The New Yorker Radio Hour - Michael Schulman on Oscars History, and a Visit with “Annie” Composer Charles Strouse

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Despite years of controversy, the Academy Awards and the other awards shows remain must-watch television for many Americans. The awards may be “unreliable as a pure measure of cinematic worth,” Schulman tells David Remnick. “But I would argue that the Oscars are sort of a decoder ring for cultural conflict and where the industry is headed,” Schulman says. “They are a way to understand where pop culture is.” With theatre attendance in continuing decline, the Academy is looking for solutions, Schulman believes, and that could result in a higher-grossing outlier winner for the coveted Best Picture award. Plus, a visit with the Broadway composer Charles Strouse, who is ninety-four and compiling his archives to donate to the Library of Congress. He reflects on his work with Jay-Z and his “friendly enemy” relationship with Stephen Sondheim: “He didn’t like me much. I didn’t like him less.” Still nimble at the piano, Strouse plays a rendition of his classic, “Tomorrow.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The Oscars and the other award shows remain must-watch television. For at least many of us, we watch, first of all, waiting for something to go horribly wrong, like the Moonlight Envelope episode or Will Smith's infamous slap that was heard around the world. And we watch for the pleasure of arguing about the nominations and shouting at the TV. when the Academy picks the wrong films again and again. Green Book, Crash, Ordinary People, and on and on. There's, of course, this vast cottage industry of strategists and PR people, and Hollywood has its own reasons for voting for certain things,

whether they want to back a hit or an actress who's been at it forever and it's her turn or what have you, you know. Michael Schillman is a staff writer at the New York. and his new book is called Oscar Wars, a history of Hollywood in gold, sweat, and tears. It's unreliable as a pure measure of, you know, cinematic worth. But I would argue that the Oscars have a lot of value for another reason, which is that they are sort of a decoder ring for cultural conflict

and where the industry is headed. They're a way to understand where pop culture. is. Now, but you got interested in the Oscars way, way before you could have figured out that it was a cultural Dakota ring. You were, as a kid, obsessed with the Oscars. Why was that? Well, I remember pretty clearly the first time I watched the Oscars. I was 12. It was 1993. So this was the era of the incredible Billy Crystal opening medleys. I'm sure you recall. I do. A few good men is celebrated. A few good men is celebrated.

So how's the director not nominated? What I remember so clearly is that I was way too young to have seen any of the nominated movies like Unforgiven or The Crying Game, but that didn't stop me from thinking this medley was the most ingenious comedy I'd ever seen. And in a way, like, looking back, I think I did understand that it was a kind of, that the Oscars were a kind of decodering. I mean, all of Billy Crystal's in jokes about, you know, why didn't the director of a few good men get nominated and, you know, here's Clint Eastwood in the front row. You know, I think part of me could tell that the Oscars were a way of understanding this world of actors and celebrities and movies and Hollywood. Michael, you write about Louis B. Mayor. Mr. Mayor is the gentleman who originally conceived the idea of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Mr. Mayor is also the vice president of Metro Goldman Mayor.

And you write that the Oscars were originally a kind of, I don't know, an afterthought. Why was the Academy created in the first place? And what was the original purpose of the awards? Well, the Academy's creation had really nothing to do with awards. So this was 1927, and it was Louis LeMayer's idea. He sort of suggested it over cards and drinks one night at his beach house. And it was founded soon after by 36 founding members who represented a cross-section of the most powerful people in Hollywood at the time in the silent era. And they saw themselves as a kind of League of Nations that would promote harmony and, you know, promote motion pictures throughout the world.

But if you look a bit closer, Hollywood was having a really terrible image problem. Earlier in the 20s, there were all these salacious scandals like the trial of Fatty Arbuckle who was arrested for rape and murder. and the mysterious death of the director William Desmond Taylor, which is still unsolved and people are trying to figure it out. The same sort of church groups that had pushed for prohibition very successfully were now targeting the movies as this chief corrupting influence of America. And there was a real threat. There was a threat of censorship laws, for instance.

And part of what this organization did was rebrand Hollywood, not as accessible, but as an academy. Like, what could be more lofty and respectable? In our own era, one of the chief criticisms of the Oscars, of course, has been a lack of diversity. So recently we've seen more nominees of color. That's true. We saw Moonlight win the Oscar. How have the Oscars change and how not?

