All That Campaigning . . . Is There Really a Payoff?

The Hollywood producer waved his newspaper in the air, pointing to the latest front-page expose of the Democratic Party’s fund-raising scandal. “Bill Clinton must be so embarrassed to see all his shameless Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers laid out in public,” he said. “Let’s just hope no one ever figures out how much hustling goes on with Oscar campaigns.”

The meek do not inherit the Earth, especially at Oscar time--unless they give themselves over to the annual razzle-dazzle ritual of the Oscar publicity campaign. Dating to 1935, when MGM took out the first Oscar trade ad (for the studio’s adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness”), movie studio publicists and independent publicity firms have waged relentless propaganda campaigns aimed at influencing the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

One legendarily aggressive film company has been suspected of hiring teams of phone-bank operators to woo the academy’s 5,200 members with customized Oscar pitches in the weeks before ballots are cast. In 1982, the New York Daily News estimated that Hollywood studios spent $2 million on Oscar hype. Paramount responded by insisting that it campaigned only for pictures that “deserve the acclaim”--and then ran full-page ads touting “Friday the 13th: Part 3 in 3-D.”

Not that any of this sly salesmanship is new. Beating the drums for Rosalind Russell’s performance in 1947’s “Mourning Becomes Electra,” publicist Henry Rogers convinced a Las Vegas casino to post betting odds on the Oscar race--with his client somehow emerging as 6-5 favorite in the best actress category (Loretta Young won that year, for “The Farmer’s Daughter”). In 1954, Warner Bros. ads touting “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” included a rave review from President Eisenhower, who proclaimed: “If you haven’t seen this movie, you should!”

Occasionally, these Oscar blitzkriegs backfire. Academy members ignored Madonna and Courtney Love this year, perhaps turned off by the pop stars’ all-too-obvious image overhauls. And it’s still unclear whether an Oscar triumph brings more than fleeting prestige or a momentary career boost. But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood publicists from pulling out all the stops during the key eight-week window between the mid-December New York and Los Angeles critics awards announcements and the mid-February Oscar nominations.

As far back as 1939, the academy ordered a cease-fire in “electioneering or lobbying,” but the decree went unheeded. Although academy stipulations prevent publicists from baldly wooing voters with filet mignon and champagne dinner screenings--as Universal did for its campaign for “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969)--today’s Oscar campaigns are as hard-sell as ever.

Columbia Pictures gave “The People vs. Larry Flynt” a touch of class by running full-page ads reprinting a New York Times op-ed column praising the film as “the most patriotic movie of the year.” (However, the “Flynt” filmmakers cried foul when the film’s detractors ran ads attacking the film.) To remind voters how much best actor nominee Billy Bob Thornton transformed himself for his role in “Sling Blade,” Miramax Films has been promoting the film with ads adorned with stylish photos of the handsome real-life Thornton.

To help examine how these Oscar campaigns work--and how much effect they have--Calendar hosted a round-table interview with three Hollywood publicists who have considerable experience in wooing Oscar voters: Paramount Pictures publicity chief Cheryl Boone Isaacs, PMK Public Relations President Pat Kingsley and the Angellotti Co.’s Tony Angellotti. Being savvy image makers, they managed to elude a few sticky questions--and downplay the role of their own well-oiled publicity machinery. But their spirited discussion does provide an intriguing glimpse at how the Oscar campaign game is played.

The Times: In an Oscar publicity campaign, you woo voters and run ads positioning your candidate. Doesn’t it have a lot in common with a political campaign?

Pat Kingsley: We just don’t have as much money to spend. But it’s still a campaign. With the amount of people we have to reach, we’d do this door-to-door if we just had the addresses.

Times: Oscar campaigns certainly last as long. Fine Line Pictures was having Oscar strategy meetings for “Shine” last August. So when do your campaigns really begin?

Kingsley: I saw “My Left Foot” in February [1989], but even then, [Miramax Films chief] Harvey Weinstein was saying that Daniel Day-Lewis could win the Oscar [in 1990]. The movie wasn’t coming out till the fall, but Harvey was saying, “We want to start now.”

Tony Angellotti: A campaign begins the minute you realize you have a great film. After Gramercy Pictures saw what a reaction they got when they debuted “Four Weddings and a Funeral” at Sundance [in 1994], you have to think they went--”Wow, we must really have something.” It might change the type of release pattern you’re planning for the film--or more importantly, when you release the film, so it can get the most critical exposure.

