Thanks, Tee. Well observed and accurate, but I've never gotten the animosity toward The Color Purple, which I thought was acutally the best picture of an admittedly lackluster year. Not having read the novel I could understand that those who had might find it less than worthy of its source material, but I didn't find anything Disneyish about it.
This was, though, one of those rare years in which I thought the best picture and best director awards should have been split with John Huston winning the latter award for Prizzi's Honor.
I also thought there should have been a split in 1998, albeit between Gods and Monsters rather than Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture and Spielberg for Best Director for Saving Private Ryan.
Pushing 65, Spielberg shows no signs of slowing down and may actually have his best work in front of him.
Edited By Big Magilla on 1304977616
Spielberg's Strange Oscar History
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Mister Tee
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A few months back, when I analogized Nolan's omission from the directing nominees list to the Spielberg/Jaws omission in '75, rolotomaasi asked for some background about Spielberg's history with the Oscars. I knew it would turn into one of my bloated histories, and, given demands on my time from both my wife and our Oscar party, I begged off until a more leisurely time. It's taken considerably longer than anticipated, but here, at long last, is my version of the tale. Follow along, if you dare.
Begin with a footnote. Spielberg's cinematic career (following great TV success with Duel) began in disappoinment. His debut feature, The Sugarland Express, got a number of favorable reviews, but, likely because it had the misfortune of opening within a few weeks of two other outlaws-on-the-run films (Thieves Like Us and Badlands -- can you imagine three flms that good opening in one stretch?), it never caught on commercially. Some of us felt sorry for the unlucky director.
A year later, that was all forgotten, as the outsize success of Jaws made Spielberg the original King of the World. The project had a lot of commercial heat from the outset -- like earlier-in-the-decade smashes Love Story, The Exorcist and The Godfather, its source novel had been a long-time- top-of-the-best-seller-list publishing phenomenon. But the many positive reviews from critics pushed the film to another level. It was a classy blockbuster. And I do mean blockbuster: before summer was over, the fim had roared past The Godfather on the all-time-top-grosser list. And many started to view the film as a prime Oscar contender.
You have to understand, at that point there wasn't such a gulf between popular movies and critics' movies. Yeah, there was junk that did big business, from Valley of the Dolls through Airport, and there were critics' faves that made modest box-office showings, like Dr. Strangelove or 8 1/2. But by and large, the two weren't viewed as mutually exclusive, and, in that era, many films that won the best picture prize from the NY Critics were big commercial successes -- From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on the River Kwai, West Side Story. This was true in spades with the Motion PIcture Academy. They seconded all those hit best picture choices New York blessed, and added a few more dubious entries of their own: The Greatest Show on Earth, The Sound of Music. In fact, if you go through yearly lists, you'll find many best picture winners, from the very beginning through the 70s, were either the year's top-grossing films (Mutiny on the Bounty, Gone With the Wind, Going My Way, The Best Years of our Lives, Ben-Hur) or in that general vicinity (Lawrence of Arabia, The French Connection, The Sting).
Thus, Jaws was instantly seen as a possibility for the crown. Andrew Sarris flat out predicted a best picture win prior to the nominations, judging that the Academy would never turn its back on a hit so sizable. But, at the same time, there was a bit of grumbling. All those earlier best picture-wiining smashes were, however silly some looked in retrospect, viewed as at least ostensibly serious, grown-up pictures; Jaws, on the other hand, was clearly a popcorn movie, and this caused some backlash. Vincent Canby of the NY Times named the film one of the year's ten worst -- adding that he knew it wasn't actually bad, but that no film so trivial should make that kind of money. So, there was resistance out there. But there was also the feeling that Spielberg with Jaws, like Nolan with Inception, had made a director's movie, and, indeed, he got the key nomination from the Directors' Guild -- along with Altman for Nashville, Kubrick for Barry Lyndon, Forman for Cuckoo's Nest and Lumet for Dog Day Afternoon. The five seemed to quickly select themselves as the likely Academy five.
But there was a specific-to-the-time issue hovering over the scene: In that era, it wasn't uncommon for foreign-language fllms to play New York substantially before they had qualifying runs in LA -- to, in fact, appear in the Fall, but not open on the West Coast till early in the new year, meaning they wouldn't qualify for Oscars till the following year's contest. This had created some minor screenplay-nomination oddities in the years preceding-- Battle of Algiers got cited in 1968, well after NY had seen it, and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion made the writers' list in 1971, the year after it had taken the Foreign Film Oscar But the discrepancy really showed up starting in 1972, when NY went on a three-year "we love subtitles" run, choosing Cries and Whispers in '72, Day for Night in '73 and Amarcord in '74, though none were eligible for Oscar attention till a year down the pike. Cries and Whispers stayed amazingly strong in voters' memories, scoring film/director/screenplay nods in '73, as well as winning the cinematography prize. Day for Night didn't do quite as well in '74, missing out on best picture, but it did get director/screenplay, as well as the supporting actress citation over which Ingrid Bergman made such a famous deal. In that context, it certainly had to cross any serious Oscar-analyst's mind that Amarcord might do the same in '75 -- and, indeed, most did have it on the screenplay short-list. But that DGA five seemed awfully impregnable by nominations day, and the consensus was Spielberg was going to make it.
Spileberg of course had the misfortune to be taped reacting when Fellini's name was read instead. That indelible moment, along with a Hollywood tendency to side with its hit-makers, created (or helped feed) the perception that Spielberg had been "screwed" by the directors' branch. To take the Spielberg side, one could note that Jaws got a relatively low four nominations, where the far-worse hit Towering Inferno had received 8 the year before, so there was a case for thinking there was specific backlash against the film (certainly, it might have also competed for cinematography or even supporting actor Robert Shaw). But, as far as the directing nod in specific, mostly I think it was a case of 6-into-5 won't go, with Spielberg ending up drawing the short straw.
