By ALEX
FUNG
Last updated: 2002/02/09
Moulin Rouge's Music
Thanks to all the sharp-eyed readers who pounced on my comment in Oscar Column #08 pertaining to Craig Armstrong's Golden Globe-winning musical score for Moulin Rouge; I'd completely forgotten to take into account the fact that Armstrong's music is not eligible for Academy Award consideration this year. This, in conjunction with the ineligibility of David Baerwald's song "Come What May", has resulted in one of the most delicious ironies in many an Oscar season: the year's (arguably) most music-driven feature film is ineligible in all of the music-related Academy Award categories.
I touched upon "Come What May"'s ineligibility in Oscar Column #04 but have received so many inquiries about its status that it bears repeating -- the signature Moulin Rouge ballad has been disqualified as it was not written expressly for the film. The song was originally penned for the earlier Baz Luhrmann film, 1996's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet but never used, and then subsequently recycled for Moulin Rouge. Consequently, since the AMPAS regulations dictate that eligible songs must be "written specifically for the film", Baerwald's "Come What May" is not eligible for consideration in the AMPAS Best Original Song category. (That it received a Golden Globe Song nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is, of course, irrelevant -- these are two different groups with two different sets of rules.)
For many Moulin Rouge fans, the song's disqualification has been a bitter pill to swallow, and it understandably seems rather odd that the film's one 'original', previously-unheard song fails to qualify:
"I admit it; I have not yet fully accepted that "Come What May" is ineligible for the best song Oscar. I just can't bring myself to believe that we'll all be cheated out of the chance to see whether Nicole and Ewan can really sing like that without the benefit of digital technology. Is there any foundation for the glimmer of hope I'm clinging to? Is it possible that uninformed Academy members could vote for it anyway? Could there be a wacky aberration like last year's nomination of O Brother, Where Art Thou? in the adapted screenplay category? Could there be a massive write-in campaign in defiance of a rule that would exclude an original film song that had never before been publicly released just because the songwriter conceived it for a prior film? I mean, couldn't Baerwald have just lied? "Oh, sure, of course I wrote that for Moulin Rouge." Come on, throw me a bone here. I mean, Whoopi is the host this year. I need something to look forward to."- Iggy
Believe me, when it comes to Whoopi Goldberg hosting the ceremony this year, I feel your pain. Why, Laura Ziskin, why? If only Steve Martin's new play didn't open in New York on Oscar Day....
I have absolutely no doubt that if "Come What May" were eligible for the Best Song Oscar, it would take the statuette -- this soaring love song is the epitome of an Oscar-friendly adult contemporary-type tune. (Despite the fact that this is an songwriter's award, the fact that the song will be inevitably linked in the minds of voters with its two major-wattage star performers would've also helped matters considerably.) However, the rationale behind the AMPAS rule makes perfect sense -- the point behind the category is to recognize songs which have been crafted specifically to serve the needs of a film rather than to acknowledge pre-written songs that happen to fit in a film (which, as a correspondent pointed out, would render the category to Best Use of a Song in a Movie and potentially lead us down a slippery slope), no matter how pleasant the tunes may be or how well they might fit in the film.
Is it possible that members of the AMPAS Music Branch might vote for "Come What May" anyway? Unlikely -- the group is small enough that everyone's probably in the loop -- but I certainly think a few random votes might possibly be directed its way. Would these votes actually count? I sincerely doubt it. Could Baerwald and Fox officials have lied? They probably could've, but I doubt they would've been able to get away with it for long -- there's almost certainly a paper trail associated with the writing of "Come What May" (I can't see him not registering the song), and once its history is uncovered, the jig would be up. (I realize that the Oscars are, for all intents and purposes, essentially warfare, but one would nevertheless hope for some integrity from the relevant parties.) Is the rule fair? It may seem unduly constrictive at first glance, but consider a scenario where, say, some undiscovered and unrecorded John Lennon song is unearthed and promptly plopped into a 2002 release. Would it be realistic or appropriate for a song which was never written for this (or any) film to potentially wind up with a Best Achievement in Music in Connection to Motion Pictures (Original Song) nomination? I say no.
(But yes, I regret that the ceremony will lack the possibility of a showstopping Kidman/McGregor duet; this could've been highlight reel material. Kidman's live vocals probably wouldn't have matched up against her studio recordings, but I figure that McGregor's pipes would held up just fine. Who's a rock star? Ewan is.)
