In Praise of Awards Season Camp

A Single Man

Much of Tom Ford's A Single Man is seen through the eyes of George (Colin Firth), and I mean that quite literally. The camera is not an impassive observer -- it burrows in on details that the fastidious George would appreciate, and if they infuse his cool, gray world with an unexpected burst of glamour, feeling, or eroticism, they come alive in warm hues, as though a radiator dial has been rotated in a giddy rush.

A friend of mine hated the color shifts, calling them a gimmick that felt too on-the-nose: "I get it!" he cried. "It's supposed to be a sensual moment!" He wanted the characters to carry the moment, for the photography and framing to suggest something for the viewer to discover. That's a perfectly valid point of view -- no audience member wants to have their hand held, after all. It also would have made A Single Man a much less interesting movie.

Since when did everything have to be theater? In cinema, I don't mind a visual flourish or an attempt to convey something subjectively. Firth's performance is fantastic, and though it certainly carries the whole film, to drop the color shifts and POV shots would be to its detriment. We're as fascinated when we're looking at Firth as we are when we're looking at the world through his eyes. George is so obsessive about details that when he prepares for his suicide, he pointedly underlines an instruction that he be buried in a tie pulled into a windsor knot. Ford is just as exacting, and his ability to elaborate on George's tics in such a lavish visual fashion is what makes A Single Man so singular.

Inglourious Basterds

Now that Inglourious Basterds has become an unlikely Oscar contender, does it need to be reevaluated through a more staid lens? I hope not. Though some of its wild notions didn't work for me (still can't get behind that Brad Pitt performance, sorry), just as many of them did. I'll tell you, I'm giddy about the idea that a film could get nominated for Best Picture where these three things happen in the third act:

1) A title card flashes, announcing that the segment will be graced with the preposterous name, "Revenge of the Giant Face"

2) 1940s heroine Shosanna walks down a corridor to the triumphantly anachronistic sounds of David Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)"

3) Melanie Laurent is called upon to deliver a prolonged, over-the-top, sinister laugh as a very important Nazi has his head splattered open by machine guns at close range

So much of the Oscar race is boring and predictable. Can't we celebrate the fact that this year, the movies aren't?

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