The English Patience: British Eyes on Oscar

It’s been nearly two decades since the British screenwriter Colin Welland screamed “The British are coming!” after having won the Oscar for “Chariots of Fire.” That proclamation, made at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1982, was to prove embarrassingly premature in the following years.

But it also went to show how the British, albeit reluctantly, seem to measure much of the success of their own film industry in terms of how well “we” are doing “over there.” And nothing denotes success so visibly and tangibly as the Oscars.

There is, however, a markedly schizoid quality about the British response to the Academy Awards, the hoopla surrounding them and indeed Hollywood in general.

Traditionally speaking, the British are reticent about awards; they smack a little too much of achievement and success, still regarded in many ways as something of a sin even in the new, streamlined, classless Britain of Tony Blair. Most of the big awards ceremonies there, such as they are, are performed in an air thick with self-referential irony, and one can’t help but sense a residual feeling that this is all, well, too vulgar for words.

But rather like a junkie, the British can’t quite help craving what their heads tell them is bad for them. And there remains the sneaking feeling, nurtured from decades of exposure to American films and TV shows, that being big in Britain is not quite enough, that you haven’t really made it until you’ve made it in Hollywood.

So on the one hand there is a kind of superior disdain for the whole circus, and on the other a keenly patriotic desire to see Brits beating Americans at their own game.

Many of us, of course, walk among you already, and have done for years. There are a staggering 400,000 Brits in Southern California. Whether Britain and America are divided, as the saying goes, by a common language, any ex-pat Brit will tell you that, contrary to any illusions we might have had before coming to live here, this cultural chasm that exists between us is certainly big enough to fall into.

Having spent much of last year working on a BBC documentary about the British in Hollywood, I can more than attest to this fact. And in many ways, the Oscars demonstrate it superbly.

The nominations announced Feb. 15 had a very fair sprinkling of British names. Sam Mendes, hitherto a much-praised London theater director, is of course the standout name in the list for his feature film debut with “American Beauty.” Along with him there was Samantha Morton (nominated for “Sweet and Lowdown”), Janet McTeer (“Tumbleweeds”), Jude Law (“The Talented Mr. Ripley”) and that quintessence of a certain kind of Britishness, Michael Caine (“The Cider House Rules”).

The British are becoming more and more used to coverage of all aspects of Hollywood and its personalities--even if, like the French, they hate themselves for it. Back in my hometown of London recently, I had the chance to examine this divided reaction by studying the British media’s coverage of the Oscar nominations. It was extensive in both the tabloid and “quality” press. The general thrust was on how Brits had fared. Would we be storming the Shrine Auditorium this year? Was the British contingent a disappointingly small one?

The Times hailed an “outstanding lineup of British talent,” which was “on course for Oscar glory.” If the favorite, “American Beauty,” wins, said the Standard, it would be “a victory shaped and secured in an all-American movie by the British talent of Sam Mendes.” Some considered the list a mixed bag for Britain; the Daily Telegraph saw the nominations as “largely a disappointing affair for the big names of British cinema.”

But in the main, it was jolly, stirring stuff.

When Brits do anything “abroad,” it generally brings back long-lost, subliminal memories of The Empire. That’s when the more hackish of our journalists are moved to flights of patriotic fervor. And when there is a big Oscar triumph featuring prominent British talent or themes, as with “The English Patient” or “Shakespeare in Love,” the British media can even cheat a little and forget to mention the American money that got them made.

Come the night of the Academy Awards, I will make sure that I find an all-American, no-holds-barred Oscar party to go to. Having grown up intrigued by the glamour of it all, I will be embracing it wholeheartedly. Acceptance speeches in British accents will be nice; I just won’t immediately break into a rendition of “God Save the Queen.”

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Peter Whittle is a documentary maker and TV broadcaster who has lived in Los Angeles for the past year.