The top (best picture) Oscar has increasingly gone to films that are soon forgotten, intones a recent issue of the British newsweekly, The Economist.
Gosh, no kidding.
This confirms our suspicion that recent Oscar winners, while often experiencing temporary box office boosts, are soon consigned to the dustbin of neglected Hollywoodiana.
Quickly: which movie actually won the best picture Oscar for 2018? (Answer below.)
To buttress its overall thesis, The Economist referred to a website we like a lot — IMDb — which contains a list of references to what the newsweekly describes as rates of mentions of every film in subsequent films and tv shows.
In other words, the listing tracks how many times a specific movie is talked about and/or cited in other and later films or tv shows. Back to The Economist: For example, ‘Casablanca’ has over 1,600 references , including a discussion in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and a poster in ‘True Romance.’
The Economist figures, as do we, that the more after-initial-playoff mentions of a movie, the greater its claim to being the kind of “classic” we talk about. The film lives on long after its departure from theaters.
So a rough proxy for a movie’s cultural influence is to count how many times it was referred to in subsequent years, and then compare its tally with those of all other films made in the same year.
In general, best picture Oscar winners from Hollywood’s classic period, the Thirties to the Sixties, were most frequently talked about. Fully 68% of references to films made in 1939 are to ‘Gone With The Wind’ (a winner) and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (nominated).
Best picture winners in the 1950’s had a 20% chance of being the most-referred-to film, discovered The Economist. That changed after the 1970’s when box office blockbusters took over popular conversation, and more or less split audience preferences from critics’ darlings.
The exception that may prove the rule, of course, was 1972’s The Godfather, which won a best picture Oscar and also emerged as the year’s biggest box office smash. A genuine classic, the movie drew more than 30% of subsequent references for films released in that year.
As Oscar voters more and more spurned more commercial movies, the rate of subsequent best-picture winner’s mentions — and the film’s cultural influence overall — has diminished sharply. It has usually been the big blockbuster that hog the conversations.
The result: Best Picture winners today have just a 2% chance of leading the references table.
As The Economist headlines: No longer a tastemaker… The Academy’s influence peaked a half century ago. (And by the way, when was the last time 2018’s best picture winner,”Green Book,’ came up in conversation around the watercooler?)
Makes me worry a bit about references to Britain itself after BREXIT.
It’s too early in the morning to try to decide if the references The Economist is talking about are over the course of 80 years or just two years. Also, if you add pictures that were nominated, as noted above, or only actual winners. Citizen Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley, but is obviously better known for many reasons. I’m proud that I have mentioned a 20th Century-Fox product at 4:20 am the first full day AF (after Fox). Gone but not forgotten.
Today’s post gives me something to contemplate as I prepare to assay So Cal’s freeways.
Thanks for the fun.
THE ECONOMIST is hardly a good source for economic and money matters to quote from, let alone movies…
And as for the subject of who remembers “Best Picture” Oscar winners, who remembers ANYTHING today?
Once upon a time there really were BEST pictures that everyone remembered, and 1939 in terms of nominations was their greatest year by far…
Besides GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ, MGM also dominated the list with GOODBYE MR CHIPS and NINOTCHKA…
And from the other studios -MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, STAGECOACH, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, LOVE AFFAIR, OF MICE AND MEN and DARK VICTORY.
Back in those days each studio knew exactly how each Academy member who worked for them voted. And it’s no surprise that those very same employee members whether directors, editors, writers etc., also knew their vote was being watched and hence they tended to vote for their studio’s films over any other.
The sad part is as with a great year like 1939, why can’t their be multiple “Best Picture” winners, as its an apples and oranges comparison when period movies compete with say westerns and contemporary films?
And of course remember the times these movies came out pre-television, pre-home video, pre-movie channel, pre-streaming era…
The so-called ‘BEST’ picture winners these days don’t have the iconic and memorable qualities of say LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, PATTON, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE STING or THE GODFATHER II, all very popular audience pleasing movies that were all affordable to watch and enjoy in a movie theater.
But at the end of the day as I’ve said so often, what does all this really matter?
We live in a short-attention span, trending now era where people don’t remember ANYTHING, let alone who won the best picture this year
It’s all subjective… What REALLY counts is what YOU think is worthy of being a BEST picture… What you like and choose to remember is what REALLY counts!