Musical Upset at the Oscars?

Fifty years ago “An American in Paris” scored one of the bigger upsets in Oscar history at the end of a race that looks spookily like the current one. Could “Moulin Rouge” turn out to be this year’s “An American in Paris”--another songfest along the Seine that pulls off a stunning best picture win?

“Moulin Rouge’s” top award from the Producers Guild of America on Sunday suggests that’s at least in the realm of possibility; in the past 12 years, the guild has correctly predicted Oscar’s best picture champ nine times.

The parallels between the 1951 film “An American in Paris” and “Moulin Rouge” are remarkable: Both are romances set to retro music (retooled George Gershwin, warmed-over Elton John) that initially were shrugged off as serious Oscar rivals because they were considered lightweight affairs--interesting experiments with the musical form and not much more.

“An American in Paris,” just like “Moulin Rouge,” however, suddenly surfaced as a formidable rival at the Golden Globes when it won best musical/comedy picture. Before that most of the attention was focused on the Globe winner of best picture/drama, “A Place in the Sun,” because, just like the most recent recipient of that award, “A Beautiful Mind,” it seemed like an inevitable Oscar winner. Its director, George Stevens, much like Ron Howard, was a veteran considered long overdue for major awards.

Neither “A Place in the Sun” nor “An American in Paris” entered the Oscar race with the most nominations. “A Streetcar Named Desire” was “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” of its day, leading with 12 bids, followed by nine for “A Place in the Sun” and eight for “An American in Paris.” That compares closely to this year’s tallies: 13 for “Lord of the Rings” and eight each for “A Beautiful Mind” and “Moulin Rouge.”

At first the awards derby proceeded as everyone expected. After “Sun” nabbed the top Golden Globe, Stevens received the Directors Guild of America award. Variety surveyed 15% of the 1,700 academy members and reported that “Sun” was ahead in the best picture race “by a comfortable poll margin.”

On Oscar night, many gala attendees griped that there was little drama surrounding the event as they arrived at the Pantages Theatre. Once the ceremony began, however, it was clear that the show was not going according to script. Marlon Brando--much like Russell Crowe this year--was considered a front-runner for best actor despite his bad-boy reputation. The winner turned out to be the Denzel Washington of that year--that is, an actor considered long overdue for a victory in the lead actor category: Humphrey Bogart (“The African Queen”).

But as the Oscar evening wore on, it looked as if “A Place in the Sun” was safe in its reach for the top prize, especially when George Stevens won best director.

There was such a broad assumption that “Sun” would prevail as best picture, that, just as the last envelope of the night was about to the opened, “some of the audience had begun to file out silently,” reported Variety. “The retreating crowd was stunned into a momentary silence” when the winner was revealed. Variety overheard a “gasp from every section of the house” as “An American in Paris” was revealed to be the winner.

Could “Moulin Rouge” pull off the same huge upset 50 years later? The movie has two serious strikes against it: no nominations for its director or script writers. In the 73 years of Oscar history, movies that won best picture also won the director’s trophy 54 times. Only three films prevailed in the top race without their directors being nominated: “Wings,” “Grand Hotel” and “Driving Miss Daisy.” But two of those contenders--”Wings” and “Grand Hotel”--won despite failing to score screenplay bids, too.

Musicals Haven’t Been

Favored in Recent Years

“Moulin Rouge” faces another bad omen: No musical has won best picture since “Oliver!,” a victory that marked the end of a heyday for the genre. Between 1958 and 1968, five musicals earned the top prize: “Gigi” (1958), “West Side Story” (1961), “My Fair Lady” (1964), “The Sound of Music” (1965) and “Oliver!” (1968). After that, musicals continued to be nominated for best picture: “Hello, Dolly!” (1969), “Fiddler on the Roof” (1971), “Cabaret” (1972) and “Beauty and the Beast” (1991). Other movies that were best picture nominees in recent years could be defined, if not as musicals, then as music-driven films: “Nashville” (1975), “Bound for Glory” (1976), “All That Jazz” (1979), “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980) and “Tender Mercies” (1983). One of them even won best picture: “Amadeus” (1984).

In its favor, however, “Moulin Rouge” has something strongly in common with a movie that recently pulled off a stunning upset in the best picture showdown: “Shakespeare in Love” (1998). Both films are unabashedly, fabulously romantic, and they’re about performers exulting in the thrill of hey-let’s-put-on-a-show. It’s a spirit that may prove seductive to actors who make up the largest bloc--23% of Oscar voters.

If “Moulin Rouge” gets spurned in the top race, it’s possible that its support could pop up in another top category, thus mirroring what happened to 1998 best picture nominee “Life Is Beautiful,” which also dramatized an overtly sentimental love story. Voters divvied up the top awards to “Saving Private Ryan” (best director, Steven Spielberg) and “Shakespeare in Love” (best picture) and gave “Life Is Beautiful” star Roberto Benigni the best actor trophy, even though he received no film critics’ awards earlier that year and hadn’t even been nominated at the Golden Globes.

“Moulin Rouge” star Nicole Kidman did win a Golden Globe this year, but there will be no foreshadowing of her possible victory as best actress at the Academy Awards, because she can’t do what Benigni did a few weeks before the Oscars: win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday. She’s not nominated--probably because her votes got split between “Moulin Rouge” and another of her films of 2001, “The Others.”

Nonetheless, Kidman’s Oscar chances must be taken seriously, because her role in “Moulin Rouge” is certainly in the Oscar-winning tradition of other song-bursting best actresses Julie Andrews (“Mary Poppins”) and Barbra Streisand (“Funny Girl”). Kidman even portrays the same diva role that Oscar-winner Liza Minnelli did in “Cabaret”--a hooker (or courtesan) with a heart of gold and lungs of steel. There is one key difference: Kidman can’t really sing, but her admirable effort makes her character seem all the more real and worth caring about.