As for the Moulin Rouge score penned by Australian composer Craig Armstrong and submitted by Fox, it has been ruled ineligible for consideration in the Best Achievement in Music in Connection to Motion Pictures (Original Score) nomination due to AMPAS Rule 16, part A, section I, which defines an original score as "a substantial body of music", and part B, section 5e, which indicates that "scores diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs" may be excluded from eligibility. Amusingly, I noticed that in Oscar Column #06 I wrote: "To be honest, I'm going to have to revisit Moulin Rouge in order to pay attention to its score; I hadn't really noticed it at all, at least under all of the musical numbers", so suffice it to say that I fully agree with the AMPAS ruling on this matter -- the constant barrage of pop songs definitely overwhelmed any impact the Armstrong score might've had, and it remains unclear to me at this point just how much actual original music Armstrong wrote for the score.
"I have no idea how long this rule has been on the books. If it's been for years, then shame on them not to allow it in. If it's a result of The Full Monty winning for basically 10 minutes of a lackluster score, then I'm all for it."- Anonymous
Unfortunately, I haven't saved copies of the AMPAS rules over the years so I'm not sure how long this regulation has been in the books. While the "substantial" criterion makes sense from an objective perspective, that it's actually regulated at all seems questionable to me -- shouldn't the voters themselves be allowed to decide whether a score is sufficiently substantial when casting their votes? (For example, there's no such rule pertaining to performances, which opened the door for AMPAS members to signify that they thought the ten-odd minutes of Judi Dench's performance in Shakespeare In Love was sufficient to win her an Oscar.)
Also, terminology behind the disqualification of scores "diminished ... by predominant use of songs" seems so measured that it leaves one wondering if this rule is to serve as a safety net to prevent AMPAS members from supporting musical scores because they liked the songs in the film and are unable to distinguish between the two; the aforementioned The Full Monty score would be an excellent example in that, in terms of music sequences, it's almost certainly best remembered for the judicious employment of various upbeat pop and disco songs ("Hot Stuff", "You Sexy Thing", "You Can Leave Your Hat On") than for any of Anne Dudley's Oscar-winning score. (I continue to think that James Newton Howard's My Best Friend's Wedding, Danny Elfman's Men In Black, or Hans Zimmer's As Good As It Gets scores would've been much better choices for that year's Best Comedy/Musical Score Oscar.)
"Will there be any media reaction to this on Feb 12th, and will any ensuing brouhaha have a knock-on effect for other awards: A Beautiful Mind's score and song might sneak into Moulin's vacant spots for example, giving it more nominations than might have been expected (8 versus 6 perhaps) and even more momentum for Best Picture (perish the thought); Moulin would get less nominations than expected -- would this provoke sympathy votes for Luhrmann or Kidman, cement its chances in say, editing or art direction, or kill the movie's chances stone dead? With Moulin out of the way, will John Williams get nominated for both AI and Harry Potter? One could go on ad infinitum, but my point is: Moulin's ineligibility will have consequences for other pictures beyond the music categories. Would you agree?"- Richard Smith
Honestly, I expect that any media reaction regarding Moulin Rouge absences in the Oscar nomination list in music categories will be of the form "What happened?" or "How did this musical not get nominated?"; I don't think that it's been widely registered that the song or score has been declared ineligible. I'd be glad to be proven wrong, but fully expect many media sources to attribute this to some sort of 'snub'.
I don't think I'd agree that the ineligibility of Moulin Rouge's song or score would have the sort of dramatic repercussions for either Baz Luhrmann's film or others that seems to be suggested; this year's series of races are generally close enough that it would be hard to authoritatively declare Moulin Rouge's expected number of nominations with any certainty, and hence whether or not the film actually made par on February 12th. (Given that it won't be receiving music nominations, Moulin Rouge could conceivably get anywhere between zero and twelve nominations this year; my guess would be somewhere around six.) I would hesitate in applying this stock market mentality with the Oscars in terms of assessing momentum based on whether or not any given film lived up to expectations via total nominations received, especially in a close year such as this, though if the media does start playing up Moulin Rouge's non-nominations in the musical categories as a snub and this misinterpretation permeates the collective consciousness as fact, this might affect the film's campaign to a minor degree. (And for what it's worth, James Horner's A Beautiful Mind score probably stood a good chance of nabbing a nomination irrespective of the vacated Moulin Rouge spot.)
