Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, is also a date of destiny for Movieland-the day on which nominations for the 67th annual Academy Awards will be announced.
So, what’ll it be? Hearts and flowers? Guns and hellfire? Rigged TV games? Or hoops?
Not even Price, Waterhouse knows yet, though much of the world is interested. The Academy Awards, whose season begins with the nominations, are the one really transcendent show-business event: Super Bowl, Election Night, the Ziegfeld Follies and Halloween rolled into one. Italy’s Federico Fellini, who won four of them, called the Oscar “the supreme prize . . . in the mythology of the cinema.” And he’s right, if you remember that, like all institutions, the Oscar has cracks, blind alleys and dark corners, that voters have probably been wrong as many times as they’ve been right.
Any surprises in store? Undoubtedly, even if so far it looks like the year of “Forrest Gump,” of sweetness, simplicity, old-fashioned idealism, heartland humor, familial love and devotion. (An all-American movie valentine.)
Unless, of course, it turns out to be the year of “Pulp Fiction,” a bloody inferno of hired killers, scabrous eloquence, malicious hilarity, byzantine betrayals and sudden death.
Or the cooler, more self-consciously intellectual year of “Quiz Show,” with its behind-the-scenes glimpse at TV, lies and advertising.
Other possibilities? How about the jungle cartoon of “The Lion King,” the 19th Century charms of “Little Women,” the basketball seasons of “Hoop Dreams,” a year in the slammer with “The Shawshank Redemption” or-another real valentine-“Four Weddings and a Funeral.”
Those are the prime Best Picture possibilities. As for acting, Valentine’s Day could see the anointing of two “wise fools” (Tom Hanks in “Gump” and Jodie Foster in “Nell”), a royal dimwit (Nigel Hawthorne in “The Madness of King George”), some heroic moms (Jessica Lange in “Blue Sky,” Meryl Streep in “The River Wild,” Susan Sarandon in “Safe Passage”), any one of a number of drunks (Lange again, Dianne Wiest in “Bullets Over Broadway,” Jennifer Jason Leigh in “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” Meg Ryan in “When a Man Loves a Woman” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Cobb”) and at least two drug addicts (John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction” and Martin Landau in “Ed Wood”).
Or one wry old man (Paul Newman in “Nobody’s Fool”) and his wry landlady (the late Jessica Tandy).
If all these performances strike any kind of common chord, it’s this: The characters, in most cases, have believable, sometimes even severe, human flaws and difficulties-weaknesses, problems or addictions against which they have to battle. (In some cases, like Wiest’s barmy “Bullets Over Broadway” diva, Jones’ Ty Cobb, Landau’s Bela Lugosi or Hawthorne’s mad King George III, there’s no battle. They amusingly or horrifyingly succumb.)
Tom Hanks-whose Forrest Gump has flaws of his own-is probably the Best Actor front-runner (which would make him the first successive-years “Best Actor” Oscar winner since Spencer Tracy in 1937 and 1938). But two performers who, despite numerous previous nominations, came out of almost nowhere this time have so far fared best among the critics: Paul Newman, for his small-town construction worker Sully in “Nobody’s Fool,” and Jessica Lange as the sexy, alcoholic but steadfast Carly in “Blue Sky.”
There was a time when Newman seemed, as much as Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole (both of whom won seven nominations, but no Oscars) an eternal Academy bridesmaid. Then, after six unsuccessful tries, he broke the jinx in 1986, with his Oscar-winning reprise of “The Hustler’s” pool prodigy Fast Eddie Felson in “The Color of Money.” Ironically, Newman won it the year after he got a special Career Achievement Oscar, which is usually given to someone the Academy fears has been unjustly passed by (like Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir or Howard Hawks in their later years). Now, a decade after his career award, he’s in the running again with two prizes, from the New York critics and the National Society of Film Critics, under his belt.