But a narrative had been set in motion, and, two years later, though the particulars were different, somehow the story was pushed into the same slot. Spielberg had had a second consecutive huge hit with Close Encounters of the Third Kind...but this time he was upstaged by his buddy George Lucas' film Star Wars, which had opened earlier in the year and become precisely the sort of instant cultural phenomenon Jaws had in '75 (and topping Jaws' two-year-held gross record). Close Encounters was, if anything, the more critically-regarded of the two (both the film and Spielberg finished third in in New York and National Society voting, behind Annie Hall and That Obscure Object of Desire), but Star Wars was undeniably the bigger industry deal, and it dominated Oscar nominations the way the Jaws folk had expected to two years prior, with 10 nods.
Close Encounters did perfectly well on its own, racking up eight mentions, with even the directors' branch coming through, giving Spielberg his first career mention. The problem? The eight nominations didn't include best picture, which brought howls from Spielberg's corner again. His live-in Amy Irving-- who somehow got the media to treat her as neutral source -- said "They screwed him once over Jaws, now they've done it again over Close Encounters" Other less invested observers noted that Close Encounters' distributor Columbia Pictures was embroiled in the David Begelman check-forging scandal, so the omission may have been more studio- than director-driven. But, again, the "Poor poor Steven" narrative was reinforced.
As it turned out, both Star Wars and Close Encounters were sideshows in that year's Oscar race. Each, like Inception this year, won tech prizes (Star Wars 6 to Encounters' 1), but the main race was surprisingly dominated by Annie Hall, which represented something of a significant step for the Academy. In bypassing a well-reviewed commercial phenomenon in favor of a middling-gross NY-based critics' favorite, voters seemed to be acknowledging that, in this new High Popcorn age, they were going to start looking beyond the top-earning list for their best picture choices.
Which affected Spielberg once again four years later. After suffering his first box-office flop with 1941, the director quickly bounced back with the enormously popular and well-reviewed Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film -- top-earner of 1981 -- finally got Spielberg his first film/director tandem nominations. But, even in that famous train wreck of a best picture contest, Raiders never figured in the discussion. It won four tech prizes -- the most any of Spielberg's film had to date -- but was never viewed as serious enough for top award consideration. Oscar had become a bit more highbrow.
E.T., a year later, was a different story. The film -- which knocked Star Wars from its five-year-held perch as all-time top-grosser -- was, of course, high-level fantasy, not serious drama. But it was also spectacularly well-reviewed, well beyond what Spielberg had received for his earlier efforts. And this showed in the year-end critics' voting. LA, at the time the most populist of the groups, voted it best picture/director prizes. Spielberg also won the National Society's directing prize, and only narrowly lost a run off as NY's choice. Taken together, these developments appeared to put him -- despite the film's fantasy content -- as squarely in the best picture race as he'd ever been.
Two films got in the way. The first was Tootsie -- another huge box-office hit in a generally Academy-ignored genre, comedy. Tootsie won the National Society's best picture prize, and its director, Sydney Pollack, was the one who topped Spielberg in that NY Critics' face-off.
The second, less impressive but ultimately more lethal foe was Gandhi, Richard Attenborough's bland, ostentatiously "grand" epic. The uninspired biography, squarely in the tradition the Academy had loved in the 50s and 60s, was given a Prestige release by Columbia, and Attenborough showed an unexpected knack for hucksterism: he got out there relentlessly promoting his film as striking a blow for peace and democracy, and managed to convince great numbers of people it was just that. It surprised few that the NBR bought right into this scenario and voted it best picture. More startling was that the NY Critics, in a close vote, followed suit. I know around here the suggestion vote-splitting plays any part in a result is considered innumerate, but it strikes me that with two hugely popular crowd-pleasers -- films many of similar taste might have had as their 1-2 or 2-1 choices on the year -- opinion could have been divided just enough that the more stolid Gandhi, with a devoted core of old-timers, could squeak by even while displeasing many.
In any event, once NY's votes were in, it seemed all over but the crying. The Globes got in line, the Guilds...by Oscar night I doubt even Spielberg felt he had more than a deep long-shot's chance. Gandhi plowed through the evening, winning most everything in sight (including screenplay and costume prizes that brought widespread ridicule). And Attenborough continued his "You're voting for world peace" crusade, proclaiming in his acceptance speech that voters had put Reagan and Thatcher on notice. (Both were soon re-elected by massive majorities, so we see how well that paid off)
For once, I thought, Spielberg had a legitimate Oscar gripe. If you want to argue Gandhi is a great film, I disagree, but it's not beyond the pale. However, the idea that the pedstrian Attenborough deserved the directing prize over Spielberg doesn't pass a giggle test. For the first time, Spielberg actually had critics complaining he'd been unfairly snubbed. Spielberg himself, however, seemed to take it philosophically...or, at least, he appeared to accept the Academy's judgment on their terms. Voters had decreed that history, however blandly delivered, was more award-deserving than entertainment. It was a lesson Spielberg seemed to take under advisement, as he launched a new stage of his career.
Having now made five massive blockbusters (besides the Oscar candidates, he sneaked in the first Indiana Jones sequel in the summer of '84), Spielberg was in position to make pretty much anything he wanted. His notion was to make the film version of Alice Walker's very popular and Pulitzer-winning The Color Purple. The Spielberg claque -- and whatever version of Oscar-bloggers existed in the pre-Internet world -- instantly saw this as his chance to finally win that elusive Oscar. Those who wondered if the director would be able to make the leap from blockbuster fantasies to adult drama without some bumps were generally hushed in the lead-up.