WGA Nominee Reactions
Interestingly, much was made to defuse the possibility that the absence of Christopher Nolan's Memento and Rob Festinger and Todd Field's In The Bedroom screenplays from the Writers Guild of America nominee listing would be construed as 'snubs'; all of the major film news sources -- Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, the Associated Press wire, and so forth -- made explicit mention that the Memento and In The Bedroom scripts were ruled ineligible for WGA nominations on the basis that they were not produced by signatories to a WGA contract or any of their international affiliate guilds. (Some sources opined that their failure to secure WGA nominations would adversely affect their Oscar chances; while this should have absolutely no impact on whether or not the Nolan or Festinger/Field scripts receive Academy Award nominations -- both their ineligible status and the WGA nominee listings were publicly announced well after the deadline for Oscar nomination balloting -- it admittedly might have some minor impact on their hopes of winning the statuette outright insofar as either of them actually are successful in scoring Oscar nominations. Winning a WGA award, which Memento and In The Bedroom cannot, clearly helps a script's Oscar chances. Still, making it well known that Memento and In The Bedroom failed to receive WGA nominations based on this ruling, as opposed to lack of merit, helps to diminish any negative perception which might've been generated, and their respective campaigns would do well to play up this fact should the necessity arise.
Less publicized but also significant was that Monsters, Inc. and Shrek were disqualified from consideration for the WGA awards on the basis that neither Disney nor DreamWorks have signed the WGA contract for feature animation. I wouldn't count on this to have much significance for Monsters, Inc., which is going for an Original Screenplay nomination -- I doubt this bid will be successful -- but Shrek is a genuine possibility for an Adapted Screenplay nomination; should it make the final five, its absence in the WGA listing will be an impediment in its quest to win the Oscar.
(The other big news pertaining to this year's WGA nominee listing was that the official list leaked out the evening before the announcement proper. A big thanks to Drew Szczechowski for bringing this to my attention.)
Aside from the omission angle, the WGA nominees for the screen year 2001 offered little in the way of major surprises, with most of the expected players tapped for nominations. In the Original Screenplay category, Julian Fellowes' award-winning Gosford Park script received a WGA nomination and is certain to receive an Oscar nomination. The four remaining four Original Screenplay WGA nominees were all penned by writing teams: The Man Who Wasn't There by the Coen Brothers, The Royal Tenenbaums by the much-beloved team of Wes Anderson and collaborator Owen Wilson, Monster's Ball by Milo Addica and Will Rokos, and Moulin Rouge by director Baz Luhrmann and writing partner Craig Pearce. I'd call the latter WGA nomination as somewhat of an eyebrow-raiser to the extent that the film is clearly more of a triumph of direction (and costumes, art direction, performances, etc.) than of writing, but I'm not particularly distressed by the cite. While Gosford Park is a lock for a nomination (and, despite the lack of a WGA nomination, I still consider Memento to be a sure thing -- would've been nice if it had received a guild mention, though, if just to see whether they'd classify it as an original or adapted script; might've brought some clarity to the matter), I would hesitate in listing any of the other four WGA nominees as surefire locks; The Man Who Wasn't There and the quirky The Royal Tenenbaums would seem to be the best bets among them to make AMPAS' final five. Contending original screenplays which did not receive WGA nominations but remain possibilities include Ali, Amélie, Mulholland Dr., The Others, and Pearl Harbor. (Okay, just kidding about the last one.)
I expect that the WGA slate of Adapted Screenplay nominations will show a much stronger correlation with the eventual list of Oscar nominees. The Writers Guild selected Akiva Goldsman's A Beautiful Mind (an Oscar lock), Ken Nolan's Black Hawk Down, the Bridget Jones's Diary adaptation, Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff's film rendition of Ghost World and The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring to make up their list of finalists as the year's best screenplays based on material previously produced or published. Goldsman and The Lord Of The Rings are extremely likely to receive Oscar nominations, and despite the non-WGA nomination, In The Bedroom's award-winning will probably also make the cut, thereby leaving two slots for the three remaining WGA nominees to battle it out. Despite failing to be recognized by the Writers Guild, several other adapted screenplays are very much in contention -- Shrek is in the running, one mustn't count out Robert Nelson Jacobs for The Shipping News, Steve Kloves might receive support for the task of adapting Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone to the satisfaction of millions, and it would be premature to write off the A.I. Artificial Intelligence script based on "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long". This category should make for a tremendously close and interesting race.
CDG Nominee Reactions
Continuing with the ineligibility theme, it's the only reason I can come up with to explain the absence of Moulin Rouge from this year's Costume Designers Guild nominees. Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie are extremely likely to be nominated for an Academy Award for their work in the Baz Luhrmann film -- at this point, I'd consider them the odds-on favourites to win the Oscar -- so their failure to nab a CDG nomination for their work escapes me; perhaps they're not CDG members? (This might also help explain why Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor didn't make CDG's list for their work in Peter Jackson's New Zealand/Middle Earth production of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.)