Unless “Hoop Dreams” breaks through and gets a “Best Picture” nod, Jessica Lange, a previous winner (as supporting actress for “Tootsie”) and four-time Best Actress nominee, is the most interesting case of all the strong candidates. “Blue Sky,” in which Lange stunningly portrays a sultry, flirty, bored but inwardly passionate and heroic Southern Army Wife, was completed almost four years ago. Its director, Tony Richardson, died of AIDS in 1991. And the financial troubles of “Blue Sky’s” studio, Orion, kept the film on the shelf until last year. But Lange is not only a sure nominee; her recent “Best Actress” Golden Globe actually makes her the favorite.
The documentary category, often cited for neglecting worthy or high-profile candidates, this year seems to have a movie it can’t refuse: “Hoop Dreams.” Yet, due to the documentary committee’s famous predisposition against the best-known and most critically applauded non-fiction films, “Hoop Dreams” is not even a sure “Best Documentary” nominee-even though it’s being pushed hard by its studio, New Line, for Best Film.
If it’s nominated, it would be a breakthrough unprecedented in the Academy’s 68-year history because documentaries always are ghettoized in their separate category.
Still, if “Hoop Dreams” does make the Best Film final five, it has a genuine, if small, chance-simply because no other candidate, including critics’ darling “Pulp Fiction,” seems to have enough ingredients to knock off the favorite, “Forrest Gump.”
If “Gump” fits the Oscar profile, what attitudes help it? Oscars-nominated by the separate branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and voted on by the full membership-are decided, after all, by movie people, people who work actively in the industry (or once did) and are often more cynical about films than most of the general audience.
On the one hand, these voters know that certain kinds of sure-fire formula pictures are their bread and butter, especially in an industry where only two out of eight movies make money in original release. Big grossers have their professional respect. On the other hand, there’s a different kind of respect-the kind that bubbles up in Oscar season-toward movies that are obvious labors of love, which the voters know were made, to some degree, despite, rather than because of, the system.
Contrary to widespread opinion, Academy voters will go for films of less certain appeal-as they did last year with Best Picture nominees “The Piano,” “The Remains of the Day” and “In the Name of the Father”-as long as those films are somehow validated beforehand. And as long as the voters are able to see them.
That’s the rub. Most professional moviemakers-especially as they get older-see fewer and fewer movies. They depend on critics, Academy screenings, word-of-mouth-and, increasingly, the videocassettes mailed out by the studios-to set an agenda. (These videos, more than anything else, have changed the Oscar equation, made the voting more interesting.)
Critics’ groups, which give out their own prizes each year, helped give “Forrest Gump,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Quiz Show”-which shared the critics’ “best film” awards among them-their early edge. That doesn’t mean “Pulp Fiction,” the most frequent winner, is the front-runner-any more than “Goodfellas” (which almost swept the preliminary 1990 awards) was a real front-runner over eventual Oscar-winner “Dances With Wolves.”
There’s a certain kind of movie that wins critics’ prizes and nominations, but not many Oscars. As much as anything else, Oscar voters-aware of their show’s enormous worldwide audience-want the industry to look good (responsible, decent, idealistic, dedicated to art and humanity). At the same time, they want to demonstrate that they’re on top of things, not blind to the shallowness of most Hollywood “product.”
“Forrest Gump” is just the type of ambitious, idealistic, technically sumptuous-and most important, crowd-pleasing-picture that the Academy likes to honor. If anything hurts it, it’s the fact that it has been embraced by pundits like Patrick Buchanan, who’ve tried to use it as an exemplar of national cultural and political shifts. That’s why “Hoop Dreams” has a shot. If the voters become somehow leery of making a “Gump” statement, a “Hoop Dreams” statement may seem their best option. “Gump” will win if everyone forgets about statements.
And, statements aside, largely because of the studios’ cassette mailings, offbeat movies and performances do have more of a chance. Sometimes, however, they are sabotaged by the rules.
