Too little, too late: Bacall, Willis and Corman finally get Oscars
You could be forgiven for not realizing the Oscars embarrassed themselves two times in a single weekend. First of all they called attention to the fact that Gordon Willis and Lauren Bacall don’t have Oscars. Though he’s a cinema giant, it’s fair to say Roger Corman hasn’t exactly trafficked in Oscar type material so we’ll forgive AMPAS that oversight, but there’s no excuse for the other two, especially Willis.
It’s all well and good that Oscar atoned for these shortcomings with a trio of honorary awards, but then they had to go and separate the ceremony from the usual Oscar telecast to an un-televised November gulag with only the guests in attendance able to watch. In the name of making the March broadcast more entertaining for the masses, the honorary awards were stripped from their rightful place during the Oscar show where millions of people would be watching. Instead they were dumped where they wouldn’t bother anyone like senior citizens whisked off to an old age home. The result is a cheapened Oscar telecast and a batch of honorary awards stripped of much of their impact.
A sense of history and a connection to the industry are the only things keeping the Oscars above the Golden Globes, but this year AMPAS has taken one step closer to awards irrelevance and in the process they’ve insulted three worthy recipients who have earned their places in the spotlight.
Congratulations anyway to cinematographer Gordon Willis, producer/director Roger Corman and actress Lauren Bacall. Though your honorary Oscars aren’t quite the honor they once were, they’re no less deserved.
Filed under: Awards
Tags: AMPAS, Gordon Willis, Lauren Bacall, Oscar, Roger Corman
I know all about it, Craig.
I went back and forth on it. I had all ready reported on the dinner and the awards that they would be receiving quite a few weeks ago.
But now that it’s over and done with, I just couldn’t bring myself to post about this at CP.
Basically for two reasons…
I totally agree that it’s a wicked shame and more than an oversight. It’s an embarrassment.
Lauren Bacall is a childhood idol of mine. Gordon Willis is a genius cinematographer.
They’re icons. LEGENDS.
By now they both should have won for SOMETHING.
Plus it still makes me white hot that we won’t get to see these vastly overdue honours where they should have been shown in the first place – during the telecast.
But better late than never. I GUESS.
Congratulations to Ms. Bacall and Mr. Willis. (As well as Mr. Corman.)
It’s about time!!!
Yes, not televising the honorary awards anymore is a cryin’ shame. With all the padding-out the Oscars have given the awards these past few years (who really needs ANOTHER performance under the necrology?), you’d think they could find time to honor Hollywood’s legends. At the very least, I hope these three are invited to the show and get some sort of recognition, even if only to stand at their seats and be applauded.
And what makes it doubly shameful is that it seems to have gotten much easier for people to win for that one perfect role. In the past decade, we’ve seen folks like Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, and Marion Cotillard win Oscars. No matter what you think of their talent levels, these people weren’t exactly longstanding movie veterans with acclaimed filmographies, but relatively young actors who got one really bait-y role and rode waves of hype to Oscar gold. Meanwhile, people like Corman, Bacall, and Willis, who have all had storied careers (albeit in different ways) get relegated to the untelevised honorary dinner because they’re not young and hot and the kids haven’t seen their awesome movies. Seems disingenuous to me, to say nothing of disrespectful to Hollywood history.
But hey, gotta pull into the 18-to-34-year-olds, right?
This year we’ll get 10 Best Picture nominees so obviously the show will be better, more films will be recognized via more nominations, and the telecast will be streamlined to make it more palatable to a broader audience. Everyone always remembers the nominations more than the awards themselves anyway, right? And not having these honorary awards means they can spend more time recognizing all the great achievements in film this year, like Transformers 2, 2012, and All About Steve.
That’s better, right? Right?
God, Bruce Willis has aged!
Hey, what’s the problem? This means more time for those unforgettable Oscar song and dance sequences. Bread and circuses.
Hollywood again proves it’s not worthy.
Bacall is a good sport just to show up. Her loss to Juliette Binoche in 1996 was one of the biggest Oscar upsets in history. But when one compares her screen performances to those of Robert Mitchum, for example, one begins to wonder who the hell is deciding these things.