AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE OSCAR-NOMINATED GUESTS OF 2017

With awards season now behind us, we take a look back at the many Oscar-nominated guests that have joined us in person in the past year. We are fortunate to have been joined by all of the 2018 Oscar-nominated directors, all the nominated Art Directors, Set Decorators, and Film Editors, as well as several eventual Oscar winners! Below, enjoy a selection of photographs taken in-house at our Egyptian and Aero Theatres accompanied by words of wisdom they so graciously shared with our audience members. 

2018 Oscar Nominees and Winners 

BEST LEAD ACTOR, Gary Oldman. 
Winner, THE DARKEST HOUR

"To be Churchill was such a joy - to be in this movie. He had a great sense of humor...a sparkle in his eye, he was boyish, cherubic.” Mr. Oldman went on an absolute winning streak having accumulated a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, a BAFTA Award and an Academy Awards for his leading role in THE DARKEST HOUR. 

Photographed on February 8th, 2018 at our Aero Theatre in Santa Monica by Andrea Macias-Jimenez. 







BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, Willem Dafoe.
Nominee, THE FLORIDA PROJECT 

"Look for people with distinct vision. People who see beauty where others see nothing. If you really believe what they’re doing; you go towards their vision & start to learn things. You have a shift in how you see and with that shift- you become a different person.”

Photographed on January 13th, 2018 at our Egyptian Theatre in Andrea Macias-Jimenez. 

BEST DIRECTOR, Christopher Nolan. 
Nominee, DUNKIRK

“Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.”

Photographed on February 13th, 2018 at our Aero Theatre in Santa Monica by Silvia Schablowski. 

BEST DIRECTOR, Jordan Peele. 
Nominee, GET OUT
Winner, Best Original Screenplay for GET OUT

"When the nominations came out, I had this amazing feeling of looking at the 12 year old that had this burning in my guts for this type of validation, and I instantly realized that an award like this is much bigger than me."

Photographed on February 13th, 2018 at our Aero Theatre in Santa Monica by Silvia Schablowski. Joran Peele won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for GET OUT at the 2018 ceremony. 

BEST DIRECTOR, Greta Gerwig
Nominee, LADY BIRD 

“It’s a really interesting journey; I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You don’t need to have a death grip on your passion. Your passion will find you.”

Photographed on February 10th, 2018 at our Aero Theatre in Santa Monica by Silvia Schablowski. 

BEST DIRECTOR, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Nominee, PHANTOM THREAD

"I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film’s abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y’know, that’s great. But I hope it involves an audience.” 

Photographed on February 13th, 2018 at our Aero Theatre in Santa Monica by Sean Byron. 

BEST DIRECTOR, Guillermo del Toro. 
Winner, THE SHAPE OF WATER

“My movies are mostly graveyard poetry. [The Shape of Water] is different from what I’ve been making in the past 25 years.”

Photographed on January 20th, 2018 at our Egyptian Theatre by Mario Jennings. 

BEST FOREIGN FILM, “A Fantastic Woman” (Chile), “Loveless” (Russia), “The Square” (Sweden). 
Winner, A FANTASTIC WOMAN

Four out of five nominated directors for Best Foreign Film joined us for a live symposium on January 6th. Sebastian Leilo, Oscar-winning director of A FANTASTIC WOMAN, poses with his leading lady, Daniela Vega. Throughout the year, the American Cinematheque shows a generous sampling of new films from around the world – some that go on to become Oscar nominees. New films from Canada and from the European Union will be shown in April 2018. Re-watch the symposium here and check out photos of fellow nominees here. 


 Photographed on January 6th by Jared Cowan. 

BEST EDITING, Lee Smith. 
Winner, DUNKIRK

Mr. Lee Smith, Academy Award-winning editor of DUNKIRK, joined us on March 3rd, 2018 at our Egyptian Theatre for our annual " Invisible Art, Visible Artists" seminar hosting all of the year's Oscar-Nominated editors. Fun fact: The nominees mentioned that they are generally happy not to edit on film stock anymore, but some have nostalgia for having to be more decisive before they touched the work print. Music, cooking, painting were named by these editors as inspiration for practicing their art!

