A pair of interesting stories evaluating why Steven Spielberg - who, along with
pre-1996 Martin Scorcese are my favorite "still-living" directors of all time -
is a big loser when it comes to winning awards. "Argo" was fine, but I thought
"Lincoln" and the "Silver Linings Playbook" were better. Meanwhile, this
year's Oscars telecast with Seth MacFarlane made me vomit in my mouth a little.
The first article is from Buzz Feed, the second is from the NY Times. - d.
“Argo” Win Makes Steven Spielberg Hollywood's Biggest Loser
Once again, the Best Picture prize slips from
his hands. What does Hollywood have against its most successful resident?
by Richard Rushfield - BuzzFeed Staff Writer, February 24, 2013
Image by Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
Tonight, Hollywood officially turned its back on its king. Again. The triumph
of Argo in the Best Picture race, snatching victory from the jaws of Lincoln
brings Steven Spielberg's win-loss record to a dismal one victory in
seven at bats for entertainment's biggest prize.
And tonight, not only
did he lose out on the Best Picture prize that once seemed his, but the
consolation prize of Best Director, the category in which Argo's Affleck was
not even nominated, was also snatched away and handed to Life of Pi's Ang Lee.
For
a man who is widely considered Hollywood's godfather — who is in his
unbelievable fifth decade at the top of the heap, who has reigned
untouchable since before many of today's young directors were born —
facing up to yet another defeat at the hands of his people starts to
look like a clear and consistent rebuff.
Worse still, Spielberg's
films are not just distant also rans. Most of his seven nominated films
were at some point in their campaigns considered favorites to win the
whole thing, making Spielberg the Academy's Charlie Brown, forever
having the football pulled away.
This year in particular. for a brief
moment between the Oscar nominations being announced and the Golden
Globes, Spielberg's Lincoln looked like a shoo-in to win the prize. Only to see
Argo stage a last minute surge and steal its thunder again.
So
to what do we attribute this ongoing snub? Chalk it up to Hollywood's
love/hate relationship with its greats. The number one thing Hollywood
hates is failure. The sad fates of those who have fallen beneath the C
list demonstrate every day how little empathy the town has for those who
can't soar with the eagles.
But the number two thing Hollywood hates is
success. Praying for the downfall of its mighty is practically the
industry's official religion.
Spielberg these days is such a venerable figure that one can easily
forget his historically troubled history with the Academy. After
receiving one for a Best Picture nominations for his first outing — Jaws, but
then being denied for nearly a decade that followed, Oscar finally broken down
and ponied up nods for E.T. — when it became the day's highest grossing of all
time — and Color Purple.
But both those films still lost out on the grand prizes, and to add
insult, he was shut out in Best Director category throughout the 70s and
80s as well.
After the Color Purple loss, Academy
officials were so alarmed by the serial snubbing of Hollywood's most
successful director that they took the unheard of step of bestowing upon
Spielberg at age 40 the Thalberg Lifetime achievement award, until then
reserved for septuagenarians at the end of their careers.
It wasn't
until seven years later, when he made a three hour holocaust film that
Oscar finally couldn't deny giving him their grand prize for Schindler's List.
But since then, it has been a 20 year sea of also-rans.
Of
course, he hasn't gone completely unrecognized. Eight Best Picture
nominations is something most directors will never even dream of. Add to
that, two Best Directing awards making him the most awarded director
since William Wyler in the 1950's.
But still, somehow the Best
Picture prize keeps sliding from his grasp, and for a man at the top of
Hollywood, to be the town's perpetual also-ran in its biggest contest
has to be galling.
In a town with — despite the disruptive presence of the internet — a
fixed number of studios and a shrinking number of major releases,
entertainment remains a zero-sum game. Celebrating the achievement of
the man with a permanent position on top is never entirely in one's best
interest (unless you're doing it to his face).
And in a place where, as
William Goldman famously put it, "no one knows anything" and everyone
knows that they don't know anything, seeing the mighty stumble does even
the chaotic playing field a bit.
