Why The Oscars Academy Should Pay More Attention To Foreign Language Cinema
The Oscar celebrations are by far the biggest and most prestigious of all of the television and cinema award ceremonies, with stars from all over the globe convening in Los Angeles to have their cinematic successes recognised.
And yet, after all this time, the awards only have one category for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’. Now, let’s just break that down for a moment; the Oscars exists to recognise US achievement in film, so granted, English is the central, non-foreign language. Even so, as the most prestigious award in the industry, there is a world of ‘foreign’ films out there (literally) which are consigned to a single category out of 24.
Or are they?
Hugary’s foreign film entry Son of Saul took the prize this year (photo from welovebudapest.com)
Consider this; a lot of foreign talent receives acknowledgement in the awards, but under other categories. Foreign actors (like this year’s winner of the Best Supporting Actress award, Alicia Vikander, who is from Sweden), directors (Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu for example, who has taken home the Oscar in his category twice in a row), or musical composers (Italy rejoiced as Ennio Morricone finally won this year for his musical score upon his sixth nomination) are constantly earning their own golden figurines.
The problem here is that the Oscars acknowledge ‘foreign’ talent without actually acknowledging it, meaning that it appears that the US movie industry dominates (as you would expect; other countries also have their own annual awards) while really it just dilutes the quality and quantity of non-English cinema. In search of that renowned prize, brilliant cinematic artists opt for producing films in Hollywood rather than competing for the single prize available to them in their own language.
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Europe (and the rest of the world for the matter) has some fantastic cinema. Unsurpassable in some cases. And I realise that this article is unlikely to change anything, especially as there are far more pressing matters regarding discrimination in the Academy, but here is my suggestion; create more foreign language categories, allowing filmmakers to flourish in their native environment, or at least make space to allow ‘foreign language’ movies to appear in other categories.
Then we could avoid moments such as the one when Leonardo Dicaprio congratulated his director, Iñárritu, on becoming successful in the past two years, even though he has had great success for at least a decade, only in his native Spanish tongue.
I think it is time for the Oscars to represent worldwide talent, to welcome the multicultural, multilingual world out there, to value the ‘foreign’ world and let it teach us about each other’s cultures ☺
Do you think that the Oscars should put more emphasis on foreign cinema? What films would you have nominated from your country to be in the running for the Oscars categories?
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Originally published at europelanguagecafe.com on March 2, 2016.
