Why do Scorsese and Tarantino get to play during awards season

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If you look at the nominees for best picture this century. I noticed a pattern which is alarming. Of most of the movies nominated for best picture in all these years, it would be very hard to find movies directed by anyone other than tarantino or scorsese that are commercial, fun, extremely entertaining, highly rewatchable, praised and appealing to masses. Almost all other directors have to have a social message or technical achievement or passion project that took so long to complete in their movies. Almost all other movies feel sanitized in one way or the other. Even movies that do get nominated with crude language are not necessarily for masses. They are very niche like "the favorite".

So it almost feels like there is no other director in that arena except maybe adam mckay or david o russell. Who do get to play with the form and have crude language in their movies and appeal to audience while being commercial. Am i missing something ? why do you think that is ? you can throw in counter example and i am happy to discuss.



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That's kind of how it's always been, though. You look at Best Picture nominees/winners from all across the Oscars' history and they do favour certain types of films over others, with anything that could count as "fun" being decidedly uncommon (like what? Star Wars? Each Lord of the Rings movie? Avatar? E.T.?). In any case, I don't think this matters.
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That's kind of how it's always been, though. You look at Best Picture nominees/winners from all across the Oscars' history and they do favour certain types of films over others, with anything that could count as "fun" being decidedly uncommon (like what? Star Wars? Each Lord of the Rings movie? Avatar? E.T.?). In any case, I don't think this matters.
I genuinely think you can build movie stars like dicaprio who can sell any movie they are in, if there are more directors who can make fun, commercial, mass appealing and highly rewatchable movies that also happen to be serious oscar contenders. Because if you take "once upon a time" as example from audience perspective, they have been hearing that it's a great movie. They may or may not have watched it in theaters but during the year end awards, if the movie gets nominated everywhere and wins some, it's kind of a confirmation in audience mind that the movie indeed was good. So this only helps the box office of dicaprio's next movie because now audience have proof that the movie is gonna be good because of track record. That's how you develop a brand.

Then you look at movies like ladybird or brooklyn or birdman or spotlight or green book or roma or even gravity. Who the fcuk is gonna become a movie star through those movies ? so audience don't know whom to assign the success of that movie to, except to the movie itself. If we have more directors who can make stars out of commercial and awards worthy movies that do go into awards race then you can make reliable stars.

It does matter because after this past year, I want more movies like Ford v ferrari or once upon a time in hollywood.



There are lots of people who become stars after breakthrough prestige nominations. Look at Jennifer Lawrence.

I’m more curious why you feel the awards should be used to create movie stars, though. I don’t really follow your orientation towards caring almost exclusively about the business side of the industry.



I’m more curious why you feel the awards should be used to create movie stars, though.
Because it gives legitimacy to starpower. Look at the difference between dicaprio and tom cruise. Dicaprio can make any movie he wants and as long as it is huge in scale, audience will show up due to his track record. But for tom cruise that's not the case. He has to stick to those action sci fi movies to bring in audience or sequels. Same with Rock, his movies should feel funny or actiony. But with dicaprio audience has a track record that is legitimate. His movies are released and they will be nominated at oscars..so it doesn't matter when they come out, audience have this perception that they will not only be good but they will be some of the best of their respective years.

The reason to bring up this business aspect of movies is because, imagine if christian bale made 2 original movies back to back with Nolan and nothing in between and due to nolan's starpower those movie will be hits while giving more exposure to christian bale and THEN if christian bale made movies with mckay or mangold or david o russell that are all legitimate awards contenders with november or december release dates and a bunch of nominations to their name even before they are released from various critics groups or such, then those movies will make money and will improve bale's starpower. Because these directors are like tarantino/scorsese in terms of making commercial/awards worthy and entertaining movies. So that potent combination and series of events does create a legitimate movie star or even invigorate an actor's star power. Its just that we dont have such directors in abundance.



The reason to bring up this business aspect of movies is because, imagine if christian bale made 2 original movies back to back with Nolan and nothing in between and due to nolan's starpower those movie will be hits while giving more exposure to christian bale and THEN if christian bale made movies with mckay or mangold or david o russell that are all legitimate awards contenders with november or december release dates and a bunch of nominations to their name even before they are released from various critics groups or such, then those movies will make money and will improve bale's starpower. Because these directors are like tarantino/scorsese in terms of making commercial/awards worthy and entertaining movies. So that potent combination and series of events does create a legitimate movie star or even invigorate an actor's star power. Its just that we dont have such directors in abundance.
I think you've got the causality on this backwards as to how films get nominations (and I think there's loads of counterexamples you're skipping over in favor of the same two or three actors you always seem to want to talk about), but leaving that aside, my question is the same as above: why does this matter to you?

