Oscars: When Reality Diddles the Dream Factory

Culture Clash: When the New Meets the Old

For a clan that’s too often painted with liberal broadstrokes, embracing change has never been Oscar’s forte. More than once, when presented with a fork in the road where old cinema and new diverge in style and substance and Oscar is forced to choose, he generally plows straight down the middle.

It’s 1968 again – the year of the King murder – and the five nominees for Best Picture reflect the first true confrontation between old and new Hollywood. The nominees from traditional wing were the bloated box-office loser Doctor Dolittle, and the sentimental, lip-serving vehicle starring two beloved veterans Tracy and Hepburn, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

The youngbloods were represented by the polarizing Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate. It was probably appropriate that a tight – if a bit unimaginative – drama about racism with knock-out performances was the middle ground choice, and In the Heat of the Night walked away with the Oscar. The win was probably fitting for the circumstances, but had they truly selected the best film of the year? No, not when one looks back in hindsight.

All’s Fair in Love and War

In 1971, the Vietnam War was in full charge mode and the country was divided as it hadn’t been since the Civil War. Oscar’s menu that year was made-up of three great, if conflicting films and two real head-scratchers. That the ridiculous Airport or the insipid Love Story made it into the top five can only be attributed to their box office success. Bob Rafelson’s brilliant Five Easy Pieces had attitude that the likes of Gene Kelly or Ginger Rogers could never embrace, especially after the previous year’s shocker of a win by the X-rated Midnight Cowboy.

A win by Robert Altman’s definitive anti-war comedy M*A*S*H would definitely not play well in much of the country. That left the epic bio-pic Patton, a grand and sharply written (co-scripted by the little-known Francis Ford Coppola) that somehow managed to appease both sides of the war question. Add to that an earthquake of a performance by George C. Scott and Patton easily waltzed away with the gold statue. Scott, of course, refused his Best Actor prize.

The Year of “Leave Me Be”

1977 offered voters a once-in-a-lifetime selection of some of the best films to be released in the 70s cinema renaissance; unfortunately, the subject matter of four of the selections were not exactly the salve voters were looking for after the bludgeoning they took in the ring from the reality of the times. Bound for Glory, about Woody Guthrie, the founding father of the protest song, would not survive the pounding hangover from the previous decade.

The groundbreaking Taxi Driver (never a good thing on Oscar’s eyes) was about a lunatic wannabe assassin that would never be allowed to represent AMPAS. The razor-sharp satire Network ripped the scab off all that was wrong with society by way of cinema’s nemesis, television. And, lord knows, years of non-stop Watergate coverage fatigued voters to the point that All the President’s Men was a non-starter for Best Picture. What was left – why, Rocky, of course. Finally – somebody to cheer for. And cheer they did.