This did not win an Oscar?!?

Winning an Oscar is one of the more crowning gems a filmmaker and craftsman can have.  It certainly means something to any person who has ever won the award.  There are times, however, when we look back at a particular award given out in a given year and we think: this was an Academy Award winner?  That movie did not get an Oscar?  It is a practice we see far too often.

It often falls into the winners of Best Director and Best Picture that eyes start to roll.  In point of fact, several of the winners in these categories are not as remembered today.  Some simply defy logic and all explanation.  Can it honestly be said that in retrospect the winner was better than the alternatives?  Here are some examples.

1932: Grand Hotel wins Best Picture, Frank Borzag Best Director (Bad Girl).  Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble In Paradise did not win either.

1937: Leo McCarey wins Best Director regarding The Awful Truth.  Not, as many would think, Make Way For Tomorrow; which does not win Best Picture either.  That goes to The Life Of Emile Zola. Also, nothing for Walt Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

1940.  John Ford wins Best Director regarding The Grapes Of Wrath.  It does not win Best Picture; which goes to Sir Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.  Incidentally, Hitchcock did not get an Oscar for that; since he did not produce the movie.

1941.  John Ford and How Green Was My Valley.  Not Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

1952.  The Greatest Show On Earth wins Best Picture.  John Ford wins Best Director (The Quiet Man).  Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's Singing In The Rain wins neither.

1955.  Delbert Mann and Marty.  Nothing for Nicholas Ray's Rebel without A Cause.

1959.  William Wyler and Ben-Hur.  Yet no wins for Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows.

1963.  Tony Richardson and Tom Jones.  Hud, Hitchcock's The Birds, The Great Escape do not win.

1968.  Sir Carol Reed and Oliver!  Nothing for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1969.  John Schlesinger and Midnight Cowboy.  Yet nothing for Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider.

1973.  George Roy Hill and The Sting.  Yet no nominations for Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now.

1979.  Robert Benton and Kramer Vs. Kramer.  Sadly, not Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

1980.  Robert Redford and Ordinary People.  Yet not Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.

1982.  Lord Attenborough and Gandhi.  No main awards for Steven Spielberg's E.T.  Not a nomination for Sir Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

1983.  James L. Brooks and Terms Of Endearment.  Yet not one nomination for Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas' El Norte.  Not a nod for Wargames. 

1985.  Sydney Pollack and Out Of Africa.  Not one win for Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple.

1988.  Barry Levinson and Rain Man.  Not an award given to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ. 

1989.  Driving Miss Daisy wins Best Picture.  However, Oliver Stone's Born On The Fourth Of July does not; it does win Best Director though.

1990.  Kevin Costner and Dances With Wolves.  Yet not Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. 

1994.  Robert Zemeckis and Forrest Gump.  Surprisingly, not for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Steve James' Hoop Dreams, Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption, or Krysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy.

1995.  Mel Gibson and Braveheart.  Not one nod for David Fincher's Seven.

1996.  Anthony Minghella and The English Patient. Not, sadly, the Coen Brothers' Fargo.

2001.  Ron Howard and A Beautiful Mind.  Not one important nomination for Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky. Also nothing for Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

2002.  Chicago wins Best Picture.  Roman Polanski wins Best Director (The Pianist).  Nothing for Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game, Spike Jonze's Adaptation, Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York, the Steven Spielberg movies Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, Christopher Nolan's version of Insomnia, or even One Hour Photo.

2005.  Crash wins Best Picture.  Ang Lee wins Best Director (Brokeback Mountain).  Not Steven Spielberg's Munich, the George Clooney-Steven Soderbergh produced Syriana, or even the Clooney directed Good Night And Good Luck.

2010.  Tom Hooper and The King's Speech.  Nothing for David Fincher's The Social Network, or even Nolan's Inception.

2012.  Argo wins Best Picture; though it is not nominated for Best Director for Ben Affleck.  That goes to Ang Lee regarding Life Of Pi.  In either matter,  Jacques Audiard's Rust And Bone, or even Steven Spielberg's Lincoln were more preferable.

Heck, for this year, I would have added Christopher Nolan and Interstellar for both categories.  Somewhat related, the Steve James documentary Life Itself received not one nomination in any category.

There are lesser criticisms for awards like the acting categories.  Though they do pop up every so often.  I think, for instance, Denzel Washington should have won Best Actor in Philadelphia; not Tom Hanks. 

The moral is: just because a movie or an individual did not win an Oscar does not make the movie any lesser than the winner.  As well, just because a movie or person won the Oscar does not mean it was in retrospect the best of that time frame.  None the less, an Academy Award win or even nod means a great deal to any film or person. 

Do any of you fellow travelers have a gripe with a past or current winner and/or nominee that should have gone to someone else or another movie?  I would like to hear from you then.  Feel free to comment on this weblog and interact in this lively discussion.  Do remember to have a Google+ or G Mail account for authenticity. 

I will have more tomorrow.  See you then.

Robert