The Oscars always go to the wrong guy
By Michael Henderson
Tomorrow evening, unless he drowns in the pool of tears irrigated by his admirers, Martin Scorsese is expected to collect an Oscar for film direction. That he will claim the prize for The Departed, which is a long way from being his finest film, will not bother those supporters who claim, with some justification, that it is high time the New Yorker is finally rewarded in the way that Hollywood knows best.
Yet Scorsese, who has been nominated on five previous occasions, is in the best of company. Alfred Hitchcock was also up five times, and went home empty-handed on each occasion. Neither Howard Hawks nor Orson Welles won an Oscar. Nor, for that matter, did Scorsese's hero, Michael Powell, or Ingmar Bergman. In 1983, when the Swede was up for Fanny and Alexander, an out-and-out masterpiece, the gong went to James L Brooks for the slushy Terms of Endearment. That's showbusiness for you.
John Ford was the King of Hollywood, winning four Oscars, but he missed out with The Searchers, which many film-goers would now consider to be his greatest film. Double Indemnity, one of Billy Wilder's classics, was deemed inferior to Going My Way. At least it was acknowledged with a nomination. Singin' in the Rain, the supreme film musical, was overlooked altogether.
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Of course, Hollywood can't get it right all the time. Nobody can. All prizes are subject to whim and fancy, and there may be perfectly good reasons why certain films or actors were not recognised by Oscar.
Chinatown, for instance, fell just short in 1974, but the film that pipped it, The Godfather Part II, could hardly be judged unworthy. However, to snub Jack Nicholson, Chinatown's star, in favour of Art Carney (Harry and Tonto), was not the Academy's finest hour.
And that's the problem. It isn't that Hollywood gets it wrong now and again. The great and the good who decide these matters make a botch of it year in, year out, decade after decade. How can anybody take seriously an institution that is supposed to honour excellence in film-making, yet denied the best actor prize to Cary Grant, the most accomplished leading man in the history of cinema?
This is the institution, it must be said, that rewarded Carol Reed for Oliver! after ignoring The Third Man; that judged Forrest Gump to be better than Kieslowski's Red, the final part of the Pole's French trilogy; that marked Titanic above LA Confidential; and which has made a habit of humiliating Scorsese. In 1980, the year of Raging Bull, Robert Redford triumphed with Ordinary People. Ten years later, when GoodFellas was on the slate, the judges gave the nod to Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves. Scorsese should have demanded a recount.
The Departed is not classic Scorsese. He has always been half in love with the business of violence and his latest movie shows him at his most indulgent in that respect. It is also too long, and the love interest is unconvincing. But he is a serious film-maker, who has contributed significantly to post-war American cinema, so we should not begrudge him his likely glory.
It may be unfair to make comparisons, but one can't help looking back at Hollywood's great years, and wondering how many films that we celebrate today will engage popular interest 50 years from now. Certainly not the wretched Venus, with its tone-deaf screenplay by Hanif Kureishi. Maybe The Queen will pass the test of time, as a social document. Certainly Dame Helen Mirren's performance, which could have been mere impersonation, is an outstanding piece of acting.
In 1939, the films up for consideration were Gone With the Wind (the winner), Goodbye, Mr Chips, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz and Wuthering Heights. Robert Donat was voted best actor for Mr Chips, and Thomas Mitchell won the best supporting actor prize for Stagecoach, proving that Hollywood sometimes does recognise true quality.
Certain themes recur down the years. Disability or "otherness" goes a long way; witness the success of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, and Geoffrey Rush in Shine. Recognising "class" is also important.
Not-terribly-good films about Shakespeare and Mozart have won Oscars, to show that a spot of "culture" is not beyond the Academy, so long as it is watered down, and Sir John Gielgud collected a supporting actor statuette for playing a butler in the feeble "comedy" Arthur.
Sometimes exotic foreigners are invited to the feast, too, to give the impression that the Academy is interested in things beyond the Anglosphere. Overall, though, it's really a love-in for the initiated.
Red carpet, velvet rope, expensive frocks and coat hanger smiles; in a word, "glamour".
But which prizes do reflect true quality? Hardly a week goes by without some awards ceremony or other honouring the stage, the page, the small screen, the big screen and what may be called the microphone (that loathsome parade of show-offs, the Brits, brings to mind Woody Allen's response to Diane Keaton in Annie Hall: "You mean they give awards for that sort of thing? I thought they just gave you earplugs").
The Turner Prize means nothing to lovers of art, only to the coterie of artists and dealers who stand to benefit from its patronage. The Booker Prize, one may be sure, will go to some Commonwealth writer of unknown provenance, to demonstrate the judges' broadness of view. Even the Nobel Prize has become a political bauble, swinging between continents like a giant pendulum.
Ultimately, the only awards that should have any claim on our attention are those given for work done over a lifetime. That is why the David Cohen British Literature Prize means something. Established in 1993, and awarded every two years, its first five recipients were V S Naipaul, Harold Pinter, Muriel Spark, William Trevor and Doris Lessing. There's real judgment.
When it was put to Tony Bennett a while back that he hadn't had many hits, the crooner supplied an answer that may serve for all performers of pedigree: "No, but I like to think I have a hit catalogue." That's the spirit.
