it.  For most of us on the outside looking in, the Academy Awards seems to be less reflective each year of how we responded to the movies they put out into the market.  None of last year’s top grossing films are up for Best Picture, and are instead relegated to the “minor” awards like Visual Effects and Sound Mixing.  For the most part, the movies up for the top awards are very little seen by the casual viewing public, and it often leads to many people watching the Oscars on TV every year feeling perplexed as to which movie is which.  There are a lot of factors that lead the Academy towards the choices they make every year, and sometimes they do lead to some short-sighted results.  Too often we have seen in Oscar history where one movie has won the award over another, and the loser has gone on to become one of the most beloved films of all times, while the winner has disappeared into obscurity.  Hindsight makes us see the folly in some of these choices, but looking back at the time in which it happened, it sometimes makes more sense how each of the big winners at the Oscars managed to get there.  Whether we like it or not, the road to the Oscars is defined by it’s own complicated politics; which can sometimes be as messy as the real political world.  To be an Oscar winner, you have to abide by many industry rules, impact the right people, and appear the whole way through like a champion.  And even still, winning the Award comes down to having the right amount of luck on your side, as well as the right timing.  All of this shows that just making a great movies isn’t enough to be gifted Oscar glory.

Looking at the whole of Oscar history, we’ve got to remember that the total number of winners that has ever been since it’s inception could just barely fill up the Dolby Theater in Hollywood where the Awards are held.   Most winners are just lucky to have their one and only, while an even smaller handful win it more than once.  Overall, it is very difficult to win an Academy Award.  Some of our greatest legends never won in their lifetimes, including Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Peter O’Toole, and were only lucky to be gifted Honorary Awards towards the end of their careers.  Edward G. Robinson was never even nominated, and died shortly after learning of his Honorary Award; never getting the opportunity to savor his glory.  As much as many of us dream of one day holding one of those golden boys for our own, it’s highly likely that it’s a dream that will never come true.  But, it’s not a dream that can’t be achieved either.  One thing that does define all Oscar winners across the board is that it came from their hard-earned, passionate work.  Even if you dislike the ultimate choice of the winner each year, you can’t make the argument that the person won for doing a half-assed, lazy job.  Every Oscar winner pushed themselves harder than they would normally, and that’s something that garners the attention of the industry around Oscar time.  For filmmakers, it’s usually because they worked under some extreme conditions to complete their film, like David Lean filming in the Arabian desert with Lawrence of Arabia (1962), or Peter Jackson shooting three epic films simultaneously in order to win on the third with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).  And with actors, it’s transforming themselves completely for the performance, like Charlize Theron in Monster (2003), Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), or any winning performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.  Winners are lucky, but they don’t get the glory without something to show for it.

But, there have been many great movies and performances over the years that pushed the envelope and yet were completely ignored by the Academy.  How do some movies rise to the top while others do not?  That is where the politics of the Oscars come into play.  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is an organisation of industry professionals established to help advance the innovations in both arts and science in all industry fields.  As part of it’s mission, the Academy created an award to honor the highest quality film-making each year as a way to promote the many different advancements made in the medium for audiences everywhere to appreciate.  That award, first given out in 1927, would go on to become the Oscar, and has since become the highest honor anyone can receive within the industry.  In the 89 years since, the Academy has blossomed into a prestigious organization, with it’s membership made up of some of Hollywood’s most elite talent.  Individual Academy members can identify themselves as such, but the Academy itself keeps their full roster a closely guarded secret.  In total there are approximately 6,000 voting members of the Academy, and it is them who decide who ultimately wins on Oscar night.  It’s a democratic system, with balloting deciding the winner, but it’s also a secretive process, with vote totals never being made public.  The selection process of Academy members is also kept secret, so it is sometimes hard to know who’s voting for what sometimes.  We do know that actors make up the largest voting block of the Academy, so that’s why it’s a lot more common to see performance driven films do well at the Academy Awards.  But, even still, there is a belief that the representation of the Academy is not as reflective of the rest of the industry as it should be, nor with the rest of society, and that’s often why so many people call into question many of the winners they select.

