And the story goes that it crossed Stalin's mind one day that only a few of the movies he saw were actually very good. So he had a talk with the folks at the Soviet equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and told them because no more than a handful of the films they made each year were good, they should produce only those particular movies and quit making the others. Although it's hard to imagine an honest answer that would have avoided Stalin's wrath, someone had to tell him it wasn't that easy. It's politically correct nowadays to beat up on Hollywood, often deservedly so. Many of the movie industry's products are too violent and immoral and adversely affect the quality of our public life and culture.
Understatement is an unknown virtue in Hollywood.
It's as easy to take cheap shots at Hollywood as it is to snigger at Stalin's ignorance of creating art. Yet, the three movies that gained most of this year's Oscar accolades tell us we cannot dismiss Hollywood so lightly. Maybe they're not all family entertainment. But all three are positive contributions to our grasp of what it means to be fully human. The award was about the quality of his work, not the correctness of his politics, then or now.