2012-2013 AwardsLine Oscar Print Editions: Issue 09

O S C A R S E AS O N 2 0 1 2 — 2 0 1 3

9 CriSiS mAnAGement: ProDUcerS on The chAllengeS oF MAking Their beST PicTUreS

SuPPortinG

heAvyWeiGhtS: ALAN ARKIN & ROBERT DE NIRO on AcTing, AWArDS, & hollyWooD

WeinStein tAlkS PoliTicS, SUnDAnce, AWArDS SeASon &

AWArDSline PreSenTS

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

TANDY | HANKS | POITIER | STREISAND | O’NEAL

SUPPORTING

ACTOR/ ACTRESS

16)

“You feel as i f Y o u kno w w h at i t was li ke t o b e in his presen ce a nd so a n i co n h a s beco m e a m a n – and, sta rt li nglY , w i t h i n r ea ch .”

DaviD EDElstEin, nEw York MagazinE

h i s s t o rY i s o u r s t o rY

02

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

OSCAR SEASON 2012—2013

EDITORIAL TEAM

AWArDS | line eDitor

Christy Grosz

AWArDS | line mAnAGinG eDitor & Contributor

Anthony D’Alessandro

DeADline AWArDS ColumniSt

Pete Hammond DeADline film eDitor

Mike Fleming Jr. DeADline tv eDitor

Nellie Andreeva DeADline eDitorS

Patrick Hipes Denise Petski Kinsey Lowe AWArDS| line ContributorS

Paul Brownfield Diane Haithman Monica Corcoran Harel Ari Karpel Cari Lynn Thomas J. McLean David Mermelstein Craig Modderno Ray Richmond

tAble of ContentS

DESIGN, PRODUCTION & MARKETING

52) 06)

DiffiCult Climb

24)

the riGht Stuff

28)

AneCDotAl eviDenCe

32)

moGul meetinG

36)

bobbinG AnD WeAvinG

38)

fAther of invention

40)

the reAl enSemble

44)

WorlD of WonDer

AWArDS| line CreAtive DireCtor

Jason Farrell

GrAPhiC DeSiGner

Erik Denno

32)

mArketinG ConSultAnt

Madelyn Hammond Sr. DireCtor, ADvertiSinG oPerAtionS

Cham Kim ADvertiSinG oPerAtionS

Edward Ko Sam Berman

38)

AWArDS| line ContributinG PhotoGrAPher

Jeff Vespa

36)

founDer, ChAirmAn & Ceo

Jay Penske eXeCutive viCe PreSiDent

Paul Woolnough SvP entertAinment SAleS

Nic Paul vP PArtnerShiPS & ProDuCt

Craig Perreault

54)

vP finAnCe

Ken DelAlcazar

44)

Gm entv/PmC StuDioS

Michael Davis vP entertAinment SAleS

46)

Shelby Haro Sr. entertAinment SAleS DireCtor

9

SUPPORTING

ACTOR/ ACTRESS

The uphill journey to a completed film was years in the making for every one of this year’s best picture nominees.

Nearly all of the supporting actor nominees have at least one Oscar on their mantel.

The documentary category tackles important, emotional, and profound stories.

Harvey Weinstein talks about the films he has in contention this awards season and where his love of politics originated.

Supporting actor nominee Robert De Niro has built a career on being versatile and keeping the audience guessing.

Argo supporting actor nominee Alan Arkin reveals his dislike of the “repetition” of theater and what he enjoyed about his role as the composite character of Lester Siegel.

Costume designers discuss the challenges and successes of dressing the year in film.

The foreign language nominees are linked by the very personal nature of each of their stories.

AWArDSline PreSenTS

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

Cathy Goepfert ConSumer SAleS DireCtorS

Debbie Goldberg

Featuring Sidney Poitier, Barbra Streisand, Tatum O’Neal, Jessica Tandy, and Tom Hanks

entertAinment AnD teCh SAleS mAnAGer

Carra Fenton ACCount mAnAGer

Tiffany Windju Lauren Stagg ADvertiSinG inquirieS

Nic Paul 310-484-2517/npaul@pmc.com

IS THE PARENT COMPANY AND OWNER OF:

40)

52)

hAvin’ A bAll

54)

lookinG bACk

The Academy’s post-ceremony Governors Ball is the hottest after-party in town.

Jon Voight gives his first-person account about the night he won the Oscar.

glaad award nominee

THE YEAR’S MOST HONORED

WINNER

CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

DALLAS-FT. WORTH FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

There’s nothing wrong with being scared Norman, so long as you don’t let it change who you are.

