julian_craster

The British Academy Film Awards 2007 will be screened on BBC1 on Sunday 11
February from 9pm

Yet another BAFTA 'sour grapes' article.....
One gets the impression the a pal of the writer made a film which BAFTA did not shortlist !

The Independent
8 February 2007

Bafta: Gong to the dogs

Bafta no longer rewards excellence in film - it clears the red carpet for
'best in marketing' and 'best in future earnings', argues Kaleem Aftab

Published: 08 February 2007

If you believe the hype, the Bafta awards are the best thing since Lauren
Bacall taught us how to whistle. But I, like most people in Britain this
Sunday, will not be watching the awards, as Bafta has long since lost that
great cinematic trait of convincing audiences that the fantastical is real.
The truth is that the prize-masks on offer have more to do with which films
and personalities have had the most proficient marketing campaign than what
have been the best achievements in cinema during the past year.

Bafta's own literature states: "One of the principal functions of the
British Academy of Film and Televisions Arts is to identify and reward
excellence in the artforms of the moving image. It achieves this objective
by bestowing awards on those practitioners who have excelled in their chosen
field of expertise." Except when it comes to cinema, it is clearly not the
case that excellence is rewarded. There has to be some explanation other
than excelling at her art as to why Rosanna Arquette won a gong as best
supporting actor for her turn in Desperately Seeking Susan.

The bizarre nature of the decision is compounded by the fact that Arquette
was, to all intents and purposes, the star of the film. In terms of billing,
number of scenes, lines of dialogue and plot, Arquette was the principal
protagonist, but for some reason the members of Bafta believed Madonna,
whose popularity was surging in 1985, was the star.

Last year saw the flip-side of this when Rachel Weisz picked up the Oscar
and the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her turn in The
Constant Gardener, but lost out at the Baftas, where she was surprisingly
put in the best actress, rather than supporting actress, category. She did
not win. There's something amiss when Bafta cannot even work out what
category a nominee belongs in. This, though, is only the tip of the
Titanic-sized iceberg.

To go through the list of incongruous awards made by Bafta would be as long,
repetitive and monotonous as all the goodbyes at the end of The Lord of the
Rings trilogy. So I'll limit the list to a few of my personal favourites.
The poor decision-making at the Baftas easily puts those made by their
counterparts at the Oscars in the shade. The old chestnut used by anyone to
criticise the Oscars is that Ordinary People beat Raging Bull to the Best
Film gong. Well, those experts in the British industry awarding what they
proclaim is the "gold standard" didn't even find a place on the nomination
list for Raging Bull.

Possibly the most questionable decision made by Bafta was the awarding of
the editing gong to Speed in 1995. A ridiculous decision, as it was up
against Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's flick that ripped up the rule book
on the traditional three-act chronological narrative structure of Hollywood
films. While the reasoning behind this decision is unfathomable, other bogus
decisions made by Bafta can at least be rationalised - even if this process
of rationalisation highlights why the Bafta seal of approval cannot be
trusted and why the ceremony should be discarded as a minor backslapping
event.

When Sean Penn picked up his Oscar for Mystic River, he argued: "There is no
best in acting." It's clear that Bafta members think along the same lines,
as their awards often have nothing to do with the best achievements
on-screen. Take the decision to give the best supporting actor honour to
Jake Gyllenhaal for Brokeback Mountain last year. The young actor beat
George Clooney to the prize. Clooney was handicapped by the fact that he was
nominated twice, forSyriana and Good Night, and Good Luck. But he did not
lose just because his vote was split - it was also due to an appalling habit
of voters making choices based on the films rather than on individual merit.
Last year, it was deemed that Brokeback Mountain was the flavour of the
moment, so if you had anything to do with Ang Lee's picture your chances of
winning an award rose exponentially.

The voters at Bafta are obviously a sentimental bunch, as awards are often
given out to make up for past gaffes. The wonderful Susan Sarandon picked up
a gong for The Client, a decision that was a way of saying sorry for not
awarding her the prize for her feisty turn in Thelma and Louise three years
earlier.

It's not even like getting a Bafta is all it's cracked up to be. When the
awards started back in 1947, there were only three prizes given across the
board. Now, it seems that every year there is a new one added to the list.
One of the most recent innovations has been the Carl Foreman award for
Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First
Feature film. This is a prize usually given to a director and, indeed, all
five nominees this year are directors. Yet this is an award that is
something of a poisoned chalice. Often the winners, such as Joel Hopkins in
2002, for Jump Tomorrow, or Emily Young in 2004, for Kiss of Life, have
disappeared without a trace. The winner in 2003, Asif Kapadia, for The
Warrior, eventually had to go to Hollywood to make another film, and Amma
Asante, who won in 2005 with A Way of Life, has yet to make another film. It
makes a mockery of the suggestion that the British industry experts know
best.