The Costume Designers Guild divides their competition into awards for contemporary and period/fantasy costume design. While the Academy notoriously ignores contemporary costume work in favour of period pieces -- among the last sixty Oscar-nominated achievements in costume design, none of them were for contemporary work [Late note: okay, I suppose one could count The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, but really, are Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel's costumes at all representative of contemporary attire?] -- it's probably still worth noting that this year's CDG nominees for Best Achievement in Contemporary Costume Design were Sophie DeRakoff Carbonell for the Reese Witherspoon-starrer Legally Blonde, Jeffrey Kurkland for Ocean's Eleven, Amy Stofsky and Durinda Wood for Mulholland Dr. (which I suppose is a contemporary film despite its retro-vibe), and Karen Patch's work in The Royal Tenenbaums. Don't count on any of these to break the Oscar streak of shunning contemporary costume work.
In the Period/Fantasy design field, Boogie Nights costume designer Mark Bridges mined the 1970s again for Blow and came up with a CDG nomination. Judianna Makovsky, Oscar-nominated for her superb work in Pleasantville, was cited by the guild for her costumes in the high-profile Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, while Arianne Phillips nailed her career first award nomination for her designs in Fine Line's Hedwig And The Angry Inch. Finally, Tim Burton's regular collaborator, the illustrious Colleen Atwood, completed the quartet of nominees in pulling down only her second CDG nomination for her work in this year's so-called "reimagining" of Planet Of The Apes. I'm skeptical about Bridges' Oscar prospects for Blow and hesitant about the Hedwig costumes to a certain extent, but Makovsky and Atwood are strong possibilities in the Oscar race along with the Moulin Rouge and The Lord Of The Rings teams. Taking into account the Academy's penchant for period fare, I'd also raise Mary Zophres' work in The Man Who Wasn't There, Rita Ryack's outfits in A Beautiful Mind, and Bob Ringwood's costumes for A.I. Artificial Intelligence as possibilities, along with Jenny Beavan's work in Gosford Park.
PGA Nominee Reactions
The nominees for the Producers Guild of America's Darryl F. Zanuck Producer Of The Year award are regularly considered a significant precursor to the eventual Academy Award nominees for Best Picture; in both cases, a film's producer(s) is the recognized party, and during the history of the award there've only been three instances where the PGA winner failed to net the Best Picture Oscar trophy (Unforgiven over The Crying Game in 1992, Braveheart over Apollo 13 in 1996, and 1999's Shakespeare In Love instead of Saving Private Ryan). As such, many greet the PGA's nominee listing with great interest, and the unveiling of the nominees on January 10th, 2002 prompted much startled chatter amongst pundits, particularly for the inclusion of two (arguably) family-friendly films in Shrek and Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone.
When one looks over this year's PGA nominees, one common trait immediately pops out among the quintet of cited films: these were all pictures that made a lot of money. Granted, Moulin Rouge was the one picture amongst the five that was not a big moneymaker, and indeed, from a cost-to-domestic gross perspective the Luhrmann film was somewhat of a minor disappointment (commercial expectations were overly heightened for this picture, methinks), but it performed solidly (at nearly $60 million to date, Moulin Rouge did far better domestically than I would've expected for such an unconventional and divisive film), and when one factors in foreign grosses the film will definitely end up in the black.
The other four PGA nominees were simply unqualified smashes -- A Beautiful Mind has already toppled the $100 million mark pre-Oscar, which is a fine showing for a straightforward drama addressing a somewhat unpalatable topic (although Universal and company have obviously taken great pains to bury the film's actual subject matter in their understandably deceptive marketing), and Harry Potter And The Sorceror's Stone, Shrek and The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring are quite simply the three-highest grossing films to emerge from 2001. Noticeably absent from the PGA shortlist are highly-touted contenders such as In The Bedroom and Gosford Park (both strongly-performing arthouse films, which is to say that Shrek's opening weekend is more than both films' combined grosses), and Black Hawk Down (now obviously a commercial smash, but yet to go wide as of the PGA announcement). If any simple conclusion can be drawn from this year's Zanuck nominees, it can be that the PGA constituents appreciate a good blockbuster.
