ACADEMY AWARDS NOMINATIONS : COMMENTARY : Academy Sips From Fountain of Youth

Though most of us must contend with growing older, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, if this year’s Oscar nominations are any indication, is actually getting younger. And, quite frankly, not a moment too soon.

For years, the academy voting has been characterized by its preference for safe, middle-of-the-road pictures that didn’t rattle any cages or disturb any sensibilities. And should a film like “Driving Miss Daisy,” best-picture winner two years ago, just happened to have protagonists old enough to collect Social Security, well, it certainly didn’t hurt its chances.

This year, however, the old order shows definite, albeit glacial, signs of change. No, “Life Is Sweet” wasn’t nominated for best picture, but of the five pictures battling for the top Oscar, only two (“Bugsy” and “Prince of Tides”) fit snugly into the traditional mold of high-gloss academy entertainment. The other three films all have drawbacks that would have disqualified them had not the age balance in the organization begun to change.

The most obvious example is, of course, “Beauty and the Beast,” which first of all broke tradition in the most hidebound of groups (a sure sign of changing membership) by being the first animated feature to be so honored. More than that, the picture’s initial audience, the people that started the positive buzz about it, were more than likely young parents of small children more than usually desperate for something to take the kids to.

Now that that barrier is broken, and that “Beauty” has racked up six nominations (albeit four of them in the music categories), this the best-liked of all the contenders moves into one of the favorite spots for the best-picture nod. After all, who knows better than the descendants of the sainted Walt how much of a difference wishing on a star can make?

“JFK,” a revisionist look at the Kennedy assassination, is another picture that never would have made it this far in previous years. Greeted on its release with a Newsweek cover blasting its credibility and with the horrified huffing and puffing of every political pundit in the power elite, it was easily the most controversial film of the year, and controversy is something the staid academy has always studiously avoided.

This year, however, is different. Helped by director Oliver Stone’s unceasing labors, not to mention the way the film motivated congressmen to call for reopening the assassination files, a less fearful academy membership validated it within the industry by giving it eight nominations, second only to “Bugsy’s” 10. Now that Stone’s blood-red passion has become a badge of honor rather than a scarlet letter, “JFK” also looks like a strong contender for best picture.

The academy’s new willingness to embrace controversy has also helped “Thelma & Louise.” Though it did not make it to the best-picture finals, it got six nominations, all in major or near major categories and has a fair shot at winning the best original screenplay award. It might even win a best-actress award if the nominations for Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon don’t cancel each other out.

Perhaps no film shows the change in the academy membership more than “The Silence of the Lambs” and its seven nominations. Not that anyone would ever question how well-made this thriller was or how expertly it pushed you to the edge of your seat and, on occasion, even under it. But to an organization as used to standing on its dignity as the old academy was, a motion picture about a maniac who makes clothing out of human skin was not exactly the image Hollywood wanted to project to a waiting world, thank you very much. Yes, everyone needs a hobby, but what will the servants think?

Yet if all these films show signs that the academy ice jam was breaking up, there were also indications that the old guard could still bare its teeth on demand. The clearest example of this is the refusal of the director’s branch to even nominate Barbra Streisand for “Prince of Tides,” even though the film got a best-picture nod and six other nominations to go along with it.

The old academy was known for bearing grudges, as Steven Spielberg among others can testify, and the directors’ “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” dislike for Streisand has now truly reached biblical proportions. Whether this exclusion will give Streisand a leg up for the DGA trophy or help or hinder the film itself in its best-picture quest are questions yet to be sorted out.

The tired old academy is also still visible in two of the categories where nominations are made by committee, best foreign language film and best achievement in documentary features. In the first category, Belgium’s “Toto the Hero,” a major hit on the festival circuit and perhaps the liveliest and most exciting foreign film of the year, was passed over, probably because its clever and challenging structure was too much for the timid group.

The same thing is true for the documentaries where, in line with a long and ignoble tradition, the academy studiously avoided nominating the two most justifiably popular films of the year, “Paris Is Burning” and “Hearts of Darkness.” The former, a story of the self-contained universe of black and Latin drag queens, was probably too sexually provocative; the latter, an examination of the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” too revealing of Hollywood’s darker side. Standards, after all, must be upheld, no matter what the cost.

Director

* Jonathan Demme: “Lambs”

* Barry Levinson: “Bugsy”

* Ridley Scott: “Thelma/Louise”

* John Singleton: “Boyz N the Hood”

* Oliver Stone: “JFK”

Last year’s winner:

Kevin Costner: “Dances With Wolves”