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| The Godfather: Oscar's iconic Best Picture winner with a low tally of 3 prizes. |
Don’t be taken in too easily by the strong presence of Gravity as you’re checking off your
picks in the Oscar pool. A big score for Gravity
doesn’t necessarily mean it will take home the big prize. Oscar has a small but
significant history of sharing the wealth in extremely competitive years. 2013
is as competitive as movie years get (although 2012 was arguably stronger…), so
Sunday’s ceremony could end in a photo finish.
If one examines the history of
Oscar winners, one sees that a Best Picture winner essentially needs only three
wins to be the big winner of the night. Subtract the Best Picture Oscar from
this total and a film really needs to have only two wins before the final prize
is called in order to be a contender. For example, five films in the latter
half of Oscar history have taken home earned a tally of only three wins, yet
taken home the Best Picture Oscar. Some of these years feature controversial
upsets (Crash for 2005) populist
blunders (Rocky for 1976), and
cinematic landmarks (The Godfather for
1972). Look even further back in history to find Best Picture winners with only
two or three Oscars to their name in Academy classics both dubious (The Greatest Show on Earth for 1952) and
iconic (Casablanca for 1943).
The films to win no more than three Oscars yet score Best
Picture are:
-2012: Argo –
Picture, Adapt. Screenplay, Film Editing
-Life of Pi won 4; Les Mis
won 3 that year
-2005: Crash –
Picture, Orig. Screenplay, Film Editing
-Brokeback Mountain, King Kong,
Memoirs of a Geisha also won 3
(although Geisha should have been the
big winner of the night since John Williams’ score was robbed)
-1976: Rocky – Picture,
Director, Film Editing
-All the Presidents Men and Network
both won 4!
-1972: The Godfather
– Picture, Actor (Marlon Brando), Adapt. Screenplay
-Cabaret won 8
-1969: Midnight Cowboy
– Picture, Director, Adapt. Screenplay
-Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid won 4
The early half of the Oscar years contain considerably more
films to follow such numbers. They might be too far in the past to be relevant
for discussion, due to an obvious change in membership over the years, Oscar
politics, industrial changes and more, but they are nevertheless worth nothing:
-1952: The Greatest
Show on Earth – Picture, Writing: Story
-High Noon won 4; The Bad and
the Beautiful won 5 (it wasn’t up for Best Picture)
-1949: All the King’s
Men – Picture, Actor (Broderick Crawford), Supporting Actress (Mercedes
McCambridge)
-The Heiress won 4
-1947: Gentleman’s
Agreement – Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm)
-Miracle on 34th Street also won 3
-1943: Casablanca
– Picture, Director, Screenplay
-The Song of Bernadette won 4
-1940: Rebecca –
Picture, Cinematography (B/W)
-The Thief of Baghdad won 3; The
Philadelphia Story and Grapes of
Wrath also won 2
-1938: You Can’t Take
it with You – Picture, Director
-The Adventures of Robin Hood won 3; Boys Town and Jezebel
also won 2
-1937: The Life of
Emile Zola – Picture, Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut), Best
Screenplay -Zola was the
highest winner with 3
-1936: The Great
Ziegfeld – Picture, Actress (Luise Rainer), Best Dance Direction
-Anthony Adverse won 4; The
Story of Louis Pasteur both won 3
-1935: Mutiny on the
Bounty – Picture
-The Informer won 4
-1933: Cavalcade:
Picture, Director, Art Direction
-Cavalcade was the highest winner with 3
-1931-32: Grand Hotel:
Picture
-Bad Girl and The Champ
both won 2
-1930-31: Cimarron – Picture,
Adapt. Screenplay, Art Direction
-Cimarron, unfortunately, was highest winner with 3.
-1929-30: All Quiet on
the Western Front – Picture, Director
-The Big House also won 2
-1928-29: The Broadway
Melody – Picture
-Everyone won 1 that year.
-1927-28: Wings –
Picture, Engineering Effect
-Sunrise and 7th
Heaven won 3, although Janet Gaynor’s Best Actress win included both films.
Three awards isn’t a bad thing. The Godfather itself won only three
Academy Awards compared to the whopping eight Oscars scooped by Cabaret that same year. Among Cabaret’s prizes were Oscars for Best
Director and a slew of technical awards, whereas The Godfather added to its Best Picture prize an Oscar for Best
Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Marlon Brando.
Does the contest between 12 Years a Slave and Gravity echo the competition between The Godfather and Cabaret? It very well could, as the more profound and relevant Slave could leave its mark with a
similarly low total, whereas Gravity could
easily match Cabaret’s eight wins, although
Sandra Bullock probably won’t bring a Best Actress win à la Liza Minnelli. Chiwetel
Ejiofor might have a hard time edging out Matthew McConaughey and Leonardo
DiCaprio, but he is the dark horse of the Best Actor race and he could help
bring Slave’s tally to three wins.