The tendency, vividly on display this year, of fellow producers to honour financial smashes logically follows when one considers that a producer's primary role is to be largely responsible for putting the film productions together and ushering them from inception to completion, and as such they ostensibly have a more vested interest in the bottom line and commercial prospects than the film artists; it isn't unreasonable to gather than film producers are more cognitive of the many obstacles which confront projects, and able to appreciate those which are able to surmount the bevy of roadblocks to arrive at a successful (and profitable) destination.
My guess is that this line of thought was in play with the Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone PGA nomination for David Heyman. Upon its inception, this film production instantly became one of the most highly anticipated and intensely watched of all-time -- Todd McCarthy's Variety review likened the build-up to Gone With The Wind, "another literary sensation that spawned a film version that had to meet similarly demanding public expressions". The comparison is not without merit; geez, if I had a dollar for every e-mail I received in early 2000 from parents asking how they could get their kids auditioned for the film (for what it's worth, I have no idea why I was fielding these queries, but I steered 'em towards the right direction), I could ... well, I could've at least bought a nice DVD.
The anticipation on the first installment of the nascent Harry Potter franchise was huge, and as such Heyman frankly could've taken the film in any countless number of wrongheaded directions which would've disappointed or even alienated the enormous existing fan base. (Consider, oh, say Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.) Given the widespread interest, that the film was going to perform spectacularly well at the box office was a given, but that Heyman's team put together a filmed version of the book which was largely greeted enthusiastically by the hypercritical Potter devotees, drew unusually strong critical assessments for a mainstream eager-to-please family-friendly production, and charmed even non-Potterphiles was effectively akin to weaving around all the landmines associated with such a high-profile project to find the best-case scenario. (For what it's worth, I was personally not terribly enthused by Chris Columbus' film, but this was obviously a well-liked picture.) I'd be hardpressed to describe Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone as an artistic triumph, but for Heyman, I think it arguably qualifies as a producer's triumph. I still don't think the film will receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but the PGA nomination does prompt some re-evaluation of the situation.
A Beautiful Mind and The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring were already on track for Best Picture Oscar nominations at the time the PGA nomination announcement took place -- their shortlisting raised little commotion -- and Moulin Rouge had been positioned as a viable contender. The Shrek PGA nomination drew some attention and suggests that DreamWorks might be successful in pushing the computer-animated film for both a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination and the highly-coveted Best Picture Academy Award nomination; with the former nomination virtually in the bag, Katzenberg and company have been aggressively pursuing the possibility of breaking ground and becoming the first computer-animated feature film to be recognized in the Big Category. I'm still unconvinced that it'll fare as strongly with the Academy as a whole than with the Producers Guild, mostly because they're drawing from dissimilar voting bases -- all AMPAS members with voting rights can cast ballots for Best Picture nominees, whereas the PGA awards are voted on by producers alone (who, in most cases, are not Academy members) -- but grant that the second-highest grossing domestic animated film is popularly well-liked, and the high-profile PGA cite will lend a lot of credibility to its Best Picture Oscar nomination bid.
DGA Nominee Reactions
The Directors Guild of America continued in this year's delightful trend of the various film guilds wreaking havoc with conventional wisdom when it announced its list of nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film. Heading into the DGA nomination announcement, veteran helmer Robert Altman's work in the ensemble comedy Gosford Park seemed to be a lock for a mention, having just come off Best Director victories with both the AFI Awards and the Golden Globes, so awards-scene watchers were sent into a tizzy when it was revealed that the venerable filmmaker was not among the final five listed by the Directors Guild.
The quintet of directors receiving DGA nominations, as announced by last year's winner Ang Lee, Martha Coolidge, and Howard Storm, were Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind, New Zealand's own Peter Jackson for The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Baz Luhrmann for Moulin Rouge, Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down, and, in a cite which shocked many, Christopher Nolan for his helming of the convoluted mystery-thriller Memento. While Nolan is largely expected to factor into the Oscar race for Memento's screenplay (and I would not rule out the film and lead Guy Pearce as longshot Academy Award prospects), few had expected the British writer/director to grab attention for his direction of the independent picture. I, for one, have no serious reservations about the DGA recognition of his helming in the film -- it was solid, servicable work which knew to back off and get out of the way of the picture's aggressively non-linear narrative. There are films in which idiosyncratic directorial flourishes are welcome and effective -- think Paul Thomas Anderson in Boogie Nights or Darren Aronofsky in Requiem For A Dream -- but Memento isn't one of them.