One thing that we know about the Academy is that their voting block tends to skew a little older, and is more predominantly white.  This led to some controversy in the last couple years with people crying foul over the lack of diversity among the nominees; even going as far as some calling for a boycott of the Awards ceremony.  While I don’t believe that the Oscars left out minority nominees on purpose, it nevertheless was an indication of the unfortunate downside of having such a closed off organization in charge selecting the choices.  It ultimately led to current Academy president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs (who is African-American) to revise the standards and qualifications for membership, in the hope to bring more diverse perspectives to the Academy.  But even with this change, there is still the danger of the Academy holding something of an elitist position in determining who is most deserving of the industries top award.  Sometimes, generational differences have caused a rift between what the Academy wants and what the viewing public values.   You see groundbreaking films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Raging Bull (1980), Fargo (1996) and The Social Network (2010) lose out to more traditional competition like Oliver, Ordinary People, The English Patient, and The King’s Speech respectively, and it’s all believed because the Academy didn’t recognize the changing attitudes of the times and instead went with what was safe.  The more cynical view is that the Academy tends to reward standard fare over the more groundbreaking, because it gives them a lower bar to cross when they make their own grand statements to win an award for themselves.  You can make the claim that this is why smaller, independent films succeed at the Oscars so often, with some notable exceptions that couldn’t be ignored (Titanic and The Lord of the Rings).

But, the make-up of the Academy is only one obstacle in the labyrinth of trying to win an Oscar.  One major factor that comes into play is the ability to look like a winner.  While the selection process of the Academy Awards is closely guarded secret, their ultimate conclusions have more than often proved to be very predictable.  Some of the time, many Academy members tend to neglect their privilege and see very few of the actual nominees that are up every year.  Even with all the publicity surrounding the films and the numerous screeners that are shipped out to Academy members, a few movies will fall through the cracks, which then leads to Academy members turning to what we call “bellwethers” in the award season in order to make a choice.  These tend to be all the previous awards given out in the season leading up to the Oscars, including the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, all of the Guild awards, and even the prestigious film fest accolades that each film has collected.  This gives the voting member a better idea of whether or not the movie or the performance is Oscar worthy or not.  So, if you’re looking to win an Oscar, the best thing you can do is to win as much of these bellwether awards as you can.  It may not always work, as there have been a few curve-balls in the past.  Adrien Brody won his Oscar for Best Actor in The Pianist (2002), having won no prior award up to that point; losing out to the favorites that year with Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt and Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York.  But, with exceptions, the vast majority of Oscar winners had made it to the final ceremony with a lot of previous wins under their belt, and the golden boy was just the final piece of their collection.  To become a winner, you have to look like a winner, because it’ll make the Academy feel all the more confident in their choice.  One hopes that the wave that Oscar winners ride through Award season will have lasting power beyond the final ceremony, otherwise it just looks like only hollow hype.

Though the Academy takes into account how an Oscar nominee fares throughout the season, they also take note with how the nominees reflect back on the Academy in the public eye.  One thing that us outsiders notice around Awards season is the constant hurdles that an actor or filmmaker must go through in order to put the best face forward after becoming a nominee, otherwise they may lose their shot at winning.  In many ways, this is the most political that the awards season gets.  Many nominees are forced to play by the academy’s rules and be on their best behavior in order to convince the voters that they are not only talented, but also made of good character.  The last thing that the Academy wants is to court controversy, so they often hold their nominees to a higher standard.  Hopefully, the Academy ultimately judges winners based on the work itself, and not by looking into the personal lives of the nominees.  It is unfortunate that sometimes nominees do fall victim to Academy bias.  Sir Ian McKellan is believed to have been overlooked for his performance as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001), because of his outspoken support of gay rights at the time; another indicator of the Academy showing a slow adaptation to changing values.  There is also the risk of an actor’s less than flattering work overshadowing their nominated work; such as the case with Eddie Murphy, whose critically panned Norbit (2007) was released to theaters just as he was making his case for an Oscar for his performance in Dreamgirls (2006), which he lost in what some believe to be a direct effect.  Since then, people have termed these kinds of negative films as the next “Norbit.”  Whether or not it’s true, the Academy still is not happy when you break their rules in the process.  Melissa Leo nearly thought she lost out on her Oscar for The Fighter (2010) when she violated Academy rules with self-promotion in publication ads throughout the industry.  Still, she won, and the academy more than often does reward for art over personal behavior, such as with no show George C. Scott in Patton (1970), or the fiercely independent Mo’Nique with Precious (2009) .  But, still there are unmistakable concessions to the Academy that most nominees must live by and often times can’t escape.

