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| Oscar Bridesmaid Thelma Ritter made losing something to celebrate |
Thelma Ritter, for example, offers a kindred spirit for Lady Edith. A perennial Oscar loser despite being widely admired by industry peers and fans, Ritter literally made a bash out of her poor track record and threw a “Come Over and Watch Me Lose” party to celebrate her fifth Best Supporting Actress nomination for 1959’s Pillow Talk. Ritter capped off the decade in style, as she began the 1950s with four consecutive losses, for All About Eve (1950), The Mating Season (1951), With a Song in My Heart (1952), and Pickup on South Street (1953). Strangely enough, Oscar gave her the cold shoulder the next year for Rear Window (pictured), which ranks among the most popular Ritter films/performances today. Ritter proved herself a true awards guru in 1959, as she lost again. It seemed like Ritter might finally get her due when she was nominated for 1962’s The Birdman of Alcatraz, but naturally, she lost.
Other Oscar hopefuls prove more successful than Ritter in
turning fate around. Take Shelley Winters, who beat Thelma Ritter in the year
of that fateful party. Winters reportedly sobbed “I’ve waited fifteen years for
this,” before offering her acceptance speech for The Diary of Anne Frank.
Winters had been nominated once before for A
Place in the Sun, although the award rightfully went to Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire.
No matter what one thinks of the merit of Winters’ effort,
which remains a popular performance, her win and her winning remark reveal
symptoms of the familiar “deferred-Oscar syndrome” that breaks out during award
season. The diagnosis is quite subjective, but the syndrome typically falls on
a contender that has been passed over before, often repeatedly, and reminders
of previous losses help build support for his or her current work. The King of
Oscar Losers is sound mixer Kevin O’Connell, who boast a whopping twenty
nominations and zero wins. That’s even worse than Susan Lucci’s notorious track
record at the Emmys, since she finally won Best Actress for All My Children on her nineteenth
nomination in the category. O’Connell isn’t nominated this year, so he gets to
hold the title for at least one more year.
The best example of a contender finally getting his due is
Martin Scorsese’s well-deserved Best Director win for 2006’s The Departed. Having failed to ever win
an Oscar even though he made some of the most influential films of all time
(see: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas), Scorsese rode high on reminders that he was long
overdue. Support for Scorsese was arguably built on two additional recent
losses, for Gangs of New York (2002)
and The Aviator (2004). Scorsese even
referenced the legacy of his lack of recognition from the Academy when he
acknowledged all the people he met throughout his career who asked, “When are
you finally going to win an Oscar?”
A combination of momentum and merit brought another long
overdue contender to the podium last year. It brought her back to the podium,
actually, since fans of Meryl Streep had been waiting years to see her win
again, which she did for The Iron Lady.
The Streep Army came out in full force last year since it had been nearly three
decades since the cinema’s best actress had received a corresponding plaudit
from Oscar. The Weinstein Company even built Streep’s serial losing into their
Best Actress campaign by citing an impassioned review from Yahoo’s Thelma Adams in one of their TV spots (see below). Like the
win for Scorsese, Streep deserved the award regardless of her track record. The
desire to see her win, however, gave her an added boost over a field of strong
contenders.
Streep might have three Oscars to her name, but she racked
up a dozen losses between The Iron Lady
and Sophie’s Choice. Like Streep, or
perhaps even Thelma Ritter, some of this year’s nominees have clapped for
others long enough. There seems to be a disproportionate number of Oscar
winners and Oscar losers competing in Oscars 2013. Best Supporting Actor, for
example, boasts a record of five previous winners, so it almost seems cruel
that frequent snubee Leonardo DiCaprio was passed over once again. The snubs
will hopefully add some extra love to next year’s campaigns for DiCaprio’s work
in The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street.
DiCaprio might not have made the cut this year, but plenty
of Oscar bridesmaids did. Here’s a look at some of this year’s hopefuls who
might finally get their due:
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| Kathleen Kennedy (back row, centre) with the Lincoln team. |
The biggest hurdle for Lincoln
to overcome on Oscar night might not be the widespread love for Argo, but the ample love that Team
Lincoln has already received. Prior to the nominations for this year’s awards,
the nominees for Team Lincoln had a
collective total of 130 nominations and 29 competitive wins. That’s an
impressive number. Contributing seven of those nominations is producer Kathleen
Kennedy, although she is one of the few Lincoln
nominees without an Oscar on her mantel. Lincoln
marks her eighth nomination, and many folks in the industry have noted that
she is overdue. It might be hard for some voters to throw another Oscar to,
say, John Williams (even though he was by all regards robbed for his work in
2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha) since he
has 5 trophies and a booming 48 nominations. Kennedy, however, has been
nominated for producing some of Spielberg’s best films, such as E.T. and The Color Purple, which are also some of the best films ever made.
Will such a legacy give her an edge over the freshness of Ben Affleck?
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| Roger Deakins (right) on the set of Skyfall with director Sam Mendes |
Perhaps the most surprising Oscar Bridesmaid is DP Roger Deakins.
Deakins has amassed ten nominations during his career, and he enjoys a
popularity and profile among film buffs that is usually reserved for directors.
He’s an auteur, really, since his compositions and camerawork have a unique
recognisability for how masterfully that play with light and shadow. Deakins
probably came closest to winning for 2007 when he was nominated for both The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford and No Country for
Old Men. A double-nominee, Deakins presumably split the vote and lost to There Will Be Blood’s Robert Elswitt.