Right. I mean, that was a huge pivot that year. And when I looked back on it as a whole, what was so interesting was to see how this conversation about diversity and inclusion at the Academy Awards and the kind of backlash that it provoked. It was happening at the same time as the 2016 election and sort of mirrored it in a weird way because, of course, Donald Trump's candidacy was all about, you know, grievance

and running against the idea of political correctness. And the winner is a movie from South Korea. What the hell was that all of them? We got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of it, they give him the best movie of the year. Was it good? I don't know. You know, I'm looking for like, Let's get gone with the wind.

Can we get gone with the wind back, please? It was really interesting to go back and even trace that year that ended with Moonlight's win and to see how the politics in Hollywood were sort of a fun house mirror of the politics throughout the country. The Academy has done a tremendous job of overhauling its membership, inviting a lot more people in, including people from around the world. It's a much more international membership now. And I think you start to see that reflected in winds like parasite a few years ago. So I think, you know, I think the Academy really has made an effort, a very successful effort to structurally change itself.

And of course, there are plenty of people who think that's terrible and, you know, they're lowering their standards and this and that. But who thinks it's terrible and who's being kind of cast aside? Oh, I mean, there are plenty of people. You know, for the piece I wrote in 2017, I talked to Tab Hunter, the kind of the aging, you know, blonde hunk from the 50s. And he had come out with this incredibly angry statement about how the academy was betraying its white members who were the backbone of the industry. You know, I mean, this exists. It's out there. It's in a way that's a very similar debate. as, you know, how we talk about affirmative action.

There are people who feel like, oh, you should be race blind or whatever. But, of course, that ignores the structural advantages that have existed for white men in the Oscars for its first, you know, 80, 90 years. Well, that brings me to the obvious question then. If, in fact, the Oscars and its structure and the Academy have managed to reform themselves at least somewhat, How has that been reflected overall in the industry? The last two winners of the best director, Oscar, have been women. But are we seeing that branch out into the industry more generally? We're seeing a lot more women able to direct films and get budgets and all the rest, for example.

Not especially. I mean, I've seen some statistics lately that have said, you know, it's still very stagnant in terms of women directing, people of color directing. We still haven't had a black best director winner. incredibly. We haven't had a black best actress winner since Hallie Berry in 2002. This year we might have a

woman of color winning with Michelle Yo for everything everywhere at once. We'll see. But you know, what's tricky is that Hollywood is very good at optics, but they're not always as good at actual change. It sounds like

it's a kind of glossy form of tokenism. And it's a kind of racist thing when you do when the really the important thing is representation in the ability to make movies which requires budgets and access and all the rest prizes are relatively easy and of course the the Oscars are sort of the end point of that process as many people argued at the time this was part of that debate over Oscars so white you know why why why should the Oscars bear the brunt of a a problem in the industry and what movies are being

made. I think what's interesting and admirable is that the Academy has really gone proactive. They released these set of requirements for eligibility for best picture that you have to meet certain criteria for inclusion in different departments of the film. People have said that even that doesn't go far enough, or it's sort of, you know, if you have like a all-women publicity team, you're sort of good to go and you don't actually need to change anything. But, But I think it's been really interesting to watch the Academy change with the times. Michael, Harvey Weinstein, who's obviously in prison now for rape, was known for having transformed the way people campaigned for Oscars. Can you talk about how he did this, how he shaped the winning and the campaigning and the winning of Oscars, and whether that's persisted after his time?

Yes, this is what Harvey Weinstein used to be notorious for. Very ugly Oscar campaigning, which has been obviously eclipsed by what he's now notorious for. Rightly so. One of the chapters that I always knew I wanted to do in the book was the 1999 best picture race between Saving Private Ryan, the Spielberg movie, and Shakespeare in Love, which was a Miriamax film. So that was Harvey Weinstein's movie. And this is remembered as one of the ugliest best picture fights in Oscar history. You know, Weinstein had spent that entire decade honing this playbook.

You know, people used to call it the Weinstein playbook, which had to do with, you know, flooding the trade magazines with ads, you know, sort of pulling off stunts to sort of get things noticed. You know, I'm kind of fed up with Harvey's behavior. Every night, you know, Harvey comes by. Can you talk about the film? That's in the movie. Huh? Can you? Will it kill you to talk about the movie?

And, you know, eight or nine years of that, it's amusing. But now I'm just... He amassed power and influence throughout the 90s, and it kind of culminated in this race between Shakespeare and Love and saving Private Ryan. And part of it was really, like, an arms race, you know? As soon as the DreamWorks, Spielberg people realized, oh, my gosh, this...