Finally, there is one other factor that plays into a person’s chances to win an Academy Award and that’s the ever crucial element of timing.  The Academy often has been accused of terrible timing with their choices, because too few of them ever look that good years later.  But, when you’re only allowed one choice in every category each year, you are usually bound to make a choice that won’t please everyone.  The only times you do make the popular choice is when it’s obvious to everyone else.  There are often some years where there is such a clear favorite that any other choice would be foolish.  But, when it’s not, the key to winning is to hope that your stock rises at just the right moment.  You can see that through some of the bellwether selections, but oftentimes, a curve-ball is thrown into the mix.  George Clooney looked like a sure thing in 2011 when he was up for Best Actor for The Descendents, but then a little French film called The Artist began to gain traction late in the season and by Oscar night, Clooney saw his sure fire win go to little know Jean Dujardin, the French comedic actor who stars in The Artist.  Sometimes, however, being overlooked for so long is one way to garner sympathy from the Academy in order to ride a wave towards a win.  The Academy tends to go out of it’s way sometimes to right past wrongs, sometimes in short-sighted ways, awarding leeser films because of how they robbed an actor or director of an award in the past.  It’s not always a bad thing.  I don’t know of anyone who was upset when Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar after 5 previous nominations over a 40 year career with The Departed (2006), or Leonardo DiCaprio finally winning an award last year for The Revenant (2015).  Sometimes, the mood of the industry also influences who they choose to win.  In many cases, they reward a movie because of what it has to say, and use the win as a statement to the rest of the world.  The academy may be slow to adapt sometimes, but every now and then, they reward risky films like Midnight Cowboy (1969), or Platoon (1986), or movies with a passionate statement on society like last year’s Spotlight (2015).  It’s all about matching the mood of the Academy in order to win, and even this can prove to be as unpredictable as anything else.

One sure fire thing that we’ve recently learned about the Academy Awards is that they greatly value movies that reflect well on them specifically.  Many have accused the Academy of vainly rewarding movies that flatter the industry, and it’s not difficult to imagine this being true.  With The Artist (2011) and Argo (2012) winning back to back like they did, and La La Land poised to be this year’s big winner, it seems pretty clear that the best way to succeed at the Oscars is to appeal to the Academy’s own sense of self worth.  But, it’s not always going to be the case.  Most movies, filmmakers, and performers walk away winners on Oscar night because they had all the cards fall into place for them at the right time.  Sure, there is a lot of political wrangling to make that happen, but there’s no denying that all of it is a long process that everyone would want to go through, all for the glory of the win.  The only issue for the Academy is whether or not they do a great service for the industry by taking so many precautions in their selections.  As we’ve seen before, what seemed like a logical choice at the time ends up not bearing fruit in the years since.  Hindsight is a problem for the Academy, and it often leads to many shakeups within their organization to determine how they can best keep up with a world and industry that is changing so rapidly.  For the most part, despite their flaws, they still have the final statement to make on the industry within every calendar year, and it’s a distinction that won’t leave them soon.  We may not agree with their choices every year, but we are nevertheless fascinated by the significance of the Award, and the impact that it has left on film history.

