Stretching the Oscar Envelope

It’s Saturday evening in Brentwood. Inside the home of producer Mark Johnson, a casually dressed, bearded Mexican director named Alfonso Cuaron is caught in a crush of Hollywood partygoers who have come to shake his hand, share a drink, sample some shrimp in pesto and gush over his film, “Y Tu Mama Tambien.”

Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer leans against a wall, deep in conversation with Variety editor in chief Peter Bart. Another Oscar winner, director Steven Soderbergh, wearing his distinctive black-framed, rectangular eyeglasses, schmoozes with reporters while simultaneously fending off on-the-record contact, saying, “No press! No press!” Even Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is here -- as a co-host, no less.

All in all, an amiable and festive gathering of Hollywood elites, and clearly helpful to Cuaron’s own Oscar hopes. And, had it been thrown by a studio instead of an individual, strictly forbidden.

Although the Academy Awards are more than three months away, Hollywood’s great race has begun, and its campaign route winds through a sprawling but highly entertaining gray area in which it’s sometimes hard to tell the socializing, which is part and parcel of Hollywood, from the politicking, which the academy frowns upon.

In any case, the town is awash in would-be Oscar candidates out pressing the flesh at parties, private screenings and a blizzard of year-end gatherings where academy voters might just happen to congregate. The proximity of other awards shows is a factor too; Thursday’s announcement of the nominees for the Golden Globes -- given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., and often seen as playing New Hampshire primary to Oscar’s election night -- got things going in earnest.

In an effort to ward off the more brazen attempts to woo votes, the academy each year goes to great lengths to police the Oscar campaigns. To the outside world, the rules may seem obsessive, arcane, even something to wink at. But to the academy -- and the studios and independent distributors with Oscar-worthy films to promote -- the provisions carry the high seriousness of the California penal code, or the DMV rule book, at the very least. To wit:

On screenings: “The Academy encourages the screening of eligible films in a theatrical setting for its members. However, such screenings should not be accompanied by receptions, buffets or other refreshments, nor should such screenings feature the live participation of the film’s artists before or after the screening.”

On screening schedules: “Screening schedules or notices or upcoming screenings may be mailed to members, but only in letter format (8 1/2” x 11” paper, no photographs, no glossy or card stock) or postcards (maximum size 4”x6,” logo and title only, no photographs, no key or other art, no glossy stock.)”

On events: “Receptions, dinners or other events to which Academy members are invited and which are specifically designed to promote a film or achievement for Academy Awards consideration are expressly forbidden.”

Yet just as politicians have figured out ways to skirt federal campaign finance laws, savvy studios and publicists know just how far they can push the envelope regarding Oscar regulations.

‘The American Way’

The rules prohibit studios from inviting academy members to question-and-answer sessions with the stars? No problem. Send out invites to the Hollywood guilds representing directors, actors, writers and producers, many of whose members -- surprise, surprise -- are also among the 6,000 or so card-carrying members of the academy.

“Campaigners take the rules seriously but that doesn’t mean they don’t try to get around them -- and that is OK; it’s the American way,” said Tony Angellotti, an Oscar campaign consultant who advises the studios on strategies to win nominations and awards. “It’s not like anyone is saying, ‘What rascals.’ They are saying, ‘I wish I had thought of that.’ ”

This season’s tactic of choice seems to be the celebrity Q&A.; The post-screening discussion session is a time-honored Hollywood practice. But the sessions have proliferated this year, morphing into a series of glitzy events where the stars take questions from an audience and then mingle among the crowds at catered receptions.

For example, the Screen Actors Guild is hosting a series of “conversations” this month with people like George Clooney, making his directorial debut in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” and Nia Vardalos of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” The Directors Guild of America’s Sunset Boulevard theater is the site of 11 Q&A;’s this month. The studios are behind most of these, trotting out the Oscar-hopeful stars and directors of films including “The Hours” (Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, director Stephen Daldry); “The Emperor’s Club” (director Michael Hoffman); and “One Hour Photo” (Robin Williams).

And over at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which dispenses Britain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards, stars like Moore of “Far From Heaven” and “The Hours,” Ray Liotta of “Narc” and Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere and director Rob Marshall of the brassy new Miramax musical “Chicago” are among those who have stopped by to chat after screenings.

“I haven’t been asked to kiss any babies yet,” said Marshall, whose “Chicago” ended up dominating Thursday’s Golden Globe nominations, garnering eight. “You never know with Miramax. They may ask me that.”

Marshall, a Tony Award-winning choreographer-director, is from the theater world, so events like these offer valuable face time with movie people.

