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As we approach the Academy Awards once again, the discussion turns to snubs and the films that should have won Best Picture, with lively debate centered on 1997’s Best Picture winner, Titanic, and the beloved loser that year, the neo-noir L.A. Confidential.

L.A. Confidential is a complex story with intertwined story arcs of passion, corruption, ambition, and organized crime in post-War Los Angeles as it attempts to build a ‘modern’ police force. Adapted from James Ellroy’s doorstop of a novel with a bewildering number of characters and a pace that demands the audience keeps up as the twisty plot is slowly revealed, the script is a miracle of adaptation.

Titanic is an epic of motion picture wizardry, a tale of star-crossed lovers from opposite ends of society who meet and discover themselves aboard the famed and doomed ocean liner as it makes its fateful transatlantic crossing. Ridiculed both within and without the industry for its massive production and its legendary cost overruns, many believed before its release that it would signal the end of James Cameron’s ‘Golden Boy’ image as he finally suffered a disastrous box office bomb. Though the script suffers from cardboard villains and trite, clichéd dialogue, the movie became the most successful motion picture in history, losing that crown to another James Cameron film, Avatar.

The problem with the award is that it’s a singular honor when in fact there should be two awards at the top honoring outstanding achievement in motion pictures.

There should be Best Film, which in 1997, I would award to L.A. Confidential. This would be an award which judges the picture based on its themes, its writing, its story, and how those elements synthesize. It would be an award to recognize the artistry that explores the nature of humanity and the human soul. This award should go to the producers, the people responsible for finding and developing the story from concept, through however many writers and directors are involved, to final form.

The companion award should be Best Production. This would recognize outstanding achievement in the production of a motion picture, the mastery of coordinating hundreds of skilled artists and craftsmen. The nearly impossible task of maintaining such an army and keeping it focused on an artistic vision and realizing that artistic vision. Titanic is a near perfect example of a film that shows a real mastery of production along with all three of The Lord of the Rings installments. This is a director’s award, the person tasked with guiding the day to day work of that vast army.

Sadly, that is not the world we inhabit.