Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 30, 1992 TAG: 9203280167
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BERNARD WEINRAUB THE NEW YOR TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Long
With the 64th annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looming today, the town is seized by Oscar fever.
Forget the Democratic presidential drama, which, some producers say, would probably make a better movie than most. What obsesses Hollywood is a highly charged contest in which, for the first time in years, there seems no obvious front-runner, and a blend of luck, talent, sympathy and personal popularity could turn a nominee into a winner.
"It's like our Super Bowl," said Andrea Jaffe, the president of domestic marketing at 20th Century Fox. "The frenzy just sort of feeds on the frenzy."
James Toback, nominated for his screenplay for "Bugsy," acknowledged that like other nominees, he was nervous and confused.
"There's no consensus," he said. "Last year, for better or worse, everyone assumed that `Dances With Wolves' was going to win almost everything. This year, there's not a single award where anybody can speak with confidence. I'm constantly changing my mind.
"Obviously I'm hoping we win best picture. The other night, I thought it was going to be `Silence of the Lambs.' Now I'm starting to hear `Beauty and the Beast,' although some people are saying `How can you vote for a cartoon?' Who knows?"
No one. The 4,968 members of the academy - an established, predominately middle-age and older group of actors, directors, writers, film editors and others in the industry - have already mailed in their ballots to the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse for the set of awards that have not only considerable financial impact for winners but also, and perhaps equally important, a certain validation in a town whose residents hunger for approval.
"The need for approval is so high, getting it so difficult, and we have no real measuring stick except the Oscar," said Lili Fini Zanuck, who co-produced "Driving Miss Daisy."
The 1989 film, which won four Oscars, including best picture, grossed an additional $30 million after the awards.
Brian Grazer, a producer who is a co-chairman of Imagine Films Entertainment, said: "All we do here is tell stories. You're validated here in terms of money or praise. This is the ultimate validation. This gives you a worthiness."
"Look, everybody gets into this business to be somebody. They were the kids who got beat up in the playground, the most unpopular kids in high school. So they make millions of dollars and that's not good enough. That achievement doesn't make up for their childhood failing. They want people to like them. And this is the ultimate popularity contest. You remember when Sally Field won and got up and said: `You like me. You really like me'? People made fun of it, but that's the way we really feel. We want to be liked. We want to be loved."
Among those who want to be liked - or loved - are a group of highly visible film makers and actors who have lobbied intensely for their films.
What makes this year especially intriguing is that, like political candidates, the Oscar nominees appear to be gliding over waves and hitting rough surf. All the major films nominated have strong negative aspects.
"Bugsy," the Barry Levinson movie with 10 nominations, was seen as a front-runner until several weeks ago, when word began circulating that perhaps some members of the academy might not want to vote for a film about a thug who invented Las Vegas.
Tri-Star, the studio that made "Bugsy," sold the film as a love story and a drama about a visionary, albeit a psychotic one.
Warren Beatty, the film's star, said in an interview several weeks ago that Bugsy Siegel as well as Las Vegas served, essentially, as metaphors for post-war America in their respective denials of reality.
But the movie, which is still a leading contender for best picture, has somehow stirred uncertainty.
"The Silence of the Lambs," a thriller about a crazed, if brilliant, serial killer (played by Anthony Hopkins), is also a leading contender but has faced some unexpected problems.
Not only have questions been raised about whether the academy should honor a film, no matter how skilled, about a lunatic murderer, but the film's director, Jonathan Demme, has also plainly blundered with some comments that offended many academy voters.
When he accepted the top award from the Directors Guild of America in New York on March 14, Demme said, "This will show them out in La-La land," and also observed that the awards traditionally had been less than multi-cultural and that he was "the 44th white male to receive this award, which I have confused feelings about."
The folks in La-La Land were not amused, and his remarks were seen as condescending and a little arrogant.
Realizing his mistake, Demme issued a three-page apology, calling his words "stupid" and "borne of the hometown euphoric frenzy that occurred in our room when a New Yorker actually gets the nod."
Many academy voters had already voted before the Demme flap - the deadline for casting ballots was March 22 - but the director's apology may have salvaged some remaining votes.
Two other nominees for best picture, "J.F.K," and "The Prince of Tides," are considered long shots but certainly not out of the running.
At the moment, Oliver Stone's revisionist, in-your-face treatment of the John F. Kennedy assassination, is viewed as more of a political statement by the director than an artistic triumph.
And "Prince of Tides" is considered an underdog, although there seems to be sympathy mingled with ambivalence about the failure of the academy to nominate Barbra Streisand as one of the best directors.
Some of Streisand's supporters insist that she was overlooked because she is a woman. Others say that the nominated directors - Demme, Stone, Levinson, Ridley Scott for "Thelma and Louise" and John Singleton for "Boyz N the Hood" - are dazzling craftsmen, and that her omission had nothing to do with sexism.
Streisand has handled the snub with some care.
"How much of it is the fact that women are not nominated in other areas? I don't know," she remarked several weeks ago before a luncheon for Oscar nominees. "I can't blame anybody. Blame makes you a victim. I'm not a victim."
The film that raises the most interesting question, perhaps, is "Beauty and the Beast," the first animated movie to be nominated for best picture.
Walt Disney Co. has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting the movie as a love story, as a musical drama with a score that resembles the best Broadway shows, as a film for adults as well as children, with well-known stars like Angela Lansbury.
But actors make up the academy's largest single group - a total of 1,336 - and there is a sense here that many actors will simply not select an animated film.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Walt Disney studios, said:
"Our ambition for `Beauty and the Beast' was to present the movie in a way in which the academy would consider it as they would any other movie. It's a daunting challenge. To have been nominated was a victory for us. There are no expectations beyond that."
Not quite. "Everybody has expectations about winning; it's your fantasy," said Lee Rich, a producer. "Especially this year. We have a real horse race."
by CNB