To understand this particular chapter in the Spielberg saga, you have to know what 1985 was like for movies. In a word, it was dreadful. The innovative 70s were now long past; special effects extravaganzas and dumb comedies were making outlandish amounts of money; and grown-up movies were harder and harder to find. Going into December of that year, the pickings for best picture were frightfully lean: Prizzi's Honor had been the most critically praised, but it had a hipster feel to it that few could see winning over sentimental Academy voters. Witness and Kiss of the Spider Woman had been moderate successes, both critically and commercially, but hardly seemed Oscar material. There was actally serious speculation that Cocoon --a poor man's ET -- could figure in the race (and it did get Ron Howard his first DGA nomination). If the 80s were the worst cinema decade of my lifetime -- and i submit they were -- 1985 was the epicenter.
December offered little further hope -- basically, there were two movies that had any kind of Oscar feel to them: The Color Purple and Sydney Pollack's Meryl Streep-starring film version of Out of Africa. The latter got respectful if unenthusiastic reviews -- precisely what a decently-made old-fashioned epic romance rated. The Color Purple, on the other hand, got wildly split reviews. Some critics who'd been long-time Spielberg advocates -- Pauline Kael, David Denby -- panned the movie mercilessly as a Disney-fied version of Walker's often brutal story. Long-time foes gleefully joined in the flaying; the idea that Spielberg simply wasn't ready to deal with adult themes was widely held (one small detail many noted for its out-of-touch-ness: scenes of Whoopi Goldberg and her sister jumping around joyfully in open fields -- fields that, in summertime Georgia, would have been swelteringly hot). But it must be said there were other (especially TV) critics who reacted rapturously -- typified by Gene Shalit, who memorably said "It should be against the law not to see The Color Purple".
It was actually The Color Purple that won the first major year-end award: best picture from the ever-dubious NBR. The more reputable critics' groups were all over the map that year -- NY chose Prizzi's Honor; National went back to its subtitled tradition and named Kurosawa's Ran (a title you'll want to file away in memory); and LA engaged in some release-date politicking , embarassing Universal by voting for its-temporarily-on-the-shelf (but then quickly exhibited) Brazil. Pollack's film did better than Spielberg's in balloting at these groups -- finishing third in NY for best picture; Streep winning best actress in LA and finishing second at both NY and National, and Klaus-Maria Brandauer taking supporting actor in NY. But none of the critics' results that year were definitive. What seemed to matter most was that both Out of Africa and The Color Purple turned into surprising and instant box-office hits. Given the moribund field, this quickly marked them as the lead best picture contenders. Both were DGA- and other guild-nominated. Out of Africa took the Globe best drama prize, but results were split enough (John Huston was best director, Whoopi Goldberg best actress) that, in early February, the ultimate Academy winner was anyone's guess.
1985 was the first year I got nominations data with web help. I was working in a library at the time, and my equally-Oscar-obsessed co-worker ran a LEXIS/NEXIS search. We both scanned the list quickly, and it only took a moment for us to see the shocker: Spielberg had failed to be nominated. It wasn't as easy to see who had "robbed" him this time -- DGA nominee Howard had also been excluded from both best film and director, while Kiss of The Spider Woman had slipped through in both categories. But most people quickly noted the directing branch's citation of legendary Akira Kurosawa for Ran, and analogized this to Spielberg's 10-years-prior bump by Fellini. At least this time Spielberg wasn't caught on camera reacting to the news.
Reaction to the omission was split basically along the lines of the film's initial reviews -- those who hadn't cared for The Color Purple reasoned that such a sentimental audience-pleaser was precisely the sort of film often left out by directors even while being best film-nominated (much as A Soldier's Story had been the year before, and Children of a Lesser God the year following). But the film's champions, noting 11 overall nominations and clear centrality in the best picture discussion till then, proclaimed it a clear sign there was a vendetta against the director, motivated by jealousy over his unprecedented success.
The remainder of the season -- one of the more surprising/suspenseful of all Oscar years -- offered both highs and lows for Spielberg. The high undoubtedy came at the DGA dinner, where Spielberg became the first ever to win the Guild's prize while not being an Oscar nominee. The director's acceptance speech that night expressed gratitude for all the personal support he'd received in the preceding month -- comparing it to what Jimmy Stewart had felt at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. But then he made, for me, the first true mis-step of this entire ten-year process, adding "If some of you are making a statement, I say, Thank god for it". It was now evident Spielberg had bought into his own victimization story, which left a sour impression.
It's impossible to say if that statement contributed to the great low that came for Spielberg a few weeks later -- or if that low was simply a natural extension of the original Oscar omission. The fact is that, on Academy night, the Color Purple went 0-for-its-11 nominations, as its chief competitor, Out of Africa, swept the boards with seven victories, including for its journeyman director. More outrage poured out of Hollywood and the Spielberg camp; apparently, the DGA victory had persuaded them longtime Academy traditions would be overthrown and they'd win handily.
Personal note: this is the first time in this whole saga when I found myself squarely on the anti-Spielberg side. I'd have voted for him for best director in '82, and maybe in '77 as well (if I could have voted Woody Allen in '79). But I wouldn't have put The Color Purple in my top 20 of even so poor a year as 1985, and thought his camp's ravenousness for acknowledgement for such a lesser film unseemly. It did, though, become something of a marker in the road: from now on, Poor Steven was not just a minor camp; it was going to be an issue till the academy gave him his damn Oscar.
