2001 vs. Oliver!

There are those who may disagree with the choices the Academy of Motion Pictures makes for Best Picture every year, but their choice in 1968 was one no one could possibly disagree with: Oliver!

Mark Lester as Oliver Twist in Oliver!

Oh sure, you may say, 2001: A Space Odyssey is getting a lot of press now due to its prescience regarding artificial intelligence, general influence of technology on humans, the search for meaning in the cosmos and the technical proficiency and elegant pacing that was to have a huge effect on film for the next half century, but did it have songs like Where is Love? Did it have singing street urchins? 
Answer: Nope.

Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Those Academy folks sure knew what they were doing when not even nominating 2001. (The competition for Oliver! was Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter, Rachel, Rachel, and Romeo and Juliet.) They knew that Jack Wild's performance as the Artful Dodger and the song Oom-Pah-Pah were what people would be talking and writing about fifty years later. How could a musical based on an 1837 Charles Dickens novel not be far superior to a ground-breaking work of speculative fiction?
We all know the answer to that!

1968

The Complete and Total Loser is the one on the right. The other boy is his brother, two years his senior.

Consider this: They are on a rock on a Massachusetts beach, about 50 yards from the beach club, which prohibits eating on its premises. Their mother, who is taking the picture, is young and healthy at age 36. She can still flirt her way out of speeding tickets. Their eldest brother, a bully who loves to tease, is at a summer camp many miles away. Their father, a gentle, kind, fun man (but there are always those Oedipal/attention issues) us in their home city even farther away than the evil big brother, where he toils to support his family. They have their mom all to themselves. They are new to this vacation spot and not New Englanders, so the social scene is not yet a part of their milieu. They are happy with the simple pleasures of each others' company, the sun, the sea, the sand. The food is simple. Egg salad sandwiches, Fritos and a Coke, probably. In these circumstances, on a day like this, it's the perfect meal. Summer is a long thing. The agony of school is in a remote future. 

Consider this: This may be the best day of their lives, yet they have no knowledge of it. Amazing.