Just when many were preparing to ink the Kansas City-born director down as a lock for an Academy Award nomination, Altman's omission from the DGA shortlist has prompted much reassessment, but whether or not his absence here foreshadows a similar one with the AMPAS Directors Branch has yet to be determined. In the wake of his DGA shutout, I wouldn't start scratching Altman's name off one's Oscar prediction list just yet -- the AMPAS Directors Branch skews older the DGA membership, and while both groups consist of directors, AMPAS' are primarily filmmakers whereas the DGA includes TV and commercial directors who might be less attuned to Altman's characteristic roving sensibilities. To my understanding, all DGA members (film, TV and other) can nominate in all categories, so one should definitely take that into consideration when attempting to use the DGA nominations to project Oscar nominees; we're talking about significantly different voting pools. This factor might also help explain Altman's absence from the DGA nomination list.
Howard, Jackson, Luhrmann and Scott are all considered top-drawer Oscar nomination contenders, and their DGA nominations helped to further their prospects for possible AMPAS recognition, arguably giving them a leg up over heavy competition from the likes of David Lynch for Mulholland Dr. (who could've really used a DGA nomination to boost his film's Oscar prospects; after a crackerjack December, Mulholland's been really reeling over the past few weeks), Todd Field for In The Bedroom (though his rookie status makes him unlikely to crack the AMPAS crowd), Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There, Steven Spielberg for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (yes, I think he's still a possibility), Michael Mann for Ali, Gallic helmer Jean-Pierre Jeunet for the quirky Amélie and even the longshot Shrek team of Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson.
"What are your thoughts on the chances of Christopher Nolan's DGA Award nomination translating into an Oscar nod? And do you know if the DGA's voting deadline falls after the announcement of the Academy Award nominations? I've always suspected that Ron Howard's failure to score an Oscar nomination for Apollo 13 might have created a wave of sympathy that contributed to his '95 DGA win, and am curious as to whether this scenario might repeat itself with Nolan and Memento."- Andrew Johnston
The DGA's voting deadline falls after the announcement of the Academy Award nominations this year, and as far as I know there've been no radical date changes in recent years so I fully expect that Ron Howard's failure to receive an Academy Award nomination was widely known amongst DGA voters before their voting deadline in late February 1996. (For what it's worth, I would not be averse to seeing this scenario play out again this year with Howard failing to make the Oscar cut again for A Beautiful Mind. Hey, I can hope.)
As for whether this scenario might repeat itself with Nolan and Memento, I can't really see it. Howard's failure to receive an AMPAS nomination for Apollo 13 was a surprise; here, it's Nolan's DGA nomination that's a surprise -- I don't expect anyone to be terribly surprised if he doesn't nab an Oscar nomination for Memento. Moreover, Howard's a well-known Hollywood veteran while Nolan's an upstart British outsider -- I can't see the industry base of support needed for some big sympathy vote which might drive Memento's direction to a DGA Award win should it fail to receive an Oscar nomination. The Nolan DGA nomination certainly puts him into the heavily-contested race for the five Oscar nomination slots, but I still wouldn't think of him as a favourite; any AMPAS Director nomination he receives would have to be classified as an upset.
SAG Nominee Reactions
The unusual slate of nominees for the Screen Actors Guild awards have aided in thoroughly muddying (or re-muddying, as it were) the Oscar races in the various performing categories by omitting highly-touted favourites and instead selecting as-of-yet-unheralded performances as candidates for the SAG Actor awards. In addition to including A Beautiful Mind's Jennifer Connelly in their Lead Actress category (a topic which was discussed in some length in Oscar Column #07), the SAG nominee list included names which hadn't fared strongly in any other pre-Oscar awards (Life As A House's Kevin Kline, I Am Sam's Sean Penn), or han't been expected to receive any awards attention (Training Day's Ethan Hawke, I Am Sam's Dakota Fanning).
The SAG Outstanding Performance By A Male Actor In A Leading Role category was arguably the most heavily affected, with both Kline and Penn nabbing nominations from the SAG nominating committee. While A Beautiful Mind's Russell Crowe and Training Day's Denzel Washington received SAG nominations as expected and are almost certainly en route to Oscar nominations, New Line scored a huge coup by managing to revive Life As A House via Kevin Kline's nomination; he was being touted as a possibility in November but had scored no kudos and had basically been written off for dead in terms of Oscar prospects. I Am Sam, the shockingly shameless Oscar ploy for Sean Penn, opened to reasonably decent business given the actor's limited box-office appeal but received withering critical assessments ("What the hell was Sean Penn thinking?" wrote Katrina Onstad of The National Post on behalf of film buffs around the world; "$5m payday" would seem to be the answer), was ignored by key film groups like the AFI and HFPA (the IPA did acknowledge Penn's work -- then again, who didn't they recognize?), and had essentially faded off the Oscar radar; the SAG nomination puts Penn back into the heart of the Best Actor race with a vengeance.