Curiously, the next case -- 1987 -- roused fewer emotions. '87 was a year not unlike '85 -- yielding few Oscar hopefuls throughout the year, dependent on the late releases to enliven the contest. There was quite an array of projects by then-prominent directors released that December: Broadcast News, Wall Street, Ironweed, Good Morning Vietnam, September, and Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. The clear critics' choice of that group was Brooks' Broadcast News, which won in NY...but the rest of the groups surprised us by highlighting John Boorman's Hope and Glory, which had passed through almost unnoticed in September. The Globes, Anglophile as ever, chose Boorman's film as best comedy/musical, and also gave the first major endorsement to both Bertolucci's epic The Last Emperor (best film - drama) and an unheralded sleeper from the Christmas pack -- Moonstruck -- which won Cher best musical/comedy actress. These films, of course, ended up dominating the Oscars, an outcome hardly foreseen in November.
Empire of the Sun -- in my estimation a better film than Color Purple, despite a faltering second half -- wasn't exactly excluded from consideration. It had its supporters, including former Spielberg foe Sarris, who proclaimed it the year's best -- and it got what now seemed the Spielberg perennial citations, best film from NBR and a DGA nomination. But it never felt central to that year's Oscar race. Even Spielberg said pre-nominations he had a strong feeling he wouldn't be named, and, on nominations day, the omission of James L. Brooks under directing was a far bigger headline than Spielberg's film being limited to half a dozen tech nods
The director then slipped into a sluggish period, turning out yet another Indiana Jones sequel, and two of his worst films, Always and Hook. No one in their right mind suggested Spielberg was in the Oscar running for any of those films, and, slowly, the "he must win!" fever cooled, as other snub-ees began to come to public attention -- notably, Martin Scorsese after his 1990 loss to Kevin Costner.
But Spielberg, apparently, was just playing possum, as he returned in 1993 with his most extraordinary year. Jurassic Park was his easier achievement: a return-to-Jaws-days summertime dinosaur thriller that gave him, for the third time in his career, the all-time top-grossing film (helped along by the fact that the novel had been a monster best-seller, and that every kid under 16 seemed obsessed with dinosaurs, but also refelecting director's undiminished skills at grabbing an audience).
Then, in December, he debuted the most acclaimed film of his career, the Holocaust epic Schindler's List. It struck me Spielberg took obvious pains to establish Schindler's List as "his Gandhi" -- choosing a weighty historical subject (centered on the event long established as catnip to older Academy voters); making sure everyone knew he'd waited a number of years to develop the project ( as Attenborough had his); casting Ben Kingsley, for Christ's sake, in a major role; and, maybe just for extra good luck, putting Attenbrough himself into Jurassic Park. You can say it all worked...or you can say he needn't have bothered with the good luck charms. Because, while it's possible a lesser film on the same subject would also have appealed to Oscar voters, Schindler's List was no ordinary effort. It was not only the most widely praised film of Spielberg's career; it received reviews comparable to the best of the past half century. The film became the first to win the three classic critics' groups plus NBR, then rolled through the Globes and DGA. Spielberg himself claimed not to be remotely certain about his Oscar chaces -- perhaps understandable given history. But no observers shared his doubt. His film/director win for Schindler was undoubtedly one of the most dominant of recent times. Eighteen years after his first Oscar appearance, finally, Spielberg was a certified winner, and it seemed he had no more mountains to climb.
Except we got another chapter five years later, perhaps the silliest of all.
In the immediate aftermath of the Schindler triumph, Spielber took it easy a while -- not putting another film out for almost four years, and then only a Jurassic Park sequel. Maybe attempting a repeat of his '93 double, he also brought out the historical piece Amistad in December. The film got respectable reviews from some of the now-dependable TV critics, but -- though he film got, as ever, the DGA's endorsement, audiences stayed away in droves, and the film failed to be among the best picture five. There was some half-hearted effort to blame the omission on a plagiarism suit, but It's more likely apathy was the reason. Anyway, it's not as if the film or dtrector would have had a prayer against the Titanic juggernaut.
The following year, Saving Private Ryan, was a different story. Spielberg rolled this one out the same way he had Schindler -- piggybacking on Tom Brokaw's deification of WWII veterans in The Greatest Generation, seeming to connect support for his film with respect for war heroes. Again, he needn't have bothered. The critics were once again fairly close to unanimous in praising the film -- certainly in lauding its opening half-hour -- and even summertime audiences came in startlingly large numbers. At the end of the year, Ryan won both the NY and LA critics' prizes, then the Globe for drama, and seemed well on its way to yielding Spielberg his second set of film/director statuettes.
What happened next depends on your perspective. To a somewhat neutral observer: Shakespeare in Love opened at Christmas, got widespread strong reviews, and became a major box-office hit. It won the comedy/musical Golden Globe, and, while we all know comedies are less likely than serious drama to win the best picture Oscar, Shakespeare had a cultural patina and a winning central romance that made it the sort of comedy that might vault over the obstacle. It was close all the way, with Ryan winning five prizes, including Spielberg for director. But Shakespeare, perhaps with the advantage of being a fresher face than summer release Ryan, eked out the best picture win.
The view from the Spielberg camp? Saving Private Ryan had as good as won the Oscar, but that viulgarian Harvey Weinstein came along, spent obscene amounts of money, and somehow unfairly hypnotzed voters into choosing a manifestly inferior film. Lots of people have been disappointed they didn't do as well as hoped at the Oscars (hello, David Fincher!), but usually they try to show a bit of grace. (Warren Beatty even manmaged to say he thought Reds had been treated very nicely, despite the view of many his film had been skunked) The Spielberg folk, by contrast, were openly contemptuous of the Miramax triumph. They couldn't even seem to bring themselves to enjoy Spielberg's winning his second directing prize -- a feat only Milos Forman and Oliver Stone had managed in the preceding 30 years. Again, it left a sour taste -- one that reeked of entitlement.
