3-13-03, 10:09 am
When the head of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Neil Portnoy, applauded the Writers’ Union for its successful labor contract negotiations during the February 10th showing of the 50th Grammy Awards, millions of viewers saw a side of the industry rarely put forward. Portnoy was clearly on the side of writers and the union in an industry that has been ruthlessly anti-worker.
Progressive movements in the music field are not always creatively displayed and directly political themes are downplayed or frowned upon. In this case, I would suggest, that the dialectical way in which rap and hip hop were intertwined with other music styles and significant historical icons as part of the Grammy Award show was exceptional. There is a long history of the industry first not respecting these art forms, and when they did, to segregate it.
For example, Alicia Keys electronic duet on “Learning the Blues” with deceased singer Frank Sinatra was truly amazing.* The performance was reminiscent of the duet that Natalie Cole sang with her deceased father Nat King Cole on “Unforgettable” a duet which was awarded a Grammy earlier this decade. Sinatra would have been overjoyed to be teamed with Keys. In an equally brilliant performance, Beyoncé and Tina Turner sang Turner’s old hit “Proud Mary” together. These are the kind of intergenerational events that builds a sane society.
New York Times music reporter Jon Pareles, in seeking to promote new music forms and artists, actually did a disservice to the need to bring all artists together. He took a shot at the historical and contemporary approach. Splicing in older artists, Black and white, with the current crop did not sit well with Pareles. He claimed that, “the show seemed almost eager to kiss off the young listeners who download a lot of music nowadays but still make up the industry’s most enthusiastic audience.” On the positive side, he fully supported the nomination and then awarding of the Grammy awards to British, Amy Winehouse. He was afraid that Amy Winehouse would not win the evening’s main awards, which she did, since her life is a drama of the conflict between brilliant artistic performances competing with drug addiction.
The final statement of progress in the show was the awarding of the Album of Year Award to a true music institution that is completely born and developed in this country: jazz. The album was Herbie Hancock’s River: the Joni Letters. This album also moves progressively by combining the brilliance of previously Grammy award winner Joni Mitchell within the jazz medium and creative brilliance of Hancock. Audiences witnessed Hancock recognized alongside jazz icons John Coltrane and Miles Davis as two jazz giants on whose shoulders he stood to accept this award.
The Oscars: 80 Years
While this year’s Grammy Awards progressive nature derived not directly from music and lyrics, but by the intertwining of race, gender and age of recipients and actual songs and performances, filmmakers, actors, and directors were able to be far more politically direct with their creations this past year.
The problem for filmmakers is, however, that the more directly political they create, the greater the risk that the movie corporations and other right-wing forces routinely would deny financing and distribution avenues to these on political grounds. More overt political repression, such as in the case of the McCarthyite persecution of the Hollywood 10 and the blacklisting of hundreds of entertainment industry workers, is another manifestation of the right-wing’s response to progressive filmmaking.
An epic dramatization and historical of that particular moment in American entertainment and politics found its way to the big screen in 2006’s Good Night and Good Luck, directed by George Clooney. That Clooney’s work was recognized and awarded was a truly amazing film event.
In recent years these progressive efforts by filmmakers are finally receiving recognition in the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences. In this years’ award show, the trend continues as “Hollywood” finally recognized and awarded great filmmaking and at the same time encouraging more of the same. The acceptance of international filmmakers, actors and actors/actresses is a significant change. Here are some of the best films offered this year. Documentaries and Foreign Language Films
In the documentary category, this year, there was a stunning array of films. The most widely viewed film was, Sicko by Michael Moore. This highly popular film, grossing over $25 million, followed his 2002 Oscar winner, Bowling for Columbine. The Academy unfortunately, did not nominate Moore’s brilliant anti-war, anti-Bush Fahrenheit 9/11 a couple of years ago. Moore is able to do what almost all documentary filmmakers are unable to do, that is, to produce politically powerful films and make money, in his case, lots of money.
The documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, took the Academy Award this year. It is a real time film about the Bush administration’s illegal “rendition” program of kidnapping often-innocent people and sending them to their home or other countries for interrogation which usually involved torture. It was interesting, that this documentary was produced in the same year as the commercial film, Rendition, starring Reese Witherspoon. The director of the Taxi, Alex Gibney, made a special plea in his acceptance speech to end the war and these illegal methods. “Turn this country around,” he pleaded.
Also nominated was Charles Ferguson Audrey Marrs’ No End in Sight, which examined the drive for Bush’ war in Iraq. Richard Robin’s, Operation Homecoming, utilizing the writings of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, also dramatized the horrors of war. Most of the documentaries were both financially successful and well distributed, as far as documentaries go.
The five films nominated for best foreign language film were distributed less widely, therefore less well known. The Viennese film, The Counterfeiters, set in Nazi-era Berlin and written and director by Stefan Ruzowitzky, took the Academy Award. It was one film about concentration camps that does not fit into a simple formula event. Critics compared it favorably to another Oscar winner, Schindler’s List.
