At Oscars, Poignancy Prevails Over Phoniness

News, as opposed to the messy reality behind it, tends to have an arc--a beginning, middle and end. The story that was this year’s Oscar controversy was supposed to end with renewed debate over our sordid Cold War history. The reality is less tidy: After much table thumping and many vows that this matter would not go gently, it has taken the world about 10 seconds to forget Elia Kazan.

Four days after the night that was supposed to have reopened old wounds from Beverly Hills to Broadway, the closest thing to a lingering image is not of the notorious director, but of Gwyneth Paltrow’s young face, swollen with tears. One minute, she was gliding on stage like the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn; the next, she was thanking her mom and dad and cousin and grandpa, and her pretty mouth was crumpling, and the camera was revealing less a best actress than an overwhelmed kid in a too-big pink ball gown, which, of course, was what she genuinely, memorably, was.

The tears of a kid were not what people were supposed to remember. The big deal was to have been the redemption or comeuppance of Kazan. For months the world had speculated about the talented filmmaker who, back in 1952, had given the McCarthyites the names of former comrades in the Communist Party: Would he be sorry? Would they applaud? Was he a genius or a snitch?

In this town of stories and storytellers, Kazan’s special Oscar became its own drama, acquired its own narrative. By Sunday night, the world was expecting less a prize than a denouement. Then, in a twist, the evil snitch/misunderstood genius took the stage--and the camera revealed a befuddled 89-year-old man.

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I once knew a guy who, in middle age, decided to lay into his father; the old man, it seemed, had been a terrible dad. For years, the son had complained about his miserable childhood. Finally, after much stewing, he decided to get it off his chest.

On the drive to the homestead, he rehearsed his speech. He knew just how he was going to act, just what he was going to say. Only problem was, when he hauled Dad downstairs with the announcement that he had something important to tell him, he suddenly was overwhelmed with the feeling that his rage was false, that he was the bad guy. Who but a bully would drive miles to pick on a senior citizen?

This is the way life works, as opposed to news and art. The facts never quite fit the story line. You grasp for a narrative, knowing that hearts and minds tend to go with the best spin, but truth undermines you: A human, under pressure, will be messily human. Justice is only half-blind.

In 1952, under pressure from the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Oscar-winning liberal, Elia Kazan, gave up the names of eight people he had known as Communists. They were ruined. He went on to give the world a life’s worth of humanist films. The storytellers wanted justice on Sunday, but, as Kazan could have told them, payback is a fiction. Panning the grim faces and crossed arms, the camera found only the phoniness of stale disapproval--bullies picking on a senior citizen.

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Maybe it was that phoniness that made the Kazan “denouement” pale against the vivid authenticity of the young actress’ unrehearsed tears. Phony things are naturally estranging; the soul gravitates to the genuine.

(In that vein, a word on the media descriptions of the Italian director Roberto Benigni as “un-self-conscious”: The guy is wonderful, but he was the most self-conscious person in the house. Ever walked on the backs of people’s chairs or bunny-hopped your way to a podium? You don’t expend that much energy without thought.)

Kazan’s movies were memorable precisely for their lack of falseness, and if Sunday night had been a movie, he might have taken the podium and said: Yes, I was reprehensible. I put my career first. But if you’d had in you what I had in me--if you knew that, left un-blacklisted, you could give the world “On the Waterfront” and “A Face in the Crowd” and “East of Eden”--if you knew you could contribute that much, would you have sacrificed your heart’s work to the politics of others? Would you have committed the crime of silencing your own voice?

If Sunday night had been a movie, such a narrative would have pierced the soul of every true artist, would have made them remember why art matters. But life ad-libs. “I think I can just slip away,” the old man said as the members of the academy assumed their rehearsed positions. Then he looked behind him and asked, in a small voice, whether there was anything he forgot.

Shawn Hubler’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is: shawn.hubler@latimes.com