Oscar Nominations Reflect Old, New Schools Equally

By KENNETH TURAN

Feb. 16, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES FILM CRITIC

With the wisdom (the unkind would say confusion) of the Roman god Janus, who was given to simultaneously looking forward and backward, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences divided its Oscar nominations Tuesday between the old-school material it has always favored and the more cutting-edge efforts that once would have been unthinkable as contenders.

This trend has been visible for the past few years as the academy has added newer (and presumably younger) members to its roster. It also parallels the viewing patterns of American audiences, who still love the studio dinosaurs but have shown an increasing willingness to make small-scale hits out of films graced with the independent spirit.

What is interesting about this year’s nominees is that the split is notably clear-cut. The best picture list includes hoary business-as-usual efforts like Frank Darabont’s “The Green Mile” (which audiences embraced despite its thuddingly long running time) and Lasse Hallstrom’s “The Cider House Rules” (which benefited, insiders speculated, from how well it plays on the home video screen, which is many academy voters’ venue of choice).

Conversely, the gleefully surreal “Being John Malkovich” got a trio of major nominations (director, writer, supporting actress), with the one from the directors’ branch, traditionally resistant to newcomers, being as surprising as the exclusion of veteran director Norman Jewison for “The Hurricane.” “Boys Don’t Cry” got a pair of acting nominations, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” got three nods, Mike Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy” did better than its opposite number among costume epics, the Jodie Foster vehicle “Anna and the King,” and so on.

In fact, it could be argued that the reason “American Beauty” led all contenders with eight nominations (including best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay) is that it alone adroitly melded elements from both the conventional Hollywood and the countercultural. Its cast had established veterans like Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening as well as gifted youngsters, it used both a first-time director in Sam Mendes and a legend among cinematographers in Conrad Hall, and its tone combined a familiar scenario with a wicked modernist twist.

Everywhere you looked at the nominations list, this kind of push-pull between the old and the new was evident. For every instance when the academy and its various branches departed from tradition, there was another when business as usual was the rule.

Defying conventional wisdom was “The Sixth Sense,” which collected six nominations, including best picture, and overcame the usual double no-no of being a genre picture and making an immodest amount of money at the box office. (Of course, the former factor didn’t hurt “The Silence of the Lambs,” and the latter did no damage to “Titanic.”)

On the other hand, the old notion that the academy shies away from controversy proved to be true for “The Hurricane,” very much an academy-type picture in most respects, which was held to only one nomination (for the unstoppable Denzel Washington) likely because of questions about its accuracy. “The Insider,” much more proactive in how it handled its own truth-or-fiction controversy (and a better picture), ended up with seven nominations.

The actors’ branch, the academy’s largest, had its own version of old versus new. The new was easiest to spot in the best supporting actress category, in which all five nominees (Toni Collette for “The Sixth Sense,” Angelina Jolie for “Girl, Interrupted,” Catherine Keener for “Being John Malkovich,” Samantha Morton for “Sweet and Lowdown” and Chloe Sevigny for “Boys Don’t Cry”) are young actresses and first-time contenders.

The old ways, however, were still in evidence. They once again penalized “Man on the Moon’s” Jim Carrey (comedians, especially those who go public and mock previous exclusions, are not looked upon kindly) but secured nominations for performers the academy has a record of liking: Michael Caine got his fifth nomination for “The Cider House Rules” and Meryl Streep (more than deserving despite inevitable carping) got her record-tying 12th nomination for “Music of the Heart.”

Once again, and, given studio release patterns, this may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, all the best picture nominees were released at the end of the year, starting with “The Sixth Sense” in August and ending with “The Cider House Rules” and “The Green Mile” in December.

A new trend, however, and one that shows the influence of the independent world on the Oscars, is that seven of the 10 best screenplay nominees also directed their scripts.

Always two of the most interesting categories (because their nomination process involves committees and not branch membership) are the foreign language and the documentary contests, and this year one has ended up on the new side of the ledger and one on the old.

While the foreign language committee did nominate Pedro Almodovar’s irresistible “All About My Mother,” it bypassed such well-regarded but difficult films as Belgium’s Palme d’Or-winning “Rosetta” and Denmark’s “Mifune,” winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear, to select films that, from plot summaries at least, do not seem to be pushing any aesthetic envelopes.

The documentary committee, by contrast, once a cause of embarrassment for not even nominating “Hoop Dreams,” the most significant documentary of the past decade, has changed its procedures and gloriously cleaned up its act. While one nominee (“One Day in September”) has yet to be widely seen, the other four (“Buena Vista Social Club,” “Genghis Blues,” “On the Ropes,” “Speaking in Strings”) are uniformly excellent and worthy of all honors. If this branch can manage to be progressive and forward-looking, maybe there’s hope for us all.

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Oscar Nomination

BEST PICTURE

American Beauty

The Cider House Rules

The Green Mile

The Insider

The Sixth Sense

BEST ACTRESS

Annette Bening

American Beauty

Janet McTeer