There are many questions surrounding the voting for the Oscar shortlist which has now concluded in seven different categories, and will take place in sound, visual effects and makeup on Saturday. For example: Can Diane Warren stay in the race for other Best Original Song nomination for a song from a movie almost no one has seen, “Tell It Like a Woman?” How many showbiz documentaries can advance to that list? Will “RRR”’s wildly over-the-top visual effects make it the first Indian film to advance in that race?
But most of all, I wonder how this year’s new rules will affect the Best International Feature Film category and its list of 15 films, which will be announced on December 21 along with all the other lists.
In a change that has caused much concern among voters and category strategists, the international category this year separated its voters into 11 different groups and required voters to watch each of the eight or nine movies in their assigned group. for your ballot to count.
(In the past, you had to see a minimum number of movies, which was usually in the double digits, but it was never mandatory to see everything in your group; voters had some leeway in what they could choose to see.)
And a couple of weeks after that rule was revealed, a second major change came when voters were told that instead of rating each movie as they had in the past, they would simply be asked to rank their 15 top.
The first of the rule changes does something very valuable: it makes sure that each of the 92 eligible movies is seen by a reasonable number of voters. Under the old rule, a voter could watch a group of, say, 18, see the most high-profile movies, and then pick a few more from other groups; there was little doubt that some movies were seen by far more voters than others. But if voters are evenly divided into 11 groups, and voters in each group are required to see all the movies they’ve been given, no movie can get lost in the shuffle. (The Documentation Branch does something similar.)
But the new rule that requires voters to observe each filming in a group could also have the effect of scaring some of them away. Particularly in the groups without high-profile contenders (and there are definitely some of them, since the biggest movies are distributed more randomly than evenly), watching eight or nine movies could become a drag. It’s true that many members volunteer for this category for the joy of finding out, but it’s also true that at least a third of the movies in any given year have virtually no chance of advancing, and to have a number of those in your pool it could start to feel like a chore rather than a treat.
And while the old system of giving each movie a numerical score advanced the movies with the highest average rating, the new method of listing your 15 favorites has the potential to reward the highest profile seen by the most people. That rule could make it much harder for dark horses and surprises to sneak onto the shortlist; sorry, whatever this year’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” is.
It also means that voters who were only able to see the required minimum may end up listing all the movies they saw on their ballots, giving improbably high placement even to movies they didn’t like. In the meantime, conscientious voters who have seen dozens of contenders will have to be much more picky about the movies they list, hurting what could be a very strong fifth, eighth or 10th pick. Will that force the shortlist to be spread more evenly among the 11 groups, some of which on paper seem unlikely to produce a single shortlisted film?
That’s something to keep in mind: Will, say, “Argentina, 1985” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” both of which appear to be shortlist locks, will be penalized for the fact that they’re both in Group 9. , along with other contenders like “Cinema Sabaya” and “Eternal Spring?”
Voting this year may become a balancing act between what might increase voter turnout (reduce the number needed to vote) and what might decrease it (not give voters a choice about what they see). And with the smaller pools of required movies, it also means most voters will have to catch up in the second round, in which you need to have seen all 15 shortlisted movies in order to vote. That could reduce the number of entrants in the crucial Phase 2, which takes 15 shortlisted films and selects the five nominees.
The new rules are well-intentioned, and there is a chance they could increase turnout in a category that, to all appearances, has always been measured in hundreds of voters instead of thousands. But they’re also a risk, though, to be fair, the air of secrecy surrounding Oscar voting means we’ll never really know if they work or fail.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for Germany, Belgium, South Korea, and Norway making the shortlist quickly, Mexico and Poland having enough fans to make it too, and Argentina, Austria, Denmark, France, and maybe Ukraine making it as well. right. And then keep an eye out for Venezuela, Spain, Morocco, Sweden, Pakistan, India, Ireland, Italy, and Cambodia, and cross your fingers for the dark horses that will fight a hostile new system.