Popularity Vs Quality - Which makes a film worthy of being called Best Picture?

My Dad and I were having a discussion about a comment made on the radio today. The presenter was arguing that Avatar should have won the Best Picture award at the BAFTAs and not The Hurt Locker because, first of all, it is the biggest selling film of all time and, second of all, because such a large number of people have enjoyed it. In other words, he is suggesting that, during awards season, movies should be judged by how much money they make at the box office and by how well-liked these films are by audiences. Not just by the quality of the picture. However, I disagree with these arguments.

Let's look at his first point by using the year 2007, one of the best years of cinema in the last two decades, as an example. It saw the releases of There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, Atonement and, one of my all time favourites, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. A large number of critics called them some the best films of the decade, two of them are in IMDB's Top 250 list and they were all voted into the 'Top 100 Films Of All Time' list by Empire readers.

These movies were all nominated for a ton BAFTAs and Atonement ended up taking home the top prize. But neither Atonement or any of the other aforementioned movies were the highest grossing films that year. That was Spider Man 3. The comic book sequel made almost $400,000,000 while the others couldn’t even hit the $100,000,000 mark.

The presenter on the radio, therefore, would argue that Spider Man 3 should have won the BAFTA for Best Picture and not Atonement. Yet, as anyone who saw the film probably knows, it certainly wasn’t worthy of any kind of award. Especially not in contrast to the masterpieces that I listed above. The Times called it "a towering disappointment", The Daily Telegraph called it "a collection of scenes, and occasionally great visuals or gags, strung together by an inadequate plot" and the NYC FIlm Critic called it "a sprawling mess that awkwardly attempts to make room for two additional villains." Not only did critics hate it though. So did the fans. The film is only rated 6.4 on the IMDB, comments on Rotten Tomatoes call it "disappointing" and those aforementioned Empire readers voted it into the 'Bottom 100 Films Of All Time'.

Obviously there is a slight difference here in the fact that Spider Man 3 was received by audiences and critics far less favourably than Avatar. As the presenter's said, Avatar has been enjoyed by such a large number of people as well as being a box office smash. So should it have won the Best Picture award and not The Hurt Locker then? Well, I can see his point here. While The Hurt Locker did blow a lot of viewers away, it’s far from the phenomenon that Avatar is. But I’ll repeat the name of the award: Best Picture. Avatar would certainly have won if it was called ‘Picture Most Loved By Audiences’. But that was not the award. The award was for the best made film of the year. That means it had to be something that was well directed, well acted and well written in addition to being popular. It had to be something that was unique, challenged the medium and pushed cinema to it’s limits. It had to provoke thought and have a relevant and interesting message within it. The Hurt Locker did all these things. Therefore, while it’s not the best film I’ve seen this year, it was certainly a worthy winner. As would have been An Education, Up In The Air or Precious. Avatar, however, would not have been. It does challenge the medium in terms of it’s special effects and it is certainly well directed. But the story is anything but original and the writing is among the worst I’ve seen in a Blockbuster from 2009. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong to like the film; it’s a film that for all it’s flaws is a thoroughly entertaining popcorn flick. However, the winner of the BAFTA for Best Picture needed to be more than that. After all, cinema isn’t just entertainment. It’s art.

By Daniel Sarath with No comments