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Henrie's Recipes
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Other than 'Citizen Kane', films that have been passed over include every Hitchcock-directed film post-'Rebecca' (1940), 'Taxi Driver', 'Some Like It Hot', 'Dr Strangelove', 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Sunset Boulevard', 'Se7en', 'Star Wars', 'Thelma and Louise', 'The Big Blue', 'The Maltese Falcon', 'Duck Soup'…
On the other hand, the Academy has honoured such turkeys as 'Coming Home', John Wayne, 'Rocky', 'Titanic', 'Braveheart' and Charlton Heston — great big, steaming, stinking, gobbling, gawking turkeys. That Tom Hanks has ever won for anything throws the existence of God into serious dispute.
But what can one expect from a body so sensitive, tasteful and politically correct that they selected deaf Best Actress winner Marlee Matlin to present the award one year for Sound? That thought the best way to honour disabled viewers was at a special screening of Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of artist Christy Brown in 'My Left Foot', at which each seat (except the wheelchairs, which everyone forgot) was adorned with a small, white chocolate foot?
A very Caucasian affair
Since before Hattie McDaniel became the first black woman to attend the Oscars ceremony as a nominee rather than as a waitress (and won Best Supporting Actress for her role in 'Gone with the Wind') there has been a growing awareness that the Oscars, like Hollywood that spawned them, are a very Caucasian affair. Other than a handful of Supporting Actor winners (including Lou Gossett, Jr; Cuba Gooding, Jr and Whoopi Goldberg — who won for the frankly awful 'Ghost' and not her bravura turn in 'The Colour Purple') and one Best Actor (Sidney Poitier), there had been a glaring absence of any notable black nominees (never mind winners) throughout the Awards’ history.
One rather irksome detail that is seldom noted is that, rather than split the vote in 1995 between Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta for 'Pulp Fiction', voters were urged to nominate one for Best Lead Actor and the other for Best Supporting Actor. Even though Jules Winnfield had significantly more dialogue and impact than the doltish Vincent Vega, it was Travolta who was nominated as a Lead and Jackson as a Supporting Actor.
In 2002, when the ceremony was cut short owing to the second Iraq war, the Academy saw fit to usher in a couple of black wins to keep everyone happy. Thus, the very talented Denzel Washington won Best Actor for 'Training Day', one of the worst performances of his career (he should have won for 'Malcolm X') and the no-great-shakes Halle Berry won for her somewhat hysterical overacting in 'Monster’s Ball'.
Good taste and common sense?
The 2002 debacle is a classic example of Oscar political correctness outweighing good taste and common sense. With all the extraordinary African American talent from which to choose over the decades — Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker (each of them now finally paid the honour they deserve), Alfre Woodard, Dooley Wilson, Lena Horne, Ving Rhames, Jackson, Angela Bassett, Regina King, to name but a few — the Academy took the expedient and cowardly way out by giving the world a cheap and nasty two-for-one job. (Of course, the following year they were surprised by two far more worthy African American nominees — Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman, both of whom won.)
For most the Oscar is a godsend and a guaranteed career-rocket, but minority players often find it a curse. Most notable is Rita Moreno, who won best Supporting Actress for being the only person worth watching in the very long and depressing 'West Side Story'. After her win she was indeed showered with scripts, but most were vengeful Latina spitfire roles — nothing with dignity or substance. She took part in no notable films after that, giving most of her fine performances on Broadway.
Thirty-six years after her win as Anita she once more made her indelible mark as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo in HBO’s hard-hitting prison drama 'Oz'. Nonetheless, she is the only person in history to have an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, an Emmy and a Golden Globe to her name. Take that, Barbra Streisand!
Marginalising women
Women constitute yet another group marginalised by Oscar and his buddies. Although, thank God, we have Best Leading and Supporting Actress Awards (without which the Awards would be as feminine as a Freemasons’ Guild meeting), women otherwise tend to be nominated mostly for makeup or costume design. Martin Scorsese’s longtime editor (and three-time Oscar winner) Thelma Schoonmaker is an unusual exception.
While some may argue that women don’t do the sort of jobs for which one can be nominated, au contraire. There are hundreds of female directors, producers, set designers, composers, editors, sound editors, screenwriters and so on who are consistently overlooked.
It has long been a bone of contention amongst feminists that Barbra Streisand has never been nominated as a director, despite having helmed two Best Picture nominees. More deserving, however, are Guinevere Turner, Amy Heckerling, Penny Marshall, Jane Campion (who was nominated for her direction of 'The Piano' but won only Best Screenplay) and Kathryn Bigelow, whose work on 'Strange Days' and 'Point Break' was definitely of a calibre worth an Academy nod, yet she has never even been nominated.
Lina Wertmüller was the first woman nominated for a directing Oscar in 1977. In 2004, Sofia Coppola was the most recently nominated. 'Lost in Translation' is a sweet film, but nowhere near worthy of an Academy Award, which, had she won, might have smacked of a reprisal of 2002’s “give it to her while there’s a [insert minority] in the running”. Being Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter didn’t hurt, either. As it is, she followed in Jane Campion’s footsteps and won Best Screenplay.
Throughout history only three films have won the Big Five: Best Picture,
Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay (either Adapted or Original). (If one were to add both Best Supporting categories to the roster, however, this becomes a winning streak no film has ever yet achieved.) The first, 'It Happened One Night', was an Oscar fluke with all the top prizes going to a comedy. The other two have a great deal in common with one another, but are very unusual for Oscar picks: they are violent, contain no conventional romantic characters and deal with madness. Guessed it yet? They are 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest' and 'Silence of the Lambs'. It’s good to know at least sometimes Oscar gets it right.
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