Spotlight; An Oscar for Exposing the Church

Many believed that this year Hollywood would introduce a different film as the Academy Awards' (Oscar) best picture: 'The Revenant' by the acclaimed González; however, in the end, 'Spotlight' was named the best film of the year. It seems that 'Spotlight' gained attention primarily due to its subject matter: a true story depicting the corruption within the church. We follow several journalists from the Boston Globe who become interested in the issue of child sexual abuse by priests and soon realize that the actual numbers are far greater than they initially thought, with their preliminary statistics of thirteen priests in Boston quickly escalating to six percent of all priests in the city—at least ninety individuals. The film leaves the continuation of the story open: after the publication of their time-consuming investigation, the newspaper's phone rings regularly as new victims have the opportunity to tell their stories. The film addresses a bold subject that skillfully questions not only the guilty priests but the entire church; where cases covered up by the church have resulted in guilty priests facing 'sick leave' instead of punishment, and the church's power has quietly silenced complaints. 'Spotlight' is not devoid of subtle dialogues (including a conversation between one of the journalists and a victim: 'Did you tell anyone about it later?' Victim: 'Who? A priest, for example?') and, on the other hand, the film is built on an intriguing contradiction: Catholic priests, who are supposed to be a refuge from others and to whom the most intimate confessions are made, can themselves be the source of the corruption from which there is no escape. The producers of the film, while receiving the Oscar at this year's ceremony, recount the stories of the first two victims, detailing how the priests abused them, which is indeed shocking, but the film is limited to the controversy of its subject matter. The character development is heavily based on Hollywood's predetermined patterns (none of which have depth and all seem very superficial), and the progression of the story and its predictable ending are based on what Hollywood typically produces and what a Hollywood-addicted audience prefers. For example, to show their round-the-clock work, we see each of them working in their homes at midnight, or to illustrate how these journalists sacrifice their personal lives for their work, a cliché image is used where one of them knocks on a colleague's door at midnight, and her husband opens the door in surprise. The performances in the film (especially Mark Ruffalo as one of the journalists) are extremely artificial and exaggerated, creating an artificial atmosphere that is hard to believe. Furthermore, the entire film relies heavily on dialogue, and visually, there is nothing noteworthy; quite contrary to Iñárritu's experience, which was visually stunning and had very little dialogue. The battle between 'Spotlight' and 'The Revenant' was a battle between the film industry and the art of cinema, where, as usual, the film industry won, while it seemed that Hollywood wanted to change colors after past mistakes and the changing times (resulting in the creation of an anti-Hollywood film like 'The Revenant' that challenges all predetermined values including storytelling and star-making: with a film that is extremely anti-narrative and depicts a star like DiCaprio in the most unattractive way possible in the most dire circumstances), but Hollywood is still too conservative to sacrifice the uproar and noise of a common film like 'Spotlight' for a brilliant film like 'The Revenant'.