Goodbye, Russell Crowe. Step forward, Denzel Washington. In their battle for the Oscars, the Hollywood studios have unveiled their most potent weapon yet the celebrity endorsement, says Joe Neumaier
In the weeks leading up to this year’s Oscar ceremony on Sunday, Hollywood’s annual parade of glad-handing and backbiting has reached new levels. The campaign has been marked by the aggressive use of celebrity endorsements, especially in the aftermath of Russell Crowe’s well-publicised scuffle at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Baftas) awards.
Two weeks ago, the tightly wound Australian, up for best actor for his role as a schizophrenic mathematician in A Beautiful Mind, read a poem while accepting his win at the Baftas. When he found that the poem Sanctity by the Irish writer Patrick Kavanagh was edited out of a delayed transmission, Crowe reportedly had bodyguards hustle the show’s director into a room where the actor verbally and physically intimidated him.
“I think Crowe committed Oscar suicide at the Baftas,” says Tom O’Neill, author of Movie Awards: The Unofficial Guide to the Oscars. “That scandal broke at a time when this race is so close that voters are looking for something to sway them one way or the other.”
“When academy members are filling out their ballots, they’re not just thinking of the performances but of everything that they know about the person,” says Damien Bona, author of Inside Oscar. “Crowe is respected as an actor, but whereas last year he seemed a charming rogue, now he seems boorish. This pretty much was the death knell for his second Oscar.”
Crowe’s initial reluctance to apologise for the fracas it took several days and two defensive statements before he expressed regret also has done little to help his cause. (Some have said the apology was made only after pressure from A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.) More importantly, Crowe’s faux pas has raised the stakes in this year’s race, provoking stars to take sides and exposing the studio and personal politics that often prove decisive.
Which brings up Denzel Washington, nominated for best actor in Training Day. Washington’s chances improved recently when Julia Roberts told Newsweek magazine that he was “the best actor of this generation, hands down. He should be on his third Oscar by now”.
Then Mel Gibson said that if he was running the show, he would imme- diately give Washington the Oscar. Apart from their friendship with Washington, both actors have close ties with Warner Brothers, the studio behind Training Day (Roberts’s latest hit, Ocean’s Eleven, is a Warner’s film, while Gibson made his name with the studio’s Lethal Weapon franchise).
While it is widely felt that Roberts, last year’s best actress for Erin Brockovich, was speaking her mind, with voting open until 5pm on Tuesday, the remark from America’s sweetheart caused a stir and transformed the odds for Washington.
But only five African-Americans have ever won acting Oscars, and the fact that an additional three are nominated this year Washington, Will Smith for Ali, and best actress contender Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball complicates the issue. If, come Sunday, three African-Americans are nominated but none wins, it would be an embarrassment for Hollywood. Yet pronouncements such as Roberts’s could backfire. “Some academy members may resent being told they had better vote for Washington,” Bona says. “People may not vote for him [as a response] to that. At the same time, the white liberal guilt in Hollywood will probably offset any resentment.”
Celebrity endorsements aren’t unusual, but rarely are they as forceful as Roberts’s; Hollywood’s royalty prefer to lend their names to polite trade magazine ads.
“The inside cover of our rules book for the 5739 members asks each individual to be on guard against inappropriate attempts to influence their vote,” says Leslie Unger, the academy’s publicity coordinator. “But nobody is suggesting that Julia Roberts made such an attempt. She is entitled to express her opinion, as any member is. I don’t think academy members are going to change their vote based on it.”
For the big studios campaigning is, quite literally, priceless. The New York Times reported that the cost of Oscar campaigning, which last year reached about R600-million, is up 20%. Remarkably, this is with Miramax, the company that elevated campaign spending to new heights, conducting a relatively quiet assault for its entry, In the Bedroom, and its stars Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson and Marisa Tomei.
When Shakespeare in Love shot down Saving Private Ryan in 1999, the common belief was that Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein had simply outspent DreamWorks; DreamWorks rebounded the following year when American Beauty beat Miramax’s Cider House Rules, and again in 2001 when Gladiator beat Chocolat. Hollywood is rife with tales of dirty tricks by both studios.
“When Ryan lost to Shakespeare, that was the beginning of all the smearing in Oscar campaigns. Miramax went berserk in the amount of money they spent,” Bona says. “People from Miramax supposedly called up newspaper columnists to bad-mouth Ryan. Miramax always denied that; and there were counter-rumours that it was actually DreamWorks’ employees saying they were from Miramax.”
Bona is surprised there hasn’t been more mud-slinging over DreamWorks/Universal’s A Beautiful Mind, which has come under fire for ignoring aspects of John Forbes Nash’s life, including his bisexuality and divorce.
“There are reports in the press every week about some discrepancy in the story, and it’s interesting that there isn’t someone from Miramax or New Line [which distributed The Lord of the Rings] highlighting this,” Bona says. “Especially since In the Bedroom is Miramax and Harvey Weinstein has a stake in Rings. But Howard and Grazer are smart, they got out there in the beginning to counter these charges.”
“It’s part of your job to campaign hard,” says Laura Bickford, a producer of last year’s best picture nominee Traffic. “Nobody knows what works. And it helps to campaign during the nominating process, especially if you’re the underdog. Everybody wants to win, but you want to do it with some level of dignity.”
“There’s a positive aspect to the whole campaigning for the Oscar,” says David Franzoni, a producer of last year’s best picture winner, Gladiator. “It’s a lot of fun, it’s good for the business and it’s people supporting their product. If the Oscar has any meaning, it’s because if you win it your picture does more business.”
Yet the drive to dominate the awards is undeniable. “The whole process is wilder than it ever was; there was always some of that, but it’s got a bit out of hand sort of like the last presidential election, actually,” says director Peter Bogdanovich, a previous Oscar nominee for The Last Picture Show.
“There are lots of other things at work in the decision of the Oscar besides money. There is even, sometimes, actual merit.”
The Oscars will be broadcast live on DStv’s Movie Magic at 3am on March 25 and later that day on M-Net at 7pm