‘Anora’ starts in the pools as a great favorite to take the main Oscar of the night, the best film. However, The Oscars They are much more than a mere vote that chooses the film of the year: they come into play not only the millionaire advertising campaigns that are talked about so much (which also), but models of mathematical probability and the same voting system, which do not always favor the favorite of the simple majority of academics.
The pretty girl. ‘Anora‘It is Sean Baker’s film, an old acquaintance of fans of the independent cinema zone. Some of its previous proposals, such as ‘The Florida Project’ and ‘Red Rocket’they raised praise among the specialized press, but with this story of a young Brooklyn prostitute who lives his own history Cinderella when he knows and marries the son of a Russian oligarch who intends to end romance, has revolutionized the awards season. The film won the gold palm in Cannes and Dos Bafta, was nominated for five Gold balloons And now she is nominated for six Oscar, including best film, director, actress and original script.
‘Anora’, the independent tradition. ‘Anora ‘continues Oscar’s tradition to reward small and modest movies, looking for a quality patina indie that Hollywood industry is excited since the time of The infamous Miramaxand that has made films like ‘in recent yearsAll at once everywhere‘(2022),’Coda‘(2021),’Nomadland‘(2020) or’Parasites‘(2019). The winner of 2018, ‘Green Book’, was only indie in aesthetic terms, but still, is a streak of victories outside the industry that only broke ‘Oppenheimer‘ last year.
The numbers speak. In addition to the recent trend of the Oscars, dyed of a certain condescension, to reward independent films, we have the purest mathematics: The Hollywood Reporter used the probability laws To make the calculation and ‘Anora’ was well above its competitors: 52% possibilities, overwhelming the second in the list, ‘Conclave‘, which was left with 15.2%. The reason? The ‘Anora’ awards streak in the Critics Choice, Producers Guild and director’s Guild. Less colorful than the Golden Globes, but according to statistics, infallible when opening via for the Oscar (let’s not forget that on many occasions the voters coincide).
Percentages against competitors. These statistics in favor of ‘Anora’ are increased when those same numbers play against their competitors. For example, only seven films have won an Oscar for the best film without having the direction nomination, as happens to ‘Conclave’. ‘The Brutalist‘It is one of the favorites, but never a movie without the SAG prize or An Eddie (The US editors awards) has won the main Oscar. ‘Emilia Pérez’ had everything in favor with the Golden Globes, but Reality has passed over. Already ‘A Complete Unknown‘It has not gone wrong with other awards, but in any other gala the best film has been taken, something that greatly reduces its possibilities.
But if everything is in his favor … Ya: Why are the real probabilities of ‘anara’ are smaller than, for example, those of ‘conclave’? The voting system for best film is called “Preferred System”, and with it the voters are asked to classify the nominated films from the greatest to less preference. If a film gets more than 50% of the votes (something very unlikely), automatically wins the prize. But if not, the following process is carried out: the film with less votes redistributes its ballots among the second most voted film of the members who had placed it in number one. It is done with all, until a film exceeds 50%.
The terrible consensus. The idea with this system is to reward the favorite film by consensus, one that most of the members of the academy would consider their favorite. The result is that the films that go to the extremes are less likely: ‘Anara’ will be the favorite of many, but because of their theme and indies modes, it will also be among the least favorite of many others. This system rewards, in effect, the consensus, which is another way of saying that it rewards the middle ground. In that sense, it is ‘conclave’ that will benefit: a very little annoying movie, which many will have liked, but few have liked very little.
The danger of controversy. Something similar to ‘Anora’ will happen to films such as ‘Emilia Pérez’, one of the favorites before the successive bombings of Karla Sofía Gascón. EITHER ‘WICKED‘, which belongs to a genre with as many defenders as detractors. Or, of course, ‘Dune 2‘ either ‘The substance‘, which only to belong to the categories of horror and science fiction will receive very low scores of the less daring faction of academics. In that sense, and except for exceptions (it is clear that ‘anora’ has possibilities, despite everything) the Oscars almost always reward the low risk. Nothing new under the sun.
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