Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Greatest Oscar Snubs

Starting point is 00:00:00 Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosts the biggest celebration of movies and moviemaking, the Oscars. Thousands of members vote in multiple categories to honor the best films and performances of the previous year. And in many years, they get it completely and totally wrong. Learn more about the biggest Oscar snubs and the times the Academy completely blew it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind's start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day, or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nicolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama,

Starting point is 00:00:58 no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday.

Starting point is 00:01:32 The Academy Awards are the world's premier event for the recognition of films and filmmaking. Millions of people around the world tune in for the televised event to see who won and to Gawket celebrities. In a previous episode, I covered the history of the Academy Awards. In this episode, I want to focus on the times when the Academy got it wrong, and sometimes totally blew it. Just to limit the discussion, I'm only going to focus on the best pitcher category.

Starting point is 00:02:02 There have been bad calls across every category, but I need to lay some guardrails given the time constraints of the show. And this is going to be a very subjective episode, but I think I have a good background for compiling such a list. I own every best pitcher, winner on Blu-ray or 4K disc, except for the 1957 Best Picture Winner around the world in 80 days, which has never been released on anything other than DVD. However, I do have the DVD, but more on that film in a bit. I've watched the vast majority of the best picture winners, but not all of them, and I think I got a good idea of when the Academy got it right and when they really whiffed. And I also freely admit that compared to the Academy voters, I have the benefit

Starting point is 00:02:47 of hindsight. The decision and opinions made at the time might look horrible in hindsight, but if that's the case, so be it. So let's start with the most obvious Oscar snub, the first one that everyone brings up and the one I did an entire episode on. Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane is widely considered to be the greatest film of all time and has topped many greatest film lists over the last eight years. It was nominated for Best Picture at the 1941 Oscars, but lost to How Green Was My Valley. How Green Was My Valley is a nostalgic drama about a young boy growing up in a close-knit Welsh coal mining family as their community and way of life slowly unravel into the pressures

Starting point is 00:03:31 of industrialization and labor conflict. It starred a young Roddy McDowell and was directed by John Ford. It's not a bad film, but unfortunately, its greatest claim to fame is beating Citizen Kane for the Oscar. and it's far from John Ford's best film. If you remember back to my episode on Citizen Kane, it was the not-so-subtle retelling of the story of William Randolph Hurst. Hurst was very much alive when the film came out and was an extremely powerful media mogul.

Starting point is 00:04:04 With his connections in Hollywood, he pressured Academy members to vote against Citizen Kane. While Citizen Kane is the most obvious example of the Academy getting it wrong, it's far from the only one. At the 71st Academy Awards in 1999, Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. Shakespeare in Love has been all but forgotten since it won the Oscar over a quarter century ago. Saving Private Ryan has only grown in stature since then,

Starting point is 00:04:34 and it's widely considered to be one of the greatest war films ever made. The opening scene showing the D-Day landings is one of the most powerful in cinema history. So how did Shakespeare and Love beat out a film that even at the time was considered better? Well, Shakespeare and Love was produced by Harvey Weinstein and released by Miramax and benefited from what was then one of the most aggressive awards campaigns ever run. Weinstein's strategy involved extensive screenings, direct outreach to academy voters, heavy advertising and trade publications,

Starting point is 00:05:08 and a narrative that framed the film as a clever celebration of things. theater and storytelling. It was also one of the first films to send DVD copies to every academy member so they could watch it at home. At the same time, the campaign subtly criticized saving Private Ryan, suggesting that its emotional impact faded after the opening battle sequence. By the time the voting concluded, Shakespeare and Love had built enough support across multiple branches of the Academy to win seven Oscars, including Best Pitcher. Needless to say, the whole Harvey Weinstein involvement has not helped the film's perception over time. Both of the snub films I've just mentioned were at least nominated for Best Picture.

Starting point is 00:05:52 But one of the biggest snubs took place in 1959. The film that won the best pitcher is one that I'm guessing that many of you have never even heard of. Gigi. Gigi was directed by Vincent Minelli, the husband of Judy Garland and the father of Liza Seminelli. The film has aged poorly, primarily because the central premise revolves around grooming a teenage girl to become the mistress of wealthy older men in turn-of-the-century Paris. The story is about Gigi, a girl raised by her grandmother and aunt, both former courtesans,

Starting point is 00:06:26 who train her in etiquette, fashion, and social behavior, specifically so she can attract and financially depend on a rich patron. While the film presents this in a light-hearted and romantic way, modern audiences usually find it troubling and creepy because it shows a system in which young women are essentially prepared for transactional relationships with older men. In the movie, the character Gigi, played by the great Leslie Caron, is portrayed as about 15 to 16 years old for most of the movie, while the male lead is depicted as a wealthy Parisian bachelor in his late 20s and early 30s. The best known thing about the film is the song, Thank Heaven for Little Girls.

