Posts Tagged ‘Anvil’
Why the Academy didn’t totally botch the doc award
By Steven Zeitchik
One of the perks, or punishments, of this film blogging racket is the opportunity to see an obscene amount of documentaries. This was more of an issue when there were an obscene amount of documentaries being made, but if you’ve been to a film fest recently, you know that number is still high — if not Larry Flynt obscene, then maybe at least Robert Mapplethorpe obscene.
Given all that, we’d have to say that the flap over the omissions by the doc shortlist committee Wednesday is, like all flaps, with some merit and with some bloviation.
One of the reasons for the shortlist has always struck us as political. The doc category is rife with submissions, in part because it’s so damn cheap to make one. That means a higher level of chaff but also a higher level of wheat, and part of the idea of revealing three times as many films as will actually be nominated is to show just how inclusive the Academy can be.
But that inclusiveness also creates a sense of entitlement. Everyone wonders why they can’t make the cut. if you actually look at the number of docs made every year relative to the fifteen slots (made, not qualified), it’s probably a higher ratio than the number of features relative to their slots. In other words, it’s harder to actually make the doc shortlist than it is to get nominated in other categories.
So we should probably treat the doc shortlist as slightly more elite than we do, and not be so in umbrage when films don’t make it.
We also shouldn’t be surprised for another reason: several of the supposedly glaring absences contain their share of flaws. The omission of Toback’s “Tyson” is understandable. The film is essentially a single interview, and while revealing at points — Toback is never lacking for things provocative — you could make a case it’s a little too thin, given all the ambition out there, to make the list.
