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Chicago's poster boasts that it is "The one movie that has it all."

Apparently not.

According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Chicago does not have the year's best actor (Adrian Brody, The Pianist), best director (Roman Polanski, The Pianist), best actress (Nicole Kidman, The Hours), best supporting actor (Chris Cooper, Adaptation), or best adapted screenplay (Ronald Harwood, The Pianist.) Even though it's a musical, it also did not have the best score (Elliot Goldenthal, Frida) or the best song ("Lose Yourself", by Eminem, 8Mile).

However, the movie was still named the best picture of 2002 over strong competition from The Pianist, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Gangs of New York, and The Hours. Chicago is the first film in 62 year to win best picture without having the best director, actor, actress, or screenplay. (The previous winner under such conditions was Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.) Chicago's Catherine Zeta-Jones did receive the Oscar for best supporting actress.

The Pianist's victories on Oscar night were a thrilling surprise. In fact, The Pianist became the first film since 1932 to win best director, best actor, and best screenplay (adapted) and then lose the Best Picture award. (The last film to do this was John Ford's The Informer.)

Nevertheless, the triumphs of The Pianist do not come without controversy. In 1977, Polanski pleaded guilty to statutory rape in the U.S. and fled to France, where he has been making movies ever since. He would be arrested if he entered the U.S.

Not able to attend the ceremony, Polanksi responded with a statement from Paris. The L.A. Times reported that he said he was "deeply moved to be rewarded for the work which relates to the events so close to my own life, the events that led me to comprehend that art can transform pain. I believe this still holds true today."

It seems many in the Academy, and film critics as well, decided that great art should be acknowledged despite the artist's unethical decisions.

For those who like to write-off the Oscars as merely a game of money and politics, this year's awards send a slight rebuttal. Despite expensive "vote for us" campaigns mounted by Miramax on behalf of Gangs of New York and its director Martin Scorsese, many nominees who did not play the dirty campaign game walked away with the awards including Chris Cooper, Ronald Harwood, Roman Polanski, Pedro Almodovar, and Eminem. Gangs staggered away without any victories.

A disappointment for many religious press critics was that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers only walked away with two Oscars: best visual effects and best sound editing. Some speculate that academy voters are waiting until next year's The Return of the King to give Peter Jackson and company their due. But then again, Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Scorsese have yet to win an Oscar. The academy also seems to have little regard for fantasy.

Before the Oscars began, I voiced my dismay that the "glitzy" event had not been postponed. Perhaps it should have been. But something in me responded when Nicole Kidman accepted her Oscar—well-deserved for her magnificent portrayal of Virginia Woolf. She thanked her family for their support, and voiced the question that had been on many minds: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important."

She's right, to a point. Insofar as the Oscars represent the celebration of artmaking done well, the show should go on. But when money-driven politics poisons the proceedings; when Academy voters are more swayed by celebrity, trends, expensive campaigns, and political agendas; and when Oscar rules limit other countries from submitting more than one film for consideration, the Oscars lose their meaning and simply become a circus.

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47