The decision was made early, according to a confidante.
Even after early screenings of the violent Boston gangster drama “The Departed” convinced Warner Brothers executives that it would be a commercial success and an Oscar hopeful, its director Martin Scorsese told the studio he wanted no part of any Academy Award campaign.
He canceled interviews with two journalists who saw the picture early and loved it, knowing he would be asked about his Oscar chances.
His agent advised him to follow his instincts. He had seen how embarrassed and disappointed his client and friend had been after enormous Oscar campaigns were mounted on the director’s behalf for his last two prestige films, the epic “Gangs of New York” and the Howard Hughes biography “The Aviator” – only to see the filmmaker go home empty-handed.
Maybe this was playing with Oscar’s head, or maybe it was just the common sense approach of letting the work speak for itself. In either case, the forget-Oscar approach paid off: On Tuesday, Martin Scorsese, often cited as America’s greatest living filmmaker, was nominated for a best director Academy Award, and is the odds-on favorite to finally win – something he has never done.
Which is hardly to say that full-out campaigns can’t work. They were successful for “Babel,” which despite the insistent and ubiquitous advertising, received mixed reviews from major critics, and for the comedy “Little Miss Sunshine.” “Babel” won seven nominations, five in major categories, while “Little Miss Sunshine” won four, all in major categories. “The Departed” won five, “Letters from Iwo Jima” won four, and “The Queen” was the runner-up in the most overall nominations with six.
In recent years, Academy voters have tended to shun comedies in favor of important-looking, often pretentious films. Yet “Little Miss Sunshine,” a film about a messed-up family on a road trip to a children’s beauty pageant, caught on with audiences and Oscar voters.
After all, the voters are people too, and they might have seen much of the best-picture field as too grim and specialized.
If marketers got their own Oscars, the think-fast award would go to the strategists at Warner Brothers working on behalf of Clint Eastwood. It was widely assumed that Eastwood’s epic Iwo Jima drama “Flags of Our Fathers” would be another best picture and best director feather for the veteran director’s cap, but despite mostly positive response from critics, the film failed to connect with audiences.
But in pre-production, Eastwood had the idea of making a companion film, one that would tell the story of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and officers who were sent there to be killed in an effort to slow the Allied Forces on their march to the mainland.
That movie, smaller in scope than “Flags” and with an all-Japanese cast and English subtitles, was to be released in February 2007 – after “Flags” had won its Oscars.
But when “Flags” failed to fly, Plan B was quickly hatched, and the Oscar push went to “Letters From of Iwo Jima” – a plan that paid off when it won early critics association awards. On Tuesday, the film won the best picture, best director and best screenplay nominations that had once been assumed for “Flags.”
For many moviegoers, the biggest surprise of Tuesday’s announcements might have been the exclusion of Jack Nicholson from the supporting actor category for his turn as the vicious Boston gang boss in “The Departed.” But even for Nicholson’s many fans, his performance was a guilty pleasure, entertainingly over-the-top, and could have easily thrown a film less well-constructed than “The Departed” out of whack. The Academy wisely gave his slot to his co-star Mark Wahlberg, whose vitriol was perfectly pitched.
More baffling was the decision to reward Leonardo DiCaprio for his role as a smuggler in the conventional action-drama “Blood Diamond” rather than for his more complex, shaded work in “The Departed.” In any case, it’s an academic question, since Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of African dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” is 90 percent certain to take home the award. The 10 percent is reserved for a last-minute surge for Peter O’Toole in “Venus,” if audiences and Oscar voters can be persuaded to see the film.
As for the failure of “Dreamgirls” to win any nominations except those of the presumptive supporting actor and actress winners, Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson, all you have to do is hit the streets to realize that’s no mystery. Though some critics raved, the consensus is that “Dreamgirls” is a perfectly good movie that starts strong but runs out of steam before a less-than-grand finale; too much talking, not enough dreaming.
Otherwise, there were few surprises. Ryan Gosling had long been a dark horse for the indie drama no one saw, “Half Nelson.” And there was a bone thrown to “Borat,” for best original screenplay.
Even the best documentary (Al Gore might finally get to win something), foreign language and animated film nominations were all duly expected.
If there was an egregious oversight, it was that the great editor Joel Cox did not get nominated for his remarkable work on “Flags of Our Fathers” or “Letters from Iwo Jima.” Who else got cheated? Only the year’s most popular film.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” salvaged only two doubloons, for visual effects and sound mixing, thus edged out in the one category it deserved to win, for makeup. Its presumed spot was claimed by, of all things, “Click,” in which latex was used to make Adam Sandler look old. Not exactly like turning Davy Jones into a creepy creature of the sea, but obviously somebody knows something – or somebody – I don’t.
