Dear Italy, The 2014 Academy Award Can Be Yours

Anyone think that 'Amour' won't win the Oscar? — Anyone think that ‘Amour’ won’t win the Oscar?

Yesterday’s announced list of Foreign Film Academy Award nominations told us what we already knew: Italy didn’t have a chance. We expected that. We don’t care. We didn’t want it in the first place. The Taviani Brothers don’t need an Oscar to tell them how great Cesare Deve Morire is.

READ MORE ABOUT ITALY AND THE OSCAR and how we’re all pretending this isn’t bothering us.

Here’s the list, now whittled down to 9; 7 of them are European (but not Italian, sigh):

Amour, Michael Haneke – Austria
A Royal Affair, Nikolaj Arcel – Denmark
The Untouchables, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano – France
The Deep, Baltasar Kormákur – Iceland
Kon-Tiki, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg – Norway
Beyond the Hills, Cristian Mungiu – Romania
Sister, Ursula Meier – Switzerland
War Witch, Kim Nguyen – Canada
No, Pablo Larraín – Chile

Italy, you have two choices; you can either continue making the movies that you want to (fine with me) or you can play to win (also fine with me). If you decide to play to win, here are some ideas for a victorious 2014:

The Taviani Brothers, however unsuccessful they were this year, had the right idea. Cesare Deve Morire is simple, beautiful, and has a universal theme. In the end, it probably wasn’t enough of a story or, despite that dramatic nature of the setting, dramatic enough. The characters, real inmates in a maximum security prison, don’t evoke the required sympathy.

Marco Bellocchio’s Bella Addormentata is more the kind of movie the Academy is looking for and might have done better a little pared down. He gave us too many characters. Too many subplots. Had he stayed a little closer to the heart of the drama, a comatose woman’s right to live or die, I know I would have liked it better.

Italy, show off what you have; gorgeous scenery, good-looking people, and plenty of emotions, but stay focused. Think smaller. Dig deeper. Don’t put on a circus, just give us a good, strong, story. With your pretty people. And your pretty landscapes.

And encourage all these great new directors that are coming up. Bellochio is a tremendous talent but he should move over a little and let’s see what else Andrea Segre, Ivan Cotroneo, and Francesco Bruni can do. Directors like Cristina Comencini should be put out to pasture.

You have the tools, Italy. Use them.