I have just finished watching the Oscars - Not the entire broadcast mind you, I pretty much fast-forwarded to the Top 8 Categories... Best Original Screenplay; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Director; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Actress in a Leading Role and; Best Picture.
(No disrespect to the FOUR hour extravaganza, it's just that it aired here in Sydney smack bang in the middle of the day and I had to work...cough...)
For an unabashed lover of the cinema, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all the films that scored the acting awards - The Help; The Iron Lady; Beginners; The Artist. (Special mention to A Week With Marilyn, too).
For all storytellers, originality or the closest thing to it, is something that we revel in and strive for. How to stay true to your voice and write with passion - to not follow the path that others have laid, but to forge your own (all the while being sane enough to take note, respect the craft and the trusted storytelling archetypal framework), is the ultimate goal for many. That is why I found this year's disparate Oscar-nominated films a wonderful example of exactly that - unbridled creativity.
None so more than the winner of Best Picture - The Artist.
A silent film? Who would finance this? Who would believe in the creator of this wild concept enough to take a chance? And who would see it ('how many people would pay to see it' is probably the more important question for the commercially-minded)?
Most writers look at their own work in the same hopeful way. 'Who will take a chance on me - on this?'
Watching 'The Artist' win today - and seeing 'The Help' succeed so wonderfully (the author, Kathryn Stockett was soundly rejected by over 60 literary agents), is wonderful food for the creative soul.
May this inspire further creators out there to spin tales - and to never stop believing.
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