Will’s Unpopular Opinion – Leo and the Oscars – 3-6-16

‘The Revenant’ is one of 2015’s Oscar winning films starring Leonardo Dicaprio, and If you’ve taken a moment to carouse the internets you’d probably have seen plenty of Leo/Oscar memes and GIFs floating around for the longest time. They’ve depicted how Leo would never receive an Oscar, to having him literally crawling through the snow in ‘The Revenant’ grasping at the gold foiled Easter bunny treat, then flash forwarding to now, where he has won the trophy and in an ironic transference of humor, meme’s depicting how there could be no more Leo/Oscar memes. Oh how clever…

Is there an allegoric undertone hidden beneath these pieces of cartoon satire? Perhaps there’s some deeper subtext about the Hollywood starlet (who appears to dress in his dad’s clothes for all of his roles). Or maybe there’s some type of meta statement being made directly in ‘The Revenant’ about Leo’s Oscar win and what it states about the industry as a whole? – about whether or not we’re all just self aware participants in a hypocrisy known as ‘The Academy Awards’?

After crawling out of a grave, surviving a bear attack, and sleeping inside of a horse… Leo gets his man (played by Tom Hardy). At the end of the film the two stand blood covered in snow on a beautiful (let’s assume) Sunday morning down by a creek, only to have Hardy ponderously reveal to Leo in an eye-opening and almost prescient monologue (and continued fantastic performance by Tom that seemingly was purposefully overlooked by the Academy) that after everything Leo’s done, everything he’s been through and had to fight for, Hardy tells Leo… nothing has changed. No one cares. Nothing Leo has accomplished through the entirety of the film will ever matter. Sure, Tom will die, Leo has slain his dragon, but that won’t bring his son back, or his wife, or… his horse. Everything that happened, happened and it can’t happen any other way. It’s over. Everything Leo’s been through and he has nothing to show for it. (except horrific scars that make him look like a sewed up bean bag.) Which leads us to the the point of this piece. So, Leo has an Oscar now. So what? Nothing has changed. His life is essentially the same. He got his man, and the sky is still blue. Is this life imitating art, or is it just a parallel image through a dusty prism?

Maybe what last year’s ‘Birdman’ director, Alejandro González Iñárritu was trying to say as part of his rise through Hollywood is: “the point is there is no point.” Oddly similar to the memes of Leo reaching and crawling through the snow metaphorically searching for acknowledgement by his peers, Alejandro takes you on one long continuous two hour tracking shot with lead Michael Keaton (2015 Best Actor nominee and loser) in ‘Birdman’, to reveal to you that the road to the Oscars is an arduous one, and even if you do set out and finish your goals, brush your teeth and say your prayers, you might not receive a statue until it’s given to you for some other film all together. (Keaton later winning an Oscar as part of the cast for Best Picture in 2015’s ‘Spotlight’, or Scorsese winning Best Director for 2006’s ‘The Departed’ instead of 1990’s ‘Goodfellas’.)

Back to Leo. With all the hype around the supermodel smasher being what it is, could he have NOT won? Would that even have been possible? Say what you will about the film; “It’s beautiful.”, “It’s astounding.”, “It’s cold…”…it seems to be an ever growing observation and general consensus that maybe Leo isn’t the best thing in it. In fact, maybe he’s actually the worst thing in it. It’s no question it takes commitment to forge through the snow like he did, or eat a raw liver, or get crusty frozen nose boogers in his beard, but does that make him a great actor? I have a feeling almost anyone would act exactly the way he did if in the same situation, and under the same conditions. Cameras or not. Regardless of your politics and opinions of whether or not he deserved to win, he won. So now the questions becomes.. what now? Does the validation of such an award change the trajectory of his career? No, not really.

As I sat and watched this in the theater I had an odd realization that maybe this whole film is just an inward look at Leo’s life inside the Hollywood machine. Perhaps Tom’s speech is just a self aware piece of commentary, critiquing the academy and the system it has in place for picking winners. Or maybe the ultimate commentary may be that whether you’re reaching for a brass ring or a golden idle, success is indeed fleeting.

One glass of hubris over here please? Huh, it’s half empty…

Leo won an Academy Award. He’s crawled and suffered, and struck out and persevered. There’s no doubt that at one point in his career he didn’t not deserve it. (Probably not for ‘The Revenant’) but in the end, and I hate to be that guy who says it but….. “Good for you bro? Now everyone knows how great you are. Too bad it was at the lowest rated Academy Awards in 8 years, and the Oscar was stolen at the wrap party after the show, but good job man. We’re all really proud of you. You got your redemption!”

“I hope it looks great in someone else’s bathroom.”

-Will Valle