David just did a very thorough piece on the state of the Hollywood awarding process that he's going to post here as a comment below. It's well worth reading.
It's critical of the way the Oscars bungle the awards process. It comes on top of conversations some of us had with Sam about Volver being the best film of the year and Janet's comments about the superiority of Cruz over Mirren. I also had two former students call me this week to discuss best ten lists, and to demean certain popular films while praising others.
To quote a famous LA resident, "Can't we all just get along?" Why are we as a people so heavily invested in ranking? Is it because we are raised in a capitalist society -- do we blame the market? Or is it wrong to blame -- should we praise best ten lists and awards ceremonies for their Darwin-like selection process? Do they inspire people to do their best work? Everyone I know says they don't care about who wins these things, they just like to see everyone dressed up, etc. Most of them are lying. I know I went on a total rampage last year when Crash won. I felt personally betrayed by the Hollywood community. This time, it was personal!
Why? What difference does it make. Why is it that if I could change 100 things that happened in the history of the world, Braveheart winning best picture would fall in the mid 50s on my list? Why does it matter that the Apartment won best picture, but Some Like it Hot did not even get nominated the prior year (Break it to your father slowly Janet, the only Oscar SLIH got was in costume design); why does it matter that Jimmy Stewart got his Oscar for Philadelphia Story, not Mr. Smith ..., Vertigo, ...Wonderful Life, or Winchester '73? Some of these should be answered in terms of taste or timing, but some seem so incredibly "wrong" that there must be some otherworldy, evil force that allowed The Greatest Show on Earth to beat both High Noon and Singin' in the Rain for best picture. The hurt never goes away. Why?
My rant has little point, but my genre question does -- Is the "Oscar" picture a genre? Think of Balio's discussion of the "prestige picture." (And yes, Balio says that is not a genre, but it sure sounds like one to me under the Altman definition(s) of the word)Don't we all recognize what one means by an Oscar type movie or performance? Think Foster's "Nell" for example -- the most blatant bid for an Oscar I can ever remember. I'm sure there are more recent examples -- Hanks in virtually anything he does. Here's an more recent example -- The Terminal was an Oscar movie, Minority Report was not. It doesn't matter whether it actually gets any nominations.
Does that make sense to anyone genre-wise?
6 comments:
David doesn't even have his comment up and I'm ready to start commenting -- It's a story I got from J.Rosenbaum re: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972). Three weeks before Luis Buñuel won his first and only Oscar (screenplay I think) for this avant-garde comedy, he was asked by Mexican reporters, shortly after the film’s nomination, if he thought he might win. “Of course,” was his deadpan reply. “I’ve already paid the $25,000 they asked for. Americans may have their weaknesses, but they do keep their promises.” Almodovar may be Spain's coolest living director, but that's only because Bunuel, like Franco, is still dead.
I knew the Some Like it Hot comment would come back to haunt me! I mixed it up with In the Heat of the Night, and although the two may seem completely different to the non-Janet, I have this weird tendency to memorize lists and so I got the temperature-involved-titles mixed up... but my dad's collection has it right, so props to him. But actually, it's pretty funny that you mention the lists thing because my dad has this whole thing with forming his collection based off lists. I think it's a easy way for people without extensive film knowledge to make sure they are familiar with the "best" of the subject...US News top 10 schools certainly "inspired" or more like forced me to do my best although people always told me not to worry about that stuff. Rank will always inspire debate, and isn't that the American's favorite pasttime? Anyway, I definately think the prestige/oscar picture is a hush-hush genre, the kind we don't admit but know is out there...the Aviator is the recent one that comes to my mind...it might be the same reason why Titanic won instead of Good Will Hunting, although the Academy seems to be mixing things up in recent years so they choose the non-prestige picture on purpose...Babel, to me, did not seem Oscar bent but I haven't seen it so I won't go into that. I also felt hugely violated when Crash won specifically because I felt it wasn't an "oscar picture." But I think that the prestige picture has a quality to it that deserves recognition, a sort of poetic grandeur (Casablanca and more recently, the English Patient, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) that should rightly should take this more mainstream award and leave recognition of the more underground films to Cannes and Sundance.
One more thing...this whole argument involving oscar genre is the same reason why Scorsese will win best director this year, why Lord of the Rings won in its 3rd year, and why Denzel won a couple of years ago in place of Russell Crowe
I am notoriously wrong in picking Oscars, but I don't think Scorsese will win for the Departed. If he was going to win because it was his "time" he would have won for one of his last two films, both of which were more Oscar bait than this one. Departed is a remake and its way too violent for the academy. Martie, you owe me won -- putting my prediction in print almost guarantees your win!