Times: Just a few years ago the Golden Globe Awards were considered a joke. But now everyone takes them seriously. Isn’t it true that what really changed is that people discovered that the Golden Globe winners had a huge influence on Oscar voters?

Kingsley: What really changed was that they moved their awards date to around the Oscar voting. It used to be in March, long after the Oscar voting was over. Once they moved it up [to January], it started having more influence because it was getting a lot of attention just before Oscar ballots went out.

Times: You used to have to drag Oscar members out to screenings. Now they can watch the nominated films on videocassettes. How did that transform the Oscar campaigns?

Cheryl Boone Isaacs: It leveled the playing field--everybody’s equal now, whether you’re a major studio or a tiny independent company. What’s still difficult is getting people to watch all the films. If you’re receiving 50 or 60 cassettes each year, it’s tough making time to watch everything.

Angellotti: The tapes allow voters to consider a more diverse array of films. Look at [1994’s] “Tom and Viv.” It was a tiny film, but it got two Oscar nominations, best actress [for Miranda Richardson] and best supporting actress [for Rosemary Harris]. Videos also seem to alter the way you experience a film. 1995’s “Braveheart” just didn’t have that much impact on video. I wasn’t impressed until I saw it on the big screen and was blown away. But then a little movie like “Marvin’s Room” played very well on video--maybe that’s why Diane Keaton came away with a best actress nomination.

Times: Don’t some campaigns go too far? When people see ad after ad every day, they start thinking it’s overkill.

Isaacs: There’s so much interest and coverage of celebrity in Hollywood these days that it’s real easy to go too far. As an academy member, I often feel, “Enough already, I’ve got the point.” When it looks like you’re throwing dollars at a film, it can backfire. People see the film as a campaign, not as a movie.

Times: So overkill can happen--?

Kingsley: Absolutely--

Times: On campaigns you’ve worked on?

Kingsley: No! Not that I’ve worked on!

Times: What about another recent campaign?

Kingsley: Well, I’d rather not talk about any recent campaigns. But I remember when Chill Wills got a nomination at the end of his career--he was up for best supporting actor in 1960’s “The Alamo”--and he went crazy, practically carrying a placard down the streets. It was sad, and it turned people off.

Angellotti: The same thing happened with Diana Ross and “Lady Sings the Blues” [1972].

Kingsley: We were working with Diana and with Liza Minnelli [for “Cabaret”] that year, and Motown did this campaign where they took out ads every day in the trades after the nominations came out, telling the whole story of “Lady Sings the Blues.” I looked forward to it, but I know it pissed people off because the trades would call us and say, “Well, we just got another $15,000 from Motown. What are we going to get from you guys for Liza ads?” And I told them, “Forget it--we want to be the underdog!”

Times: But aren’t you risking overkill after the nominations come out and every time you turn on Leno or Letterman, you see the actors out touting their movies?

Isaacs: That’s not us--that’s the nominations. It’s news. Just after a nomination--and it’s increased unbelievably each year--we’re deluged with calls from the press asking to talk to the actor or director. All we do is line them up.

Kingsley: The TV shows send telegrams: Congratulations! We want to talk to this actor or that actor. They send them flowers!

Angellotti: I went to a screening with Billy Bob Thornton after he got his nomination and he was mobbed with people asking for his autograph--and he doesn’t even look like the guy he plays in the film.

Times: In fact, Miramax’s new print ads for “Sling Blade” show Thornton not as he looks in the film but as he looks in real life. What’s the strategy behind that?

Kingsley: I think Miramax wants to show Billy Bob as a likable person, as someone who’s so drastically different from the person on the screen. They did the same thing with Daniel Day-Lewis when he was up for an Oscar for “My Left Foot.”

Isaacs: It helps dramatize the role.

Angellotti: I’ve seen other actors when they met Billy Bob, and they all go, “Whoa, you don’t look anything like that guy.” But it’s the nomination that made Billy Bob a story, not anything we did. “The Tonight Show” was pitched Billy Bob long ago, but they only booked him after he was nominated.

Times: One thing you don’t always have much control over in an Oscar campaign is the decision to put someone in the best actor or best supporting actor category--it’s the academy members who do that. But you must have a preference. Wasn’t there a big debate over which category Courtney Love would go in?