Since then, things have calmed some. Spielberg's made a good many more hits along with some duds, and even got another film/director nod for Munich. (There was some unseemly business there, with the declaration it was "the clear Oscar front-runner" while still in production, but that's on Tom O'Neil, not Spielberg's camp) The guy's still young and has plenty of projects upcoming that may bring him up to Wyler/Capra or even Ford territory in terms of directing Oscars. I hope for his sake he's able, with the distance of maturity, to just enjoy what comes his way, and not get so obsessed with what he's owed.
And that's the history as I recall it. Hope this been intersting/helpful to some.
Begin with a footnote. Spielberg's cinematic career (following great TV success with Duel) began in disappoinment. His debut feature, The Sugarland Express, got a number of favorable reviews, but, likely because it had the misfortune of opening within a few weeks of two other outlaws-on-the-run films (Thieves Like Us and Badlands -- can you imagine three flms that good opening in one stretch?), it never caught on commercially. Some of us felt sorry for the unlucky director.
A year later, that was all forgotten, as the outsize success of Jaws made Spielberg the original King of the World. The project had a lot of commercial heat from the outset -- like earlier-in-the-decade smashes Love Story, The Exorcist and The Godfather, its source novel had been a long-time- top-of-the-best-seller-list publishing phenomenon. But the many positive reviews from critics pushed the film to another level. It was a classy blockbuster. And I do mean blockbuster: before summer was over, the fim had roared past The Godfather on the all-time-top-grosser list. And many started to view the film as a prime Oscar contender.
You have to understand, at that point there wasn't such a gulf between popular movies and critics' movies. Yeah, there was junk that did big business, from Valley of the Dolls through Airport, and there were critics' faves that made modest box-office showings, like Dr. Strangelove or 8 1/2. But by and large, the two weren't viewed as mutually exclusive, and, in that era, many films that won the best picture prize from the NY Critics were big commercial successes -- From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on the River Kwai, West Side Story. This was true in spades with the Motion PIcture Academy. They seconded all those hit best picture choices New York blessed, and added a few more dubious entries of their own: The Greatest Show on Earth, The Sound of Music. In fact, if you go through yearly lists, you'll find many best picture winners, from the very beginning through the 70s, were either the year's top-grossing films (Mutiny on the Bounty, Gone With the Wind, Going My Way, The Best Years of our Lives, Ben-Hur) or in that general vicinity (Lawrence of Arabia, The French Connection, The Sting).
Thus, Jaws was instantly seen as a possibility for the crown. Andrew Sarris flat out predicted a best picture win prior to the nominations, judging that the Academy would never turn its back on a hit so sizable. But, at the same time, there was a bit of grumbling. All those earlier best picture-wiining smashes were, however silly some looked in retrospect, viewed as at least ostensibly serious, grown-up pictures; Jaws, on the other hand, was clearly a popcorn movie, and this caused some backlash. Vincent Canby of the NY Times named the film one of the year's ten worst -- adding that he knew it wasn't actually bad, but that no film so trivial should make that kind of money. So, there was resistance out there. But there was also the feeling that Spielberg with Jaws, like Nolan with Inception, had made a director's movie, and, indeed, he got the key nomination from the Directors' Guild -- along with Altman for Nashville, Kubrick for Barry Lyndon, Forman for Cuckoo's Nest and Lumet for Dog Day Afternoon. The five seemed to quickly select themselves as the likely Academy five.
But there was a specific-to-the-time issue hovering over the scene: In that era, it wasn't uncommon for foreign-language fllms to play New York substantially before they had qualifying runs in LA -- to, in fact, appear in the Fall, but not open on the West Coast till early in the new year, meaning they wouldn't qualify for Oscars till the following year's contest. This had created some minor screenplay-nomination oddities in the years preceding-- Battle of Algiers got cited in 1968, well after NY had seen it, and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion made the writers' list in 1971, the year after it had taken the Foreign Film Oscar But the discrepancy really showed up starting in 1972, when NY went on a three-year "we love subtitles" run, choosing Cries and Whispers in '72, Day for Night in '73 and Amarcord in '74, though none were eligible for Oscar attention till a year down the pike. Cries and Whispers stayed amazingly strong in voters' memories, scoring film/director/screenplay nods in '73, as well as winning the cinematography prize. Day for Night didn't do quite as well in '74, missing out on best picture, but it did get director/screenplay, as well as the supporting actress citation over which Ingrid Bergman made such a famous deal. In that context, it certainly had to cross any serious Oscar-analyst's mind that Amarcord might do the same in '75 -- and, indeed, most did have it on the screenplay short-list. But that DGA five seemed awfully impregnable by nominations day, and the consensus was Spielberg was going to make it.
Spileberg of course had the misfortune to be taped reacting when Fellini's name was read instead. That indelible moment, along with a Hollywood tendency to side with its hit-makers, created (or helped feed) the perception that Spielberg had been "screwed" by the directors' branch. To take the Spielberg side, one could note that Jaws got a relatively low four nominations, where the far-worse hit Towering Inferno had received 8 the year before, so there was a case for thinking there was specific backlash against the film (certainly, it might have also competed for cinematography or even supporting actor Robert Shaw). But, as far as the directing nod in specific, mostly I think it was a case of 6-into-5 won't go, with Spielberg ending up drawing the short straw.
But a narrative had been set in motion, and, two years later, though the particulars were different, somehow the story was pushed into the same slot. Spielberg had had a second consecutive huge hit with Close Encounters of the Third Kind...but this time he was upstaged by his buddy George Lucas' film Star Wars, which had opened earlier in the year and become precisely the sort of instant cultural phenomenon Jaws had in '75 (and topping Jaws' two-year-held gross record). Close Encounters was, if anything, the more critically-regarded of the two (both the film and Spielberg finished third in in New York and National Society voting, behind Annie Hall and That Obscure Object of Desire), but Star Wars was undeniably the bigger industry deal, and it dominated Oscar nominations the way the Jaws folk had expected to two years prior, with 10 nods.