When I started writing this blog nearly 4 years ago now, my hope was to share my knowledge and opinions on a wide range of topics related to all things cinema.  And for all these years, I have expanded this thing into an extensive body of work.  I run twelve different series of articles on here and to date I have reviewed 50 plus films for this site, as well as covered exciting public film exhibitions within the Los Angeles community where I live.  Conventions, festivals, art galleries; it’s all an effort from me to all of you, my readers, to give you an open look into my passion as a fan of cinematic art.  And believe me, I have enjoyed this journey we’ve taken together.  If I didn’t have this blog, I probably wouldn’t be doing all the same things.  I’d still be watching new films every week, going to all these film festivals, and attending these conventions, but this blog also gives me even more of a purpose to.  I’m not just a participant, but also a reporter, using this site to share experiences with those out there who otherwise would’ve missed out on them.  Now truth be told, I am still an amateur at best, but this site is also an unfiltered expression of my own passion.  I write on this site, because it is something that I take pleasure in.  And even if my readership may still be limited to friends, family, and the always welcome curious newcomer, I feel honored to have at least built something that other people can appreciate.  The reason, you might ask, why I am waxing nostalgic all of a sudden, is because with this article I have now reached 200 posting on this website.  For a milestone like this, I tried to think about what would be the best subject for the occasion.  And for #200, I thought it would be fitting to talk to you about my all time favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and how it has shaped my life ever since I first saw it nearly 18 years ago.

For a lot of people, their favorite movies usually end up being something tied to their childhood, or perhaps a discovery in their adulthood that changed their life forever.  I’m a child of the 80’s, an era where there was no shortage of influential movies that I could have latched onto.  So, why did a movie released 20 years before I was born make such a difference in my life?  It might have been just because it was the right movie at the right moment for me.  From early childhood, I was already a keenly aware observer of the aura of cinema.  It was mostly started by my passionate love of Disney movies.  I was the kid in school who had seen every Disney animated classic up to that point, and knew them all by heart.  I was also the kind of know-it-all kid who wanted to share all of my fandom with everyone else; probably to level of obnoxiousness.  Still, it was a passion that spurned me on to pursue more knowledge and expand my expertise.  Once I became a teenager, I started to move beyond just Disney fandom and actively take interest in movies of all kinds.  I became more interested in film history, and found myself watching channels like HBO and Turner Classic Movies more than I was watching the Disney Channel.  The yearly run-up to the Academy Awards interested me more than before, and ever since turning 13, I have not missed seeing a single Best Picture winner in it’s first run in theaters ever since.  But, even though I was aware of my interest in film at the time, what I lacked was the knowledge of what to do with it.  I was certainly not the only person who loved movies this much; but I felt that there was something about them that was calling out to me specifically and pushing me towards something else.

And then there was the summer of 1999.  I had just finished my sophomore year in high school and was looking for that one thing that would guide me towards what I would do with myself going into adulthood.  At the same time, I was trying to catch up on my film history knowledge as well; more specifically, I was trying to see every movie that had won Best Picture at the Oscars up to that point.  This particular summer, a golden opportunity came to my hometown of Eugene, Oregon.  Columbia Pictures was showcasing a traveling film fest, spotlighting movies in their catalog that had recently been selected for the American Film Institute’s Top 100.  The fest came to the last remaining old movie house theater in my town, the now re-purposed McDonald Theater, and was playing a dozen of these films the way they were originally intended to be seen; on the big screen.  The opening film of this fest was Lawrence of Arabia, and it was an opportunity that I didn’t want to waste.  I was just old enough to start seeing movies on my own, so my parents allowed me to go by myself to the theater to see it.  For an older movie, the screening was still surprisingly popular, and it ended up being a packed house.  I, at the time, was only expecting to be entertained for 3 1/2 hours and have another title crossed off my Oscar watch-list.  What I got instead was a trans-formative moment; the closest I’ve ever had to a religious experience in my life.  I was stunned by how much this movie drew me in.  The flawless use of editing, music, performance, and most importantly visuals to tell this story.  It was at that point that I no longer had just a love for film.  Now I had a love for film-making.  I had seen the pinnacle of what cinema can accomplish, and now my obsession had changed from wanting to see every movie to wanting to understand how they were made.  I returned home that evening almost in a daze.  It took me a few weeks more to put into words the impact that that afternoon in the theater had on me.  And then it dawned on me what I needed to do.  I had to become a filmmaker.

