Much Ado about Nothing?

Originally published at getunderground.com on 2-26-06

Within a week a billion people across the world will eagerly watch the limousines and the glare of flashbulb banks on the mandated tuxedos and evening gowns subjected to insta-commentary from Entertainment Tonight's fashion maven, vicarious high style for an audience that mostly can't afford a single one of the celebrity uniforms.

While purportedly being an awards show, the Oscars will serve just as equally as a free advertisement for industry-recognized films from the previous year. The first two hours of the three-hour award show will likely feature a mix of overblown stage presentations and awards that don't carry much interest outside the industry, with an occasional prestigious award thrown in to keep people awake through advertisements that net ABC $10,000 per second.

In the last forty-five minutes of the show most of the major prizes (Best Actor, Actress, Director, Picture) will be awarded and followed by speeches, short and dignified or otherwise. The award-winners will receive immediate validation among the press, much of the public, and within the industry, where they will suddenly be offered lucrative roles, big money for directorial/production projects, or both.

The man behind the curtain
There's a reason pre-Oscar discussions center on the proverbial "buzz" of the nominees, rather than on their quality. The power to nominate and award rests exclusively with the roughly 6,000 anonymous members of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which is broken down into 14 divisions by specialty: Art Directors, Actors, Directors, Film Editors, Cinematographers, Executives, Music, Public Relations, Short Films and Feature Animation, Documentary, Producers, Visual Effects, Writers, Sound.

In January, AMPAS members receive listings of all eligible candidates and 200-300 movies to watch in short order. Each division then has about a month to choose five nominees within its category; typically 50% of each branch cast nomination votes. Once nominations are announced, Oscar victors for all categories are chosen AMPAS-wide, irrespective of each voter's area of expertise.

The process sounds straightforward enough, but unknown to most of the public, and predictably unexplored and unexposed by the major media, are a raft of financially-driven vote-influencing factors that manipulate the mind of the academy. As there's no guarantee that academy members will even watch all the movies nominated due to time constraints, individual taste or pure laziness, the studios tend to release Oscar-contention movies at the end of the year, and/or DVD versions of movies released earlier in the year (such as this year's "Crash"), so movies are fresh in the Academy's mind when votes are cast. Sometimes studios go even further with limited releases - movies shown in limited markets (L.A., or L.A. and New York, for example) in December, just to make a movie eligible, then pulled and re-released countrywide after an Oscar nomination's seal of approval.

Prior to and after the nomination process, down the stretch especially, the biggest (read: wealthiest) studios spend millions of dollars carpet bombing Los Angeles, where 90% of the Academy lives, by sending DVDs and videotapes to academy members, placing advertisements in Hollywood trade publications, setting up private screenings for academy members, throwing lavish media-saturated and celebrity-studded parties, and placing stars in high-profile print and (preferably) television interviews, all with the clear intent of getting academy members to see the candidate nominated, in a popularity contest not unlike the expensive and anti-democratic process we know as modern presidential elections -- with equally bizarre results.

1999 presented a textbook perversion of the selection process. "Saving Private Ryan" came out early in 1998, to critical raves and instant predictions of Oscar success. Early victories for Ryan at the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Director's Guild, the Chicago Film Critics, and the Golden Globe seemed to hint at potential Oscar domination.

Along came Miramax. As is routinely done by big studios, who know the members of the Academy, Miramax hired four academy consultants (and academy voters) who spent months cajoling academy members on behalf of Miramax's two big pictures" "Shakespeare in Love" and "Life is Beautiful" and swift-boating "Private Ryan" in the media. The manipulations paid off when "Shakespeare" pulled down 7 awards, including Best Picture, while "Life is Beautiful" won 3, including a Best Actor award for Roberto Benigni. Miramax is rumored to have spent 16 million dollars, which they made up many times over in bumped-up box office receipts, rentals, and industry cache.

Possibly more lethal to a sound awarding process than the to-be-expected Oscar campaigns are the limited contours of the Academy itself, in terms of demographics and sensibilities. Academy membership is insular, by invitation only. Invitations are issued by a minimum of two members of any branch to Oscar nominees or those who are recognized for being involved in two distinctive movies, however that is determined.