The SAG nomination will probably do more for Penn's Oscar prospects than Kline's; though both actors are previous Academy Award nominees and are in service of seriously sentimental (some would say 'sappy') pictures, Life As A House is long gone while I Am Sam is still in first-run, sustaining public consciousness about Penn and his performance, and Kline's George Monroe doesn't have the sort of obvious Oscar-friendly hook of Penn's Sam does. It is well-known that AMPAS voters have shown a historic predilection for afflicted characters ("Give me a part as a retarded black slave!", shouts Eddie Murphy's vain actor in Bowfinger; see also Dustin Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush), and Penn benefits from the double-whammy of playing an adorably mentally handicapped man who's also the film's voice of reason; that his Sam is able to cut through all of life's confusions and sagely speaks The Truth has prompted many to label the Jessie Nelson as I Am Sham (or, alternately, I Am Scam). Still, Penn's an extremely well-admired actor -- countless have described him, justifiably so, as the best actor of his generation -- and should he nab another AMPAS citation, this wouldn't be the first time that he's scored an unexpected Best Actor Oscar nomination; the Dead Man Walking AMPAS acknowledgement was much anticipated, but his Sweet And Lowdown nomination slipped in under the radar at the buzzer, so it's clear that he has his share of supporters amongst the AMPAS Actors Branch who can push him into a final five situation.
Tom Wilkinson's solid performance in In The Bedroom was also recognized with a SAG nomination, which should hopefully aid his chances at scoring a career first Oscar nomination against some heavy competition -- among those who failed to make the cut with the SAG Nominating Committee include the likes of Ali's Will Smith (who's considered by some to nevertheless be a lock for an Oscar nomination; I'm not nearly as confident about his chances), Billy Bob Thornton for The Man Who Wasn't There, Golden Globe- and AFI-winner Gene Hackman for The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as longer-shot candidaes like Memento's Guy Pearce, The Shipping News's Kevin Spacey and Moulin Rouge's Ewan McGregor.
The attention drawn by A Beautiful Mind's Jennifer Connelly 'accidental' SAG Actor nomination in the Female Lead category has obfuscated the clear indication from the guild's slate of nominees that it is indeed possible for Nicole Kidman to potentially cancel herself out with her twin 2001 performances in Moulin Rouge and The Others; there was nary a Kidman performance to be found in the SAG nominee list, which was instead populated by Monster's Ball's Halle Berry, Iris's Judi Dench, In The Bedroom's Sissy Spacek, Bridget Jones's Diary's Renée Zellweger, and the aforementioned Connelly. Berry, Dench, Spacek, and Zellweger are all leading candidates in the Actress category -- I'd call Zellweger's Oscar chances as the softest in the bunch -- but it would be presumptive to assume that Connelly's nomination pushed a Kidman performance to the #6 spot; how do we know it wasn't The Deep End's Tilda Swinton, Amélie's Audrey Tautou or Mulholland Dr.'s Naomi Watts who placed sixth in voting? Or even Ghost World's Thora Birch? (Watts could've really used a SAG nomination to bolster her flagging chances. A nomination for The Business Of Strangers's Stockard Channing would've really thrown the race for a loop.) I don't mean to sound alarmist, but I consider Kidman's failure to score a decisive SAG nomination to be an ominous sign that the potential for a split-vote situation remains very real.
Personally speaking, I have no issue with Ethan Hawke receiving a most unexpected Supporting Actor SAG nomination for his performance in Training Day; I thought he was just fine, providing Washington with a great foil and effectively augmenting Denzel's performance. Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all if Hawke managed to crack the AMPAS final five, but I'm not going to kid myself that it's at all likely; the SAG nomination was likely an aberration, but a welcome one from my standpoint. (As an aside, some critics, including Newsday's John Anderson, have opined that Hawke should actually be considered the lead in the Antoine Fuqua film with Washington classified as a supporting actor on the basis that the movie really follows Hawke's character's arc. While I can see the reasoning behind this way of thinking, I don't really buy into it.)
