Is 'The Post' A Sign That Oscar-Bait Movies Should Die Out?
The best biopics refrain from constantly announcing that their subjects are extraordinary people making world-changing decision; "The Post" never lets you forget it.
Stephen Spielberg's "The Post," a film about Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers under threat of court injunction, is a love letter to analogue technology. Spielberg's camera lingers over vintage photocopiers, rotary payphones, grainy Sony television screens, pneumatic tube systems. A climactic scene involves a tense six-way phone conversation held over two landlines. Several minutes, by my estimate, are spent watching the Post's printing press in action as its operators painstakingly prepare the June 18, 1971 edition. Not a scene passes where you aren't reminded that practically every aspect of putting out a newspaper was different back then.
Even beyond its fixation on pre-digital machines, "The Post" is not a subtle movie. There are clear heroes: Graham (Meryl Streep), grizzled Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), principled whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), dogged reporter Bob Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk). There are also clear bad guys: former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), who kept sending American soldiers to Vietnam long after he realized the war was unwinnable, and a cowardly and chauvinistic Washington Post board member played by Bradley Whitford (in his second role as a dangerously privileged white guy in an Oscar-nominated film this year). Streep's capable performance can't make up for the fact that Graham's personal journey from timid socialite to inspirational ladyboss happens literally, and implausibly, overnight. Then there's the clunky dialogue: At one point Graham turns to Bradlee and says, "My husband always said that the news is the first rough draft of history." Which is indeed an aphorism often (erroneously) attributed to Philip Graham, but come on. The best biopics refrain from constantly announcing that their subjects are extraordinary people making world-changing decision; "The Post" never lets you forget it.
In short, "The Post" is Oscar bait, and it's halfway successful Oscar bait, having been nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress. This year's nomination marks the 10th Best Picture nod for a Spielberg-directed film, and it is likely to mark his 9th loss in the category. ("Schindler's List" won the Best Picture award in 1994; Spielberg also won Best Director for that film and for "Saving Private Ryan" in 1999.) It's not just "The Post"s lack of nominations in other categories — including Best Director — that bodes ill for the film's chance of taking home the top honor on March 4. It's also the fact that "The Post" stands out as Oscar bait in a refreshingly non-Oscar-baity field. With one exception, none of the other Best Picture nominees even try to match "The Post" in terms of pomp, pedigree and self-importance. (That exception, the Churchill biopic "Darkest Hour," has been given similarly slim odds by prognosticators.)
Think of any other Best Picture nominee this year, and it's likely to be more fun — or at least more surprising — than "The Post." There's a coming-of-age comedy about a stubborn teen girl; a deft horror film that manages to cut to the heart of institutionalized racism; a dark farce about a twisted romance between a designer and his muse. There's a hot tryst between a mute woman and a sexy fish-man, for god's sake. I laughed, genuinely, during "Lady Bird," "Get Out," "The Shape of Water" and even "Phantom Thread"; watching "The Post," I only chuckled dutifully when Hanks-as-Bradlee said something particularly cantankerous. It's not wit per se that distinguishes this year's Best Picture nominees — "Dunkirk" is hardly a laughfest, but it dares to break the war-movie mold instead of deferentially checking all the usual boxes. In a field of funny, quirky, erotic, provocative, genre-bending films, "The Post" seems staid, formulaic, boring.
Which is to say nothing of its optics as a movie about exceptionally well-connected, powerful urban elites. As the New York Times' Cara Buckley has written about "The Post," "For all of its important messaging, it remains a very white, very upper-middle-class film." It's perhaps ironic that the most self-consciously political film of the year actually feels the least vital of this year's Oscar contenders. Even the premise of a woman standing up herself in an old-boys'-club environment, which probably felt rousing when "The Post" was being filmed, seems slightly off for this cultural moment. (The point of #MeToo is that all women deserve safety and dignity at work, not just the steely, thick-skinned, Streepian ones.)
Consider it a sign of progress that, at a time of ongoing cultural skirmishes and political turmoil, the Academy doesn't seem to be falling for the easy answers and false moral clarity of a period piece about a Great Moment in American History. There will surely always be a place for historical dramas and biopics in American cinema — and at the Oscars — but let's hope they have the narrative energy of a "Hidden Figures" or the moral complexity of a "Zero Dark Thirty." In short, let's hope they have something to recommend them besides the gravitas of their subject and the eminence of their cast and director. It's too early to declare Oscar bait dead, but "The Post" seems like a beautiful but soulless artifact of a simpler time, a mechanical marvel of whirring cogs and gears, well on its way to obsolescence.
In the lead up to the 2018 Oscars, we're taking a closer look at each of the Best Picture nominees. Read our previous entries:
The Unerring Dedication To Craft In 'Dunkirk' May Be Its Oscars Undoing
Does 'Lady Bird's Best Picture Nomination Represent A Breakthrough For Female Directors?
How Can A Film With The Pedigree Of 'Phantom Thread' Be An Oscars Dark Horse?
Would A Best Picture Win For 'Call Me By Your Name' Be An Authentic Victory For LGBT Cinema?