And as far as I'm concerned, the question is not why LOTR 3 won, but why LOTR 1 and 2 didn't win as well! Personally, if I had to give it to one of the three, based on the films, I'd have gone with 3, although the weakest competition was for 1 -- (I'm not a fan of A Beautiful Mind -- or of much that Howard has directed, although I like Eat My Dust quite a bit.)
Besides the notion of the genre of oscar film, I guess the other question would be genre-bias -- Comedies are routinely ignored, horror films with the rare exception like Silence of the Lambs (more of a thriller) are underappreciated, and Westerns like the Searchers never got their due. Has a science fiction film ever won? Recently, bio-pics seem to have a lead over everything else -- look last year: Capote, Good night..., and Walk the Line; the year before: Ray, Finding Neverland, the Aviator.
On Monday night the Golden Globes aired. Celebrities dressed up in outfits that cost more than most cars, news crews got to do back stage interviews with the victorious and the world got to see who the current frontrunners are for the upcoming Oscars.
Though distinguished in their own right, The Golden Globes appear to have embraced their current status as the annual trailer for the Academy Awards. The live-action spoiler for the Oscar season to come, awards night at the Globes never seems to miss a chance to tell the world how prophetic they are. This year did not break routine: within moments of each announced major-award winner the words “Academy Awards” were mentioned.
But why have the Golden Globes done this? Are the Oscars really the best and most just awards given? Or are they just the most well known? I can’t make any definitive statements, but I do know that they are meant to award those most deserving in each category, but do they? Each year there are complaints about how some director or film was snubbed and each year people roll their eyes at such tirades. The winner must have won for a reason, so why argue about it?
Because tonight Tom Hanks awarded Warren Beatty with the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement. Because Tom stood on that podium and said that almost everyone in Hollywood aspires to be Warren Beatty, to be as great a writer, director, producer or actor as he is – and he manages to be that good at all four. Because the reel of Warren Beatty’s work shown included such incredible films as Reds, Bonnie and Clyde, Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo, Bullworth and Bugsy – films that together have garnered 14 Academy Award Nominations.
Yet Warren Beatty has only 1 win to his name – Best Director (1981) for Reds
How does this make any sense? How can a man so clearly renowned and adored for his incredible balls – and by balls I mean artistic vision and drive – have such little Academy acclaim?
Because the Academy has developed a habit of not awarding those most deserving until the time comes for lifetime achievement awards, particularly when it comes to the best directors. The popularity of films at the time of voting seems to cloud the judgment of the voters and classics have consistently slipped away while fluff has reigned victorious.
To add further kindling to my thought (which is not definitive by any stretch: I do think Martin Scorsese did a great job on The Departed, though lately I wonder if people just really want to give him an Oscar for his career as a whole), here’s a few facts to ponder:
In 2002, Moviemaker magazine listed their top 25 most influential directors of all time. The criteria for judging centered around four requirements:
1) Each director has to have made a significant, indelible and influential contribution to the development of film and the film industry
2) Each director has to have directed a consistent body of work with a number of great movies - usually three unquestionably great films mark a top film-maker
3) Each director has to have a compelling vision and groundbreaking style that has helped to define cinema as we know it today
4) Each director has to have a personal stamp that cuts across films, genres, and decades
Here is that list. I have added notes as to how many Academy Award nominations each director has received, in which categories they were received, and how many wins resulted. All facts come from IMDB.
Moviemaker Magazine’s List of the 25 Most Influential Movie Directors:
01) Alfred Hitchcock:
- 8 nominations (5 for best director, 3 for best picture)
- 1 win (Best Picture for Rebecca – 1940)
02) D.W. Griffith:
- No nominations
(* The Academy Awards began in 1928 – by which point Griffith had already
directed 529 of his 536 movies, leaving only seven which even could qualify,
two of which he not the only director. Which makes his lack of nominations
more understandable.)