Linda Fiorentino, who played the ice-cold femme fatale of “The Last Seduction,” was disqualified for a Best Actress nomination because her film played on cable TV before it was released to the theaters (a rule that may be ripe for revision). But otherwise, with her New York critics’ “best actress” prize, she was almost a sure nominee in a type of role and movie (evil murderess in a low-budget retro-film noir) usually ignored.
Something else you can expect is the non-nomination of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red,” depite “best film” awards from critics in Los Angeles, New York and Boston and from the National Society of Film Critics.
Why? The reason has a “Catch-22” craziness. “Red” has too many Polish and French artists in its cast and crew to be regarded as Swiss, and too many Swiss to be regarded as anything else. This makes it, apparently, a stateless film, a refugee.
In a way, you can see the Academy’s point. Films in the foreign-language category are submitted by individual countries (“Red” was the Swiss entry) and screened by the foreign-language committee, which then votes on the final five. And Rule No. 1 in the foreign-language section of the rulebook clearly states: “The submitting country must certify that creative talent of that country exercised artistic control of the film.” This sentence-added after a 1993 controversy over whether the Uruguayan entry “A Place in the World” was really Argentinian-eliminates “Red” from Oscar consideration.
The committee’s reading of the rule is correct. The problem is the rule itself. If similar guidelines applied to the other Oscar categories, Best Picture Oscar-winners like “The Last Emperor,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Tom Jones” and “Hamlet” would have been disqualified, as would every non-American winner in every other category.
New York Newsday critic Jack Mathews calls the foreign-language Oscars “artistically meaningless,” the procedure “a mess” and argues “no Oscar makes a bigger mockery of the word `best.’ “
He’s harsh, but he’s mostly right. Ever since 1980, when the mediocre Russian entry “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” beat out Kurosawa’s “Kagemusha,” this section’s nominees and winners have seemed increasingly bland and dubious. Excellent films occasionally win: “Mephisto” in 1981, “Pelle the Conqueror” in 1988, “Cinema Paradiso” in 1989 and “Fanny and Alexander” in 1983. (This year, “Fanny,” which first showed on Swedish TV, would have been ineligible under the “Last Seduction” ruling.)
But many of the other winners-including such virtually forgotten movies as “To Begin Again” and “Dangerous Moves,” and such second-tier films as “Journey of Hope,” “The Official Story,” “Mediterraneo” and last year’s amusing but lukewarm Spanish winner, “Belle Epoque”-don’t come close to the highest standards of international filmmaking.
Because the Academy relies on the country of origin to submit films, this causes more embarrassments-as in 1985, when Japan refused to submit Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece “Ran,” and 1991, when Germany vetoed Agnieszka Holland’s “Europa, Europa.”
But the situation looks even worse if you start compiling lists of movies officially submitted for Oscars that the committee turned down, as they did “Red.” Nixed as nominees since 1980 have been such recognized modern classics as “Pixote,” “The Night of the Shooting Stars,” “Bye Bye Brazil,” “Diva,” “Lili Marleen,” “The Sacrifice,” “Fitzcarraldo,” “Brightness,” “Wings of Desire,” “Red Sorghum,” “Landscape in the Mist,” “The Best Intentions,” “Toto le Heros” and two other Kieslowski films, “The Double Life of Veronique” and “Blue.”
Mathews suggests that the entire foreign-language Oscar voting system be scrapped and replaced with a blue-ribbon selection committee. That seems drastic. But what the committee could easily do is allow itself up to five discretionary picks a year to prevent more “Ran” and “Europa, Europa” fiascos.
It could also try to actively recruit and broaden its nomination audiences. And it should definitely throw out the national artistic purity guideline that sank “Red”-a laughable anachronism in an age of international co-productions, and artistically and morally obnoxious as well.
Will these changes-or anything similar-happen? Probably not.
The Academy, like all monoliths, repels criticism and resists change. And all too often, its members vote for the movies they think will make the institution look good rather than the ones, from “Citizen Kane” to “Goodfellas,” that change the face of the art. A pity-since, come the next Oscar show, not just America, but the whole world, will be waiting to see which pictures and people win cinema’s supreme prize.
