The Pulitzer Prize is the most important award given to the arts in America.
But movies, the most important art form in America, aren't eligible. It is time to change that.Pulitzer Prizes are awarded in two broad areas: for journalism, and for letters, drama and music. Movies encompass all three of the arts categories, and more.
Currently, non-journalism prizes are given for fiction, drama, history, biography or autobiography, poetry, general nonfiction and music. But many Americans scarcely read a book a year, don't have the opportunity to see theater and do not often attend serious music. People do go to movies, and through television and home video, movies reach almost everywhere.
No other art form mobilizes a national discussion in such a big way. A "Pulp Fiction," "Hoop Dreams" or "Fargo" - even "The Full Monty" - can dominate conversations the way new plays or novels once did.
It is not hard to imagine why movies were excluded when the Pulitzer Prizes were first mapped out 80 years ago. At that time the founders would have remembered the earliest nickelodeon shows, when movies were hawked out of storefronts like sideshows.
While movies had matured by 1917 - D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Cecil B. De Mille were then in place - they were not completely respectable.
Perhaps they never will be. An art form will forever be in a separate category if you can attend it while eating Twizzlers. A Pulitzer student fellowship in film criticism is awarded every year, even though movies themselves aren't eligible for a prize.
Yes, we already have a lot of awards for movies. But a Pulitzer Prize would be valued because it would be awarded outside traditional industry-driven honors such as the Oscars. Judges recommend winners, and the awards are evaluated by the Pulitzer board as a whole. This process can single out the kind of work that makes an impact without necessarily achieving great popularity.
A Pulitzer Prize, for example, might go to "Boogie Nights," which is likely to be passed over by the Academy Awards because of its disreputable subject matter, porn in the 1970s. Or it might go to a documentary such as "Crumb," a portrait of how art barely saves a victim of a damaged family.
There is a renaissance now in American independent films. Theater chains are opening multiplexes to show them. Cable channels such as Bravo, IFC and Sundance air them. But you won't find them "winning the weekend" at the box office. Winning a Pulitzer Prize, though, would generate bookings and audiences.
The Pulitzer board meets on Nov. 3 to discuss possible changes in its policies and additions to its categories. After a hundred years, movies deserve to be recognized.