(It’s hard to argue with that choice though.) Deakins seemed like a favourite
again when he was nominated for 2010’s True
Grit, but he lost again even though his overdue status built considerable
momentum in the race. With three wins from the American Society of
Cinematographers prior to this year’s race (he won for The Shawshank Redemption, The Man who Wasn’t There, and for
Lifetime Achievement the same year he was nominated for True Grit), plus an additional win this year for Skyfall, Deakins might finally add an
Oscar to his collection. His work on Skyfall
is without a doubt one of the best showcases of his work ever, since he took a
genre film and transformed it into art. Skyfall
has some of the best compositions Deakins has ever done and he might join
Adele in breaking Bond’s Oscar Bridesmaid status.
Thomas Newman: 11th nomination (Nominee for Best
Music – Score, Skyfall)
The second of Skyfall’s
Bridesmaids is composer Thomas Newman. Like Deakins, Newman has produced some
of the most iconic and familiar work in the cinema. Remember that theme from American Beauty or those scores for Road to Perdition and The Shawshank Redemption? Newman is bound to win some day and
he certainly will. He might not have as good of odds as his fellow Skyfall-nominee Deakins does, though,
since Life of Pi’s Mychael Danna won
the Golden Globe and is favoured to win. (Newman did succeed at the BAFTAs
though.) Danna could be considered an Oscar Bridesmaid himself because his two
nominations for Life of Pi (Best
Score and Best Song – “Pi’s Lullaby”) are his first shout-outs from the Academy
in spite of a long and fruitful career. Danna has been awarded five times from
the Canadian Academy (including a Genie for The Sweet Hereafter, which is actually my ring tone), so it’s
nice that one of Canada’s most successful composers is finally receiving due
credit from Hollywood. Canada might be a dark horse in the Best Foreign
Language Film category, but Danna’s work on Life
of Pi suggests that at least one Canadian won’t be going home empty handed.
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| Skyfall is a wedding party of Oscar Bridesmaids |
Greg P. Russell: 16th nomination (Nominee for
Best Sound Mixing, Skyfall)
Skyfall actually
boasts a trio of Oscar losers and the one with the highest tally is sound mixer
Greg P. Russell. Russell collected many of these nominations with perennial
Bridesmaid Kevin O’Connell. Russell brought his tally to a sweet sixteen with Skyfall – the film seems like a wedding
party of Oscar snubees. Russell might have a better chance of walking all the
way to the podium this year, since his co-nominee Scott Milan has an impressive
four wins. The most recent win for Milan, actually, was for 2007 when he won
for The Bourne Ultimatum and Russell
and O’Connell lost again on their nominations for Transformers.
Sound work seems like an all-or-nothing field. Either one
loses year after year like Russell and O’Connell, or one wins repeatedly like
seven-time winner Gary Rydstrom, who is nominated again for Lincoln. Among the hopefuls looking to make
his first win is sound editor Wylie Stateman, who earns his sixth nomination
for Django Unchained. Stateman has a
diverse portfolio of nominations, as they range from Born on the Fourth of July to Memoirs
of a Geisha. His work on Django,
however, is award-calibre stuff: how many people have made gunfire and
blood-spatter such toe-tapping fun? Will this Bridesmaid celebrate with white
cake on Oscar night?
Alexandre Desplat: 5th nomination (Nominee for
Best Music - Score, Argo)
Alexandre Desplat’s history with the Academy is curious.
Desplat is arguably the most prolific person working in film today and his
output consistently exceeds itself. He scored nine films in 2012 and nine in
2011, and his scores are often ambitious overtures that resemble grand
classical music. They sometimes play upon classic work, too, and use canonical
tunes to create unique themes. Desplat’s work in last year’s Moonrise Kingdom is an excellent example of his skill, as the
bombastically playful kettle drums of the score use Benjamin Britton to evoke a
tribute to childhood. I thought Desplat would be the winner for Moonrise, but the Academy unfortunately
has rules about the use of pre-existing music, so Desplat’s work for the film
was deemed ineligible. The same thing happened the year before with The Tree of Life. Some of his better scores have been
nominated, with Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
earning well-deserved citations. One of his best scores, The Painted Veil, didn’t make the
cut for Oscar even though it won the Golden Globe, but Desplat was nominated
instead for his good, but unremarkable score for The Queen. Such is the case this year with Argo, as Desplat’s score is good, but not especially noticeable
during the film. The hidden Classical Hollywood Style seems to be one of Argo’s selling points, however, so
Desplat could be among the crew that helps this old-school caper be the big
winner of the night.
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| Jacqueline Durran's iconic green dress in Atonement |
Jacqueline Durran offers a strong example of a contender who
should/could win on merit alone this year, but she has the added insurance of
memorable work that went unrewarded. Durran was nominated last for her work on
Joe Wright’s Atonement and she
produced for that film one of the most iconic costumes in contemporary cinema.
The green dress sported by Keira Knightley in the opening act of Atonement remains one of the most
praised and buzzed about threads in recent memory. How many films create a
talking point around a single outfit? Annie
Hall? Durran lost on Oscar night to Alexandra Byrne, who won for her
extravagantly excellent period work on Elizabeth:
The Golden Age, but she seems to be the front-runner for Anna Karenina, since, like The Golden Age, the costumes are
universally praised even if the film itself is not. Arguably the best feat
among the strong arts and crafts work in Anna
Karenina, Miss Durran’s costumes ensure that the best film of the year will
be acknowledged on Oscar night.
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| Riva, a first time nominee at 85, could be a first time winner at 86. |
The only acting nominee who sounds to be overdue, in fact,
has never been celebrated by the Academy before. Amour brings Emmanuelle Riva her first nomination in a long and
distinguished career. Some film buffs grumble that her performance in Hiroshima, Mon Amour deserved
recognition and since this film premiered in the same year that Thelma Ritter
threw her “Oscar loser” party, an award for Riva is long in the making. Riva,
at 85, is the oldest Best Actress nominee ever. She’ll increase this record
even more if she wins on Oscar night, as February 24th is her
birthday. That would be quite the birthday present!
