Sunday 5 January 2014
All great films and great performances may not win an Academy Award but all Academy Awards is given to some great film and great performance only, so not winning an Oscar doesn't mean that film wasn't great, but winning an Oscar guarantees the fact that there was something very good about that film, it may be the costume designing or the music or any technical award.
Let's talk about how the Oscar Awards is conducted, considering which here are five reasons which defines the greatness of Oscar Awards over the awards we have here in India.
1. Best Dressed: Actors in the west take it rather seriously when they dress for an occasion as big as the Oscars. There is dress code and everybody follows it. This makes the whole place painted in black [as they usually wear Black Tuxedos] whereas in the Filmfare award function, people are dress up in their own choice of clothes and do not follow the dress code as usual. This makes them look weird collectively. Some of them are dressed in Tuxedos, some wear nice formal suits, some wear Blazers and some even come with a shirt and jeans so as to look casual but collectively they end up looking unprofessional.
2. An AV for every nominee: This is something I really respect Oscar Awards for, there is an AV for every Nominee for any award at the Academy, be it an award for Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration or Best Film Editing. Now this AV doesn't just show us a clip of the movie nominated but explains the whole process briefly with which the costumes were selected for a certain film or the way the set of a film was decorated. Sadly, here at filmfare, we don't even think of such an idea, as if its a waste of time learning about the hard work these talented people have given to a certain blockbuster film behind the scenes.
3. Every Winner gets to talk: This is an extension to the point I just mentioned above, it is as important as the AV. Oscar is one of the greatest things that can happen to a person associated with movies, so even a winner for Costume Designing or Film Editing or any other technical award for that matters, gets the podium and is allowed to express themselves on the greatest achievement of their lives, that is Oscars. Here at the filmfare, it is somewhat out of the question, only once in a while, we get to hear a 10 or may be 15 second speech for someone winning a "LESS IMPORTANT" Award. Its a shame that we treat the lesser known people in the crew of a film like this.
4. An Oscar is hard to get: Even for an actor who has done great work through out his career, it take decades to hold an Oscar that officially belongs to them. Popular Actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Samuel Jackson, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson and many more great actors have been doing remarkable work from last 20 to 30 years, but still hasn't got the Academy Award, this dent in their achievement chart makes them respect the competition they have in "Hollywood." Peter O'Toole had been one of the most influential actor for more than 40 or 50 years but never won an Oscar. This keeps the Actors starve for better performance with every new film, thus ultimately raising the bars of the whole film industry. Where as, here in India we shower them with Awards based on their popularity, SRK has no less than 14 filmfare, and Amitabh a little behind him, even that is okay, maybe their so called performances was better than others, but mostly they get awards for their popularity and not their performance [because their have been ignored performances by Irrfan, Manoj Bajpai etc]. But what I don't understand is the way our young actors are pampered with the BEST ACTOR DEBUT Category. This Category spoils the actors and these young actors stop working hard thereafter, as you can see that many of the people who won that award, usually didn't worked well later in their career.
5. Best Picture is the most prestigious Award: At a Bollywood film awards, the most anticipated thing is the Best Actor Award. There will be many questions and guesses leading to find out the opinion on who is it gonna be. Where as in the west, it is not who but which is it going to be, I mean, the film, that ultimate film which many hundreds of people collaborated to make it worth watching, a magnum opus, a masterpiece, whatever you want to say. After all, the hero of the story is not actually the hero of the film, its a collaborative process and it should be treated as the most prestigious Award, so the BEST PICTURE it is, the most anticipated thing.
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| The words in bold are the most important things at Oscars and Filmfare ------------------------- PS: Since Movie Geek's Blog is trying to determine the greatest movie ever made as voted by its readers, will you please take a minute to vote for your favorite movie(s) on the right side bar of this blog? |
nice point put forward. hopefully one day Bollywood movie comes to up a level of Oscar award.
ReplyDeletebollywood makes some really great original films every year, its just that, there are something that really disturbs me like the point I told about honoring the technical team of a film properly
DeleteGreat post, I have always been a great follower of the Oscars, I normally had to stay overnight on Oscar's night as I lived in the UK, the same here as I am only GMT+1 in Southern Spain.
ReplyDeleteI had a collection of all Oscar films, sadly in VHS, and I haven't replaced it fully in DVD/Blueray yet.
I truly loved the insight that you gave us about the Oscars. Keep your good work and certainly I will follow your very interesting blo
Good to know about your love for Oscars and films, I will be glad to have your views on my blog regularly... :)
DeleteThere is a long history and tradition behind Oscars and Hollywood film making. Bollywood is still paying it's dues and suffers little bit (or lot) from glitter blindness caused by it's stars.
ReplyDeleteOne day Bollywood will grow up and learn to apreciate the common effort that making a movie takes. Not just the individual starpower.
Exactly my point, I am not trying to defame a certain industry of films, I am just saying to pay the people their dues, which they deserve in an honorary manner.. :) good to have you here Joanna :)
DeleteEven though all your points are valid and I guess, Oscars do hold a high regard not just for movie makers in US, but elsewhere in the world as well. Somehow I think it was unnecessary to troll the Indian filmfare. That has never been a match and I guess no one here is even trying to match. The point is Oscars are what they are. Movies in India are perceived differently and received differently.
ReplyDeleteIf Filmfare started getting on the track of Oscars, no one would watch it in India. We thrive on drama, music and masti. That's not the case for Oscars. Agreed that 'movies' are celebrated at the Oscars (btw, I love that about them)
That said, both hold their respective places and that's how it is. I guess, they should not be compared. That's my limited point :)
If anything, I can cut down that point about getting dressed in a better way, but the rest four really makes me feel bad about the entertainment system of our country, its pretty much like politics... lots of talented people, but corrupt because of identical reasons we have in Politics, that is fooling the Janta with all that [promises] glitter and not letting the lesser important people get the spotlight for something close to nepotism or star power... Hindi films are one of the greatest producers of good cinema, after the English and French.. we only need to learn the basic ways to treat quality as quality, we make such great films and then end up giving wrong people the wrong credits...
DeleteSo much talent and no acknowledgement sadly..!!