On the other hand, American Hustle could easily be the
crowd-pleasing Rocky to best bold
risk-takers like Network, or it could
be the “best bad idea” of picking Argo while
settling with technical kudos to honour a Gravity
kin like Life of Pi. More likely,
perhaps, is the case for 1977 in which the year’s largest haul went to the
ground-breaking special effects bonanza—Star
Wars—while Best Picture was one of four Oscars endowed upon Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. David O. Few comedies have
won Best Picture since Annie Hall, so
it would be an odd coincidence if American
Hustle and Gravity split the
honours.
The first five films of the list,
however, confirm the old rule of three when it comes to winning Best Picture. The
awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay (either Original or Adapted), and
Best Film Editing generally offer the key battlegrounds leading up to the top
prize. An acting prize might help in the absence of one of said awards, but
Oscar history must go back to Rebecca to
find a winner with Best Picture and only one award that was not for writing,
acting, directing, or editing. (Gladiator,
with 5 wins, marks the most recent film to win Best Picture without a win for directing,
writing, or editing.) Best Director is basically removed from the equation for
2013, for virtually every key precursor has given said prize to Alfonso Cuarón.
After that, though, the race might be as up in the air as Sandra in space.
Film one: Gravity
Gravity has a win for Best Director in the bag, so that’s one of
three wins. Best Visual Effects might be the easiest call of the night, too,
for no film has caused as much sensation for its visual work as Gravity has this year. Best
Cinematography therefore seems like another win that can tip Gravity past the crucial three and make
it seem like the favourite, for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects
almost seem to have collapsed in the minds of Oscar voters in the recent years
in which Life of Pi, Hugo, Inception, and Avatar all
won the same pair of awards.
Gravity could add Best Film Editing, which gives it two of the three
crucial wins, since that opening long take of the film might inspire voters to
see a lack of editing as great film editing. (It’s a strong choice.) Oscar
voters, however, often go for more than for less when it comes to editing and
reward showier work. Gravity could
also add at least one sound prize to the tally, and maybe Best Production Design
and Best Score to bring it up to seven Oscars, but it failed to score even a
nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The writing of Gravity is arguably the film’s weak link regardless of the
cinematic and technical awe it inspires, which could provide a significant
hurdle. One would have to go back to Titanic—that
VFX blockbuster—to find a Best Picture winner that didn’t have a screenplay
nomination under its belt. It’s a big obstacle, but one hardly goes to see a
film like Gravity or Titanic to appreciate good writing. Escapism
might be enough to give Gravity the
edge. Alternatively, a film that exists solely in the present tense could just
as easily join the company of Cabaret
and Star Wars and go home with the
most trophies, but not the one that counts in the history books.
Film 2: 12 Years a Slave
The history books will look
kindly on 12 Years a Slave regardless
of whether it takes home the Academy Award. It will stand the test of time for
how boldly yet beautifully Steve McQueen puts the legacy of American slavery
into the centre of the frame and dares the audience to confront America’s
racist past. The history books, however, might look less kindly upon voters who
opt not to make Steve McQueen the first black filmmaker to win Best Director or
who vote for spectacle over provocative cinema. Let’s give the Academy the
benefit of the doubt, though, and say they’ll reward 12 Years a Slave and simply give Gravity Best Director. (It’s impossible to deny the scope and
technical achievement of Gravity,
anyways.)
Best Film Editing and Best
Costume Design are the film’s likeliest crafts awards. Slave, like Gravity,
needs an appreciation for restraint in the editing room to win the prize, especially
given its graphic violence, while the period costumes face stiff competition
from showier outfits in The Great Gatsby
and American Hustle that play central
roles in the story and characters of each film. Best Film Editing and Best Costume
Design, however, might not add up to Best Picture.
Slave seems likeliest to mirror The
Godfather’s awards tally by adding Best Adapted Screenplay and an acting
prize to its total of three. Best Adapted Screenplay, for starters, offers one
of Slave’s strongest bets since John
Ridley’s adaptation of the book by Solomon Northup is a commendable balance of
fidelity and contemporary re-reading. It’s a powerful text if you’re lucky
enough to read it and it plays twice as well as it reads thanks to McQueen’s powerful
realization. Slave’s top competition
for the screenplay prize probably lies in Philomena,
which took the BAFTA, as Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope’s amusing and endearing
character study finds the greater cinematic drama within Martin Sixsmith’s
source text while honouring the true subjects of the film. Captain Phillips is a threat, too, since it won the Writers’ Guild
award, although neither Slave nor Philomena were eligible. If Slave loses Best Adapted Screenplay, it
probably stands to lose Best Picture.
