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AP Photo/Doug Mills
The DGA Awards will be going down tonight, and the smart money remains on Michel Hazanavicius. But speaking of directors, I hadn’t quite taken note yet of the fact that two of the Academy’s nominees in the field are inevitable no-shows for the event. Stu VanAirsdale is way ahead of me, but let me add a few nuggets.
Woody Allen, of course, has only attended the Oscars once. It was a surprise appearance six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the writer/director came out to introduce a Nora Ephron-directed package of clips featuring New York cinema in a show of solidarity for the city.
My colleague Steve Pond tells the story of being backstage and seeing “Nora Ephron” on the rundown, a placeholder for someone, but for whom, no one knew. It wasn’t until Allen walked by decked out in his tux that everyone suddenly went, “Oh, shit.”
Indeed; Allen’s harsh words about the ceremony from his earliest days are evergreen. “I have no regard for that kind of ceremony,” he said in 1978, after having won Best Picture and Best Director for “Annie Hall,” interestingly enough. “I just don’t think they know what they’re doing. When you see who wins those things — or who doesn’t win them — you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is.”
But it’s not just that Allen balks at the idea of competition in the arts. He has also consistently turned down the Academy’s invitation to him to join their ranks. It’s a bit of the old Groucho Marx, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member,” but Allen also just clearly doesn’t believe in the mission of the Academy, at least as it pertains to getting together and patting each other on the back.
So yes, his popping up on the March 2002 telecast was a pretty big deal. But it was a fleeting deal. In fact, he was already ripping his bow tie off as he walked off the stage, hence the backstage press photo above.
Malick, meanwhile, has never once attended the ceremony. He’s only been nominated one time prior to this year, of course, but his reclusive ways in the media department have naturally stretched to this and any other awards show. However, there’s an interesting history behind the year he almost did attend.
Prior to the release of “The Thin Red Line” in 1998, producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau allegedly violated a confidentiality clause they had signed by giving an interview to Vanity Fair about their tumultuous relationship with Malick during the making of the film.
This didn’t go over well with the director, nor with 20th Century Fox or Phoenix Pictures. In order to keep their credit on the film, Geisler and Roberdeau had to agree to not attend the Oscars in the event the film was nominated for anything.
Well, they decided to go anyway, and Malick stated that he wouldn’t attend if they were there. And the Academy appeared to take Malick’s side, as Geisler and Roberdeau were seated in the middle of a row, 16 rows back from the other nominees for the film.
The two producers opted out of attending in the end, as did Malick. It’s probably a good thing, since the film went home empty-handed. “Shakespeare in Love” and “Saving Private Ryan” were all but set to dominate the entire telecast as it was, and the one category in which “The Thin Red Line” had a shot — Best Adapted Screenplay — Bill Condon ended up winning for “Gods and Monsters,” a total surprise (and one for Condon, too, judging by his reaction upon hearing his name called).
As always, fingers are crossed that Allen and/or Malick decide to show up after all. Malick did attend the premiere of “The Tree of Life” at Cannes, even if he didn’t show up to accept the Palme d’Or. We can always hope. But you know what they say about old people being stuck in their ways.
Here is Allen’s one and only appearance on the Oscars from a decade (wow) ago:
Meanwhile, since this is interesting and relevant to the season as well as the topic at hand, here is “Beginners” star Christopher Plummer at a Newsweek round table being quite candid about working with Malick. I cracked up at how Clooney jumps in to pounce, too. Yes, George, we know you were in the movie. Barely:
For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.
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haha!! That video of Plummer is priceless.
Wasn’t Clooney’s part in The Thin Red Line tiny to begin with, and Malick just made it tinier?
Yep
Great video of Plummer et al. on Malick, but they miss something: Malick doesn’t tell “stories”, rather poems. They should know this walking in.
Then he should make that clearer going into it.
I think its understood at this point, or at least it should be. But back with “The Thin Red Line”, I feel really terrible for Brody, he didn’t even bother to tell him.