“What would make me uncomfortable is if I had to feel like I was really campaigning for myself,” he said. “That’s an odd feeling because I don’t want to put the focus on awards.”

Political Parties

Many point to Miramax’s 1998 romantic comedy “Shakespeare in Love” as the film that changed the dynamics of the Oscar race, causing it to resemble presidential politics as never before. For the most part, previous Oscar campaigns had been less in-your-face, relying more on behind-the-scenes lobbying than saturation marketing and the brash style most famously personified by Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein.

Not only did Miramax spend a fortune placing ads touting the film and performances in Hollywood’s two trade papers, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, but actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who went on to win the best actress Oscar for her performance in the film, was seemingly everywhere in the run-up to the Oscar show. If there was a magazine cover, she graced it. If there was a premiere, she was there, posing for the paparazzi. And “Entertainment Tonight” seemed to chronicle every event she attended.

By comparison, actress Cate Blanchett, who delivered a powerful performance in “Elizabeth” that year, remained in England much of the time and that may have hurt her Oscar chances.

Last season, Australian director Baz Luhrmann went on a worldwide barnstorming tour on behalf of his movie musical “Moulin Rouge” and many credit his publicity blitzkrieg with landing the 20th Century Fox film eight Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture. (Although Luhrmann was not nominated for best director, and his movie did not take best picture honors, it did win two Academy Awards -- for costume design and art direction-set direction.)

During awards season -- which resembles a free-for-all now but will take on a focused intensity after Oscar nominees are announced Feb. 11 -- actors and directors hit the campaign trail not only in Los Angeles and New York, but also in London, San Francisco, Santa Fe, N.M., anywhere where there are pockets of academy voters.

“It’s all about exposure, it’s about access,” said producer Steve Tisch (“Snatch”). “People in Hollywood love to say their new best friend is so-and-so.”

“I’ve been at parties where either the studio involved or the producers involved or the talent agencies involved create an opportunity for their clients to meet academy members,” added Tisch, a member of the academy’s producers branch.

Private parties like the one held earlier this month for Alfonso Cuaron do not violate any Oscar rules, but they do show the blurry line between campaigning and socializing.

The party was deemed legal under academy rules because academy members were not specifically invited and IFC Films, the distributor for U.S. and Canada, did not underwrite the bash. However, IFC Entertainment President Jonathon Sehring flew out from New York to attend the party.

Academy president Pierson, who won an Oscar for best screenplay for “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), spoke approvingly as he stood across the crowded room from Cuaron: “I admire this picture and I wanted to meet the filmmaker.”

“It’s a social occasion. There is nothing wrong with that.... Should we call off all dinner parties and luncheons and de facto parties among friends as the Christmas season approaches because we are all involved in the business? We have to have latitude to sit down and eat and break bread together and be a community of filmmakers. That is what this is all about.”

Yet in one of those strange juxtapositions that can give this time of year a certain “Alice in Wonderland” quality in Hollywood, only the night before Pierson had pulled out of co-hosting a screening followed by a Q&A; for Cuaron at the Los Angeles Film Academy. He did so after an advertisement for the event appeared in Variety mentioning that an academy membership card and ID were required for admittance; both the ad and requirement were violations of academy rules.

Fredell Pogodin, the publicist handling the film, received a letter from the academy alerting her that her ad had stepped over the line. The academy took no immediate action and Pogodin had no comment.

(If it wants to get serious with violators, the academy carries a big stick: denial of the highly sought-after tickets to the Oscars ceremony, coming up on March 23, 2003. But yes, the film could still compete.)

Meanwhile, Johnson (“The Rookie”), the chairman of the academy’s foreign-language film selection committee, said he saw no problem with holding a party for Cuaron in his house. “The reason we threw the party was because Alfonso is a good friend and we wanted to do it,” he said.

“Y Tu Mama Tambien,” which opened in Mexico last year, was not submitted at that time by the country for Oscar consideration in the foreign language category. However, since its release in the U.S. in March, it is eligible for best picture, director and all other major categories.

And the room clearly was filled with heavy hitters from the film community and opinion-makers from the entertainment media who could help get the Oscar buzz going for Cuaron.

When 20th Century Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman spotted Cuaron, he made his way through the crowd to give the director a bearhug. He told Cuaron, an old friend, that he always wins the office pool so he was sure the director would be nominated this year.

The 41-year-old director, who only a few years ago was making commercials in his native Mexico, flew in for the party from London, where he was preparing to direct “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” the third installment in the blockbuster series.

Asked if he felt like a politician pressing the flesh, Cuaron beamed. “Definitely,” he said. He then jokingly broke into song -- a rendition of the presidential salute, “Hail to the Chief,” as he posed for a flashing camera.