03) Orson Welles:
- 5 nominations
(1 for best director, 1 for best actor, 1 for best screenplay, 2 for best picture)
- 1 win (screenplay for Citizen)
04) Jean-Luc Godard:
- No nominations
05) John Ford:
- 12 nominations (5 for best director, 7 for best picture) –
- 5 wins (4 for best director, 1 for best picture)
-(He also directed 145 films between 1917-1976)-
06) Stanley Kubrick:
- 13 nominations (4 for best director, 3 for best picture, 5 for best
writing, 1 for best visual effects [2001: A Space Odyssey])
- 1 win (visual effects – 2001: A Space Odyssey)
07) Sergei Eisenstein:
- No nominations
08) Charlie Chaplin:
- 6 nominations
(2 for best writing, 1 for best picture, 1 for best actor, 1 for music, 1 special award)
- 2 wins (One special Award for “The Circus”, 1 Best Music for “Limelight”)
09) Federico Fellini:
- 16 nominations (4 for best director, 8 for writing, 4 for best foreign film)
- 4 wins (all for best foreign film)
10) Steven Spielberg:
- 12 nominations (6 for best director, 6 for best picture)
- 3 wins (2 for best director, 1 for best picture)
11) Akira Kurosawa:
- 5 nominations (1 for best director, 4 for best foreign film)
- 2 wins (both for best foreign film)
12) Martin Scorsese:
- 12 nominations (5 for best director, 5 for best picture, 2 for best writing)
- No wins
13) Ingmar Bergman:
- 12 nominations
(5 for writing, 3 for best director, 1 for best picture, 3 for best foreign film)
- 3 wins (all for best foreign film)
14) John Cassavetes:
- 3 nominations (1 for best director, 1 for writing, 1 for best actor)
- No wins
15) Billy Wilder:
- 25 nominations (12 for writing, 8 for best director, 5 for best picture)
- 7 wins (3 for best writing, 2 for best director, 2 for best picture)
16) Jean Renoir:
- 1 nomination (for best director)
- No wins
17) Francis Ford Coppola:
- 14 nominations (5 for writing, 5 for best picture, 4 for best director)
- 5 wins (2 for writing, 2 for best picture, 1 for best director)
18) Howard Hawks:
- 2 nominations (1 for best director, 1 for best picture)
- No wins
19) Francois Truffaut:
- 6 nominations (2 for best writing, 1 for best director, 3 for best foreign film)
- 1 win (best foreign film)
20) Buster Keaton:
- No nominations
21) Fritz Lang:
- No nominations
22) John Huston:
- 18 nominations
(8 for writing, 5 for best director, 4 for best picture, 1 for best supporting actor)
- 2 wins (1 for best director, 1 for best writing)
23) Woody Allen:
- 23 nominations
(14 for writing, 6 for best director, 1 for acting, 2 for best picture)
- 4 wins (2 for best writing, 1 for best director, 1 for best picture
24) Luis Bunüel:
- 5 nominations (2 for best writing, 3 for best foreign film))
- 1 win (for best foreign film)
25) Ernst Lubitsch:
- 8 nominations (3 for best director, 5 for best picture)
- No wins
- There are 206 total nominations: only 42 resulted in wins
- 59 of the 206 were best director nominations: only 12 resulted in wins
- Only 18 of the 25 directors have been nominated for the best director academy award
- Only 6 of the 25 have won it
- Only 3 of the 25 have won it more than once
- 10 of the 25 directors have never won an academy award of any kind
- 5 of the 25 have never been nominated in any category
But this is just one list. So I started looking at a few other acclaimed directors and what their awards histories have been. What I discovered was that not only had 19 of the 25 directors listed as most influential never won a best director award, but that many other highly acclaimed had never won it either, people like Clarence Brown, King Vidor, Brian De Palma, George Sidney, Cecil B. DeMille, F.W. Murnau, William A. Wellman, Otto Preminger, Sam Wood, Gregory La Cava, Norman Jewison, Sidney Lumet, Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, Robert Rossen, Spike Lee, Rouben Mamoulian, W.S. Van Dyke, Herbert Ross, Tim Burton, Blake Edwards, Stanley Kramer, Joshua Logan, James Ivory, Alan J. Pakula, Paul Mazursky, Arthur Penn, Richard Brooks, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, Peter Weir and Sam Peckinpah have all somehow never won. Many of them have never even been nominated.
To leaven my mood I decided I’d look to a different set of lists: those of the list of AFI’s 100 greatest movies of all time and of the list of the winners of the Academy Award for best picture. It seemed logical that these two would have a great deal of overlap.
- Only 32 of AFI’s 100 greatest films won the Best Picture Oscar.
- 23 of AFI’s 100 greatest films were never even nominated for Best Picture.
Perhaps I’m just irate at all the talk of changing the Constitution so that the Governator can run for president. Perhaps I’m just tired and rambling. Perhaps I’m mistaken and each time a director or film failed to receive a nomination or didn’t win the people/person who did performed definitively better jobs . . . but maybe not.
So I pose you this question: if not, what’s going on with Hollywood?
• For more information on the Moviemakers Magazine article go to http://www.filmsite.org/directors.html
• For the list of AFI’s 100 greatest films go to http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx
• For the list of the Academy Award Best Picture winners and nominees go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture
• For the list of the Academy Award Best Foreign Film winners and nominees go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Foreign_Language_Film
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