America going Global?
Topic: films| No Comments »
Image from Pan’s Labyrinth
Is Hollywood showing mainstream America the real world - something other than this?
The 79th Academy Awards was the most “international” ceremony yet. Not just for the fact that more than a billion people watched, but it was *represented* by more non-American artists than ever before.
There were the so-called Three Amigos - Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo Del Toro - whose films combined for 16 nominations! There were Japanese and Mexican and Spanish women with actress nominations, a Nigerian getting an actor nomination, a Chinese producer winning the Oscar for the documentary short. An Italian musician (the genius Ennio Morricone) getting honorary award. The best animated short is Canadian, the live short winner is a musical about Israel-Palestine conflict, the documentary short winner is about AIDS in rural China. The documentary feature winner, the eye-opening “An Inconvenient Truth“, is about *global* warming. The absolutely brilliant Mexican film “Pan’s Labyrinth” winning, among others, the coveted cinematography and art direction awards. There were acceptance speeches in Chinese, Italian and Spanish. There was even a montage of 50 award-winning foreign language films. Truly, an international flavor.
Is America finally going global starting from Hollywood? Are we acknowledging there are people living in countries outside our borders? Real people, people that matter.
Perhaps its fitting that the winner of the Best Foreign Language Film award is a film titled - “The Lives of Others”.
