Spielberg Finally Wins the Gold

Hollywood pays homage to its biggest breadwinner.

by Jeff Schwager | Published March 5, 1994

The Academy Award nominations have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, they were dominated by Steven Spielberg, whose Holocaust opus, Schindler's List, brought home an even dozen nominations. In addition, his dino drama, Jurassic Park, (the most commercially successful film of all time) earned another three nods, for technical awards, bringing the Spielberg total to fifteen. Not bad for a guy who, less than a decade ago, saw his first effort at so-called serious filmmaking, The Color Purple, bring in ten nominationsbut not one for Best Director. As if that wasn't humiliation enough for the film's auteur, when the winners were announced, The Color Purple came up short every time, going down in history as the film that earned the most nominations without winning a single award.

While Schindler's List is the only film that could break that mark this year, (The Piano and Remains of the Day tied for the second most nominations with eight), only a fool would expect Spielberg to come home empty-handed once again. Why the turnaround? Is Schindler's List that much better than The Color Purple? The simple answer is no. The two films are actually strikingly similar in quality and content. They're both extremely well-made, powerful, emotionally manipulative studies of injustice and oppression. (For a detailed list of my grievances against Schindler- a film I nonetheless admire- see last month's Freeze Frame.)

The difference is the decade. In the eighties, Spielberg was still a boyish Steven Spielberg on the set of "Schindler" hotshot, and the Academy simply doesn't like to honor young upstarts. At that time in his career, Spielberg had known nothing but success, making Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E. T.- four of the most successful films of all time in rapid succession. For the older members of the Academy, who were unable to dent the Boy Wonder's box office record, the Oscars were the last line of defense, the last chance to put him in his place. Since The Color Purple, Spielberg has struggled (though not as much as most), again failing to be taken seriously with Empire of the Sun, and even having his box office instincts questioned after the relative failures of Always and Hook. Still the most successful filmmaker of all time, he has at least suffered a little, and he's played the game.

And Schindler's List is, of course, just the sort of film the Academy loves to honor. It deals with an "Important" subject, and it offers a certain amount of moral uplift. It's rare that truly depressing films win the Best Picture Oscar, though a few cases, including the Vietnam films Platoon and The Deer Hunter, come to mind. But more often, truly powerful films like Raging Bull and Sophie's Choice lose out simply because they are too bleak. By finding a positive message in the Holocaust, Spielberg managed to have his cake and eat it, too.

While Spielberg made a film that Oscar was bound to love with Schindler's List, his friend Martin Scorsese seems to have badly miscalculated with The Age of Innocence. Originally scheduled to come out in December of 1992, the film was held for nine months, a situation many insiders felt stemmed from Scorsese's desperation to win the Oscar gold. Common wisdom had it he didn't want to compete with Howard's End, an ironic choice since that highbrow Merchant/Ivory film ultimately lost out to Clint Eastwood's lowbrow Unforgiven. At any rate, Scorsese's decision seemsto have been for naught: The Age of Innocence wasn't even nominated for Best Picture or Best Director awards, and Michelle

Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis were overlooked in the Best Actress and Best Actor categories. (Though Day-Lewis did pick up a nomination for his decidedly more compelling work in In the Name of the Father.) Scorsese did earn a nomination for Best Screenplay Adaptation, but up against Schindler, he doesn't stand a chance. As it now stands, Winona Ryder, nominated for Best Supporting Actress, stands the best chance of representing The Age of Innocence on Oscar's stage.

Among the rest of the nominations, there were a few pleasant surprises. One has to be delighted by the recognition given to The Piano, which picked up eight nominations, and seems a likely winner for both Holly Hunter's riveting performance and director Jane Campion's inventive original screenplay. Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father is another film that deserves every nomination it got, finding a powerful, personal story in the heart of the troubles between England and Ireland. And the lone nomination for Short Cuts, to Robert Altman for Best Director, is proof that at least Hollywood's directors appreciate the work of this brilliant maverick; it's almost enough to balance the ridiculous seven nominations (including a Best Picture nod) given to the entertaining but vapid The Fugitive.

Finally, while Schindler seems a sure bet to win the lion's share of Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay Adaptation, here are my predictions for the other major categories:

Best Actor: Tom Hanks, for daring to play a gay man with AIDS in Philadelphia; Best Actress: Holly Hunter, for daring to play a mute woman in The Piano; Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, for upstaging Harrison Ford in The Fugitive; Best Supporting Actress: Winona Ryder, for adding a little life to the otherwise lifeless Age of Innocence; and Best Original Screenplay: Jane Campion, her consolation prize for The Piano, since she'll lose the Best Director award to Spielberg. MM

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