Close Encounters did perfectly well on its own, racking up eight mentions, with even the directors' branch coming through, giving Spielberg his first career mention. The problem? The eight nominations didn't include best picture, which brought howls from Spielberg's corner again. His live-in Amy Irving-- who somehow got the media to treat her as neutral source -- said "They screwed him once over Jaws, now they've done it again over Close Encounters" Other less invested observers noted that Close Encounters' distributor Columbia Pictures was embroiled in the David Begelman check-forging scandal, so the omission may have been more studio- than director-driven. But, again, the "Poor poor Steven" narrative was reinforced.
As it turned out, both Star Wars and Close Encounters were sideshows in that year's Oscar race. Each, like Inception this year, won tech prizes (Star Wars 6 to Encounters' 1), but the main race was surprisingly dominated by Annie Hall, which represented something of a significant step for the Academy. In bypassing a well-reviewed commercial phenomenon in favor of a middling-gross NY-based critics' favorite, voters seemed to be acknowledging that, in this new High Popcorn age, they were going to start looking beyond the top-earning list for their best picture choices.
Which affected Spielberg once again four years later. After suffering his first box-office flop with 1941, the director quickly bounced back with the enormously popular and well-reviewed Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film -- top-earner of 1981 -- finally got Spielberg his first film/director tandem nominations. But, even in that famous train wreck of a best picture contest, Raiders never figured in the discussion. It won four tech prizes -- the most any of Spielberg's film had to date -- but was never viewed as serious enough for top award consideration. Oscar had become a bit more highbrow.
E.T., a year later, was a different story. The film -- which knocked Star Wars from its five-year-held perch as all-time top-grosser -- was, of course, high-level fantasy, not serious drama. But it was also spectacularly well-reviewed, well beyond what Spielberg had received for his earlier efforts. And this showed in the year-end critics' voting. LA, at the time the most populist of the groups, voted it best picture/director prizes. Spielberg also won the National Society's directing prize, and only narrowly lost a run off as NY's choice. Taken together, these developments appeared to put him -- despite the film's fantasy content -- as squarely in the best picture race as he'd ever been.
Two films got in the way. The first was Tootsie -- another huge box-office hit in a generally Academy-ignored genre, comedy. Tootsie won the National Society's best picture prize, and its director, Sydney Pollack, was the one who topped Spielberg in that NY Critics' face-off.
The second, less impressive but ultimately more lethal foe was Gandhi, Richard Attenborough's bland, ostentatiously "grand" epic. The uninspired biography, squarely in the tradition the Academy had loved in the 50s and 60s, was given a Prestige release by Columbia, and Attenborough showed an unexpected knack for hucksterism: he got out there relentlessly promoting his film as striking a blow for peace and democracy, and managed to convince great numbers of people it was just that. It surprised few that the NBR bought right into this scenario and voted it best picture. More startling was that the NY Critics, in a close vote, followed suit. I know around here the suggestion vote-splitting plays any part in a result is considered innumerate, but it strikes me that with two hugely popular crowd-pleasers -- films many of similar taste might have had as their 1-2 or 2-1 choices on the year -- opinion could have been divided just enough that the more stolid Gandhi, with a devoted core of old-timers, could squeak by even while displeasing many.
In any event, once NY's votes were in, it seemed all over but the crying. The Globes got in line, the Guilds...by Oscar night I doubt even Spielberg felt he had more than a deep long-shot's chance. Gandhi plowed through the evening, winning most everything in sight (including screenplay and costume prizes that brought widespread ridicule). And Attenborough continued his "You're voting for world peace" crusade, proclaiming in his acceptance speech that voters had put Reagan and Thatcher on notice. (Both were soon re-elected by massive majorities, so we see how well that paid off)
For once, I thought, Spielberg had a legitimate Oscar gripe. If you want to argue Gandhi is a great film, I disagree, but it's not beyond the pale. However, the idea that the pedstrian Attenborough deserved the directing prize over Spielberg doesn't pass a giggle test. For the first time, Spielberg actually had critics complaining he'd been unfairly snubbed. Spielberg himself, however, seemed to take it philosophically...or, at least, he appeared to accept the Academy's judgment on their terms. Voters had decreed that history, however blandly delivered, was more award-deserving than entertainment. It was a lesson Spielberg seemed to take under advisement, as he launched a new stage of his career.
Having now made five massive blockbusters (besides the Oscar candidates, he sneaked in the first Indiana Jones sequel in the summer of '84), Spielberg was in position to make pretty much anything he wanted. His notion was to make the film version of Alice Walker's very popular and Pulitzer-winning The Color Purple. The Spielberg claque -- and whatever version of Oscar-bloggers existed in the pre-Internet world -- instantly saw this as his chance to finally win that elusive Oscar. Those who wondered if the director would be able to make the leap from blockbuster fantasies to adult drama without some bumps were generally hushed in the lead-up.
To understand this particular chapter in the Spielberg saga, you have to know what 1985 was like for movies. In a word, it was dreadful. The innovative 70s were now long past; special effects extravaganzas and dumb comedies were making outlandish amounts of money; and grown-up movies were harder and harder to find. Going into December of that year, the pickings for best picture were frightfully lean: Prizzi's Honor had been the most critically praised, but it had a hipster feel to it that few could see winning over sentimental Academy voters. Witness and Kiss of the Spider Woman had been moderate successes, both critically and commercially, but hardly seemed Oscar material. There was actally serious speculation that Cocoon --a poor man's ET -- could figure in the race (and it did get Ron Howard his first DGA nomination). If the 80s were the worst cinema decade of my lifetime -- and i submit they were -- 1985 was the epicenter.
