Late Oscars Response

For the first time ever, I sat up and watched the Oscars being broadcast live. It was quite the experience. I know there's been a lot of criticism of Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts, but I thought they were quite sweet. Clearly they were no Billy Crystal, but at least they weren't Ricky Gervais.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with who won, although I really thought Hailee Steinfield should have won Best Supporting Actress. I still don't understand why she wasn't nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (though she wouldn't have beaten Natalie Portman, who was just genius in Black Swan, and fully deserved to win), but her performance in True Grit was so good, and she really held her own onscreen with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, both of whom are incredibly charismatic actors. Plus, I've not seen The Fighter, so I'm not really in a position to comment on whether Melissa Leo deserved it or not.

I was pleased Aaron Sorkin won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network, because even though I didn't really like the film, his script was so well-written and he's such a good writer that he deserves Academy recognition (I love Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip so much, it makes me sad that it was cancelled after one season).

It was not particularly surprising that The King's Speech won so many of the big awards, and I'm really glad it did, not just because it was a fantastic film, but because it was funded by the UK Film Council. I wrote this article on the closure of the UKFC for The Epigram a couple of weeks ago:

If one film has dominated the start of 2011, it’s The King’s Speech. The film tells the true story of how an unorthodox speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) helped King George VI (Colin Firth) to overcome his debilitating stammer. This unassuming historical drama has been loved by audiences and critics alike, and is nominated for almost every major accolade this awards season. Firth has already received a Golden Globe for his stellar performance as the stammering monarch and he is hotly tipped to win the Best Actor Oscar, one of the twelve Academy Award nominations the film received in January – the most Oscar nominations of any film this year.

Amongst those singing the film’s praises is Tanya Seghatchian, Head of the UK Film Council’s Film Fund: "This is fantastic result for The King's Speech and points to a very successful awards season for this brilliant British film.  We are proud to have played a part in helping it to get made and congratulate everyone connected with the film.” However, behind these words of admiration lies a much sadder story.  The UK Film Council (UKFC) was abolished last year as part of the current government’s sweep of Arts cuts. Set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK, the Film Council funded for hundreds of successful British films, including In The Loop, Fish Tank, The Last King of Scotland and This Is England. Even more recently, the UKFC provided almost a quarter of the budget for Mike Leigh’s Another Year, whose script is nominated alongside The King’s Speech for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. In the belt-tightening years of the mid to late 2000s, it is likely that many of these films would not have been made without UKFC funding. 

Unsurprisingly, the decision to shut down the Film Council was widely criticised, as its closure has the potential to affect all strata of the film industry. The UKFC funded regional film schemes, such as Screen Yorkshire, which itself funded Paddy Considine’s directorial debut Tyrannosaur. Tyrannosaur went on to win two major prizes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Nationally, the British Film Institute was funded by the UKFC, as well as programmes to make cinemas across the country more accessible for those with sight and hearing impairments. On a general level, the UKFC had a strong tradition of funding films that showcased the best that Britain has to offer, be that beautifully shot character pieces or groundbreaking works by new writers and directors. It seems foolhardy and short-sighted to make cuts to one of the major industries in which Britain seems to truly operate on a global stage, particularly as the industry employs over 36,000 people.

It is not just the success of The King’s Speech that has drawn attention to the importance of the Film Council: two films funded by the UKFC, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Son of Babylon, have been chosen to screen at the prestigious Berlin film festival. As UKFC-funded films continue to do so well, both critically and financially, it helps to further underline the ludicrousness of the government’s decision. However, it’s not all doom and gloom for the British film industry. Fox Searchlight, which funded films such as Black Swan and Never Let Me Go, has formed a partnership with UK-based media investor Ingenious to finance new British films. Whilst this arrangement is far from perfect, as the deal only amounts to the distribution of three films a year, it does at least go some way to filling the void left by the UK Film Council.

 - Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 235, Feb 21st 2011)


As a consequence of how well The King's Speech did, more funding is being put back into the UK film industry (at least this article from The Guardian), though I don't understand why they had to abolish the UKFC in the first place


NB: I know The Oscars are kind of old news now, and everyone's moved onto Charlie Sheen going nuts and John Galliano being an anti-Semite, but I've been writing an essay on Edgar Allan Poe for the last week, so time has only just restarted for me.