On the acting front, Slave’s likeliest win—and potentially
its only win of the night—could be for Best Supporting Actress contender Lupita
Nyong’o. Nyong’o has been rising in profile since her sensational reception at
TIFF and Telluride this year. The love for her debut performance has only grown
in the award season. Oscar loves breakthrough talent and it certainly helps
that she’s been showing a much different side of herself than the audience sees
in 12 Years a Slave thanks to her
glamorous (and consistently likable) appearances and speeches at award shows.
This rising star is in a tight race with Hollywood’s current “it girl” Jennifer
Lawrence, and either actress could bring her film the win it needs to take the
top prize.
Film 3: American Hustle
If David O. Russell stands little
chance of winning Best Director, then American
Hustle could easily crash the party and win Best Picture along with Best
Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. (As fellow SAG winner Crash did in the awards for 2005.) Hustle seems like the film that has the
most to gain with the ranked ballot, as 12
Years a Slave and Gravity might
have the most #1 votes, but not enough across the board support to tip them
over the fifty-percent-plus-one a film needs to win Best Picture. American Hustle is a true old-school
crowd-pleaser with the mainstream appeal a film needs to win.
It could just as easily be the Gangs of New York or Color Purple and be shut out altogether,
though, since it seems like a second-place contender in almost every category. Her seems like more of a favourite than Hustle in the Screenplay race, since Her won the Golden Globe, Writers’
Guild, and Critics’ Choice. Russell, however, has been in the running for an
Oscar three out of the past four years, so he is bound to have enough
popularity within the Academy to be able to edge out love-it-or-leave-it fare
like Her. Best Film Editing, on the
other hand, might be the film to do it for Hustle,
since the sprightly energy and fluid motion of the film have a distinct Russell
vibe. In the eyes of the hypothetical mainstream voting, the editing of American Hustle could bring the film to
life a bit more tangibly than the artier cutting does in Gravity and Slave.
Something about the cut team of Hustle
just screams Argo, Crash, and Rocky.
If, finally, American Hustle is going to win Best Picture while missing either
the screenplay or the editing prize, it probably needs an acting trophy or two.
Hustle has a strong chance to do so,
since it scored nominations in all four acting categories and won the SAG award
for Best Ensemble. The actors clearly recognize the effort made by Hustle’s onscreen talent. Jennifer
Lawrence seems like the film’s best bet, since reviews for the film
consistently praised her for stealing the show. The only strikes against her
are that some film buffs aren’t happy with the disparity between her age and
the age of the woman that allegedly inspired her character, Rosalyn. Rosalyn
isn’t “based” on any character, though; she’s “inspired” by a true counterpart
and loosely at that. (American Hustle
happily signals that its play with history is part of the film’s sleight of
hand.) The other argument against Lawrence says that she can’t win back-to-back
after netting Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook, but she is arguably the hottest star going right now, and
her double-header year with Catching Fire
makes an equally strong case for why she could trump Nyong’o’s sole film
credit. It’s also just a terrific performance that could win the prize on
merit.
Say Lawrence doesn’t win, though,
and Her wins Original Screenplay,
then what happens for Hustle? The
costumes could (and should) win, although Hustle’s
other chief contender might be Amy Adams. It will be tough to overtake Cate
Blanchett, who has soundly trounced the competition, but Adams has never won an
Oscar before and all of this year’s other Best Actress nominees have, so she
could pull an upset as Adrien Brody did for The
Pianist. She also won the Golden Globe for Comedy, so she probably stands
as Blanchett’s only competition. That argument for Adams seems weak, though,
since she wasn’t even nominated for the SAG award. That omission, when coupled
with the film’s ensemble prize, roughly translates to the Actors Guild saying,
“We loved the acting in American Hustle,
but not your performance specifically.” Her nomination alone shows that support
for Hustle is strong among the Actors’
branch of the Academy, but is it strong enough to bring the film Best Picture
along with wins only for Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, or Best
Costume Design?
Three to win?
If the race is down to these
three contenders, then Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actress, and to some
extent Best Costume Design could provide the strongest tells of the night.
Screenplay is a factor too, but none of the three films will compete against
one another for a writing prize. Film Editing, the only real contest of the proverbial three, could just as easily be won by Captain Phillips, which stands little chance to win Best Picture since Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass were left off the ballot. Alternatively, surprise wins for either Chiwetel
Ejiofor for Best Actor or Amy Adams for Best Actress could poise 12 Years a Slave or American Hustle to win the top prize. Gravity, on the other hand, will float through the ceremony and
keep the audience in suspense.
Which film do you think will win Best Picture?
Could the “rule of 3” help any of the other nominees?
Coming soon: final predictions!