It’s not quid pro quo, Rashad. You’re an actor. AKA, you’re an employee. You’re work will be used to the director’s whim. Do the work and don’t have an ego about it. Period.
It’s one thing to edit a performance, it’s another to completely change the film without anyone knowing. Yeah, yeah, it’s his film, but the way everyone has talked about working with him (even the positive ones), it just seems like he’s become so capricious about it all. Why even write the script, bait them in, then discard it all the way? Make the movie you want from the beginning.
Malick’s whole process is about ‘finding’ the film during shooting. The script is where he lays out his initial idea, but he believes that the film should continue to be ‘rewritten’ based on what he finds on set or in the editing room. After working in this way for so long, I imagine it would be extremely difficult for him to visualize exactly the film he wanted in script form in advance, even if he wanted to.
It’s Malick’s film, and he can do what he likes with it, but it would at least be common courtesy to tell a guy whose character was one of the leads in the script stage that he had been reduced to a bit player before he invited his parents to the premiere and got showered with praise from people who had seen footage from earlier cuts in the film when he was much more prominent.
There’s what’s right for you as an artist and what’s right for you as a human being. I’ve never seen a version of Thin Red Line where Brody was more heavily featured, so I can’t speak to whether Malick made the right choice to excise him (and Bill Pullman, etc.) from the final cut, but he set Brody up to be sucker punched by not warning him in advance of seeing it.
“It’s one thing to edit a performance, it’s another to completely change the film without anyone knowing.”
To say nothing of the fact that anyone with a modicum of knowledge about how Malick works shouldn’t be surprised by such a thing, I can only ask: why can’t a director do what the hell he wants with his film? The actors’ job is done when they leave that set. Unless they’re a producer or writer or more involved in a development/production way, they really have nothing to say about how their performance is used. And if they have beef, don’t take the job.
I respect that people like Brody have felt slighted, but it’s just the way it is with Malick. Otherwise he wouldn’t be Malick.
I don’t disagree that it would be courteous to at least give a heads up, though.
As I recall, Wes Studi was also pretty openly annoyed with the experience of “The New World”.
Gotta love how towards the end of one’s life you can just be flat-out honest and not really give a shit anymore. I don’t necessarily agree with him on Malick’s movies, but I do love seeing someone in Hollywood who feels free to just be honest instead of the typical ass kissing.
Totally agree. I get a kick out of seeing Plummer just telling his stories and taking no prisoners. I’d love to have a cocktail or two with him. I bet he he has stories to spare.
I want to believe Malick is a kind man, but he scares the shit out of me. I would be afraid to be in a room with Malick, Fincher, and Von Trier. I wouldn’t know what to do.
[www.youtube.com] Malick with a crew last year at a rock festival
By the way, Clooney hijacks EVERY conversation in that Oscar roundtable. You barely hear a peep from Swinton or Fassy. Also new drinking game: every time Clooney says he’s from Kentucky, take a shot!
The Kentucky thing was hilarious. Yes, we know, George, you’re from Kentucky, you’ve told us about a hundred times.
I’ve finally seen The Descendants and simply cannot believe that such a mediocre movie inspires serious awards-conversation. Cannot even believe Payne really directed this. And what’s up with Clooney being the Frontrunner and all the talk of this being the best performance of his career? I’m a great admirer of his comedian turns (as in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”), but I don’t think he has any qualities as an dramatic actor, his characters never feel authentic.
But then again it’s obvious that the Oscar rarely is about “the best”. And Clooney, despite him stating in the past how much he despises campaigning, is doing exactly that, so his win on Oscar-night seems inevitable.
Yes, I very much dislike it too. It has a few good moments but it’s not in my Payne Hall of Fame.
I am gonna say the obvious: Woody Allen would make a great Oscar host!
Half of the actors at that Oscar Roundtable aren’t nominated for an Oscar.
i had the same thought
And yet those were the three that should have been nominated more than the other 3… well maybe besides Plummer.