December offered little further hope -- basically, there were two movies that had any kind of Oscar feel to them: The Color Purple and Sydney Pollack's Meryl Streep-starring film version of Out of Africa. The latter got respectful if unenthusiastic reviews -- precisely what a decently-made old-fashioned epic romance rated. The Color Purple, on the other hand, got wildly split reviews. Some critics who'd been long-time Spielberg advocates -- Pauline Kael, David Denby -- panned the movie mercilessly as a Disney-fied version of Walker's often brutal story. Long-time foes gleefully joined in the flaying; the idea that Spielberg simply wasn't ready to deal with adult themes was widely held (one small detail many noted for its out-of-touch-ness: scenes of Whoopi Goldberg and her sister jumping around joyfully in open fields -- fields that, in summertime Georgia, would have been swelteringly hot). But it must be said there were other (especially TV) critics who reacted rapturously -- typified by Gene Shalit, who memorably said "It should be against the law not to see The Color Purple".
It was actually The Color Purple that won the first major year-end award: best picture from the ever-dubious NBR. The more reputable critics' groups were all over the map that year -- NY chose Prizzi's Honor; National went back to its subtitled tradition and named Kurosawa's Ran (a title you'll want to file away in memory); and LA engaged in some release-date politicking , embarassing Universal by voting for its-temporarily-on-the-shelf (but then quickly exhibited) Brazil. Pollack's film did better than Spielberg's in balloting at these groups -- finishing third in NY for best picture; Streep winning best actress in LA and finishing second at both NY and National, and Klaus-Maria Brandauer taking supporting actor in NY. But none of the critics' results that year were definitive. What seemed to matter most was that both Out of Africa and The Color Purple turned into surprising and instant box-office hits. Given the moribund field, this quickly marked them as the lead best picture contenders. Both were DGA- and other guild-nominated. Out of Africa took the Globe best drama prize, but results were split enough (John Huston was best director, Whoopi Goldberg best actress) that, in early February, the ultimate Academy winner was anyone's guess.
1985 was the first year I got nominations data with web help. I was working in a library at the time, and my equally-Oscar-obsessed co-worker ran a LEXIS/NEXIS search. We both scanned the list quickly, and it only took a moment for us to see the shocker: Spielberg had failed to be nominated. It wasn't as easy to see who had "robbed" him this time -- DGA nominee Howard had also been excluded from both best film and director, while Kiss of The Spider Woman had slipped through in both categories. But most people quickly noted the directing branch's citation of legendary Akira Kurosawa for Ran, and analogized this to Spielberg's 10-years-prior bump by Fellini. At least this time Spielberg wasn't caught on camera reacting to the news.
Reaction to the omission was split basically along the lines of the film's initial reviews -- those who hadn't cared for The Color Purple reasoned that such a sentimental audience-pleaser was precisely the sort of film often left out by directors even while being best film-nominated (much as A Soldier's Story had been the year before, and Children of a Lesser God the year following). But the film's champions, noting 11 overall nominations and clear centrality in the best picture discussion till then, proclaimed it a clear sign there was a vendetta against the director, motivated by jealousy over his unprecedented success.
The remainder of the season -- one of the more surprising/suspenseful of all Oscar years -- offered both highs and lows for Spielberg. The high undoubtedy came at the DGA dinner, where Spielberg became the first ever to win the Guild's prize while not being an Oscar nominee. The director's acceptance speech that night expressed gratitude for all the personal support he'd received in the preceding month -- comparing it to what Jimmy Stewart had felt at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. But then he made, for me, the first true mis-step of this entire ten-year process, adding "If some of you are making a statement, I say, Thank god for it". It was now evident Spielberg had bought into his own victimization story, which left a sour impression.
It's impossible to say if that statement contributed to the great low that came for Spielberg a few weeks later -- or if that low was simply a natural extension of the original Oscar omission. The fact is that, on Academy night, the Color Purple went 0-for-its-11 nominations, as its chief competitor, Out of Africa, swept the boards with seven victories, including for its journeyman director. More outrage poured out of Hollywood and the Spielberg camp; apparently, the DGA victory had persuaded them longtime Academy traditions would be overthrown and they'd win handily.
Personal note: this is the first time in this whole saga when I found myself squarely on the anti-Spielberg side. I'd have voted for him for best director in '82, and maybe in '77 as well (if I could have voted Woody Allen in '79). But I wouldn't have put The Color Purple in my top 20 of even so poor a year as 1985, and thought his camp's ravenousness for acknowledgement for such a lesser film unseemly. It did, though, become something of a marker in the road: from now on, Poor Steven was not just a minor camp; it was going to be an issue till the academy gave him his damn Oscar.
Curiously, the next case -- 1987 -- roused fewer emotions. '87 was a year not unlike '85 -- yielding few Oscar hopefuls throughout the year, dependent on the late releases to enliven the contest. There was quite an array of projects by then-prominent directors released that December: Broadcast News, Wall Street, Ironweed, Good Morning Vietnam, September, and Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. The clear critics' choice of that group was Brooks' Broadcast News, which won in NY...but the rest of the groups surprised us by highlighting John Boorman's Hope and Glory, which had passed through almost unnoticed in September. The Globes, Anglophile as ever, chose Boorman's film as best comedy/musical, and also gave the first major endorsement to both Bertolucci's epic The Last Emperor (best film - drama) and an unheralded sleeper from the Christmas pack -- Moonstruck -- which won Cher best musical/comedy actress. These films, of course, ended up dominating the Oscars, an outcome hardly foreseen in November.