I don’t know if things would’ve been different if I had seen Lawrence of Arabia for the first time on television as opposed to on a big screen in a theater packed with other people like myself.  I may be sitting here today writing about a different movie or a different subject entirely.  Lawrence might not even have become my favorite movie.  But, it did because it was the one movie that put into focus everything that I was trying to understand and steered me in the direction that I have followed ever since.  In my senior year of high school, I enrolled in my first ever film class; an elective course that mixed a film history and literature curriculum with film making projects.  In addition, I joined the school newspaper and became it’s film critic.  After graduating, I spent my college years broadening my film knowledge further.  I sought out films of all kinds; especially the ones that are not widely available like international, art house, and independent flicks.  While working towards my Bachelors Degree in English at the University of Oregon, I also earned a certificate in film studies, giving me not only a broader knowledge of the film arts, but also the skills to write more articulately about them.  And while attending college, I also lucked out in getting a job at a movie theater, where I could watch as many as 80-100 films a year, if I so choose.  But, my goal in life was not just to learn about movies; it was to participate in making them.  That is why I wanted to spend my graduate years in a formal film school environment.  In my last year at the U of O, I applied to three different film schools, and was accepted to every one.  I ended up choosing to attend my top pick overall, which was Chapman University in Orange, California.  There, I got my first real taste of actual film-making, and was able to make friends and acquaintances of some truly talented and impassioned future filmmakers like myself as well as professionals, many of whom have helped me to become a better student of the art-from overall and given me encouragement that have I always appreciated.  I graduated with my Masters Degree in Screenwriting and since then have been trying to make a life for myself in the movie capital of the world, and all because of that one afternoon that I decided that I wanted watch Lawrence of Arabia for the first time.

But, stepping away from the impact that it left on me, I’d like to look at exactly why this movie ended up being the one that changed my life.  Lawrence of Arabia, despite it’s universal praise, may not exactly be to everyone’s taste.  It’s 3 1/2 hours long, about a little known historical period in time in the early 20th century, and centered on a protagonist who is both narcissistic and dangerously naive.  And yet, what director David Lean delivered became the cinematic epic that all others are now judged by.  What he did was take this history lesson of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks in World War I, a campaign that one character describes as “a sideshow of a sideshow” in history, and made it into a story biblical in both scale and theme.  And this was accomplished through a perfect execution of it’s presentation.  The 70mm widescreen photography alone is unmatched in the history of cinema.  David Lean and cinematographer Freddie Young not only pushed the cameras to the limit of their capabilities out there in the unforgiving Arabian desert locations, but they also managed to invent new techniques on the fly that filmmakers today have them to thank for.  Lawrence for example was the first ever film to capture the mirages on film; a distortion caused by extreme heat that is commonly seen by the naked eye, but is near impossible to capture on film.  Using extremely sensitive telephoto lenses, we got the first ever mirage captured on film, used to spectacular effect to introduce Omar Sharif’s Ali into the movie.  High definition blu-ray technology has been a blessing to this movie recently, giving us a full appreciation of it’s spectacular visuals, but even still, this is a movie that must be seen on the biggest screen possible.  It’s why I fell in love with the first time.  I still remember the goosebumps I got when I saw the establishing shot of the Wadi Rum valley where Anthony Quinn’s Auda abu Tayi made his camp.  This was the movie that convinced me that anything was possible in film, because it showed how cinematic language can be transcendent, that it finds the beauty in the most unexpected details, and make a “sideshow” feel like the greatest story ever told.

But, in the years since watching it the first time, and after gaining a broader knowledge of film-making in general, I have also come to appreciate the movie beyond just the wonder of the spectacle.  At it’s center, Lawrence of Arabia is about a singular journey of one man’s self discovery.  T.E. Lawrence (played in a career-defining performance by Peter O’Toole) is one of history’s most celebrated figures, but at the same time, also one of it’s most enigmatic.  We don’t know exactly what drove this well-educated Englishman to spend so many years embedded among the various tribes of Arabia and help them to both drive out their Turkish oppressors and form a unified nation under the rule of King Feisal of Mecca (played by Alec Guinness in the film).  Not only that, but he did so in defiance of his own home nation, who sought to claim Arabia for themselves after deposing the Ottoman Empire.  The movie examines what would drive a man like him to do something like that, and what the film ultimately finds is that nobody really knew what drove Lawrence’s ambition; not even himself.  Lawrence, in the film, is a man driven by passion and a desire for accomplishing the impossible.  But at the same time, we also see that he’s a person who dangerously tests his own limits in a kind of perverse self mutilation.  He playfully puts out matches with his own fingers, and reveals that the trick is not minding that it hurts. Overall, he is a man who’s incapable of putting his own self preservation ahead of his desires.  While it can sometimes enable him to accomplish inhuman tasks, like when he miraculously saves a lost companion in the desert, it also drives him towards a dangerous path of being swallowed into a hell of his own making, as the film’s more disillusioned second half brilliantly portrays.  It’s a remarkable character study of a truly enigmatic man, and it’s that exploration that I find so fascinating and reflective in my own journey as a film student.