You know, they sort of thought they had it in the bag. It had been a gigantic worldwide hit, and it was Spielberg, you know, in the same way we're seeing this year with the Fableman's. It was like one of those... Spielberg movies that seemed like a real moment for him. It cut to that December when Shakespeare

and Love comes out and suddenly this race is more interesting and the people at DreamWorks found themselves essentially under siege in this Oscar race. Now I've went back and talked to a lot of people from both sides of this contest and they both talk about it like it was the

Spanish Civil War. I mean everyone is still so traumatized. And the Oscar goes to Shakespeare in Love. But what happened in the end was that a lot of people in Hollywood were absolutely aghast because they felt that Harvey had cheated by campaigning too hard. And the next year, all of the other studios, especially DreamWorks, felt that they had to copy and double the Weinstein playbook. So it's like the Cold War?

Absolutely. So DreamWorks the next year had American Beauty. And they outspent every other studio and they won. And every studio had sort of hired maybe a consultant, you know, play some ads. But it suddenly went from being a sort of gentleman's game to being bloodsport. And the budgets ballooned, the, you know, the never-ending kind of cocktails and Q&As that we see now. You know, it became Oscar season in a different way. Michael, let's talk about Best Picture this year.

When you look at the academy and its tendencies, go out on a limb, keep walking and make a prediction. Well, I think the Fableman's is still sort of in that frontrunner's slot, you know? I mean, Spielberg is pretty much beloved, and this is his, this is him telling us who he is after all these years. He's now sort of showing us into his soul. But I think what's really interesting about this year is that it's been a really difficult year for Hollywood, especially these sort of, adult dramas at the box office, you know, movies like TAR and even the Fablements have just not done well. And so my sense is that a lot of people in Hollywood are kind of freaked out.

You know, there are many reasons for this, mostly the rise of streaming, you know, and the pandemic. People are very used to staying at home, waiting for something to show up on Netflix or HBO Max. And the only thing they're really going out to the movies to see are these big Temple franchise blockbusters like Avatar and Top Gun and Black Panther. So I'm interested to see whether the Academy sort of runs to embrace the big successes to sort of prove that it's still a viable industry or whether it sort of closes rank against these little serious movies that have always traditionally been the purpose of the Oscars to sort of raise up the, you know, the quality over, you know, art over commerce.

But my bold prediction, and, you know, if I'm wrong, just forget I ever said this, obviously. No, I'm holding you to it, absolutely. There's one movie that has been the exception to the rule, the unicorn, which is everything everywhere all at once, which is this A24 movie that is not a franchise. It's completely original. It's super weird. It's really delightful. But it also is this spectacle. And it's made over $100 million around the world.

So I think that my prediction is that, I don't know if it'll win. But I think everything every well at once will have a good night Because in a way, it's Hollywood's way of pretending that some of those structural problems don't exist. That's an interesting analysis. Now, Michael, finally, instead of going out on a song, do you have a favorite acceptance speech that we should end on? No.

How do I even choose? I think I'm going to have to go with Meryl Street, who won for The Iron Lady in 2012. And, I mean, I just think she is not, not only the greatest loving actress, but the greatest loving acceptance speech giver. And that was the year she came up and said... Thank you, thank you. When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, oh, no.

Oh, come on why. Her again, you know. But, you whatever. Thank you so much, Michael. Thanks, David. Michael Schulman's new book is called Oscar World. and you can read him on entertainment and culture at new yorker.com. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Hello. You're a new face. A little while ago, our producer Jeffrey Masters went over to spend some time with the Broadway composer Charles Strauss. Strauss wrote Broadway shows like,

and bye-bye Birdie. Gray skies are gonna clear up, Put on a happy face. Brush off the clouds and cheer up. Put on a happy face. He wrote the score for Bonnie and Clyde and music for lots of television. But Charles Strauss is best known for the musical Annie. The sun will come out.

Even now, hundreds and hundreds of productions of Annie take place every year. It's like the gateway drug for Broadway for generations of kids. Sleeping? You sleeping? What? Charles, hey. He was not sleeping, but he is 94 years old, so if he was, I don't think I can really blame him.

I'm going to record if that's okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, I'm going to suck my stomach in. The scene in his apartment, you know, it was a lot. It was tegotic. He's currently going through his archives, just the boxes and boxes, completely covering the floors, and he's doing this in order to donate them to the live.

Library of Congress. Yeah, I guess the Library of Congress, which collects life itself, yeah, they asked me. I mean, I wouldn't ask to do this. But in this box, here tell me, we found, oh, my God, so heavy. But there's this, the record from All in the Family? I wrote it. Oh, right, the theme song for the show. Norman Lear wanted to have a theme, but he couldn't afford a big orchestra.