 Photograph: Jenny Oetzell/SilverHub/Rex/Shutterstock

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN,  Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau and Jeffrey A. Melvin. 
Winners, THE SHAPE OF WATER

Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau, and Jeffrey A. Melvin, who took home the Oscar for their work on THE SHAPE OF WATER, joined us on March 3rd, 2018 at our Egyptian Theatre for our annual "Art of Production Design" panel, featuring all of this year's nominees. 

 Photograph courtesy of ABC's Academy Awards telecast. 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY,  Rachel Morrison. 
Nominee, MUDBOUND

Cinematographer Rachel Morrison joined us at our Aero Theatre on February 12th for our screening of MUDBOUND. Ms. Morrison has made Oscar history as she is the first woman to be nominated for a Cinematography Academy Award.

 Photograph courtesy of ABC News. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, Agnes Varda. 
Nominee, FACES PLACES

We were honored to host Agnes Varda on October 21st, 2017 for a special screening of THE GLEANERS AND I / VAGABOND. Once she took the Egyptian Theatre stage and her standing ovation finally quieted down, she remarked how coming into our theatre felt like coming home.

Photographed by Mario Jennings. 

With that, we close awards season and say congratulations to all the nominees and Oscar winners! We are honored to host the leading figures in our industry and look forward to the many more guests to come in the following year. 

Special Best Picture Oscar Posters Released

The Academy has released a collection of creative posters for its 84 Best Picture winners. You can view them at the Oscars site, but here are some of my favorites.

Double Feature: Picnic (1955) and Auntie Mame (1958)

Picnic - **

Based on the award-winning play by William Inge, director Joshua Logan's melodrama stars William Holden, Rosalind Russell, and Kim Novak in her breakout performance. Most of the film occurs over the course of one day in a small Kansas town, which is holding a Labor Day picnic. Visiting his old college friend Alan (Cliff Robertson), Hal Carter (Holden) arrives that morning and causes great unrest in some of the townspeople, among them Alan's girlfriend "Madge" Owens (Novak), her little sister Millie (Susan Strasberg), a local school teacher (Russell), and her boyfriend (Arthur O'Connell). The whole situation is complicated, but Carter leaves his mark on these citizens in a short period of time. Despite a promising premise, this misses the mark, as the characters are so unbalanced and the drama so overblown and forced that the edgy material feels too contrived and grating by today's standards. Though I can see why it received a Best Picture nomination, it's lost some of the impact it must've had in the 1950s.

The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Arthur O'Connell), Best Art Direction (Color), Best Film Editing, and Best Score (Dramatic/Comedy). It won awards for Best Art Direction (Color) and Best Film Editing.

Trivia: For his dance scenes, William Holden received an additional $8,000 as a stuntman fee.

Auntie Mame - **1/2

Rosalind Russell gives an Oscar-nominated performance as Mame, a wealthy socialite living life as frivolously as possible in the 1920s. When her brother dies, she takes her nephew Patrick (Jan Handzlik/Roger Smith) in, opening his world to art, drink mixing, lavish parties, life, and other adventures. The film consists primarily of scenes depicting Mame's wild lifestyle, but she manages to teach her nephew a few lessons on the way. (Whether or not they're essential ones is another matter.) Through the years that pass, Patrick's future is managed - as much as it can be - by his father's will executor. Patrick's questionable upbringing comes to a head when he brings his girlfriend home to meet Mame. While the film has its problems, Russell is perfect for the lead role, even if the film is excessively farcical. Really, at 143 minutes, it's too much. The Academy liked the film enough to give it a Best Picture nod, but it got in at the expense of more deserving films.

The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Cass), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography (Color), and Best Film Editing. It did not win any awards.

Trivia: Russell and Cass received Tony recognition for their stage performances before reprising their roles in the film.

Oscar Oddity #8: The Documentary Streak

Last year's doc winners for Undefeated.

The 85th Oscar nominations have yielded another odd stat.

For the third consecutive year, the Documentary Feature category consists entirely of films with multiple directors/producers. In other words, it's the third straight year that no documentary is represented by one nominee. Each film has two or three credited nominees. This is the longest streak of this kind, as the category usually has at least one film directed/produced by one person. It's an unnoticed streak, but I thought it was interesting.

