A Return to Passion of Films Past

It was supposed to be a whole new look for the Academy Awards, and in some ways it was. As widely anticipated, independents took control for the night at least, with “The English Patient,” “Fargo” and “Shine” accounting for a dozen Oscars, including six of the most prestigious eight.

But despite that, and despite Billy Crystal’s jokes about the nominees having to show photo IDs to get in, it was impossible to watch the events at the Shrine Auditorium without feeling that history was repeating itself. When “The English Patient” won the Oscar for best picture, the ghosts of Hollywood past were hovering in the wings.

For Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax films and one of “The English Patient’s” co-executive producers, is a film power in the mold of the moguls that were. In the ways that count, Weinstein and his brother Bob are throwbacks to studio heads like Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, the Warner brothers and Samuel Goldwyn. Not nice guys, not saints who took vows of poverty, but executives who, unlike so many of their descendants at the top of today’s studio hierarchies, cared passionately about film.

It was Weinstein’s passion that got Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth to approve the twenty-plus millions it took to bring the vision of two other passionate men, producer Saul Zaentz and writer-director Anthony Minghella, to the screen. And it was Weinstein’s zeal that led to a steamroller advertising and publicity campaign that opened the film on a high note and ended up with last night’s nine Oscars, including Best Picture.

And speaking of steamrollers, who but Miramax could have focused the Academy’s attention on a deserving urchin like “Sling Blade” and gotten the best adapted screenplay Oscar for Billy Bob Thornton. Like the polished lobbyists they are, the Miramax team has perfected the technique of putting just enough pressure on Academy voters to get results but not so much as to appear unseemly.

To those who can remember back to January of last year, it was Harvey Weinstein’s much publicized public battle at Sundance for the rights to “Shine” that helped imprint that film on the public’s attention and led indirectly to the film’s best actor Oscar for Geoffrey Rush. And, not so incidentally, to many of the film’s overseas rights going to Miramax’s parent company, Disney. The Weinsteins, as noted, are hardly in it just for the glory.

It could even be argued that Miramax paved the way for New Line’s bravura selling of “Shine” to the public and Gramercy’s equal skill with the double Oscar winning “Fargo” by demonstrating that these kinds of films could make a handsome profit if marketed hard and marketed smart. Naysayers say, in the dismissive parlance of exhibitors that Miramax “buys the grosses,” but if that is so easy to do, why isn’t everyone else doing it?

It’s not fashionable to look too kindly on Harvey Weinstein, as it was not about the moguls he so resembles. Directors without number complain about the way he has either butchered or otherwise mishandled their films, competitors are irked by the amount of money he has to spend and how he spends it, and even “The English Patient’s” Zaentz, after hugging Harvey in the audience and thanking him from the podium, made sure to note that on this film he alone had final cut.

But it is safe to say that without the Weinsteins there would be no “English Patient” as it exists today and the independent film scene that has so revitalized the American film landscape, up to and including the Oscars, would be quite a different place without their outsized presence.

The first sign that all of Miramax’s energies would have a payoff for “The English Patient” came with the third award of the night, when, in a move reminiscent of “Ghandi’s” victory in this category despite a star who wore only a sheet, “The English Patient’s” tasteful khakis took the award for best costume design over several more showy entries.

And when, in the evening’s biggest shock, Juliette Binoche astonished both herself and sentimental favorite Lauren Bacall by winning the best supporting actress Oscar, it was clear that this year’s Academy was in the mood to vote for the film it loved in almost every category it could. By the time producer Saul Zaentz came up to the podium to receive the Irving Thalberg award, “English Patient” had won six straight Oscars and Zaentz’s appearance had the trappings of a coronation.

If “The English Patient’s” final victory was easy to predict from then on, the Academy did offer one or two surprises. Perhaps the healthiest was the victory for Rachel Portman, the first woman ever to take a best achievement in music Oscar home, who won the musical or comedy score category for “Emma” (and thanked Harvey Weinstein in the process). After all those votes for all those Disney animated films, pulling the lever for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” was a bridge too far for the Academy to cross.

As it is every time around, the heartfelt acceptance speeches of the winners (when they were allowed the time to be heartfelt) were the highlights of the evening, especially the marital tributes that passed between writer-director Joel Coen and his wife, “Fargo” star Frances McDormand. Why the Academy finds time for a puzzling dance paeon to the joys of editing but has to hold an exuberant Cuba Gooding Jr. to a mere 30 seconds is one of the unanswerable mysteries that keeps us watching this national town meeting year after never quite predictable year.