The remaining SAG nominations in the Supporting Actor category went to Golden Globe winner Jim Broadbent for Iris, Life As A House's Hayden Christensen, Ben Kingsley's Sexy Beast, and Ian McKellen for The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. Kingsley and Broadbent appear to be probable Oscar nominees come February 12th, while Christensen's SAG nomination indicates that he has to be taken seriously as a possible AMPAS nominee -- I'd viewed his Golden Globe nomination as a familiar Hollywood Foreign Press Association celebrity-grab, but the Screen Actors Guild nomination gives his campaign bid a heavy dose of credibility. To be honest, I'm not terribly enthusiastic about McKellen's work in The Lord Of The Rings -- Kenneth Turan's gushing blurb "To see the man who was the fey James Whale in Gods And Monsters in full battle mode against the forces of evil is to understand what a great actor can accomplishment" made me wonder exactly where in the film McKellen was so astonishing -- but grant that the English actor has been receiving strong critical assessments, year-end recognition, and has been hot on the campaign trail over the past two months in support of the film and his bid, so the SAG nomination is definitely a promising sign for him. Possibilities who failed to score SAG nominations most notably include Jon Voight's work in Ali, Steve Buscemi's "lovable loser" in Ghost World, and more distant prospects Jude Law for A.I. Artificial Intelligence and L.I.E.'s Brian Cox.
The SAG Supporting Actress category was also largely askew from the general consesus leaders in the Supporting Actress Oscar race at the time, with only Gosford Park's Helen Mirren and Vanilla Sky's Cameron Diaz widely considered as leading contenders for AMPAS attention. (As mentioned in a previous Oscar column, I'm rather mystified with the acclaim for Diaz's performance in the Cameron Crowe abomidation.) In a move which some have suggested is an indication that she'll be recognized in some fashion for her large body of work in 2001, Cate Blanchett received a SAG nomination for her comic performance in the caper flick Bandits -- the prolific actress' other films this year include The Man Who Cried, The Shipping News, Charlotte Gray and The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (and, after a 2000 qualifying run, her film The Gift opened in most theatres in January 2001; she's been a veritable mainstay on theatre screens this year). While Blanchett received a (filler) Golden Globe nomination in the Best Actress - Musical or Comedy category this year, she is being promoted for Supporting Actress for Bandits, and as such is in the danger of splitting any support she receives across multiple films; there are also campaigns in place on her behalf for The Shipping News and The Lord Of The Rings.
SAG favourite Judi Dench scored her career eighth film Actor nomination (a new record for the Screen Actors Guild) for her performance as the crusty aunt Agnis in The Shipping News. After being positioned as Miramax's primary Oscar bait picture, the Hallström film has been (wisely) shunted to one side as more resources and attention were redirected towards In The Bedroom (whose supporting actress, Marisa Tomei, noticeably did not make the SAG final cut), but does the Dench SAG nomination bode promisingly for the film come Oscar time? I'm not counting on it, but Dench has to be given due consideration as a Supporting Actress AMPAS candidate.
Of course, the biggest surprise in this year's slate of SAG nominees was the slot assigned to little Dakota Fanning of I Am Sam. At age 7, Fanning is the youngest performer ever to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for an individual performance -- I had to laugh at the SAG press release's super-useful factoid "This is her first nomination" -- and, unless I'm forgetting someone, the first major awards recognition of any sort for a pre-teen actor since Victoire Thivisol won the Venice Film Festival's Best Actress award for her performance in Ponette at age four. Fanning had not registered on virtually anyone's Oscar radar prior to the SAG nomination, and in the wake of this recognition the question must be whether she'll follow in the lead of AMPAS winner Anna Paquin and play a major role in this year's Supporting Actress race. I do not count on Fanning making the AMPAS short list and instead continue to operate under the belief that non-SAG nominees such as Maggie Smith of Gosford Park, Marisa Tomei of In The Bedroom, A Beautiful Mind's Jennifer Connelly and Iris' Kate Winslet are more likely to receive Academy acknowledgement come mid-February.
Due to an ever-mounting selection of mail of the form:
"Tuesday is right on top of you. Please don't spend time reflecting on the Golden Satellites or questions from devoted readers about the Globes. We want to know your nomination predictions. And don't wait until Monday night."I'm going to try something a little bit different this year. I'm going to list my bare-bones Oscar nomination predictions on Sunday, February 10th, and supplement them with rationale commentary throughout the day. I'll then go back and complete my wrap-up commentary on various guild and other awards in a Monday column unless I've finally succumbed to sleep-deprived delirium. So, next up: Oscar nomination predictions! Help me. Help us all.
Feedback or inquiries are welcome and may be reproduced (and edited where necessary) in subsequent columns -- e-mail me. (Please indicate if you wish to remain anonymous; pseudonyms are also acceptable.)
Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca)
Back to Oscar Columns for the 74rd Annual Academy Awards.
Back to film page.