The Academy Awards’ Hateful Eight

Despite their lame explanation that there is no such thing as a lesser Oscar, the planners for the March 27 national TV ceremony made a value judgment between eyeballs and awards – and their idea of eyeballs won.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in a letter that created great discomfort since its 10,000 plus members are divided up into the categories being invaded, announced it would relegate eight Oscars to a preliminary ceremony an hour before telecast. That is more than a third of the Oscar categories.

They will do this through careful editing into the three-hour (hoped for) TV program the title of the movie that wins the category, the person who won and the acceptance speech – clearly hoping this will produce eight of the shortest acceptance speeches in Oscar memory, along with eliminating that walk to the podium and congratulations from peers and press, all to speed things up.

Irony of ironies. The academy is relying on careful editing to quickly bring those moments to the telecast – just as it removes editing from prime time hoopla.

It’s only one step the Oscars are taking to boost viewership by giving the audience more of what the academy planners think they want. They’re bringing back hosts – three of them. They are making moves toward fan favoritism and polling. There is even a new campaign to create an #OscarFanFavorite – a popular film to be selected via Twitter! Plus there are rumors of more entertainment numbers rather than peers honoring other peers.

Now some of this may not be bad. Supposedly impromptu sidelights were for years an Oscar staple. I can recall in 1979, the Oscars give more than 10 minutes to Steve Lawrence and Sammy Davis, Jr. for a specialty number, “Not Even Nominated,” which detailed dozens of famous songs created for film that Oscar totally ignored – a double whammy that chastised Oscars for short-sightedness while pointing out, in so many tunes from so many eras, how much the movies had given to American culture. (Oscar is keeping in prime time the original song category, which today can really test how well you listen to pop music.)

Also, mainly because the public doesn’t get to see these so much, I don’t strongly object that the academy is throwing to the early dogs the documentary short, the animated short and the live action short, even if those were the categories where viewers were likely to spot important newcomers. In other words, the academy is showing less concern for its own future viability.

They are also moving off prime time the makeup and hairstyle category – in an era where prosthetics, wigs and other specialty body designs have grown in importance. This move eliminates from live interplay the only Oscar House of Gucci was in competition for. (If its star, Lady Gaga, still shows up March 27, expect an inserted musical number.)

In another nominated candidate, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, makeup and prosthetics are key to the appeal. But at least Jessica Chastain still gets to compete for best actress in an HBO Max movie that few have seen.

But now come the categories relegated to earlier that most distress me, and make me wonder if the academy realizes the history and important artistic names it is losing.

Original music score has been sidelined to the earlier time — and this one dumbfounds me. Names like Bernard Herrmann, Dmitri Tiomkin, Alex North, Ennio Morricone, Max Steiner, Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein have long made me sit up and take notice at the film’s credits, signaling more to me than the producer names. Wonder if the academy would have dared do this if John Williams was one of the nominees? But another notable nominated name that springs to mind is Hans Zimmer who composed the music for Dune. And among the team composing for Encanto, given the edge for animated feature Oscar, is Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Production design. Lost to live moments are many artistic names: The detailed eye brought to West Side Story by Adam Stockhausen, who has also done many of Wes Anderson’s films; also Stefan Deshant who helped director Joel Coen reinterpret German Expressionism for The Tragedy of Macbeth. Nor can anyone argue that the design wasn’t crucial to Dune, Nightmare Alley and The Power of the Dog.

Dune, one of 10 nominees for Best Picture, should be particularly grieved by the designation to earlier time since four of its potential Oscars have been moved out. That leaves the prime time opportunities for an Oscar to none, as Dune is not seen as a favorite for cinematography, costume design, original screenplay and visual effects. It certainly weakens the film’s boasting rights for landing the most nominations.

Also discarded – sorry, that’s moved earlier – are the stalwart categories of sound and film editing. That may indicate that the passage of time has affected the value of certain skills in a collaborative medium. Sound and film editing today are built on past skills but they are not the same as in the old studio system.

But there have been film editors as well known to cinephiles as directors (if you doubt me, think Dede Allen). A number of directors either started or incorporated film editing into their methods – David Lean, Robert Wise, the Coen brothers and Akira Kurosawa.

And sound magic has never been more important and more complicated an enhancement to moviegoing. In interviews several times, actors have mentioned how a fan has credited them for an emotional moment when it was really the music or the use of sound or a nifty bit of editing.

This academy decision is not quite putting music, sound, editing and production design to pasture. But it is sticking them in the backseat.

For many of us who enjoy thinking about films and what makes them good or bad, it is understandable that a trade group – which is what the academy is – wants to police itself (Can’t they just work on the internal hatred-love promotional campaigns the members still engage in?) and create a better TV product without diminishing the purpose of the celebration. The trade group argues that there is no diminishment, but I doubt the nominees would agree.

The Oscars have also been a rich time for reviewers, including these published by Urban Milwaukee: West Side Story, Tragedy of Macbeth, Being the Ricardos, Spencer, The Power of the Dog, King Richard, Nightmare Alley, plus a speculation on the richness of the supporting actress category. There are more yet to come.