Oscars 2012: Why The Artist should win best picture

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This article titled “Oscars 2012: why The Artist should win best picture” was written by Xan Brooks, for The Guardian on Tuesday 24th January 2012 17.14 UTC

History records that maintaining a dignified silence is rarely the best route to Oscar glory. Awards season traditionally plays out to an ongoing din as a slew of colourful, garrulous celebrities take to the chatshow circuit to drum up support for a slew of colourful, garrulous films.

And yet – if the omens prove correct and the bookies’ odds borne out – this year’s Academy Awards may be about to break from the script, lavishing its major spoils on a silent, black-and-white comedy from a French film-maker with a tongue-twister name.

“Hazana-ha-visosh,” stumbled the Academy president when announcing a best director nomination for The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius. Hollywood take note: a written cue-card can sometimes be so much more eloquent than a garbled spoken word.

The Artist and Hugo – two loving, meticulously crafted valentines to the early days of cinema – lead the field as these Academy Awards swing into the final straight; suggesting, perhaps, that there is nothing the film industry likes more than the film industry itself.

Away from these frontrunners, however, the nominations throw a last-minute lifeline to a number of other worthy contenders.

It’s heartening, for instance, to note some Oscar recognition for Gary Oldman’s superbly subtle, shaded performance in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as well as for Melissa McCarthy’s altogether louder, cruder, funnier turn in Bridesmaids.

I’m also particularly pleased to see The Tree of Life spring up, seemingly out of nowhere, on the best film and director shortlists. Terrence Malick’s rapturous meditation on life, the universe and everything found itself all but shut out by both the Baftas and the Globes. So full credit to the Academy for acknowledging the film’s brilliance, however briefly. Try as I might, I can’t see it upsetting the favourites.

Instead, this year’s Oscars shape up as a straight fight between The Artist and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, while The Descendants, Moneyball and the redoubtable Meryl Streep (surely a best actress shoo-in for The Iron Lady) make merry on the sidelines.

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Judged in terms of statues alone, The Artist may yet finish second best to Hugo – a winsome, if faintly mechanical 3D fantasy that looks likely to dominate the technical categories.

And yet for all that, I’m tipping Hazanavicius’s comedy to scoop the crowning best picture Oscar, overturning its chatterbox rivals to become the first silent-film winner since Wings back in 1929. What a rousing result that would be: a Hollywood success story as scripted by Harvey Weinstein and the final act in a Pygmalion-style transformation that has seen The Artist go from mute, penniless outsider to stealthy, deadly shark.

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