Bob's Take: Bigger may not mean better in best-picture category

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced last week that it had expanded its best-picture category from five nominees each year to 10, effective immediately.

That means that on Feb. 2, 2010, double the usual number of movies will be named to compete for cinema's most-coveted award.

Of course, on March 7, there will still be just one winner.

Is this a good move or a bad move for the keepers of Oscar? The verdict is out on that one, but cases are already being built on either side.

Academy sources defend the move by saying so many worthy movies are being made, the move is more than justified. And they point out that anywhere from eight to 12 best-picture nominees were common in the early years of the Academy Awards. The field was limited to five starting in 1944, the year after “Casablanca” won best picture.

Academy President Sid Ganis cited the 10 best-picture nominees of 1939 as an example of a worthy, expanded field. It's an impressive list of classics: “Gone With the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Dark Victory,” “Ninotchka” and “Love Affair.”

The only picture I had to look up to nudge my memory was “Love Affair,” in which Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, both involved with other lovers, fall for each other aboard an ocean liner. In 1957 it was remade as “An Affair to Remember,” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. A disastrous 1994 version, again titled “Love Affair,” paired Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

But I digress. The point is that 1939 is widely singled out as the height of the golden age of moviemaking, when the studio system was at its peak. Yeah, all 10 of those movies are noteworthy.

But no other year can make a claim to that many truly great classics. Few movie fans today revere, or even remember, such 1942 best-picture nominees as “The Invaders,” “The Pied Piper” and “The Talk of the Town.”

And anybody who thinks movies have gotten noticeably better in the past few years, or that more quality movies are being produced now than in other recent years or decades, in my view, hasn't been paying attention.

You might have made that argument in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when cinema broke wide open artistically and topically.

But not today, when audiences battered by war and recession seem almost allergic to movies that grapple with serious social, moral and political issues.

So what's the case to be made for expanding the field?

Begin with the reason the Oscars were created in the first place: money. Awards publicity leads to ticket sales. More best-pic nominees, more potential box-office boost.

And there is the matter of television ratings, which also translates into money. Fewer people have been watching the Academy Awards in recent years. The reason frequently cited is that the movies nominated are not the ones that sell the most tickets and have the most fans interested in seeing who wins.

Last year you'd have thought a criminal offense was committed when “The Dark Knight” didn't score a best-pic nomination. It won Oscars for supporting actor Heath Ledger and for sound editing and was nominated in six more categories. But not for best picture.

The Oscars are about the art of filmmaking, not about what sells. But honoring popcorn movies that sell is good for business, and the Academy Awards is also in the business of promoting movies. “The Dark Knight,” like “Titanic” before it, was a well-crafted movie. And when “Titanic” swept the awards for 1997, winning 11, the Oscars had more television viewers, 55 million, than any other year.

Another argument being made is that 10 nominations will mean there is finally room for comedies, animated films, documentaries and foreign-language films, all of which are overlooked in the best-picture race.

We'll see. I don't think most years contain documentaries or animated films worthy of the year's top prize. (“Wall-E,” anyone?)

Foreign-language movies have made it into the best-pic category just eight times. Three movies partially in a foreign language have won: “The Last Emperor,” “The Godfather Part II” and last year's winner, “Slumdog Millionaire.” But American audiences in general hate subtitles.

A comedy has won best picture just once in the last 30 years, though I'd say “Shakespeare in Love” was more of a dramedy.

But I'm not holding my breath that comedy will get its due next year.

More likely, people will be grousing about a movie or two that got an undeserved nomination.