WINNER

ONLINE FILM CRITICS

WINNER

LAS VEGAS FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

WINNER

DENVER FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

WINNER

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

WINNER

SAN DIEGO FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

04

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

For more on the incredible stop-motion magic and innovation

ACHIEVEMENT IN ANIMATED ARTISTRY

WINNER

SAN FRANCISCO FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

WINNER

SOUTHEASTERN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE BOSTON ONLINE FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

BAFTA AWARD NOMINEE

WINNER

UTAH FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

TORONTO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

CENTRAL OHIO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

WINNER

WASHINGTON DC AREA FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

ves AWARD

NOMINATIONS WASHINGTON DC AREA FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION Including

of “ParaNorman” go to www.FocusGuilds2012.com

IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE MOTION PICTURE

A ProuD feW:

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE

by Pete hAmmonD

Despite Years in Development and Production Challenges, An Elite Group of Filmmakers Made It to Best Picture Status As the industry kicks into full awards mode, with one guild after another handing out trophies to whomever they consider the year’s best in any given field, it’s become increasingly clear this is a year like we have not seen in a while. Certainly every season we go through this ritual of watching the crème de la crème of the industry line up to get awards, but rarely have we seen as dense a field of top contenders, and especially deserving ones, as we have this year. The common denominator among most, if not all, of the contenders in Oscar’s 24 categories is how difficult it was in the first place to get any of these films made in a sequelhappy, franchise-loving, play-it-safe motion picture industry.

For example, Steven Spielberg began talking about Lincoln with Doris Kearns Goodwin before she started writing the book and struggled for well over a decade to bring it to the screen, getting turned down by three studios in the process. And first-time feature filmmaker Benh Zeitlin went against all industry norms to make the unique and hard-to-define Beasts of the Southern Wild come to life. But no matter who the filmmaker is, the most often-heard mantra is stick to your core beliefs and vision and somehow an Oscar-worthy film can be willed into being. Even James Bond ran into trouble when MGM went bankrupt and a normal 2½-year process turned into twice that for Skyfall, which went on to win five Oscar nominations. It also got recognition as one of the year’s best pictures from the Producers Guild, as well it should, considering what its veteran producers went through to just to make it.

Of course, it doesn’t matter who you are or how many Oscars you have won, it is never easy. Life of Pi’s Ang Lee worked a grueling five years before finally seeing his unusual and once-thought unfilmable film version of Yann Martel’s book get to the screen and earn $500 million-plus worldwide and counting. And 20th Century Fox had it in development for 10 years. “Everyone was nervous. The studio dropped me twice. It was a kid, water, a tiger, digital, 3D, Taiwan location, a philosophical movie, a film about someone adrift in water who wasn’t Tom Hanks,” Lee explains. It took him a solid year just to prep the digital water scenes before shooting any footage.

06

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

For a film on the opposite end of the scale, Silver Linings Playbook, which relies almost solely on its actors for its special effect, the journey was just as long and just as hard. It started with two late producer-directors Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella before eventually finding its way to David O. Russell, who wanted to make it five years ago, even before The Fighter, but found that the stars weren’t aligned yet. They eventually would be, but not before blood, sweat, and tears went into a shoot that in the end had to be accomplished in a remarkable 33 days for a 150-page script.

Or what about Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s Zero Dark Thirty, the movie that was developed about the hunt for Osama bin Laden? The filmmakers had to turn on a dime when bin Laden was killed, rewriting the concept and reporting the story at the same time it was being crafted.

And Argo, a true declassified story about the amazing CIA mission to use Hollywood know-how to help rescue six American hostages stuck in the Canadian Embassy during the 1979 Iranian crisis, spent years in development as a George Clooney project but only finally found its way through Ben Affleck.

Then there’s Les Misérables, a true worldwide stage musical phenomenon that still took 27 years to get to the screen and went through hell to do it. Or Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, which during a 130-day shoot saw its leading actors sidelined by emergency surgery when Christoph Waltz’s horse was bitten by a bee early on, and Waltz, thrown to the ground, had to have a pelvic operation. Then Jamie Foxx’s shoulder gave out, and he had to go into emergency surgery in the middle of production.

These select few, which made the immense effort required to see their films through, earned Oscar nominations for a job well done. These enormously talented film artists can still stand very proud that they got through it, made something great, and are headed to the Dolby Theater on Feb. 24. Some will get to the stage and some won’t, but this year in particular they all deserve to be called winners.