Members of the Academy like to reward Hollywood movies with big budgets that are in release at Oscar time, in part to generate a larger American television audience which many of their friends and associates can parlay into fatter paychecks. Academy members tend to be not just much wealthier than the general public, but significantly older due to lifetime membership, and reflexively p.c., which in turn means that the Academy is structurally a generation behind the cutting edge. Epics with paint-by-numbers storytelling, elaborate special effects, costumes and set designs, contrived, melodramatic endings and unambiguous, socially redeeming messages routinely beat out less expensive if more expansive morally ambiguous movies reliant on old school niceties like interesting character interplay, tight scripts, unique narrative feeds, unpredictable endings, and a willingness to offend if necessary or desired.

The Academy Rap Sheet


"The best picture winner is often a movie with a marshmallow soul and a brain to match"

-Caryn James, in the International Herald Tribune




How many times have you heard someone say with a straight face "I think it will get an Oscar" about a film or a performance they particularly like, or "I don't think it's Oscar-caliber," of a film or performance they're not too hot about?


The statuette was originally referred to as "The Academy Award of Merit," presumably meaning that the winners were supposed to be the best, or among the best, in their field, worthy of the validation handed them by the press and much of the public, leaving the films which were not recognized to sink or swim on their originality and the curiosity of future filmmakers, film departments, film buffs and critics.

Time has shown that many if not most Oscar-winners for Best Picture and Best Director have become trivia questions, while most of the best films and filmmakers of 20th Century America, as determined by the truest criteria -- staying power -- make up a veritable army of ghosts-of-Oscars-denied past.

In 1931, "Cimarron" won Best Picture; Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" was not even nominated. In 1933, "Cavalcade" snared the Best Picture and Best Director categories; "King Kong" and "Frankenstein" weren't even nominated. In 1936, the Academy again overlooked Charlie Chaplin; "Modern Times" did not receive a single nomination.

In the 1940s Orson Welles' innovative Citizen Kane, often considered the best American film ever, lost out to "How Green Was My Valley," which also beat out the Humphrey Bogart classic "Maltese Falcon." The academy dissed Welles again the next year, giving the forgettable "Mrs. Miniver" the nod over "The Magnificent Ambersons." The snubbing continued in 1958, when Welles' "A Touch of Evil" was passed over for the Vincent Minelli musical "Gigi."

Also passed over in 1958 (for even a nomination) was Alfred Hitchcock, the director of "Vertigo." Hitchcock, widely accepted as one of the most important American filmmakers ever, shared with Welles the distinction of never winning a Best Director award from the Academy, despite multiple nominations. In 1967, when his creative peak had expired, the Academy tried to make amends by awarding Hitchcock the essentially meaningless Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award.

The sixties and seventies Renaissance in American film presented a challenge for the constipated academy membership, which they failed with flying colors. The social tumult of the time informed a sharper social consciousness among youth (and many adults) who were tired of the formulaic bullshit Hollywood had systematically crapped out for decades. These shifting demographics and attitudes at the box office allowed for films that were commercially and critically successful, freer, more real and yet more original than the ossified product then shopped by Hollywood.

Auteur directors such as Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and many lesser-known but substantial independent filmmakers filled the vacuum. The five filmmakers noted above created a huge body of timeless, high quality work over a 25-year span, yet carry between them just one Best Director Award (Francis Ford Coppola, for "Godfather II"). Coppola was the only of the five to have a foot in Hollywood; all were outsiders who were guilty of throwing out the crusty mold and making the challenging films they wanted to make.

As the world moved around them, the Academy didn't budge. In 1964, "Dr. Strangelove," Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece about the insanity of mutually-assured nuclear destruction, lost to the light, whimsical "My Fair Lady." In 1968, Kubrick's mind-blowing 2001: A Space Odyssey, a picture that set the standard for every sci-fi movie since dealing with the nature of man, the infinity of space, and man's incapacity to deal with the moral implications of increasing technology, lost to "Oliver!," a fanciful musical adaptation of "Oliver Twist." In 1971, Kubrick contributed another chapter to film history with the incendiary "A Clockwork Orange," only to lose to director William Friedkin for the relatively lackluster "The French Connection," an entertaining enough thriller that increasingly reflects its age with each viewing. Friedkin also beat out Peter Bogdanovich, who directed the vastly better film "The Last Picture Show."