Let's tease out what you're actually trying to say, because whatever it is I'm not sure it's being properly conveyed:

The reason to bring up this business aspect of movies is because
Okay, you're saying "because," so what follows should be an explanation of why you care so much about the business aspect.

imagine if christian bale made 2 original movies back to back with Nolan and nothing in between
We're off the rails already because rather than follow with a straight explanation you've launched into an example/hypothetical. Very confusing phrasing to do this after "because," but no worries, still following along and waiting for the reason you care about it.

due to nolan's starpower those movie will be hits while giving more exposure to christian bale
and THEN if christian bale made movies with mckay or mangold or david o russell that are all legitimate awards contenders with november or december release dates and a bunch of nominations to their name even before they are released from various critics groups or such, then those movies will make money and will improve bale's starpower
You're describing what you think will be the effect of all this, but still not explaining what you care about or why. You say all this would be good because Christian Bale would get more "exposure" (nevermind that he's already world famous and widely respected) and it would improve his "starpower." So...that's the reason? You're a Christian Bale fan and want to see him do well? I ask because, as has happened in a lot of these threads, you're phrasing the initial post as if you're talking about some big, systemic problem with the industry, but when we tease it out it turns out to be a lot narrower than that.



Welcome to the human race...
I genuinely think you can build movie stars like dicaprio who can sell any movie they are in, if there are more directors who can make fun, commercial, mass appealing and highly rewatchable movies that also happen to be serious oscar contenders. Because if you take "once upon a time" as example from audience perspective, they have been hearing that it's a great movie. They may or may not have watched it in theaters but during the year end awards, if the movie gets nominated everywhere and wins some, it's kind of a confirmation in audience mind that the movie indeed was good. So this only helps the box office of dicaprio's next movie because now audience have proof that the movie is gonna be good because of track record. That's how you develop a brand.
This hypothetical audience kind of falls apart if they end up watching the movie and don't like it (and it's not hard to think that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a three-hour movie that's mostly people driving around and talking before climaxing in a bloodbath, might not appeal to that many people in the first place) - there's already been plenty of discourse about how much awards or critics ultimately matter (or don't) to the point where you even get people who not only disagree with them but will distrust them on basic principle. Audiences are fickle and trying to predict what they do or don't like isn't an exact science, much less proposing that there's some ideal expanding cycle of star power prompting better movies that make people bigger stars and so on and so forth.

Then you look at movies like ladybird or brooklyn or birdman or spotlight or green book or roma or even gravity. Who the fcuk is gonna become a movie star through those movies ? so audience don't know whom to assign the success of that movie to, except to the movie itself. If we have more directors who can make stars out of commercial and awards worthy movies that do go into awards race then you can make reliable stars.
Leaving aside how most of those movies already have stars or actively bolstered their profiles like you seem to want (Birdman was Michael Keaton's comeback while Brooklyn and Lady Bird cemented Saoirse Ronan as a major talent), I still wonder why your hypothetical audience seems to consist only of people whose interest in movies is driven primarily by their knowledge of the stars (and also seems inconsistent with the aforementioned audience who only care about awards and critics after the fact). Besides, isn't one of the biggest problems with star power is that they can also be used to churn out bad movies that people will see just for the stars? Just look at how many people were in Cats.

It does matter because after this past year, I want more movies like Ford v ferrari or once upon a time in hollywood.
I would too, but I question how much influence star power really has in that regard and how much that's guaranteed to turn out for the best.



Yeah, there's a lot of hindsight bias at play with this stuff. People often talk about films as if they were obviously going to be hits, but usually it's just that they had a good chance of it, but were also pretty good. There are plenty of examples of films that seem great on paper and bomb (or merely disappoint) anyway. It's one of those things where if you actually write down what you expect in advance, systematically, and examine it after a year or two, you'd realize most of these sure things aren't that sure at all.

It's a risky, fickle, unpredictable business, contra the borderline deterministic way the OP is talking about it.