And I brought up the fact that when I was a kid, we all used to sit around, and my mother used to play. And so that's how I wrote it. But boy, the tunes Glenn Miller played songs that made the hit parade. Guys like us we had it made. Those were the days. And you knew where you wanted that she made up herself. were girls and men were men Mr. We could use

Herbert Hooper again But the song itself, as did the program, became very successful. Yeah, you know, there's this huge framed picture of Jay-Z and the framed a CD and cassette tape from the album that says, Volume 2, Hard Knock Life.

Oh, it says from 1998. It's the hard-down. From standing on the corners bopping to drive some of the hottest cars New Yorkers ever seen for dropping some of the hottest verses rapists ever heard from the dope spot with the smoke-lock King in the murder scene.

Well, Ed, what was it like working with Jay-Z? There he is. He was surrounded by bodyguards and all kinds of people there was finally one point in my life where we got together and sat and talked. Oh, because he also produced the most recent Annie movie remake from 2014. I do remember I kind of won his heart in a way when I said, you've got to bring your wife with you.

You know, I was being kind of snotty. and he must have told her that. Beyonce? Yeah, it was a nice relationship. Yeah. But most of the time, he was beyond such a small person as me. You know, in one of the boxes, where is it, we found a letter from Stephen Sondheim. And there's a funny part to it.

Do you mind if I read it? Yeah. Okay. So this is dated July 22nd, 2000. And he says, congratulations on your memoir that was just published. And then he says, quote, I bought a copy yesterday and naturally immediately looked up references to myself. And then he supplies two corrections for you in case there are any future reprintings, he says. Was that kind of thing in character for him?

Stephen and I were friendly enemies. He didn't like me much. I didn't like him less but on the other hand I respected him a lot Stephen and I knew each other so long that

I stood danger of invading his territory but even that was not we went we came into two different worlds but we were very old friends he was the

he was my oldest friend in the theater. I mean, right now, she, Annie, is like surrounding us, right? There's posters on the walls and pillows, but also in this box, it's Annie stationary and letterheads.

Also, there's the Annie cookie jar in the shelf and this Andy Piggyvink. With her big, big song, tomorrow, when you originally wrote it, did you think that you'd struck gold? I didn't think. I thought that was a, uh, disposable item that we needed necessary to keep the curtain up or down.

But so many songs in musicals go through that emotion, you know. If a guy is a good theater composer, he learns to kind of think with two voices, so to speak. One is, I love who, my darling. The other is, I love who, my darling, but keep it going going this song because we have to bring in the detective soon. I would say tomorrow falls into that category. I needed some time.

It's usually always that way. When you're writing for the theater, the book writer most usually says he needs a song there, or you yourself, rather than here's my symphony to the stars. And so you originally thought that that song was disposable, as you said. Now in hindsight now, what do you think it is that makes that song so great? I don't know.

I mean, maybe I do know. Maybe I'm being modest. I do think I'm talented. I think I write a song and I wanted to please the audience. I didn't know that it was going to be so big. And so I'm very proud if it made it tomorrow. I think that tomorrow with it there's this beautiful simplicity to it, where you can hear it and then almost like sing along with it during each reprise.

That's what a popular song should do. It should sound as though it was always there, but it never was until you thought of it. And I think tomorrow came to me that way. It's a complicated melody. I'm looking at posters on my, and a lot of songs I've written that have not been classics like that. I mean, I think that fortunately and unfortunately,

When a song gets as big as tomorrow has gotten and has remained, it gets bigger than you, right? Your name in many ways is no longer associated with it. Has that bothered you in your career? Not if I hear the song, no, not really. I mean, I never got what Lenny himself did. Irving Berlin did. No, I never had that luxury.

And here's another Charles Stroud's song. I never had that kind of reputation. It's a funny thing about composing. It comes from your heart in a way, but it really comes from nowhere. It's God-given. I would think that's a God-given gift that I've been fortunate enough to get...

I'm getting old, you know. Look how I'm walking. I don't play it too well now. This one will come out. Tomorrow Bit your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be shot

just thinking about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till there's none. When I'm stuck with a day that's great and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin and say, whoa, this is not come down tomorrow, so you've got to hang on till you hang on till tomorrow, till tomorrow. Tomorrow, Come what may.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you. Broadway composer Charles Strauss. He's sending much of his archive to the Library of Congress, and he spoke with Jeffrey Masters,

who's one of our producers. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, And that's our program for today. Thanks so much for being with us. See you next time. I mastered that pretty well. That's fantastic.

Thank you. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton, Breedie Green, Adam Howard, Calalea, David Krasnow, masters, Louis Mitchell, and Engofen in Putabwele, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance

from Harrison Keithline, Mike Cutchman, and Meher Bactia. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.