We, The Infected

With all the love lavished on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the Bafta nominations this week, could it be that the Oscar field has just widened slightly?

Suddenly it seems possible that, after the Oscar nominations are announced next Tuesday, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may be more inclined to consider the merits of Tomas Alfredson’s magisterial adaptation of the beige-and-brooding John le Carré spy story — and particularly Gary Oldman’s quietly mesmerising central performance as George Smiley.

As well as Oldman’s nomination for Best Actor and Alfredson’s for Best Director, Tinker Tailor… got the nod in nine other Bafta categories, including Best Film and Outstanding British Film, though it is highly unlikely that it will overtake The Artist and The Descendants, the current frontrunners for the best-picture Oscar.

Not that that is likely to trouble Tim Bevan, founder of Working Title Films and producer of Tinker Tailor…, who this week rounded on the Academy Awards, denouncing the “hoopla” that surrounds them and suggesting that they have become too cynical. For a truer picture of the state of the art, he said, look to the Baftas.

Bevan also called for the awards season to be shortened by the simple expedient of bringing forward the Oscar ceremony to January 20 (it’s on February 26 this year). This, he said, would reduce the hype and the jockeying for position by the studios that now occupies three months of the year.

Hollywood’s second-biggest awards, the Golden Globes, which took place last Sunday, failed to improve the Oscar odds for either The Descendants or The Artist because both films won — the former picking up Best Motion Picture (Drama), the latter Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical). Similarly, George Clooney’s performance in The Descendants and Jean Dujardin’s in The Artist were both honoured. Which all felt rather as if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who decide the Globes, were having their cake and eating it.

And their choice of Martin Scorsese as Best Director for Hugo, his mish-mash of an adventure story for kids and hymn to early filmmaking for cinephiles, just looks bizarre. The chances of Oscar making the same pick are almost nil.

On the other hand, Meryl Streep’s performance in The Iron Lady, which won her Best Actress, and Octavia Spencer’s in The Help, which bagged Best Supporting Actress, are looking increasingly like shoo-ins come February 26.

Nightrider wrote:...but honestly Oscar would not hurt either....I'm positive that it feels good to have " Oscar winner" next to your name.
Vitaly