Starting point is 00:07:05 Gigi only rates a 6.6 on the Internet Movie Database, which is about average for all films. Believe it or not, it actually won nine Oscars, which at the time was the most ever by a film. The other films that were nominated that year for Best Picture were nothing stellar either. They were Auntie Maim, Kada in a Hot Tinroof, the Defiant Ones, and Separate Tables. All fine films, not saying they're bad, but they weren't amazing. The film that was completely overlooked and didn't even get an Oscar nomination was Alfred Hitchcock's classic Vertigo. Vertigo received only modest recognition when it was released in 1958, but over the decades, it has accumulated some of the highest honors ever given any film.

Starting point is 00:07:55 Today, it's routinely ranked as among the greatest films in cinema history. One of the most famous accolades came in 2012, when Vertigo ranked number one in the British Film Institute's site and sound critics poll, ending a 50-year run in which Citizen Kane held the top spot. The site and sound poll is conducted only once every 10 years and is widely considered the most prestigious survey of film critics around the world. The film has also consistently ranked at or near the top of the American Film Institute's list of greatest American films. On AFI's 100 Years 100 movies list, Vertigo placed 9th in 1998, and rose to second in the 2007 updated list, second only to Citizen Kane. In addition, the film has received several honors recognizing

Starting point is 00:08:42 its cultural importance. In 1989, it was among the first film selected for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, a program that preserves films deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. It has an 8.2 rating on the internet movie database, and a perfect score on Metacritic.com. Another snub of a film that didn't even get a nomination took place at the 1968 Oscars. The winner that year was the musical Oliver. As a film, Oliver is okay,

Starting point is 00:09:16 but it's not as good as the other musicals that won Best Picture Oscars in the 1960s, such as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. The far better film which was nominated was The Line in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II, Catherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, as well as Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. Catherine Hepburn actually won her third Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Oliver winning over the line in winter was a minor snub.

Starting point is 00:09:44 The major snub, especially in hindsight, was a film that wasn't even nominated for Best Motion Picture. 2001, a Space Odyssey. 2001, directed by Stanley Kubrick, received only modest recognition from the Academy Awards when it was released in 1968. But over time, it's become one of the most acclaimed and influential films ever made. At the 41st Academy Awards, the film won Best Visual Effects, the only Oscar that Stanley Kubrick ever received. Despite its later reputation, it was not nominated for Best Picture, which is often cited as one of the Academy's greatest oversights. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Critically, it's ranked extremely high in major film polls.

Starting point is 00:10:31 In the site and sound survey, the film has consistently appeared near the top of the list of the greatest films ever made. And in the latest 2022 poll, it was ranked as the greatest film of all time by directors. The reason is that the Academy has tended to be very conservative about the movies at honors. It tends to vote for dramas and traditional studio films. Films that are groundbreaking or that challenge conventional filmmaking haven't tended to win best pitcher. Horror, action, and science fiction have never traditionally done well, although there have been a few that have won recently.

Starting point is 00:11:08 While the films I've listed, I think, are the biggest snubs. They certainly aren't the only ones. Do the Right Thing wasn't even nominated in 1990, and the eventual winner driving Miss Daisy has mostly been forgotten. In fact, all of the nominated films for Best Picture that year, born on the 4th of July, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, and My Left Foot, were arguably all better than driving Miss Daisy and have had a greater legacy. In 1953, the Academy Award for Best Picture was given to The Greatest Show on Earth,

Starting point is 00:11:38 starring Charlton Heston. Again, it's a fine movie, but nothing special. However, it beat out High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, which is considered to be one of the greatest of all time. In 1957, around the world in 80 days won the Oscar for Best Pitcher. It was a big studio film, which was the type of film Academy voters really like to vote for. And as I mentioned before, it's the only Best Picture winner to have never been released on Blu-ray, as of the time of this recording, which I think kind of says something.

Starting point is 00:12:10 The film that it beat out, which was considered a better critical film even at that time, was Giant. Giant star Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson. and James Dean. While Giant doesn't rank as highly as some of the other snub films I've mentioned, it was clearly better than around the world in 80 days. There have been several Martin Scorsese films that arguably should have won best pitcher. The most egregious snub was at the 1981 Oscars when Ordinary People beat out Raging Bull.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Again, ordinary people, fine movie, but Raging Bull is widely considered to be the best American film of the 1980s. So the next time you watch the Oscars or just read the results and you're puzzled as to why something you didn't think was very good one, there's a good chance you're right. And it also wouldn't be the first time that it happened. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord.

Starting point is 00:13:22 That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Greatest Oscar Snubs

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