Empire of the Sun -- in my estimation a better film than Color Purple, despite a faltering second half -- wasn't exactly excluded from consideration. It had its supporters, including former Spielberg foe Sarris, who proclaimed it the year's best -- and it got what now seemed the Spielberg perennial citations, best film from NBR and a DGA nomination. But it never felt central to that year's Oscar race. Even Spielberg said pre-nominations he had a strong feeling he wouldn't be named, and, on nominations day, the omission of James L. Brooks under directing was a far bigger headline than Spielberg's film being limited to half a dozen tech nods
The director then slipped into a sluggish period, turning out yet another Indiana Jones sequel, and two of his worst films, Always and Hook. No one in their right mind suggested Spielberg was in the Oscar running for any of those films, and, slowly, the "he must win!" fever cooled, as other snub-ees began to come to public attention -- notably, Martin Scorsese after his 1990 loss to Kevin Costner.
But Spielberg, apparently, was just playing possum, as he returned in 1993 with his most extraordinary year. Jurassic Park was his easier achievement: a return-to-Jaws-days summertime dinosaur thriller that gave him, for the third time in his career, the all-time top-grossing film (helped along by the fact that the novel had been a monster best-seller, and that every kid under 16 seemed obsessed with dinosaurs, but also refelecting director's undiminished skills at grabbing an audience).
Then, in December, he debuted the most acclaimed film of his career, the Holocaust epic Schindler's List. It struck me Spielberg took obvious pains to establish Schindler's List as "his Gandhi" -- choosing a weighty historical subject (centered on the event long established as catnip to older Academy voters); making sure everyone knew he'd waited a number of years to develop the project ( as Attenborough had his); casting Ben Kingsley, for Christ's sake, in a major role; and, maybe just for extra good luck, putting Attenbrough himself into Jurassic Park. You can say it all worked...or you can say he needn't have bothered with the good luck charms. Because, while it's possible a lesser film on the same subject would also have appealed to Oscar voters, Schindler's List was no ordinary effort. It was not only the most widely praised film of Spielberg's career; it received reviews comparable to the best of the past half century. The film became the first to win the three classic critics' groups plus NBR, then rolled through the Globes and DGA. Spielberg himself claimed not to be remotely certain about his Oscar chaces -- perhaps understandable given history. But no observers shared his doubt. His film/director win for Schindler was undoubtedly one of the most dominant of recent times. Eighteen years after his first Oscar appearance, finally, Spielberg was a certified winner, and it seemed he had no more mountains to climb.
Except we got another chapter five years later, perhaps the silliest of all.
In the immediate aftermath of the Schindler triumph, Spielber took it easy a while -- not putting another film out for almost four years, and then only a Jurassic Park sequel. Maybe attempting a repeat of his '93 double, he also brought out the historical piece Amistad in December. The film got respectable reviews from some of the now-dependable TV critics, but -- though he film got, as ever, the DGA's endorsement, audiences stayed away in droves, and the film failed to be among the best picture five. There was some half-hearted effort to blame the omission on a plagiarism suit, but It's more likely apathy was the reason. Anyway, it's not as if the film or dtrector would have had a prayer against the Titanic juggernaut.
The following year, Saving Private Ryan, was a different story. Spielberg rolled this one out the same way he had Schindler -- piggybacking on Tom Brokaw's deification of WWII veterans in The Greatest Generation, seeming to connect support for his film with respect for war heroes. Again, he needn't have bothered. The critics were once again fairly close to unanimous in praising the film -- certainly in lauding its opening half-hour -- and even summertime audiences came in startlingly large numbers. At the end of the year, Ryan won both the NY and LA critics' prizes, then the Globe for drama, and seemed well on its way to yielding Spielberg his second set of film/director statuettes.
What happened next depends on your perspective. To a somewhat neutral observer: Shakespeare in Love opened at Christmas, got widespread strong reviews, and became a major box-office hit. It won the comedy/musical Golden Globe, and, while we all know comedies are less likely than serious drama to win the best picture Oscar, Shakespeare had a cultural patina and a winning central romance that made it the sort of comedy that might vault over the obstacle. It was close all the way, with Ryan winning five prizes, including Spielberg for director. But Shakespeare, perhaps with the advantage of being a fresher face than summer release Ryan, eked out the best picture win.
The view from the Spielberg camp? Saving Private Ryan had as good as won the Oscar, but that viulgarian Harvey Weinstein came along, spent obscene amounts of money, and somehow unfairly hypnotzed voters into choosing a manifestly inferior film. Lots of people have been disappointed they didn't do as well as hoped at the Oscars (hello, David Fincher!), but usually they try to show a bit of grace. (Warren Beatty even manmaged to say he thought Reds had been treated very nicely, despite the view of many his film had been skunked) The Spielberg folk, by contrast, were openly contemptuous of the Miramax triumph. They couldn't even seem to bring themselves to enjoy Spielberg's winning his second directing prize -- a feat only Milos Forman and Oliver Stone had managed in the preceding 30 years. Again, it left a sour taste -- one that reeked of entitlement.
Since then, things have calmed some. Spielberg's made a good many more hits along with some duds, and even got another film/director nod for Munich. (There was some unseemly business there, with the declaration it was "the clear Oscar front-runner" while still in production, but that's on Tom O'Neil, not Spielberg's camp) The guy's still young and has plenty of projects upcoming that may bring him up to Wyler/Capra or even Ford territory in terms of directing Oscars. I hope for his sake he's able, with the distance of maturity, to just enjoy what comes his way, and not get so obsessed with what he's owed.
And that's the history as I recall it. Hope this been intersting/helpful to some.