Feature Films
The Academy chose to nominate Tommy Lee Jones not for his outstanding performance in The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men,” but rather it selected to recognize his work in the brilliant, anti-war film In the Valley of Elah, written and directed by Paul Haggis. In this film, Jones’s character, the father of a Iraq war veteran goes through changes from a pro-war, tough veteran to a person who had to deal with his son’s disappearance. Perhaps Jones’ nomination will help bring more attention to this poorly distributed film and boost its DVD sales and rentals. Paul Haggis also wrote previously awarded films like Crash and Million Dollar Baby as well as the widely acclaimed Clint Eastwood directed film Flags of Our Fathers.
The Iranian animated film, Persepolis, produced in France, was a remarkably educational film on the progress of life and times in Iran over the past 50 years. Writer and director, Marjane Satrapi, uses her personal life experience to explain the often-complicated events surrounding her country’s history so that they are completely understandable. While the film did not win the award for the best-animated film (Ratatouille), that the Academy chose to nominate it was significant. The film is exceptional in that it treated Iran’s left, its Communist Party (known as the Tudeh Party) in an honest way as a bulwark against the right and ultra-right in Iran.
Anti-Capitalist Films
Two major films nominated this year directly attack big capital. Michael Clayton has George Clooney’s character, a lawyer caught between corporate forces he supposedly owes his allegiance to, ends up taking on the power of big business and their government allies. This film has received wide critical acclaim, though its single Academy Award went to Tilda Swinton, playing a ruthless corporate attorney, for best supporting actress.
There Will Be Blood, based on the novel Oil by socialist novelist Upton Sinclair, raised a number of controversial issues. While the film’s screenwriter and director, Paul Thomas Anderson, eliminated the book’s overt anti-capitalist content, the movie’s final version did highlight greed and religious fanaticism among the wealthy elite. Still, the final result was a technically important film with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Academy Award-winning performance.
Additionally, the film’s recognition should result in a resurgence of book sales for Sinclair’s original novel and perhaps even his muckraking expose of the meatpacking industry, The Jungle. It is worthy of note that Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, the 21st century’s version The Jungle, was a producer of this film. Maybe putting forward a socialist solution to the oil industry would have pointed toward the highly successful efforts of the people of Venezuela and its president, Hugo Chávez, who use their country’s oil revenues to give new life to the nations poor and marginalized people. Upton Sinclair would have been proud of the actions of Chavez.
One related and notable highlight of this year’s award show occurred when George Clooney introduced a special 80th Anniversary segment that focused on film icons. In that segment, the great progressive filmmaker Charley Chaplin made a return from exile. This was politically very significant. Indie Films and Overlooked Films
How readers and viewers want to evaluate the popular and critically acclaimed film Juno should be interesting. This film, which gives great power to a brave teenager, also seems to give encouragement to anti-abortion advocates. That Juno chose to keep the baby is not the issue. The point is that she confronted angry and hateful anti-choice protesters at the medical clinic. The film presents the complexities of a woman’s choice in exercising her reproductive rights and takes a negative view of those who would impose their views on a woman. Two other significant films were mostly bypassed by the Academy. Charlie Wilson’s War, a film that turned on its head the theme of one book’s condemnation of the role of Rep. Charlie Wilson’s (D-TX) role in promoting US intervention in Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1980s and glorified the Texas conservative Democrat. The movie, adapted from the book of the same name by George Crile, also hit a new low by hit a new low in giving hero status to a Ollie North-like, fascist character. Kite Runner, a film that exposed the fascist Taliban rule and its perpetuation in Afghanistan, also distorted the facts of Soviet involvement and blow back from the US support in the 1980s of the groups that ultimately combined to form the Taliban. Another film, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, was bypassed which accurately portrayed the heroic role of the left and the communist movement and parties in opposing the fascist regimes in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s. In this film, Cao Hamberger wrote and directed a unique and original film about the son a couple who was forced into hiding from the brutal and criminal dictatorship in Brazil in 1970. The film was created by the remembrances of Hamberger’s own life. The backdrop of the film is Pele’s leadership of the Brazil team to the World Cup championship.
The unique part of this film has the orthodox Jewish community of Sao Paulo protecting the son, Mauro. Mauro is beautifully played by Michel Joelsas. When Mauroo’s grandfather dies, a neighbor named Schlomo, played by Germano Haiut, becomes his unenthusiastic guardian. Schlomo is a refugee from Poland, just a few decades removed from his own family’s crisis under the Nazi holocaust. His “coldness” is overcome by Mauro’s humanity. Hanna, played by Daniela Piepsck, is Mauro’s contemporary and displays the youthfulness of life while at the same understanding the crisis taking place around her and her family.
With the historic Barry Sisters, a Yiddish singing duet, records playing in the background, often along side great Brazilian music, the film has the sound, feel and reality of a time, which, fortunately is behind Brazil. For me, this film brought back memories of contemporaries who told stories of the families of US Communist Party members who also had to take vacations during the McCarthy witch-hunt. The film made the “long list” of Academy Award nominations, but, unfortunately, not the final five. Pressure from the labor and peoples’ movement, aligning itself with the music and filmmaking progressives will be necessary to keep the two Academies moving in a positive direction.
Notes:
For more on Frank Sinatra’s complex political background see Gerald Meyer, “Frank Sinatra: The Popular Front and an American Icon,” Science and Society. 66:3, Fall 2002. P. 311-335.
