Behind the Oscar

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OSCAR GRATITUDE AND SOUR GRAPES
Duslin Huffman, after losing the first two thnes he was nominated: "Sure, I'd like to win an Academy Award. I realize that intellectually il «loesn't really mean very much. But it is a means to more power, which in turn enables you to be choosy about your scripts. And it makes you more money—which you can put away toward the day when you won't be in such demand."
Steven Spielberg on learning he bad not been nominated as Best Director for Jaics: "I can't believe it. Tbey went for FeUini instead of me."
Paid Newman on winning the Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money, after losing on six previous nominations: "It's like chasing a beautiful woman for eighty years. Finally she relents and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired.'"
Kirk Douglas, reflecting on liis failure to win after three nominations: "Tbe Oscars have been more fair than most other awards . . . how tbey could not give il to me was a bit of stupidity."
George Bernard Shaw on... Tovább

Fülszöveg

OSCAR GRATITUDE AND SOUR GRAPES
Duslin Huffman, after losing the first two thnes he was nominated: "Sure, I'd like to win an Academy Award. I realize that intellectually il «loesn't really mean very much. But it is a means to more power, which in turn enables you to be choosy about your scripts. And it makes you more money—which you can put away toward the day when you won't be in such demand."
Steven Spielberg on learning he bad not been nominated as Best Director for Jaics: "I can't believe it. Tbey went for FeUini instead of me."
Paid Newman on winning the Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money, after losing on six previous nominations: "It's like chasing a beautiful woman for eighty years. Finally she relents and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired.'"
Kirk Douglas, reflecting on liis failure to win after three nominations: "Tbe Oscars have been more fair than most other awards . . . how tbey could not give il to me was a bit of stupidity."
George Bernard Shaw on wiiming the Best Screenplay Oscar: "It's an insult for them to offer me any honor, as if they have never heard of me before— and it's likely they never have."
Marlon Brando on winning his first Oscar: "I can't remember what I was going to say for tbe life of me. I don't think ever in my life that so many people were so directly responsible for my being so very, very happy."
Glemla Jackson on looking back on her two Best Actress Oscars: "I felt disgusted, as though I was watcliing a public hanging. No one should have a chance lo see so mucli desire, so much need for a prize, and so niucli pain when not given [it]."
Proilucer Julia Phillips on winning an Oscar for The Sting: "You'll never know what a trip il is for a nice JeM'ish girl from Great Neck lo win an Academy Award and nieel Elizabelb Taylor all in the same night."
Simple hype? Is that really all there is liehind the Oscar? Just a lot of propaganda, a frenzied ritual of self-promotion, a debasement of character anil culture—and for what? A shiny statuette of a naked and featureless little man?
Well, yes, maybe "hype" is a major jiart of the whole affair, but "simple" . . . ? Not by a long shot.
Every year, on the last Monday in March, the reigning royalty of the movie business dress up in their finest feathers—sometimes literally—to attend the ceremony sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At that ceremony, years of struggle and study and sacrifice and hard work— capped by weeks of intense campaigning, awesome in-fighting, blatant self-aggrandizement, and shameless displays of naked desire—are rewarded. The Academy Awards!
As Anthony Holden explains at the start of Behind the Oscar, his fascinating and devihsh look at this perennial affair, "However rich and famous movie stars may become, however admired and envied by audiences and colleagues alike, their cup will not actually run over until their name emerges from one of [the] envelopes, and they can sob their way through an Oscar acceptance speech. [The] winners will bask in the glow of apparent inimortahty—the highest honor even Hollywood can confer—as well as boosting their fantastical fees. For those already in possession of most that this world can offer, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished—and a wish they will go to any lengths to consummate."
Historically, the Academy Awards, first presented in 1927, were an offshoot of an effort by the then-powerful Hollywood studios to defeat the unions that threatened to cut into their considerable profits. At first the Awards were self-congratulatory, back-slapping affairs, dinner parties at which actors and actresses who had kept their noses clean and whose movies had made money were rewarded for their work.
Quickly, however, these annual rites assumed a life of their own, growing over the
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years to the self-congratulatory, back-slapping colossus that today fascinates millions and millions of people the world over.
Behind the Oscar is the story of these awards and how they grew, and, in a way, it's the story of Hollywood itself. Spanning the entire history of the Awards (including the 1991 Academy Awards) and reviewing the famous winners and losers (e.g., Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin), and the not-so-famous people (Luise Rainer, winner of back-to-back Oscars for Best Actress) whose lives have been touched by Oscar magic, Anthony Holden cleverly guides the reader through the ins and outs, the complex, confounding machinations that make up Oscar's history.
Complete with a multitude of award lists, dozens of photos, and enough behind-the-scenes gossip to satisfy even the most jaded. Behind the Oscar is the best written, most enlightening, and easily the most entertaining look ever at Hollywood at its best and worst.
To paraphrase Sally Field upon winning her second Oscar: "You'll like it, you'll really like it!" Vissza