IN SEARCH OF A BETTER OSCAR SHOW

Whoa there! Sam Goldwyn Jr. last week discussed with Calendar’s Jack Mathews some guidelines for the 59th Academy Awards, which Goldwyn will produce on March 30. Pleasant enough ideas, nothing we haven’t read from still-optimistic producers of the shows in the past: more glamour, more “beautiful people looking beautiful,” more film clips, less bloated production numbers, a costume designer for the presenters and a show that takes its theme from Oscar itself. (Where else, from the Heisman Trophy?)

You are dealing with a very serious Academy Award watcher here, gentlemen: One of those looneys who gave awards parties (and lost awards pools) for years, and who has watched avidly on the scene for the last five.

“Prettier and wittier” is Goldwyn’s objective. Pretty is fine, as long as you don’t begin to round up presenters because of their TVQ. One of the more alienating feelings I can remember was that period when the presenters all seemed to have walked off “Knots Landing.” Witty is great; big strides were made in that direction by weeding out the presenter-banter, one of the kindest cuts of all.

(In line with the glamour theme, Goldwyn has also asked designer Theoni Aldredge to dress the presenters. Shucks. Where would the show have been without the savor of the Divine Miss Midler’s costuming, dead-pan comment of its own.)

Goldwyn also wants to keep the proceedings suspenseful: “When we watch that show in Hollywood, we keep track of what is going on. We have to keep the audience aware of it too.”

Keep track of what? Of voting blocs and the shift in power from studio to studio? Of the fact that this win gives that agent the heaviest stable of Oscar-winning clients in town? Is suspense really what people look to--and at--the Oscars for?

There is still the naive thought that to the public, the Oscars mean what so many of the winners say they do: the recognition of excellence by one’s peers. At their finest, they are celebrations within a family and the show should reflect that. Goldwyn’s idea of more film clips might enhance the feeling of the branches of that family: I remember past programs that gave tiny demonstrations of the art of editing, the craft of production design that were fascinating--for all audiences.

However, following Goldwyn’s remarks were a series of suggestions--all Mathews’ own--of ways to keep global audiences happy. They included axing the Documentary and Short Film Award presentations from the live show, even though “some of the best work in film is done in these categories. . . . They deserve an awards show of their own;” getting rid of the Foreign-Language Film award (“A best movie is a best movie”), eliminating the Best Song category entirely and saying goodby to the Price Waterhouse gentlemen.

At the risk of internecine warfare down here, a pair of my colleague’s suggestions strike me as exactly the wrong places to cut an awards program.

To begin with, because of the rather recent change in the voting procedure, the Documentary and Short Films are the most legitimate awards of the entire roster, simply because in order to vote, an academy member must have seen them. All of them. (Members must sign in at the special screenings held on both coasts.) How many of the Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director votes can be counted with that same assurance? Do the same academy members who boast that they’ve hardly been out to a movie all year abstain from voting in a category where only one name looks vaguely familiar? How large would the vote be if the same stringent rules applied to all categories?

Yes, some of the very best work is done in those categories--and admittedly, most of those films are not seen by a huge audience. PBS uses only a very few documentaries; the hope that cable TV would use more of the short films has been too rosy; payment rates barely make a dent in most young film makers’ costs. Isn’t that all the more reason why the academy should cherish and spotlight their achievements? And why the widest possible audiences should know that some of these people are alive?

Besides, to look at their contributions crassly, do you remember the enthusiasm that filled the house when Jacques D’Amboise’s New York school-age dancers performed the year their documentary, “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’,” was nominated? Or the impact of seeing on the awards show the Navajo women who were part of “Broken Rainbow.” These are some of the moments in which film expands our horizons; more ways should be found to work them into the program, not out of it.

Even though the Foreign Language Film nominating rules are horrendous and much too political, it is the second of the “must-see-to-vote categories.” It’s lofty to hope that a “best film theory” would prevail; it’s the principal of several critics’ societies that have no foreign-language category, but it’s unrealistic in Hollywood. And think of the film makers whose first introduction to an American public at large came because of their Academy Awards: Truffaut, DeSica, Fellini, Kurosawa, Bergman, Ray, Ophuls, Malle, Szabo, just to skim quickly. This is still too rich and necessary a vein to shut off.

Which leaves Price Waterhouse. “Gentlemen, the door, please.” Hardly sounds friendly after all these years, does it?