Comment: Added excitement in race for Oscar success

JUST when it looked like Lincoln might be home and dry, the Oscar race suddenly got a little more interesting. Lincoln is still favourite. But then it was favourite at the Golden Globes too. The fact that the film and director Steven Spielberg both lost out to Argo sows that seed of doubt.

Historically, the Golden Globes are the best indicator of likely Oscar success, though there is no obvious reason why.

The Globes are decided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a small bunch of relatively elderly foreign journalists.

Bafta, the Screen Actors Guild and other guild awards should be more obvious indicators because of the overlap in membership with the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But historically the Globes have seemed strangely 
in tune with the collective taste of the academy, where the average age is higher than in the guilds.

During the 1990s, the film that won Golden Globe for Best Drama went on to win the Best Picture Oscar six times. On a seventh occasion, the Oscar went to Shakespeare in Love, which had won the Globe for best comedy.

The reliability of the Globes as an Oscar indicator has not been quite so good over the last 12 years, but it is still 50 per cent. Spielberg’s omission from the Bafta shortlist for best director last week might have been causing his camp some concern.

I had an interesting conversation at the weekend with an American-born, Scottish-based director who said she felt Lincoln had more resonance for Americans than non-Americans. And the Globes are decided by foreigners.

So Spielberg’s camp may be thinking everything will be all right on the night. And it may well be.

But there is a further question of how much the Globes mirror Oscar voting and how much they actually influence it. The Artist picked up a head of steam last year when it won the Globe for best comedy. And some Oscar-voters may now be thinking again about Argo and Les Miserables.