But even more to the point, as
big a business as entertainment is, even as it stands as America's #1
export, the residents of Hollywood still need to think of themselves as
scrappy outsiders, the oppressed souls who fled the closed minds back in
their small towns and came to a place where at last they could breathe
the air of artistic freedom.
The fact that this is the story of almost
no one in modern Hollywood, dampens its power not a bit. Even as they
drive their $50,000 hybrids paid for by CGI-explosion fests, Hollywood's
need to think of itself as The Oppressed Outsiders holds an undying
power.
In choosing their Best Picture each year, the members of
the Academy choose what story they want to tell the world about
Hollywood. First there is the story the film tells on the screen; and in
recent years these have become trended heavily towards the edgier,
hipper end of the dead center of middlebrow filmmaking; Oscar has ceased
awarding the schmaltzy Braveheart's and Driving Miss Daisy's that paint the
industry as a place of uptight squares in favor of Slumdog Millionaire's and
Hurt Locker's.
Even a thriller like Argo
is animated by a minimalist aesthetic that speaks to restrained,
hipster sensibilities far more than the genre winners of a decade or two
ago.
But more than the story on the screen, Oscar likes to tell a good
story off the screen about the making of a film. And however contorted
and difficult the journey of a Spielberg film to get to the multi-plex
(and Lincoln did take thirteen years) in the end, "Billionaire
Hollywood Titan Makes Good Movie", is not a tale to inspire the unwashed
masses.
On the awards trail this year, Ben Affleck ran circles
around Spielberg playing up the gracious, just-happy-to-be-allowed-back
comeback story. He showed up at all the events, was warm and
self-deprecating. People who remembered how far he fell post-Gigli
could not help but be touched by his redemption story. And when the
empire seemed to be rubbing it in by shutting him out of the Best
Director nominations, they rallied to his side.
In contrast, Spielberg,
as he always is when he gets into an Oscar race, went into a heavily
managed bunker posture, limiting his appearances, keeping his interviews
to few, appearing handled and protected at every turn.
The fact
of the matter is that a heavily guarded, insulated oligarch is much
closer to the true face of Hollywood than a vanquished actor giving one
more chance to redeem himself, as an artist. But its not about what
story is true, it's about what story projects the way Hollywood would
like to think of itself.
The shame of it is, the real Spielberg on
the rare moments when he emerges from behind the palace gates is a
wonderful story and a wonderful story teller. He has had a career like
no other of his generation, has in his time taken enormous risks both as
an artist and producer that have led to be triumphs and
disappointments. He is responsible for a busload of films high and low
destined to stand the test of time.
And when he submits to interviews,
he is warm, gracious, avuncular, undefensive and endlessly fascinating
with five decades of filmmaking stories under his belt.
However,
he is also, as this race shows again, all too willing to play the mighty
mogul on high. And in the end, the fear that position inspires might
keep him at the top of the industry, but as he has discovered once more,
it doesn't make Hollywood see him as its ambassador to the world.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/richardrushfield/argo-win-makes-spielberg-hollywoods-biggest-loser
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oscar-Winning Lessons in History and Hard Sell
By MELENA RYZIK for the NEW YORK TIMES
February 27, 2013
LOS ANGELES — A few months into awards season, at a party celebrating another
movie, a veteran actor-writer-director-producer, who takes his Academy Awards
duties very seriously, whispered to me that he was sure “Lincoln” would win big
on Oscar night.
“Because it’s Lincoln,” he said. “It’s like not voting for George Washington.
And you really feel like you get to know Lincoln. We can’t not vote for our
favorite president.”
The more than 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
apparently did not see it as their patriotic duty to vote for “Lincoln” or its
director, Steven Spielberg.
Daniel Day-Lewis’s win for his performance demystifying the 16th president was
not compensation.
Mr. Spielberg, one studio boss said, looked stricken when he lost the best
director award to Ang Lee.
