What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1981

The Year: 1981
What the Nominees Were: Atlantic City, Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: Lumet’s underappreciated gem Prince of the City and brilliant talk-fest My Dinner with Andre

What Did Win: Chariots of Fire
How It’s Aged: The first weak winner since Oliver back in 1968. The Academy had its act together for a long time (even though they didn’t recognize the very best movie in most of those years), but things began to slip again here in the ‘80s. This movie is an adequate exploration of a very dull topic: An Olympic runner who doesn’t like to run on Sundays. Most famous for its very anachronistic synthesizer score.

What Should’ve Won: Raiders of the Lost Ark
How Hard Was the Decision: This was another year with no strong choice. Raiders seems a little light to win, but Reds is a bit too ponderous, and Prince of the City would be too much of a longshot. I was surprised at how many nominations Raiders got, meaning it definitely could have won, and if it could’ve, it should’ve.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, from a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman
Stars: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott

The Story: Renegade archaeologist Indiana Jones chases the Ark of the Covenant all over the world.

Any Nominations or Wins: It lost Picture, Director, Cinematography and Original Score, but it won Art Direction, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.
Why It Didn’t Win: It came shockingly close, winning five and being in the races for the big ones, but it would have been the only action-adventure movie to ever win, so it had little chance. Reds was considered the runaway favorite and Chariots of Fire was a big upset, but Raiders would have been the real shock.

Why It Should Have Won:

1. Last time we covered what was possibly the greatest horror movie of all time, and here, just one year later, we have what may be the greatest action movie (I promise I’m not just being nostalgic for the movies of my youth.) The continuous action sequence that goes from escaping from the tomb, to the fight on the runway, to hanging onto the front of the trucks is so adrenaline-fueled that it practically gives me a heart-attack every time.
   
2. In lots of great movies, but especially movies with John Williams scores, there’s a snake in the basement. Star Wars has one. The Harry Potter movies definitely have one. Why? Well, you’ll have to page Dr. Freud for that one. This movie has the most snakes in the biggest basement, so it wins.
   
3. Harrison Ford has never won an Oscar, and he wasn’t even nominated for this one, which is insane. He is not only the living embodiment of charisma, but he subtly goes on a surprisingly large emotional journey from recklessness to reverence.
4. It’s always good to begin with a due-but-outsized humiliation, and it’s even better if it reveals the hero’s flaw. Indy begins by trying to replace a religious idol with a bag of sand, thinking that there’s no real difference, but the altar can tell, and it triggers all sorts of booby traps that delay him long enough for his rival to steal the idol. It’s not obvious to us or him at the time that this speaks to his overall flaw, his lack of respect for spirituality, but it subconsciously sets us up for the moment when he overcomes his big flaw to “win” at the end (simply by closing his eyes out of reverence.)
   
5. Lucas and Spielberg were trying to recreate the thrill of watching action serials they saw as kids, but this is the ultimate example of a simulacrum, a copy that captures the essence of something so well that it exceeds the quality of the original in every way.  Watching actual serials is dreadful these days, but the whole genre is worth its existence even if all it did was inspire these movies and (more indirectly) Star Wars.  

Ah, 1981: One of my favorite ads