The Academy could hardly have done a better job of indicating that “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” are in a close race for the Best Picture award. The two films tied with nine nominations, more than any other films – and seven of those nine came in the same categories, including all the ones that are crucial for frontrunners: Best Director, Best Editing, Best Cinematography …
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that “Up in the Air” or “Inglourious Basterds” could make a three-way race of it, or even that something else could sneak into the mix. We’re in largely uncharted territory with the new preferential system of Best Picture ballot-counting, which rewards films that can fashion a consensus over ones that voters either love or hate.
But if it’s a two-horse race, if it comes down to “The Hurt Locker” vs. “Avatar” the way most Oscar-watchers expect, the Academy – and the guilds before them – left a few clues as to who has the upper hand.
First, here’s a key point to remember. In a close race that gets down to a final two films standing (as the system eliminates the lowest-ranked films one by one), the only question that matters is which of the two is ranked higher on the majority of ballots.
It won’t make any difference if “Avatar” and “Hurt Locker” are ranked first and second, or ninth and 10th. All that counts is which one the majority of voters prefer.
So let’s look at the Academy, and at what the nominations told us about support for the two frontrunners.
First, we’ll start with the categories that nominated one film, but not the other.
For “Avatar,” that was Art Direction and Visual Effects. For “The Hurt Locker,” Original Screenplay and Best Actor.
So now we have four AMPAS branches going on record to say that they prefer one film over the other. Here, the numbers don’t favor James Cameron’s big hit: the art directors branch of the Academy contains 374 members, the visual effects branch 279. On the “Hurt Locker” side, the writers branch has 382 members, while the actors branch is by far the Academy’s largest, with 1,205.
So Kathryn Bigelow’s film comes out with a big lead, 1,587 members to 653.
(Yes, I know this is an oversimplification, and that all the actors aren’t going to vote for “Hurt Locker’ any more than all the art directors are going to vote for “Avatar,” and just because they like the craft of the film doesn’t mean they like the film itself. I’m just using the numbers to ferret out general preferences, and to suggest that the body of voters I'm placing in each film's column would have a tendency to prefer that film over the other.)
We can’t tell from the Oscar nominations themselves, but are there other branches that we can safely place in one camp or another? For starters, I’d say that the astonishing boxoffice achievements of “Avatar,” and the way in which it’s been routinely if tediously described as a game-changer, will make it all but irresistible to the Academy’s executives and public relations branches.
