Sleezy, that's a well-thought-out post, but it only makes sense if you tell us what films you've found in the last ten or so years to be Award-worthy. Did they win any Awards?
Fair enough. I'm looking over the nominees and winners of the Academy Awards for the past ten years, and I see a lot of films I feel are deserving of that honor.
No Country for Old Men,
Crash,
A Beautiful Mind,
Erin Brockovich,
Traffic,
Lost in Translation,
Sideways,
Good Night, and Good Luck.,
Babel,
Little Miss Sunshine... these are films I find to be quite resonant of something larger than themselves. They provide not just a well-crafted narrative with well-crafted, believable characters and a compelling plot; but also a profound insight into the nature of our humanity, our social customs, our political struggles, our preconceptions, our flaws, our desires, our regrets, and (most often) our hearts.
No Country serenades me with a slick, brutal plot that in little flakes culminates into a pretty haunting vision of the world turned on end, from the perspective of those dinosaurs whose time has passed.
Crash not only tackles the ever-present racial issue as it exists today, but also tunnels deep into the very core of its characters: not as racists or non-racists, but as people with real problems and real pain.
A Beautiful Mind puts me into a damaged mind, and lets me experience the struggle and ultimate triumph of having to be paranoid of even oneself.
Good Night, and Good Luck. frames a moment in time when a certain group of people were unafraid to speak the truth, all the while criticizing the squandering of the power of television and its potential for nationwide public education.
I could go on and on, but the point I'm trying to make is that these films and many others nominated each year have given me something memorable. Something I can indulge with my heart and see in myself or apply to myself. I've been an art student practically all my life, and I think I've finally come to define "good art" as that experience when you look at another's work and find yourself. In film, it's the kind of experience you find when a certain combination of writing, performance, and situation reaches a completely different level of emotional or intellectual satisfaction. Watching
Sideways, I can never stomach the scene in which Miles, after having to endure attending his ex-wife's new wedding, finally opens his prized bottle of wine and drinks it in a fast food burger joint. After all I see him go through, it just breaks my heart. Or in
Little Miss Sunshine, when cantankerous Grandpa finally tells his disgruntled son that he's proud of him for trying to do something on his own...
It's at that moment in a film where you know you have ceased watching a film. Everything up to that point has been made up. A farce. But at that moment, everything changes, and you realize you are experiencing the heartache, the frustration, the fear, and all the little triumphs that make up real life. It's so easy to feel like we're alone, that what we feel is indigenous only to ourselves. But our hearts really do beat as one, and when you find a film that in some magical way captures the reality we feel around us (and not just what we see or know), it hits you like a cement truck.
Now, that's not to say I think films that don't grab me are devoid of intellectual or emotional weight. Filmmakers figured out long ago that the key to audience hearts is through character interaction and tension; putting one's characters "through hell," so to speak. And we see this with each new film, in some form or another. It's just that not all films do the work to make it truly memorable.
In the case of
The Dark Knight, the emotional impact of Harvey and Rachel's situation could have been felt much more strongly had there been more time spent on their developing relationship, their internal problems... all the little specifics of a relationship (see
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for a fantastic example of how this is done). But of course, it wasn't. I didn't expect it to be, because the film is about Batman, not Harvey and Rachel. Nevertheless, the film gives its viewers a generic "loving couple" model with no information specific to the characters, and expects the audience to care. We get the intention, and maybe we spend a moment or two rooting for them in their time of peril. But the whole experience won't resonate with us after we've left the theater.
I find this time and again in all types of film (even ones that win awards): they feign depth, complexity, and heart... but they're really just trying to appeal superficially to whatever the audience brings to the table. Give them something generic, and they'll cry. In the case of
Gladiator (Best Picture winner, 2000), the length of Maximus' all-important vengeance is hinged completely on his murdered wife and son. As the audience, we're supposed to feel harrowed by that atrocity. But we only see them in flashes, without dialogue, no contact with Maximus whatsoever. The film assumes that knowing these characters are important to Maximus, and that they've been murdered, is enough to grab us. It isn't.
Anyway, back to
The Dark Knight. I think a Batman film, by nature, is inherently difficult to find ourselves in. We're talking about decades of canon about a billionaire superhero trained in martial arts, gadgetry, and complex forensic science who spends his time thwarting characters whose names quite literally make them sound like cartoons. How does anyone relate to that? How do we discern from this anything relevant to our own political and social concerns and experiences of living? I think the Nolans have done an excellent job infusing as much reality as they could into such a glamorous fiction, but it's no use. Batman's demons never run parallel to our own.
But again, that's not why we like Batman. We like him because he's cool. And I think the Nolans have succeeded in making an immensely cool movie with just enough of a suggestion of real emotion and social concern to keep something as (let's face it) goofy as Batman from spiraling into camp. It's certainly a triumph for the superhero genre. I second everyone in wishing they garnered more attention from Academy voters. I just don't think we've seen one yet that feels to me like a true expression of anything other than thrillride, high tension fun. In fact, the closest we've gotten, I'd argue, is
Unbreakable.
I probably have more to say on this, but I'm falling asleep at my computer.
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