Categories One-By-One: Sound Mixing

[Mister Tee]

It's time we started up the discussions on individual categories, and, since dws and I had begun debating this one in a predictions thread, I thought I'd use it to lead off.

Best Sound Mixing (or, as we old-timers will always think of it, Best Achievement in Sound).

The Nominees:

The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

Normally the names of the nominated mixers are utterly irrelevant to the voting outcome (Mike Myers inspired ire a few years back by implying they were all unpronounceably foreign, anyway). This year, though, may be different. Kevin O'Connell's Susan Lucci/Randy Newman-like string of losing nominations has long been a topic of interest for certain Oscar bloggers, and this year they seem to have pushed the topic somewhat into the mainstream. As dws points out, the subject made it into network coverage on Nominations Morning. Whether this extra attention can bring O'Connell a golden statue makes this category particularly intriguing.

A little history: Someone over at Awards Daily provided a list of O'Connell's previous nominations, and noted he'd been up for Terms of Endearment in 1983. The general reaction was, Terms of Endearment up for SOUND? That probably does seem incongruous, since, in recent times, nominees in the category have been primarily from big, loud action/fantasy blockbusters. But it wasn't ever thus.

I went back and looked over the all-too-many years I've been following the Oscars, and discovered that, in the earliest decades -- 60s and 70s -- the category had a far greater synchronicity with best picture than it does today: typically, 2 or 3 of the year's best picture candidates would show up as nominees, and the winner would almost always be a best picture nominee. The category was actually a bit like editing -- it had hot-button elements over which it swooned (for editing, it was car chases and prize fights; for sound, loud battles and music), but also defaulted to the best picture nominees in a pinch. In fact, a few winners -- In the Heat of the Night, All the President's Men -- seemed to win not because they fit any category profile (the way Lawrence of Arabia or Fiddler on the Roof had), but simply because of their overall power as best picture nominees.

The mid/late 70s rise of Lucas/Spielberg created a new kind of likely winner for the category: the techno triumph. Jaws and Stars Wars, Raiders and ET all won; since all had been nominated for best picture, it didn't change the paradigm much. But The Empire Strikes Back was another matter, as it won despite being omitted from the top category. This blazed a (later) path for many winners in the 90s: Academy voters started turning their backs on the blockbusters in best picture, but they continued to give them the sound awards year after year -- Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Speed, The Matrix were all winners. At the same time, the number of nominations for best picture contenders in the category began to dwindle -- sometimes to just one a year, until finally, in 2005 and 2006 we had, for the first time in my experience, zero best picture nominees competing for best sound.

Yet in some ways things didn't change. The re-emergence of the musical provided recent wins for Chicago, Ray and Dreamgirls (the first two best picture contenders, the latter not); the loud battle tradition carries on with Gladiator and Return of the King; and even the default-to-best-picture custom was evident, I'd argue, as recently as The English Patient's triumph.

So…all that EXHAUSTIVELY said…how do I see this year's race?

I start by eliminating 3:10 to Yuma; it's not in best picture territory, not loud enough, not a big enough hit. It would be the flukiest winner this side of Last of the Mohicans.

I'm not completely comfortable dismissing Ratatouille, just because an annoying number of people keep touting it as the true best picture of the year (I'm not all the way in Damien's corner on the film, but, come on). I make it an extreme long shot.

Solely because of the best picture tradition I spoke about above, I think there's a non-trivial possibility No Country for Old Men can sneak in and take the prize.

But mostly I think it's down to the two summer movies. And, of the two, using the traditional criteria, I think Bourne is the clear favorite. Look at those blockbuster winners of recent years: they've tended to be films considered special, gaining exceptional critical praise (Terminator and Matrix were seriously touted by some as among the year's best overall). Bourne definitely meets that standard far better than Transformers does -- its MetaCritic score was a quite high 85, while Transformers, which we think of as way better reviewed than Michael Bay's other work, only rates a 61. Older voters, especially, I think will be put off by Transformers' sophomoric tone; many will outright hate it (my wife kept leaving the room, saying "Don't bother pausing it"). I'd go so far as to say that if Transformers won here, it'd be the crappiest movie to take the category since Earthquake in 1974. (And that film had the advantage of an ad campaign that might as well have said Best Achievement in Sound -- "See it in Sensurround!")

And yet…and yet… There's that sentimental pull for the old vet who's never won despite years of labor. Basically, I'm skeptical that'll be the dispositive factor many seem to think. I wonder how many will even know about O'Connell's situation (despite the publicity); beyond that, I wonder if it can offset distaste for the film that got him nominated (just as I think Blanchett will suffer from some folks' disdain for I'm Not There).

But then I recall that I argued just as righteously -- with just as much data -- about there being no precedent for Anthony Minghella's English Patient screenplay to lose to Billy Bob Thornton's. Sometimes, what's never happened happens…which is why we tune in to the damn show year after year.

So, bottom line for me: my pool-bet is on Bourne. But, like in pretty much every below-the-line category this year, the outcome is murky.

Who wants to agree or make the counter-arguments?