In his new book, Michael Schulman examines the Academy Awards and the controversies that have turned them into a cultural battleground, spanning from relentless campaigning to snubs and speeches.
... was Spielberg's big World War II movie that was a tribute to his own father's generation. And his father had fought in the war. And it came out in the summer of 1998. It was a gigantic success, a critical darling, and it was presumed to be the frontrunner for best picture for many months. And then in December, along camefrom Harvey Weinstein's Miramax. And it was really such a different kind of movie.
The thing that really made this campaign so ugly was that DreamWorks got word through the grapevine that Weinstein was negative, campaigning againstSaving Private Ryan was only good for the first 25 minutes, the famous D-Day sequence, and after that was basically a run of the mill World War II movie. And so this got to DreamWorks.DreamWorks was absolutely furious. They started complaining to the press about everything Miramax was doing. Harvey Weinstein denied, denied, denied. And the people who worked for him didn't necessarily know what he was doing all the time. And so they felt that they were just being smeared by DreamWorks.
What I tried to do in the book is take certain years of the Oscars and put them on the couch and psychoanalyze them. And these moments of transition and these moments of instability are always so fascinating.For instance, if the writers were negotiating a contract with the studios, ... the Academy would sort of oversee the contract rather than a labor union doing it.
It got to the point where the president of the Academy at the time, the director, Frank Capra, realized how toxic this all was. And he loved the Academy Awards. And he basically said, OK, the Academy is no longer going to do any of that stuff, any of that negotiating conflict resolution, anything having to do with economics or contracts, we're just not going to do it anymore. And so they really shed a lot of their original purpose.
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How the Academy Awards Changed Hollywood with Michael Schulman (author of ‘Oscar Wars’)It seems like there are a ton of award shows these days (because there are), but there’s one that started it all: the Academy Awards. For better or worse, it’s the one awards show that all are judged against. But the history of the awards says less about what was ever actually best and worst of the year, and more about film history and even the history of Hollywood itself. Today Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott chats with Michael Shulman, author of ‘Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears.’ If you’re a film lover, then this is the chat for you. Visit Newsweek.com to learn more about the podcasts we offer and to catch up on the latest news. While you’re there, subscribe to Newsweek’s ‘For the Culture’ newsletter. Follow H. Alan Scott on everything at HAlanScott.
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