The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays (Applause Books) by William Goldman

Author:William Goldman [Goldman, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-07-29T23:09:00+00:00

-NOVEMBER 2 8, 1994

ANYTHING BUT GUMP

Among Hollywood machers, it may be the most reviled best-loved movie ever But come Oscar time, who’ll have the chops to cut down `Forrest’?

In the event that Los Angeles manages to survive until February 14, there will be Academy Award nominations this year. What follows is an early report from the combat zone. Get ready-expect blood on the moon. And please remember two things: (1) The Oscars are an industry award, that industry being motion pictures, headquartered Out There. If the industry were automobiles and the city were Detroit, our Japanese peers would not fare well. (Nor should they.) (2) There is no “best. ” Tolstoy never won the Nobel Prize. Bach was ignored and unknown for a century after his death. And when movie critics give their ten-best lists, they may cite historical precedent, they may pretend erudition-all b.s. They just liked one movie better than another.

Often the Best Picture award is a one-on-one contestSchindler’s List vs. The Piano; GoodFellas vs. Dances With Wolves. Occasionally, three break on top and stay there: Bonnie and Clyde against The Graduate against In the Heat of the Night. Sometimes four have a shot: Chinatown, The Conversation, Godfather II, and Lenny battled in 1974. And there is the occasional vintage year. How would you like to have picked from these five 1982 nominees: E.T. and Gandhi and Missing and Tootsie and The Verdict?

Nineteen ninety-five has no such Oscar abundance. But it has something at least as rare. Did people in Hollywood bitch about It’s a Wonderful Life? Don’t think so. Did Judy visiting Oz make people’s teeth ache? Odds against. Who hated Singin’ in the Rain? No hands raised.

But Forrest Gump, the dear front-runner and one of the greatest financial successes in history, is turning out to be the most loathed best-loved film ever.

The first indications came last August, when a studio executive going over the Christmas films, already suspected to be a weak bunch, said, “Look at this junk. Christ, Forrest Gump could win the Oscar.” And then he paused before adding gratefully, “Thank God for Quiz Show.”

Quiz Show had everything. A famous, Oscar-winning director, Robert Redford, at the peak of his form. Brilliant ac- tors-Fiennes and Turturro and Scofield. But more than anything else, it was a Potential Oscar Winner because it dealt with issues dear to the hearts of the cultural elite, it was quote-unquote important, it described a moment when America lost its quote-unquote innocence.

And a fine film Quiz Show was. Splendid reviews, endless positive hype. And sadly, it died.

Ordinary people did not like it. And remember our first law: Disappointing box-office never makes a good industry standard-bearer. So scratch Quiz Show as a Gump killer. (Though it’ll surely get many nominations.)

Two other hopefuls expired at the same time. Ed Wood, Tim Burton’s finest film yet, drew no one to whom he was not related into the theaters. And The Shawshank Redemption, with its off-putting title, went the way of Quiz Show, although it might still get nominations.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.