While all of us who try to predict award show winners didn't see "Lincoln" losing all Golden Globe nominations except one, it was clear the Globes have learned the art of sharing the wealth. Whether that's a new form of cinematic socialism is a question in pondering whether the sharing concept is a hindrance or virtue for awarding film. But the burning desire to award everything to avoid derision for overlooking anything is not only apparent in the Golden Globes, it's also at the Oscars.
That might not seem obvious at the Oscars after the snubs of Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck. This isn't to say that the Oscars won't still give a little bit of gold to each of this year's contenders to cope with the emerging concept of releasing too many great movies in quick succession. All told, we can't expect a movie with 12 nominations to win it all when it's looking popular to go in even numbers and provide two awards each to six undeniably excellent films.
If that's what the Golden Globes and Oscar voters have in mind, then the record hauls for films such as "Gone With the Wind", "All About Eve", "Titanic", and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" are possibly over.
And that might be a better road for all award shows when placing one movie on a pedestal threatens to fuel a monumental ego trip to those involved. Other than James Cameron who seems to live on his own cinematic cloud, having a producer or director with a record award pile instigates intense scrutiny for ensuing projects. Some of the producers of the above-mentioned movies had perpetual trouble having future film projects compare in quality to a movie that previously required a semi-truck for all the rewards.
There may be awareness of that by directors and producers in the voting academies when ego is becoming the new enemy to watch out for in the film industry. Even so, it's not a new path if you remember the last film to sweep multiple awards was a decade ago. In fact, in many cases, films with myriad nominations have more recently been given the shaft as a form of new curse. It's possible "Lincoln" will become the new victim of this at the Oscars.
In fact, "Lincoln" could come up a bust if Oscar realizes Joaquin Phoenix may show up to the show as he did the Golden Globes (with arm possibly twisted). The sharing of award wealth, though, has already been keenly felt at the Oscars in the last 10 years. If the same this year, then "Lincoln" should evenly win for Best Actor and perhaps Best Picture as the Oscar's decision to go with pure Americana.
No, it doesn't seem possible "Argo" will win Best Picture at the Oscars with no Ben Affleck for Best Director. Then again, splitting the difference ultimately works out in strange ways where Best Picture can win without the director following suit. With that, the Oscars can fit in "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and "Amour" to the mix, i.e. two wins each to stretch the generosity.
Such cooperative management of award show hauls doesn't have to get into Marxism to show that sharing the wealth helps keep easily inflatable Hollywood egos in check.
