Streaming Changes Audience Tastes and Opens up International Film Category
Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticLast year, “Parasite” made Oscar history by becoming the first non-English-language film to win best picture, which should have signaled a new, more internationally open-minded attitude at the Academy.Ninety-two years in, an org founded with the strategic purpose of benefiting the American film industry had demonstrated that it had, as “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho put it, “overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles.”Back in the ’60s, there existed a thriving market for foreign cinema, as audiences and film societies flocked to the latest offerings from Bergman, Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, Antonioni, et al. In 1970, Costa-Gavras’ political thriller “Z” was nominated for best picture.