Often accorded the status of America's best director, Martin Scorsese is another titan who has yet to receive the Academy's imprimatur. "Mean Streets" came out in 1973 to a surge of critical acclaim that put Scorsese's name on the map. At Oscar time, Scorsese wasn't even nominated (powerhouse directors Ingmar Bergman, Bernardo Bertolucci, and a young George Lucas lost to second-tier director George Roy Hill, who directed "The Sting.") In a year which bore the cult classics "The Last Detail," "Don't Look Now," "The Last Tango in Paris," "Badlands," and "American Graffiti," the giddily lightweight entertainment vehicle "The Sting" also won Best Picture.

Armed with money fronted based on the success of "Mean Streets," Scorsese released Taxi Driver in 1976, which won the Palme d'Or (Best Picture) at Cannes, Best Film at the British Academy Awards, and the New Generation Award from the L.A. Film Critics Association, and went on to make just about every end-of-century best-of critic's list in existence. Come Oscar time, Scorsese wasn't even nominated for Best Director; renowned directors Ingmar Bergman, Lina Wertmuller, and Sidney Lumet lost out to middleweight Rocky director John Avildsen, of later "Karate Kid" fame.

The snubbing of Scorsese continued in 1980, when Scorsese (who that year directed "Raging Bull," sometimes known as "the best movie of the eighties") lost out to Robert Redford, who directed the melodrama "Ordinary People." In 1990, Scorsese snagged the Best Director award for "Goodfellas" from the L.A. and New York critics and the British Academy Awards, only to lose the Academy Best Director award to first-time director Kevin Costner, for "Dances with Wolves." Asked later how it felt to lose to "Dances with Wolves," Scorsese said "Who directed that again?"

Expect the Academy at some point either to give Scorsese a Best Director award for one of his mediocre future releases (with better odds if it's made by Miramax), or, failing that, to award Scorsese a lifetime achievement award that will double as a doorstopper.

The list of Academy crimes against aesthetic judgment only grew with the steep decline in American film that coincided with the right-wing takeover of American government in 1980, and the parallel public proclivity for sleepwalking through fantasy films, special effects, and soporific epics: hold the meat, extra gravy.

In 1979 the Academy bypassed the mega-classic "Apocalypse Now" and the stellar films "Manhattan" and "All that Jazz" for the forgettable if earnest "Kramer vs. Kramer," setting the tone for two decades of uninspiring, mediocre or just plain dull Best Picture choices: "Chariots of Fire," " Out of Africa," "Rain Man," "Forrest Gump," "Titanic," and "Gladiator" bottom out the roster.

Ignored by the Academy over the next two decades were a long list of smaller, braver, now-established films such as "Blade Runner," "Paris, Texas," "Repo Man," "Blood Simple," "Blue Velvet," "Down by Law," "Sex, Lies & Videotape," "Do the Right Thing," "Drugstore Cowboy," "The Player," "Pulp Fiction," "The Usual Suspects," "The Thin Red Line," "You Can Count on Me," "Election," and many, many more underpromoted films.

Penance?
All of which makes this year's Academy choices all the more refreshing and surprising. Looking at the major awards that deal with fundamentals like acting, directing, and good scripts and screenplays, one sees a grouping of small, authentic independent films, with nary a single big budget, cookie-cutter monstrosity of the "Titanic" ilk in sight, which is bringing predictions of a smaller-than-usual American television audience.

One can argue that this year's choices aren't uniformly top-notch, or that acclaimed movies were left out of the major awards categories - "Syriana," "The Squid and the Whale," "A History of Violence," and "The Constant Gardener" have their backers.

But as the world rapidly goes to hell in a handbasket, it's a welcome relief to see the Academy honor timely films about the crass irresponsibility of a cowardly, financially-ransomed press ("Good Night, and Good Luck"), the dehumanization inherent in an eye-for-an eye militarism ("Munich"), the unavoidable confusion and tensions of racial relations in America's boiling melting pot ("Crash"), and the repression and social dislocation brought on by old world bigotry ("Brokeback Mountain").

As is obvious from the longer attention spans this year's nominations play to, none of these films was made for the money. As Spielberg has noted, his film ("Munich") cost more to make than the other four nominees combined, forcing these personal films to stand on their merits.

Throw in ace choice for host Jon Stewart, and one has that rarest of birds: an Oscars night that might actually be worth watching, for the last forty-five minutes at least.

The question then becomes, are we witnessing a changing of the guard? Have the younger, more open Oscar voters replaced the Viagra set that grew up on white bread musicals and whitewashed storylines in less sordid times?

Don't bet on it. If there are many more years like 2006, Hollywood won't have so much cash to spread around.