• What Oscar Winners and Presidents Both Need

  Posted Thursday, February 19, 2009 2:22 PM | By Willa Paskin
  
  
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  The Oscars are Sunday night (maybe you heard). When Kate Winslet finally gets awarded the shiny, gold-plated, bald phallus she's been so volubly longing for, I'm going to feel tempted to throw the remote at the television while damning Academy voters for rewarding just an OK performance in a dreadful film. Come on, Academy! Aren't the Oscars about rewarding quality acting?  Ha-ha, I kid. Of course not! As this year demonstrates, even better than most, the Oscars are all about rewarding compelling campaign narratives.
  
  Front-runners Kate Winslet, Mickey Rourke, and Heath Ledger (nominated for performances in The Reader, The Wrestler, and The Dark Knight respectively) all have just such a narrative, and you can tell because each of their victories is easy to imagine as a scene in a movie. (Try to do this trick for any of their fellow nominees—it's much harder.) Winslet's win is the moment the heroine's childhood dreams all come true. Rourke's is the instant the hero's comeback is finally complete. Ledger's victory actually will be a scene in a movie, the inevitable Heath Ledger Story. (Can't you see it? A packed auditorium of the best actors in the world rising to give a bittersweet standing ovation to his immense talent.) If any of this trio wins this weekend, it will have something to do with singular performances and a whole lot more to do with their real-life stories and how those stories have been pitched to the voting public. (A similar logic applies to Slumdog Millionaire, which should win because the field is weak, people dig it, and, as the unheralded, multi-ethnic crowd pleaser, it is the Barack Obama of the best picture category.)
  
  Excellent backstories have propelled many past Oscar winners. To name just a few of those many, think of Jennifer Hudson, Matt and Ben, the coronation of Julia Roberts, or even someone like Al Pacino, who won for Scent of a Woman not because it was his (or the year's) best work but because he had been Oscar-less for too long. Academy voters have proved again and again that they love a great story as much as a great performance—they're movie people after all; great stories are their business. It's about time I stopped being surprised.
  Filed under: Mickey Rourke, Heath Ledger, Academy Awards, Oscars, Kate Winslet
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