Here are the nominees responsible for this streak:

5 Broken Cameras
(Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi)

The Gatekeepers
(Dror Moreh, Philippa Kowarsky and Estelle Fialon)

How to Survive a Plague
(David France and Howard Gertler)

The Invisible War
(Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)

Searching for Sugar Man
(Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn)

It's also worth mentioning that this will be the sixth consecutive year that multiple nominees will win for Best Documentary Feature Film. The last solo winner was Davis Guggenheim for An Inconvenient Truth (2006).

Note: Individual nominees weren't credited from 1942-45, and the award wasn't given in 1946.

Top 10 Oscar-Winning Male Performances

Russell Crowe at the 2001 ceremony.

Again, I looked at both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor performances. Unlike the female performances list, two supporting performances made the cut.

10. Christopher Walken, The Deer Hunter

Role: Nikonar "Nick" Chevotarevich

Oscar History: 1 win, 2 nominations

9. Kevin Kline, A Fish Called Wanda

Role: Otto

Oscar History: 1 win, 1 nomination

8. Adrien Brody, The Pianist

Role: Wladyslaw Szpilman

Oscar History: 1 win, 1 nomination

7. F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus

Role: Antonio Salieri

Oscar History: 1 win, 1 nomination

6. Jack Lemmon, Save the Tiger

Role: Harry Stoner

Oscar History: 2 wins, 8 nominations

5. Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Role: Christy Brown

Oscar History: 2 wins (to date), 5 nominations

4. Gene Hackman, The French Connection

Role: Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle

Oscar History: 2 wins, 5 nominations

3. Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Role: R.P. McMurphy

Oscar History: 3 wins, 12 nominations

2. Robert De Niro, Raging Bull

Role: Jake LaMotta

Oscar History: 2 wins (to date), 7 nominations

1. Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront

Role: Terry Malloy

Oscar History: 2 wins, 8 nominations

Top 10 Oscar-Winning Female Performances

Juliette Binoche at the 1997 ceremony.

In compiling this list, I looked at both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress winners. No supporting ladies made the list, but performances by actresses like Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton), and Mo'Nique (Precious) were in the running.

10. Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs

Role: Clarice Starling

Oscar History: 2 wins, 4 nominations

9. Holly Hunter, The Piano

Role: Ada McGrath

Oscar History: 1 win, 4 nominations

8. Sophia Loren, Two Women

Role: Cesira

Oscar History: 1 win, 2 nominations

 

7. Faye Dunaway, Network

Role: Diana Christensen

Oscar History: 1 win, 3 nominations

6. Charlize Theron, Monster

Role: Aileen Wuornos

Oscar History: 1 win, 2 nominations

5. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

Role: Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon

Oscar History: 2 wins, 2 nominations

4. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire

Role: Blanche DuBois

Oscar History: 2 wins, 2 nominations

 

3. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Role: Nina Sayers/The Swan Queen

Oscar History: 1 win, 2 nominations

2. Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Role: Martha

Oscar History: 2 wins, 5 nominations

1. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose

Role: Edith Piaf

Oscar History: 1 win, 1 nomination

My Oscar Picks: 1969-70

1969

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Midnight Cowboy
My Pick: Midnight Cowboy

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy
My Pick: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: John Wayne, True Grit
My Pick: Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy


BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
My Pick: Jane Fonda, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Gig Young, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
My Pick: Elliott Gould, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Goldie Hawn, Cactus Flower
My Pick: Susannah York, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Z (Algeria)
My Pick: Z

I wasn't completely enthusiastic about any of the best picture nominees this year. Z received a number of critics' awards, but I found it so low-key as to be rather dull. This is not the first, and certainly not the last, picture to make me wonder if members of critics' groups respond more to the ideology of a film than to the actual experience of watching it. The Oscar winner for best picture, Midnight Cowboy, is not without its flaws, but it is well directed and compelling, particularly after Joe Buck hits New York. This part of the film actually doesn't amount to much more than half the movie, and the first part of the film seems to me padded with an unnecessarily detailed account of Joe Buck's past. Still, of the nominees, I found it the most acceptable as a best picture winner. Even if the script was off in its overemphasis on the main character's backstory, the flamboyant direction by John Schlesinger was most accomplished and I had no qualms about seconding the Academy's choice of him as best director.

