As a former history teacher, I have always found revisionist history to be very interesting. Years after something happens, we will reexamine it only to judge it much differently than we originally did. And then sometimes we will reexamine the reexamination to change it back again. Why it is so interesting is because the facts of when the event happened have not changed. It is only our interpretation or understanding of those facts.
The example I always gave my students was Christopher Columbus. When I was in 1st grade, growing up in Columbus, Ohio, we would do coloring pages of the discoverer of the new world, put on plays lauding his exploration, and celebrate his great accomplishments. By the time I had become a history teacher, Columbus was seen much differently. The view was that he exploited the very people he had once discovered, and he was now seen as a greedy invader rather than a brave explorer. Our city, the city he was named after, even took down the statue of the explorer because of what it had come to represent.
History does this to movies as well. Films that the public largely ignore when they come out, years later become considered classics, while box office hits, become largely forgotten. The Wizard of Oz, The Thing, Blade Runner, It's a Wonderful Life, and even the revered Citizen Kane all failed to impress audiences when originally released, but now are movie royalty. And yet will we be showing the Furious, Transformers, or Jurassic Word flicks to our grandchildren even though they have several films in the top 50 highest grossing of all time?
The Oscars have had buyers remorse over the years. How Green Was My Valley (1941), a film you have probably never even heard of, beat out the aforementioned Citizen Kane. In 1952, The Greatest Show on Earth about a circus defeated one of the classic westerns High Noon. 1981 saw Ordinary People, a film I have seen but remember absolutely nothing about, win over the classic Scorsese film which many consider to be the best film not just of that year but of the entire 1980s, Raging Bull. Most recently, Green Book won the Oscar in 2019 over much better films such as The Favourite and Black Panther, films that will be remembered long after Green Book is long forgotten.
One that the Oscars wish they could do over was 2004. That was the year Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, shocked the world, myself included, when it won best picture over the heavily favored Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain, otherwise known as "the gay cowboy movie", was considered the shoe-in. It was a groundbreaking film for queer cinema and to have two heterosexual heartthrobs such as Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play the love interests kind of took Hollywood by surprise. When the Academy chose the much "safer" Crash, they were accused of homophobia.
I understand the emotion wrapped up in such a decision but in my honest opinion, Crash was the better film. It is one of the best films I have seen in using an ensemble cast. Many times films with multiple stories have some that are great and others that are less interesting. Even Pulp Fiction had its weak parts. Each and every one of the intertwining stories holds heft and emotion to it, and each and every actor plays their role to effectiveness. Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillipe, Terence Howard, Don Cheadle, and even Ludacris give wonderful performances. Surprisingly it is the marquee names of Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser who are the weak links in this cast. Although it was Matt Dillon who was the one who was nominated for all of the awards playing the part of a bigoted cop, it was Michael Pena who was the best. The scene where he is telling his young daughter about his invisible bulletproof cloak was simply mesmerizing. And the payoff later on that story had me crying in my theatre seat
More importantly, Crash surprised me a lot more than Brokeback Mountain did. I thought Brokeback was very well written but very predictable. Crash on the other hand had me guessing most of the time and things did not always turn out like I thought they were going to. Of course I was most surprised when it won Best Picture. In fact, it is probably the last time I have been surprised by the Academy's decision for Picture of the Year except for the subject of my final Oscar article.