Tomorrow evening, unless he drowns in the pool of tears irrigated by his admirers, Martin Scorsese is expected to collect an Oscar for film direction. That he will claim the prize for The Departed, which is a long way from being his finest film, will not bother those supporters who claim, with some justification, that it is high time the New Yorker is finally rewarded in the way that Hollywood knows best.
Yet Scorsese, who has been nominated on five previous occasions, is in the best of company. Alfred Hitchcock was also up five times, and went home empty-handed on each occasion. Neither Howard Hawks nor Orson Welles won an Oscar. Nor, for that matter, did Scorsese's hero, Michael Powell, or Ingmar Bergman. In 1983, when the Swede was up for Fanny and Alexander, an out-and-out masterpiece, the gong went to James L Brooks for the slushy Terms of Endearment. That's showbusiness for you.
John Ford was the King of Hollywood, winning four Oscars, but he missed out with The Searchers, which many film-goers would now consider to be his greatest film. Double Indemnity, one of Billy Wilder's classics, was deemed inferior to Going My Way. At least it was acknowledged with a nomination. Singin' in the Rain, the supreme film musical, was overlooked altogether.
advertisement
Of course, Hollywood can't get it right all the time. Nobody can. All prizes are subject to whim and fancy, and there may be perfectly good reasons why certain films or actors were not recognised by Oscar.
Chinatown, for instance, fell just short in 1974, but the film that pipped it, The Godfather Part II, could hardly be judged unworthy. However, to snub Jack Nicholson, Chinatown's star, in favour of Art Carney (Harry and Tonto), was not the Academy's finest hour.
And that's the problem. It isn't that Hollywood gets it wrong now and again. The great and the good who decide these matters make a botch of it year in, year out, decade after decade. How can anybody take seriously an institution that is supposed to honour excellence in film-making, yet denied the best actor prize to Cary Grant, the most accomplished leading man in the history of cinema?
This is the institution, it must be said, that rewarded Carol Reed for Oliver! after ignoring The Third Man; that judged Forrest Gump to be better than Kieslowski's Red, the final part of the Pole's French trilogy; that marked Titanic above LA Confidential; and which has made a habit of humiliating Scorsese. In 1980, the year of Raging Bull, Robert Redford triumphed with Ordinary People. Ten years later, when GoodFellas was on the slate, the judges gave the nod to Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves. Scorsese should have demanded a recount.
The Departed is not classic Scorsese. He has always been half in love with the business of violence and his latest movie shows him at his most indulgent in that respect. It is also too long, and the love interest is unconvincing. But he is a serious film-maker, who has contributed significantly to post-war American cinema, so we should not begrudge him his likely glory.
It may be unfair to make comparisons, but one can't help looking back at Hollywood's great years, and wondering how many films that we celebrate today will engage popular interest 50 years from now. Certainly not the wretched Venus, with its tone-deaf screenplay by Hanif Kureishi. Maybe The Queen will pass the test of time, as a social document. Certainly Dame Helen Mirren's performance, which could have been mere impersonation, is an outstanding piece of acting.
In 1939, the films up for consideration were Gone With the Wind (the winner), Goodbye, Mr Chips, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz and Wuthering Heights. Robert Donat was voted best actor for Mr Chips, and Thomas Mitchell won the best supporting actor prize for Stagecoach, proving that Hollywood sometimes does recognise true quality.
Certain themes recur down the years. Disability or "otherness" goes a long way; witness the success of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, and Geoffrey Rush in Shine. Recognising "class" is also important.
Not-terribly-good films about Shakespeare and Mozart have won Oscars, to show that a spot of "culture" is not beyond the Academy, so long as it is watered down, and Sir John Gielgud collected a supporting actor statuette for playing a butler in the feeble "comedy" Arthur.
Sometimes exotic foreigners are invited to the feast, too, to give the impression that the Academy is interested in things beyond the Anglosphere. Overall, though, it's really a love-in for the initiated.
Red carpet, velvet rope, expensive frocks and coat hanger smiles; in a word, "glamour".
But which prizes do reflect true quality? Hardly a week goes by without some awards ceremony or other honouring the stage, the page, the small screen, the big screen and what may be called the microphone (that loathsome parade of show-offs, the Brits, brings to mind Woody Allen's response to Diane Keaton in Annie Hall: "You mean they give awards for that sort of thing? I thought they just gave you earplugs").
The Turner Prize means nothing to lovers of art, only to the coterie of artists and dealers who stand to benefit from its patronage. The Booker Prize, one may be sure, will go to some Commonwealth writer of unknown provenance, to demonstrate the judges' broadness of view. Even the Nobel Prize has become a political bauble, swinging between continents like a giant pendulum.
Ultimately, the only awards that should have any claim on our attention are those given for work done over a lifetime. That is why the David Cohen British Literature Prize means something. Established in 1993, and awarded every two years, its first five recipients were V S Naipaul, Harold Pinter, Muriel Spark, William Trevor and Doris Lessing. There's real judgment.
When it was put to Tony Bennett a while back that he hadn't had many hits, the crooner supplied an answer that may serve for all performers of pedigree: "No, but I like to think I have a hit catalogue." That's the spirit.
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