If, as the bookies predict, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma triumphs at the Academy Awards, it will open a can of worms. No foreign-language film has ever won. Only two have been nominated for best picture this century (Amour and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). A win for Roma would make history. It would also bring up questions.
Of course, the Oscars is Hollywood voting on its favourite movie, which means “America first”, but it’s “best picture”, right? As in “best picture in the world”, not “best picture by an American or Brit”. You could go back over the years and rank any number of foreign-language films above the best picture winner (was A Beautiful Mind better than In the Mood for Love in 2001?). You can do the same with this year’s nominees: give me Cold War and Shoplifters over Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book any day. Or you could look at world cinema greats such as Godard, Ozu, Fellini or Bergman and ask: were none of the films they made as good as what Hollywood had to offer?
The foreign language Oscar is already a messy afterthought. It was not created until the 29th Academy Awards in 1956, although special awards were given to foreign films before that. Only one entry per country is allowed, and that film must be submitted by an approved national organisation (such as Bafta for Britain), although entries don’t have to be in the national language. A shortlist of nine is created by the Academy’s special committee, which is then whittled down to five by “specially invited committees” in LA, New York and London. And then, only Academy members who have seen all five are allowed to vote on the winner. It’s easier picking a new pope.
It’s not as though the Oscars matter that much, but foreign language cinema is on the decline. In the UK last year, they made up just over 2% of the box office gross, and half of that was Bollywood. Lured by the huge English-speaking market, film-makers are increasingly abandoning their national languages. Look at Chilean-Argentinian Sebastián Lelio, whose A Fantastic Woman won the best foreign language film Oscar last year. He has followed that up with two English movies: Disobedience, set in London, and a remake of his (Spanish-language) 2013 movie Gloria, set in Los Angeles, starring Julianne Moore. There are others: Italy’s Luca Guadagnino, for example, or Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos, whose The Favourite is Roma’s biggest Oscar rival this year. Cuarón is another. Like fellow Mexicans Alejandro Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro, he has already achieved success working in English – with Gravity. His decision to return to Spanish with Roma is potentially game-changing.
Even if it doesn’t win, Roma is a reminder that beyond the Anglophone zone there’s a world of cinema out there, and we’re seeing less and less of it.