Because of my need to test my purpose in life and strive to succeed in a career in film, despite all the odds placed in my way, I can understand a little more about what drove Lawrence so deep into the desert.  We are all driven by a little bit of our own madness sometimes, but it’s how well we manage our ambitions and focus our madness into creativity that enables us to do great things in life.  I certainly am no where near as lost in the wild as Lawrence was, but there’s something in his character and story that I identify with.  I could have chosen a different avenue of life; taken a steady 9-5 job in some office cubicle back home in Oregon and just lived an average life where I would have been safe and content.  But instead, I have followed my passions which have taken me away from home and have allowed me to get ever so much closer to living out my dreams.  Of course, it hasn’t all been without risk (substantial student debt and all the dangers that big city life throws at me), but had I not taken those risks and accomplished something out of it, would I have been as content as I am now.  When Lawrence decides to challenge all rational and cross the impassable Nafud Desert, he never stops to think about the cost; only the final destination.  It’s reckless, but once it’s accomplished, he becomes a hero to all around him.  Will I ever achieve something like that in my life time?  I don’t know, but it’s better to test my limits than to try to live by them and do nothing.  I never thought that 4 years ago that I would have it in me to write a blog every week, and yet I took a shot at it and here we are, 200 articles later.  The same with attending film school and working in the film industry; I never would have known if these were right for me or not had I not taken a chance and applied my name for acceptance into these institutions.  The journey still has a ways to go, and there are regrets over time about some roads not taken, but the final destination is something that I still have on my horizon.

So, this is why Lawrence of Arabia is my all time favorite movie.  It pivoted me towards a purpose in life and represents the ideals that I want to live up to as a student of film.  I hope to one day write a movie that has even just a little bit of the wit and impact that Lawrence has.  Robert Bolt’s screenplay is often one that I quote with regularity and respect with awe for it’s sheer, simple brilliance.  It’s amazing how the screenplay deftly answers some of the more existential questions with the simplest of answers.  For example, when asked by a reporter, “What attracts you Major Lawrence to the desert?” he answers, “It’s clean.  I like it, because it’s clean.”  That right there is a fundamental screenwriting magic trick; using a non-sequitur to explain the un-explainable, and it’s beautifully delivered with delicious sarcasm by Peter O’Toole in the movie.  But, apart from that, Lawrence is also a movie that helps me to understand the limits of ambition and the need for understanding.  There is a strong theme throughout the movie spotlighting the failings of misunderstanding, and how lack of intelligence leads to disorder and hatred.  Lawrence went into the desert not only to learn more about himself, but to understand the world, and it’s an example that I have to tried to live up to myself, broadening my understanding of how the art of film is differently reflected in the larger world as a whole.  Lawrence of Arabia is more personal to me than any other film that I have seen and that’s why I always claim it as my all time favorite movie.  I’m sure that everyone else has that one movie that speaks to them too, and in many ways, a person’s favorite film can reveal a lot about who they are.  Sometimes it’s a personal attachment to the main character that defines a person’s favorite movie, or the message it delivers that they hold so dear.  But the one thing that every favorite movie has in common is that it plays a role in molding us into the people that we are.  Lawrence of Arabia solidified my purpose in life; to play a part in the growing legacy of cinema, and whether I am making a film, or writing about them, it’s a purpose that I still live out every day.  As I look ahead to the next year on this blog, my hope is to expand it further and make it even better; maybe someday try turning it into a vlog and starting up sponsorship to allow my readers more input into what I write about.  Anything is possible at this point.  As the movie states, “Nothing is written, unless you write it.”