Already I’ve made a contentious statement. The best? In the last five years, the winners for Best Picture at the Academy Awards have been Slumdog Millionaire, No Country For Old Men, The Departed, Crash and Million Dollar Baby. All good films – can I really say that Slumdog Millionaire is the best? Personally, it is my favourite of the five, but obviously that isn’t going to be true of everyone. So perhaps a better title would be “Slumdog Millionaire: The most deserving Best Picture winner in the last five years.” I’m not really satisfied with that either, but I’ll stick with it for now.
First off, let’s establish that Slumdog Millionaire did deserve to win this year. Even if it wasn’t your favourite film of 2008 (I could write a whole separate essay about how The Dark Knight was robbed), when compared to the other four nominations I believe it is shown to be superior to all of them. And the critics seem to agree with me:
Still, coming out on top against rather mediocre films like The Reader isn’t much, especially when you’re contending with the works of Martin Scorsese and The Coen Brothers. I think in years to come, both No Country For Old Men and The Departed will be remembered as far more seminal works than Slumdog Millaire. And yet I still stand by my belief that it deserves the label “Best Picture” more than either of them.
The most prominent reason for why I think this is as follows: 2008 was the first year for a long time in which internal politics didn’t obviously influence the outcome. I believe the last time this happened was in 2003 with Return of the King. That movie won because it was a force of nature. It is the last winner that was massively popular with both critics and the general public. And I don’t mean to say that people didn’t like (for example) The Departed (which was very financially successful), but certainly it wasn’t popular on the level that Lord of the Rings was.
Since then, every winner seems to have been hand picked by the Academy as a “safe choice.” Of course that’s speculation on my part, but I also don’t think it’s much of a stretch. In 2004, we had Million Dollar Baby – the latest film (at the time) from Clint Eastwood. Oscar-bait in every sense of the word, it was melodramatic, dealt with weighty issues of euthanasia and the role of women, and lets not forget it was highly depressing.2005 remains the most obviously contentious, because that was of course the year in which Crash beat Brokeback Mountain. Homophobia, it seemed, was not an issue Hollywood was ready to tackle, especially when racism makes for so convenient a fall guy. Now you could make the argument that this is not dissimilar to Slumdog beating Milk, but remember that Slumdog was always expected to win; Crash’s victory on the other hand was a massive upset. Slumdog was considered by more people to be the better film; Crash was simply considered by the academy as a safer choice.
In 2006, we saw Martin Scorsese’s The Departed snatch the prize, beating (among others) Golden Globe winner Babel. Now I hated Babel, and was absolutely thrilled when Marty won. But most people see this win as the Academy saying “our bad.” Scorsese had been robbed countless time for both Best Director and Best Picture (Taxi Driver lost to Rocky, Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People, Goodfellas lost to Dances With Wolves.) The Academy could not afford to make the same mistake with Scorsese as they made with Hitchcock or Kubrick: they needed to give him the gold to keep credibility. And so as much as I like The Departed, I suspect Babel would have won if Scorsese’s legacy hadn't been at stake.2007 saw No Country For Old Men crowned. All things considered, I probably would have made the same call (either that or Michael Clayton). But again, many people see this decision as an apology for overlooking Fargo for The English Patient in ’96. Furthermore, No Country really was one of only two viable options from a critical point of view, the other being There Will Be Blood. And they couldn’t have given it to that movie because let’s face it, nobody saw it. Therefore from a commercial perspective, this was the only choice.
Another big reason to applaud and acclaim Slumdog is because it is so stylistically different from all previous Oscar winners. You look at the styles of The Coens, Scorsese and Eastwood (all fantastic filmmakers), and you see a very brooding, patient, steady hand at work. Slumdog director Danny Boyle just wants to have a good time. Fast editing, a blasting soundtrack, hyper energetic camera work; these are the traits of modern movies. This win is a sign that Hollywood is “getting with the times.”Moreover, when it comes down to it, Slumdog Millionaire is an upbeat, fun motion picture, which is unique in itself. Sure I suppose The Departed was fun in a morbid, isn’t-it-entertaining-to-see-people-die kind of way, but you don’t leave that movie feeling good about life. Slumdog ended with a dance sequence: good luck frowning after that. I don’t mean to bring people down, but the world is not a happy place right now. Film has always been a medium that can provide people with hope and happiness, and Slumdog Millionaire does exactly that. Too often, our most acclaimed and celebrated films are devastatingly bleak. They’re about murder and racism, discrimination and death. For once, doesn’t feel good to celebrate something joyous?
Alright, that was my deep and meaningful paragraph. I do a couple of other technical reasons why Slumdog’s win was so important, which I’ll just run through quickly. Firstly, it’s an international film: financed entirely by British money, it is the first winner since 1987’s The Last Emperor not to have been funded at least partially by Americans. It is also one of the very few winners to be set in modern times in a foreign country, and that doesn’t feature a predominantly white cast. Secondly, it is one of the first “small” films to win the award in recent memory. By this I mean it was not financed or distributed by a major studio, it did not feature any A-list stars, and it’s director was not (until this win) critically acclaimed (Boyle did have some status, but certainly not on the same level of The Coens, Scorsese, Eastwood, etc).Obviously this entire article is a work of personal opinion, and much of it is based largely on conjecture. I’d just like to reiterate that I love The Departed and No Country For Old Men, and I at least like Million Dollar Baby and Crash. Slumdog Millionaire is different to all these films. It is not an epic, a brooding drama or a probe into the issues that plague our society. It’s small and joyous, filled with romance, adventure and laughter. What’s not to love? And even if you don’t hold it with the same esteem as previous winners, you should still embrace it as a great movie that doesn’t leave you wanting to slit your wrists. For a change.