Kingsley: There was a debate. I felt that she should go for supporting actress. Milos Forman very much wanted her to be in the best actress category. The studio supported that, but as it turned out, she didn’t get a nomination for either, even though she won the New York Film Critics’ best supporting actress. It could have gone either way.

Times: It’s no secret that the studios took a beating this year. Universal didn’t get one major nomination--yet it sent out a “for your consideration” set of videos promoting movies that were, with one exception, all critical duds. So why does a studio still spend the money? Aren’t those just vanity campaigns?

Kingsley: The real answer is relationships. You want these people to know that you support them. And campaigns aren’t always for the top categories--they’re also for cinematography and editing and special effects. Studios value their relationships with those people too.

Isaacs: If you have a movie that you think is in a great place to get a best makeup nomination, you don’t necessarily want to wait till it gets a nomination and then expect people to watch it.

Times: What happened with “The People vs. Larry Flynt”? It looked like a shoo-in for a lot of top nominations and then ran into a huge backlash. Did the Gloria Steinem op-ed column, which ran in the New York Times and attacked the film and Flynt, and the ads circulating it hurt the film?

Isaacs: With academy members, controversy doesn’t always help. For the consumer audience, controversy can help because it creates a tremendous curiosity factor--it makes a film seem very topical and current. But it seems to have a different effect with academy voters.

Angellotti: I think the politics of the film were misinterpreted. The actors branch did nominate Woody Harrelson, and the directors branch did nominate Milos Forman. It’s more of a resistance to the movie by members who felt uncomfortable with the story. Maybe it galled members that by nominating the movie, they were glorifying Larry Flynt.

Times: What about the ads the studio ran after the nominations were announced, which attacked the National Organization for Women, saying it was trying to destroy the film? Could that have really changed Oscar members’ minds?

Kingsley: I agree with what the studio is saying in those ads. It’s wrong to try to prevent people from seeing a movie just because you don’t agree with what it has to say. These people [running ads against the movie] aren’t critics. They should leave any decisions about a picture up to the people who made it and the people who are paid to tell people whether it’s a good movie. Say your piece, but don’t do a campaign trying to stop people from seeing the movie.

Times: But can ads like that turn a negative into a positive?

Isaacs: I think it was too late. The movie had been out too long. People had already made up their minds.

Times: What do you do when you have a movie that came out early in the year and you want to remind Oscar voters about it?

Angellotti: That’s where the critics awards really have an impact. They remind Oscar voters about the good movies they might have forgotten. An award definitely validates the film and can create a whole new wave of interest in a movie.

Kingsley: If you’ve got a small picture with a performance the critics have really latched on to, like Edward Norton in “Primal Fear,” all of a sudden you can get the media’s attention. In the summer, the press is preoccupied with blockbusters. When the critics awards come along at the end of the year, they often help get the media to pay attention to some of the smaller films.

Times: Everyone points to “The Postman (Il Postino)” last year as a great Oscar campaign. It earned a best picture nomination for a foreign film with subtitles and with no familiar faces. In fact, its star had died long before the movie came out. Why did it work?

Isaacs: One thing that got me in the TV ads was that beautiful song from the film. . . . It was a great subconscious way to remind you of the power of the film. And the fact that the lead actor actually gave his life making the movie made the whole film feel especially passionate, which is something the academy really responds to.

Times: Who deserves an Oscar for their Oscar campaigns in recent years?

Kingsley: I’d give one to “Gandhi.” I was working on “E.T.” that year, and I thought that “E.T.” was so much more about peace than “Gandhi,” but they convinced people to vote for the man instead of the movie. And “E.T.” suffered because of that.

Angellotti: I always think of “Cabaret,” because even though “The Godfather” won best picture that year, Bob Fosse beat out Francis Coppola for best director. The campaign gave the movie a sense of importance--the ads had all these great reviews that stressed the visual power of the film. In hindsight it may seem hard to believe, but it persuaded academy members that Fosse’s film was more polished and difficult than “The Godfather.”

Isaacs: “Unforgiven” had a tremendous campaign. At a time when everyone thought westerns were dead, Warners did a wonderful job of giving the film a certain cachet and stature and pointing out that Clint Eastwood wasn’t just a box-office star but one of our greatest filmmakers. It was subtle but well-orchestrated. Clint was everywhere, but it seemed like he was just where he was supposed to be. That’s the ultimate goal--to be everywhere but not to be obvious about it.