Filmtracks to eliminate major awards coverage

[Dusty Ayres]

From last month, and just in time for the Oscars:

After decades of frustration with the ridiculous methodology and dubious merit of the "Best Original Score" categories (and their variations) at major awards ceremonies, Filmtracks will no longer provide coverage of such fraudulent popularity contests. Notes about the award consideration earned by scores and composers will continue to be marked in the individual reviews and composer tributes, but no special mention of the major international awards (nominations or winners) will be made on Filmtracks' homepage or in the awards section of this site. That latter directory of information will, in the forthcoming weeks, be stripped of its database of past winners of Oscars and Golden Globes and will concentrate on only those awards published by this site and its esteemed peers within the soundtrack community.

All of the major awarding bodies that include a film music category, including the Golden Globes, BAFTA's, Oscars, and Grammy's, are, to some extent, guilty of the transgressions of illegitimacy outlined below, though the Academy Awards, considered the pinnacle of this group, are especially the target of this condemnation. While film music collectors of the 2000s have been stunned by the senseless awarding of two Oscars to Gustavo Santaolalla (while the legendary Jerry Goldsmith won that award just once in his entire illustrious career), the problems with those golden statues go back many decades. Whether it was Vangelis' Chariots of Fire, a one trick pony, defeating a classic like John Williams' Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, or a flash in the pan like Herbie Hancock's 'Round Midnight astoundingly finishing ahead of both Goldsmith's Hoosiers and Ennio Morricone's The Mission in 1986, there can be no excuse for such hideously uninformed choices.

The reason for the general stupidity of the AMPAS choices in particular is two-fold; procedural and popular. This is a group that has changed the rules so many times, even altered the number of scores nominated back and forth through the years, that it's impossible to evaluate their nominations because of asinine restrictions on eligibility. For instance, twelve composers were nominated for The Color Purple and three won for The Last Emperor while several legitimate scores ten years later were ruled ineligible because the duties were split between multiple composers. Eventually, AMPAS required detailed cue sheet attribution in order to be deemed eligible for a nomination, and collaborative composers like Hans Zimmer eventually decided to not even try to submit their scores for consideration. Likewise, the rule about the use of previously existing material has changed several times throughout the last few decades, with some senseless, floating percentage applied to scores to determine if they contain enough new material to be eligible. The most recent folly in these regards led to the initial ruling of Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as ineligible and then statues were then handed to both Shore for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Santaolalla for Babel, the latter making use of previously available material that, in the most memorable portions of the film, wasn't even the composer's own.

Filmtracks to eliminate major awards coverage

 

[Nerys Myk]

Whats Filmtracks?

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Whats Filmtracks?

It's a website that reviews film scores, much like the magazine Film Score Monthly and the website of the same name. And I must admit, they're right about the Oscars and the Grammys as well.

 

[Broccoli]

So basically, "Review Website Stops Reporting Awards".

Okay. And?

 

[Hermiod]

^And the point they make is an excellent one.

It's quite simple, the best soundtrack of the year more often than not doesn't win.

The 2002 The Two Towers snub was one of the most ridiculous decisions I've ever seen. Some other examples:

2008 - The Dark Knight is not even nominated ? Seriously ?

1980 - Fame beats The Empire Strikes Back.

1997 - Titanic beats a host of more deserving films based solely on its box office and nothing more. Of course, this is not the only category where that was the case.

Sometimes they do get it right - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon beating the populist Gladiator in 2000 for instance. (That's not to say Gladiator doesn't have a magnificent score, but that Crouching Tiger's was even better)

 

[23skidoo]

^And the point they make is an excellent one.

It's quite simple, the best soundtrack of the year more often than not doesn't win.

The 2002 The Two Towers snub was one of the most ridiculous decisions I've ever seen. Some other examples:

2008 - The Dark Knight is not even nominated ? Seriously ?

1980 - Fame beats The Empire Strikes Back.

1997 - Titanic beats a host of more deserving films based solely on its box office and nothing more. Of course, this is not the only category where that was the case.

Sometimes they do get it right - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon beating the populist Gladiator in 2000 for instance. (That's not to say Gladiator doesn't have a magnificent score, but that Crouching Tiger's was even better)

Except it's still a matter of personal taste. For example I don't remember a single musical phrase from Dark Knight. It was completely nondescript to me. The Empire Strikes Back's most memorable music, to me, were reprises of John Williams' score from A New Hope. Titanic had one of the few scores I can listen to without the movie (though in that case I do feel Enya would have had a case if she wanted to raise a stink since the film borrowed heavily from her playbook).

The point I'm getting at is, while the website does make an excellent point, frankly it can apply to every award in every field of endeavour. I'm not the only one who feels Heath Ledger got the Oscar for reasons other than his performance, for example. And we're hearing popularity-vs-quality arguments being made regarding Avatar's nominations.

The only solution is for awards to be eliminated, across the board. There are more than a few people in the entertainment industry who'd love to see that happen. Right now, most awards are considered little more than marketing tools, anyway. And someone could make a case that underperforming or obscure movies could just as easily sway voters as popular films. Would anyone have bothered to go see Slumdog Millionaire outside of art-house cinemas if it hadn't won Best Picture?

Also, the "cut your nose off to spite thy face" attitude of the website is a bit disappointing. They have every right to say they'll ignore what is, frankly, the only opportunity most of these composers and scores get to have any public exposure (especially as the soundtrack CD is going the way of the dodo along with most other CDs - will there be people lining up at iTunes to download "Harry Potter jumps on a Thestral" from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Probably not (I just made up that title to represent the various 'nondescript' film score tracks you find on soundtrack albums)). But they do come off sounding like those people who say they'll never report on the Oscars again after their personal favorite film doesn't win Best Picture (most recent example being Brokeback Mountain).

Alex