Bafta used to save some of its most dubious decisions for the prestigious
Best Film prize. Dead Poets Society won top film in 1990, with neither Spike
Lee's Do the Right Thing or Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape even
nominated. In the Nineties, there was a desire to reward British films,
which explains how the only reasonably good films Four Weddings and a
Funeral and The Full Monty walked away with the top film accolade.

But the death knell to any respectability that came from winning a Bafta was
handed out in 2001 when the award ceremony was moved to ensure that it took
place before the Oscars. It was the moment that even Bafta admitted that it
no longer believed its own press when it claimed: "The Bafta mask is
regarded as the most coveted award among industry practitioners working in
all artforms of the moving image." The move in dates was an implicit
admission that the awards was just another of the many Oscar sideshows.

Since 2001, the ceremony has just been an indicator for the Academy Awards.
This year, the Best Film nominations replicate the Academy Awards (except
for Letters from Iwo Jima, which does not qualify for the Baftas due to its
UK release date, and has been replaced by The Last King of Scotland).
Indeed, such is the desire to pre-empt its American counterpart, that Ken
Loach's The Wind that Shakes the Barley - the British film that won the top
prize at Cannes - has been overlooked.

One of the reasons Loach's film didn't have a hope in hell of being
nominated is as simple as it is sad - that there is very little financial
benefit in increased sales of cinema tickets or DVD sales in it winning
awards. For a film to be up for a Bafta, the distributor of the movie must
be willing to push it. No film can be entered unless the distributor fills
out what is known as a screen credit form in November. Once in the race,
there is such considerable expense involved in sending out DVD screeners to
the 6,000 Bafta members based around the globe that it becomes a financial,
rather than artistic decision, whether to enter the race. Unless you can
afford to mount a campaign, you don't have a chance of being nominated.

The importance of DVD screeners was highlighted in 2005 when Bafta
overlooked Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby and Alexander Payne's
Sideways. The distributors of two of the year's most acclaimed films were so
terrified of piracy that they didn't send out screeners, and not enough
voters bothered to go see the film at the cinema screenings put on for
members.

I know several members of Bafta who pay their yearly membership just to
receive these DVD freebies and it seems that many showed their annoyance by
not voting for film companies who have the audacity to try to get members to
see the films how they're made to be shown - in cinemas. This fact alone
calls into question any prize given out for visual excellence or special
effects.

One year on, and Million Dollar Baby, despite its Oscar success, had no
chance of being nominated for a Bafta. It's a fate that looks likely to
befall another Eastwood movie, Letters from Iwo Jima next year, as there is
simply no commercial mileage in promoting a film that is seen as last year's
news. In total contrast, this year Leonardo DiCaprio was on the nomination
list for Blood Diamond, despite the fact that it hadn't been released yet.
It had, however, been backed by an extensive screening campaign and the
British release date just beat the Bafta cut-off date of 9 February.

If Bafta members can't be bothered to watch the films up for consideration
unless they've been spoon fed, why should anyone be bothered to watch the
awards show they put on. As for the decisions they make, they're simply
irrelevant to anyone but the movie marketing teams or the potential future
earnings of movie agents and stars.

samkydd

I don't think it's sour grapes but an observation on how, like most things in modern life, people and organisations often succumb to marketing hype rather than look at things objectively and form their own opinions.

A few years ago I read an article stating that such awards are not about meritous achievement at all, they're just like the Olympic and World Cup bids, it's all about greasing the right palms! Winners and their backers pay for these trinkets in hard currency! A successful actor is like any commercial company, and the more high profile he/she becomes the more income can be generated for that company, so any award will put the price up and shareholders (agents, publicists etc) in that company will all benefit greatly financially.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Geronimo

My problem with the BAFTAs is Stephen Fry. Although his banter was slightly less offensive last year, for many years he has been allowed to indulge in a childish, purile, schoolboy homosexuality which is, frankly, insulting to the people and the stature of the event. There is only so much one can take of "sphincter" (Lord of the Rings) style jokes and calling Sir Ian McKellan "Serina McKellan" and such nonsense. Fry is clever enough not to debase himself and the evening with this rubbish but doesn't seem able to help himself. Perhaps in the privacy of a theatre greenroom with a private audience he might be appreciated but on a television show it is simply not good enough. You can see members of the audience wince in embarrassment and lack of understanding. The subject of the evening is excellence in film not Fry's homosexuality!

I asked him to look at the body. That's who he is.

Nick Dando

Kaleem Aftab. Is this an anagram?

Nick