The Academy's choice of John Wayne as best actor for True Grit was panned by observers at the time, but when I saw the movie years after it was released I was impressed by both the movie and Wayne. (It strikes me as a better film than the year's most popular Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Still, I went for Jon Voight's remarkable star-making performance in Midnight Cowboy. The Academy gave its award for best actress to Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Smith is a wonderful actress. But either she or the director decided to exploit her strength at character roles to make her Jean Brodie an eccentric, naively misguided Ms. Chips rather than the manipulative fascist sympathizer she has always seemed to me. (I would love to see what Vanessa Redgrave, who played the part on stage, would have done with the character.) I went instead for another star-making performance by a young actress, Jane Fonda's as the doomed marathon dancer in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

The Oscar for best supporting actor went to Gig Young for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? But I preferred Elliott Gould in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. He came off as the most sympathetic person in the film, his character somewhere midway between the shallow trendies played by Natalie Wood and Robert Culp and his sour, uptight wife played by Dyan Cannon. The Oscar for best supporting actress went to Goldie Hawn for her charming film debut in Cactus Flower, but I opted for Susannah York as another marathon-dance contestant in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Even if I couldn't bring myself to support Z for best picture, I did select it for best foreign language film. It was just the best in a weak field. Some might have gone for the talky soul-searching of Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maude's, but I find this film even duller than Z. Biggest omission: The Wild Bunch for best picture, director (Sam Peckinpah), actor (William Holden), and supporting actor (Robert Ryan).

1970

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Patton
My Pick: M*A*S*H

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Franklin J. Shaffner, Patton
My Pick: Robert Altman, M*A*S*H

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: George C. Scott, Patton
My Pick: Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love
My Pick: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: John Mills, Ryan's Daughter
My Pick: Chief Dan George, Little Big Man

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Helen Hayes, Airport
My Pick: Karen Black, Five Easy Pieces

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Italy)
My Pick: Tristana (Spain)

This was the year the 1967 revolution in American film finally came to fruition, and the beginning of what just might be the most fecund five-year period in American movies. But you wouldn't know anything much had changed in the industry—or in the country, for that matter—from the Academy Awards for 1970. The Academy's choice for best picture was the flag-waving epic Patton. My choice was another picture about war, M*A*S*H, a film whose attitude toward the subject was as provocative as Patton's was traditional. In style and tone it was like no movie before it. The Academy gave the directing Oscar to Franklin J. Schaffner for his proficient work on Patton. I went instead for Robert Altman, whose innovative direction of M*A*S*H made it one of the most important and influential American films of the 1970s.

George C. Scott got the Oscar for best actor for his florid impersonation of Gen. George S. Patton. In 1961 he declined his nomination for best supporting actor for The Hustler. (He almost certainly would have won; instead George Chakiris won for West Side Story.) This time around, though, he didn't decline the nomination, just the award after he won it. My choice for best actor: Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces, the first of a series of brilliant performances that made him the American actor of the 1970s. Best actress is the one major award where I did agree with the Academy: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love. None of the other nominated performances came anywhere near hers.

This year the Oscars for best supporting actor and actress went to two veteran performers who were likely recognized more for their entire film careers than for the performances that got them nominated. Best supporting actor was John Mills, Ryan's Daughter. That Oscar was a nice sentimental gesture, but for me the best performance of the year in this category was by Chief Dan George, who managed to scoop up most of the critics' awards, in Arthur Penn's comic Western Little Big Man. In another sentimental gesture, Helen Hayes was named best supporting actress for Airport, nearly forty years after being named best actress of 1931/32. My choice was Karen Black as Jack Nicholson's good-hearted but dim girl friend in Five Easy Pieces, with Sally Kellerman's memorable Hot Lips Houlihan in M*A*S*H a very close second. The nominees for best foreign film were another weak lot this year, with the best of them easily Luis Buñuel's Tristana, not quite the equal of his greatest films but nonetheless an excellent film with an eye-opening performance by Catherine Deneuve. Biggest omission: Little Big Man received only a single nomination, for Chief Dan George, with no nominations for best film, director (Arthur Penn), best actor (Dustin Hoffman in a tour de force turn), or best supporting actress (Faye Dunaway, showing an unexpected talent for comedy).

What are your picks for these years? You can search the Academy Awards Database for a complete list of nominees.