January 15, 2003

It’s All About You Marty
… and Iris and Be Still My Braveheart

It’s the week of the big fix. For a select group of Angelinos, it will be shoulder rubbing time as the Broadcast Journalists, L.A. Film Critics and the Hollywood Foreign Golden Globers bestow a full week of kultural kino kudos.

These events, and scores of others to come prior to late March, serve a couple of primary purposes.

On a very, very basic level they are the event that provides the financial wherewithal for these and myriad other groups to exist. The lucky few generate big bucks from television broadcast. However, not every group has a mammoth operating nut. So, putting on a dinner and charging studios hefty prices for tables and program ads will do quite nicely when it comes to the bottom line.

It can’t be repeated too often that the term is showbusiness not showart.

Let us not forget that another key event occurred this week. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mailed out its nomination ballot to the 5,000 plus voting members that are enrolled in its ranks. Now, the companies and individuals most likely to reap rewards from an Oscar nomination and, god willing, a golden statuette at the end of the rainbow, are not above a little pushing and shoving when it comes to reminding people about their wares. For denizens of Lo Cal, trade ads swell the pages of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter daily and DVDs and videocassettes turn AMPAS member households into mini-Blockbusters with considerably more lenient late fee penalties.

Though it’s been five decades since Mickey and Judy put on a show, that hasn’t stopped Helmut and Ebert from carrying on the tradition. In fact, it’s only because the Golden Globes have become such a vital component of Oscar marketing campaigns that it survives and thrives. While the Hollywood Foreign Press has done major house cleaning to improve its image, the organization has decades of bad behavior to redress. The notion that one can buy that award has been tough to shake, cemented by Pia Zadora’s triumph as best newcomer (a category since eliminated) two decades ago. At the time her husband, Meshulan Riklis, flew HFP members to Las Vegas, feted them at his hotel-casino and presented Pia’s star turn in Butterfly, a film that has not withstood the passage of time.

The after shock of the Pia fiasco threatened the very foundation of the auric Orb. However, according to a veteran publicist, success was pulled from tragedy when the timing of the event was moved up earlier on the calendar to coincide with the Academy’s mailing of nomination ballots.

Anyone who doles out statuettes or plaques will underline the uniqueness of the honor and, perhaps, its integrity, blah, blah, blah. I tend to believe that such awards exist. The Scriptor, an award that almost flies under the radar, may be such a prize. However, once an organization employs its honor roll to garner attention or for fund raising purposes, it invariably becomes part of another process … it is a cog, as with political primaries, in the machinery of the film industry.

And to what end?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was created toward the end of the 1920s as a kind of buffer against bad press. At that time, politicians and religious leaders made hay of the industry’s penchant for frivolous entertainment and an environment of excesses in which sex and drug scandals were de rigueur. The initial notion was to honor what was good about Hollywood and in its premiere outing there were two top prizes - Wings received the award for best production while Sunrise was honored as the best artistic achievement, a designation quickly and quietly removed from all subsequent presentations.

What we’ve come to know as the Oscars didn’t attain mass popularity until the advent of the television broadcast in the 1950s. There were the stars elegantly attired and often involved in kitschy skits worthy of Saturday Night Live. There was the allusion that these icons were just plain folk and that combination of reality and razzmatazz was pure gold. Television, the new archenemy of the movies, had dealt the industry a winning hand. As a result of a rich licensing deal, AMPAS was no longer reliant on membership dues and began to build an empire that would embrace film heritage and philanthropic pursuits.

The wider industry began to comprehend that there was a business aspect to Oscar. The American public (and indeed a global audience) could be encouraged to see those films deemed the best and develop a rooting interest akin to that of a sports nut. And, after the equivalent of the finals, the winners could be exploited in the off-season on a tour of local theaters.

The Oscars weren’t the first film awards but, in the public’s mind, they were and are the most legitimate. Remember, this began long before recent accounting scandals and the imprimatur of Price Waterhouse was unsullied.

The more recent development has been the incorporation of other prizing groups in a manner not unlike the semi-finals or prelims for one’s favorite sporting competition. Though no two events have exactly the same slate of contenders, everyone is pulling from essentially the same pool. With dozens of such self-congratulatory outings, most films and individuals are apt to receive enough attention to increase their “quote” and to add more than a few dollars to the box office of films that reach the quarter, semis and final play offs.

There is a co-dependency that’s developed in which the pisher organizations wind up with stars at their galas and the studios receive photo ops that can be effective “for your consideration” reminders.

However, as the AFI awards discovered last year, only the Oscars and Golden Globes are guaranteed to bring out the stars in abundance. So, this week, for instance, the BJs and LAFCA will benefit from proximity to the Globes in so far as marquee attendance is concerned. Another kudofest - the Independent Spirit Awards - is timed to the Oscars, occurring a day earlier. And, although its slate is meant to reflect non-mainstream production, it rigorously courts stars to ensure both the sale of tables and corporate sponsorship and a television sale. So, in yet another industry irony, the very thing the Spirits claim to decry fuels its coffers and provides the cash for alternative programs and educational forums.

Somewhere in the jungle of marketing, ego stroking and fund raising there is an artistic component. Good work, sometimes even great work, is recognized; films that would otherwise have a small audience, develop a larger one; and hitherto ignored artists and works finally get a little bit of their due. One can also hope that a fraction of the millions generated from the spotlight that subsequently goes into the production of films such as The Hot Chick and Just Married might benefit loftier fare or benefit someone who aspires to do something substantive and original and not simply the creation of a franchise.

EMAIL LEONARD KLADY