In the days after “Argo” won best picture at the ceremony on Sunday, it’s been
a parlor game among Hollywood types to figure out why “Lincoln” lost. After
all, it had all the hallmarks of an Academy Award-dominating film: a venerated
director; a celebrated, erudite scriptwriter in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tony
Kushner; a landmark role for Mr. Day-Lewis; good reviews and even better box
office; and, not least, millions to spend on campaigning.
Lobbying voters is frowned on by the Academy and yet a necessity of the
monthslong award cycle. This season, insiders said, the team behind “Lincoln” —
executives at DreamWorks and Disney — overcampaigned, leaving voters with the
unpleasant feeling that they were being force-fed a highly burnished history
lesson. “It was a good movie, not sliced bread,” one veteran awards watcher
said.
Overreaching was perhaps a failure of the broadcast itself too. The host, Seth
MacFarlane, and the producers, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, tried to marry
old-school showbiz panache with “provocative” humor and the result was an
entertainment grab bag: the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles; a foul-mouthed
talking teddy bear; splashy song-and-dance numbers for every conceivable
demographic (save anybody who likes hip-hop); Captain Kirk; sock puppets (sock
puppets!); racist, sexist punch lines that seemed lifted from the insult-comic
era; and the first lady of the United States. About the only things missing
were kitten videos and the Harlem Shake (but in blackface).
But since the ratings were up slightly, especially in the coveted 18-to-49 age
bracket, and despite some high-level protests — the reviews were not entirely
scathing, the production could ultimately be considered a success. (Mr.
MacFarlane, though, has already said he won’t be back as host.)
In a three-and-a-half-hour spectacle of glossy celebration for a roomful of
superstars dripping with jewels and self-regard, the question of how much is
too much may seem moot. But with the right tone and perspective, even that ego
parade can seem fun to watch. In choosing Mr. MacFarlane in its quest for a
younger, more male viewership, the Academy sacrificed its central constituency
— women make up the majority of the Oscar audience — and fomented cultural
battles in an awards season already full of them.
Then again, it was the political posturing that made this one of the most
interesting Oscar races in recent memory. As the vibrant discussion of just how
much truth bending is acceptable in fact-based movies shows, authenticity — or
at least the perception of authenticity — still counts.
Though it took liberties with its story, “Argo” squeaked by on truthiness. It
also triumphed as a consensus choice in a field of high-quality candidates,
each with its own passionate faction of defenders. As Mr. Spielberg himself
said, when he lost the Directors Guild Award to Ben Affleck and “Argo,” “There
have been moments when I wish it was a slightly less incredible year for
movies.”
There may have been other reasons “Lincoln” fell by the wayside. Dimly
illuminated, to replicate the lighting of the period, and stuffed with long
passages of speechifying by waistcoated, bearded men, the film did not play
well on DVD screeners (nor, perhaps, did another historically based competitor,
“Zero Dark Thirty”).
Cynics also say that Mr. Spielberg, as Hollywood’s reigning titan, was primed
for a takedown — envy being as motivating a force as greed in this industry —
and that voters were enthralled by the comeback story that Mr. Affleck
represented.
Somehow Mr. Affleck could not overcampaign, or at least, his combination of
movie-star charm and tabloid comeuppance won people over. Also, he talked film
references like an expert. Which, having won an Oscar at 25 (for writing “Good
Will Hunting” with Matt Damon) after a career as a child actor, this college
dropout turned director pretty much is.
Casual viewers often wonder if Oscar victory comes down to something simpler:
who makes the best movie. It does not. Nor does the funniest person make the
best Oscar host. There is a narrative to both endeavors, a combination of
self-effacement and artistry (voilà, Mr. Lee), being of the moment and
timeless, that is hard to pull off. Mr. Spielberg will no doubt try again, and
in the meantime he and the other also-rans can console themselves with another
prize, Hollywood’s ultimate popularity contest: record-breaking ticket sales.
And next year, may we suggest to the Academy, hire Jennifer Lawrence to host.
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