Amour

(Sony PiCtureS ClASSiCS) PRODUCERS:

NO BUSINESS IN GERIATRIC SCRIPTS:

Margaret Ménégoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz

“Michael’s critical and boxoffice success with The White Ribbon ($19.3 million) didn’t open doors to financers. A lot of them were afraid of Amour’s subject matter surrounding elderly, ill people. It’s a taboo subject.

I was able to make the film at €8 million ($10.8 million), but the French were so afraid that they didn’t give me enough money; I had to go back to our German coproducer,” Ménégoz recalls.

AWARDS: 5 Oscar noms, Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, 4 European Film Awards (best actor, actress, director, film), 1 Golden Globe win (foreign language film), 4 BAFTA noms, 1 CCMA win (foreign language film), and an Indie Spirit nom (international film).

NO SIMPLICITY IN SMALL SETS: “It wasn’t a very fast shoot. It took nine weeks. Even though the film takes place over two hours in roughly the same room, it’s complicated to dress the set, not only to make it interesting but that it syncs in every scene. Our actors weren’t young people, and they need more time to learn the script,” Ménégoz says.

SERIOUSLY, WE REALLY NEED YOU FOR THIS: “Jean-Louis Trintignant stopped making movies years ago, but he’s worked nearly every day in all the live theaters in France. He completed a tour of poetry readings, and he likes his work in the theater. He is an actor that likes to be in front of the audience—on the set of a film, they’re very far away. He loved Caché by Michael Haneke. I gave JeanLouis the script for Amour, and he told me that he didn’t want to make any more films: ‘I’m too tired and old. I like the theater,’ he said. He read the script and liked it, especially that it was comprised of three main characters and took place from room to room. He thought the dialogue was very precise, but found it to be a sad script. ‘I won’t do the film,’ he said. So I talked to Jean-Louis three or four more times until he finally accepted. Emmanuelle Riva always wanted the part. She auditioned with other actresses, but she knew deeply in her heart and head that this was the part for her. It was obvious she was the best as she made the perfect couple with Jean-Louis,” Ménégoz says.

—Anthony D’Alessandro

From left: Michael Haneke with Margaret Ménégoz

Continued on next page...

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

ArGo

From left: Ben Affleck with Grant Heslov

(WArner broS.)

PRODUCERS: Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney

AWARDS: 7 Oscar noms, 7 BAFTA noms, 2 Golden Globe wins (director and drama), 2 CCMA wins (picture and director), 1 SAG Award (ensemble), PGA Zanuck Award, plus DGA and WGA noms.

HAVING A WRITER ON THE SET: “On my other two movies, stuff had to be rewritten, and I would go off into a corner and kind of puzzle over it. It would take me forever, and I would stay up all weekend. (On Argo), it was so nice to be able to say to (screenwriter) Chris (Terrio), ‘I don’t think it’s clear exactly what the agenda is of the State Department in this scene. Could you rewrite that scene?’ and have him come back later with the answer. I felt like I was looking at the back of a test,” Affleck explains.

SCALE AND SCOPE MEAN CHALLENGES: “(For) those big protest scenes in the beginning, we had 2,000 actors, and those days were really impossible days. We had bad weather, but just logistically speaking, to get 2,000 people to a set, ready to shoot, by 6 o’clock in the morning, all having to go through wardrobe that day because you don’t fit them the day before, takes military precision.

Everything takes forever—just to reset for the shot and to get everybody turned around and get everybody looking in the right direction is a major effort,” Heslov says.

BUT IT WAS STILL KINDA FUN: “It was cold, it was raining, it was very hard to keep people around and, of course, it turned out somehow we didn’t have enough food— there were all sorts of problems like that. Meanwhile, I’m worrying about, ‘OK, let’s do the big shots with the cranes,’ and as we lose people, I keep making the big shots tighter and tighter and tighter because I’m worried people are going to start just walking off the job.

The other issue was that the people who were available to be around all day to come be extras in movies are the elderly. The younger people are working. This is supposed to be a student revolution; the students are in school. So basically we had a lot of folks who were over 65 in a student revolution. So they just made up for it with passion—chanting, going nuts. It was ultimately exhilarating, fun, and thrilling—it felt like it had a real partnership,” Affleck explains.

CONNECTING WITH EXTRAS IN L.A.: “It was intense. People had these stories of, ‘I was there,’ ‘This is how we escaped,’ so it just got overwhelming. It was like simultaneously shooting extras and day players and (doing) research. Not only were we hearing it, but they were telling everyone in the crew, and people in the crew were really moved. Up until that time, they had looked at it just as a movie, and not something based on historical events that were incredibly traumatic. So the whole movie absorbed an extra level of seriousness just being around the Persian population of Los Angeles; the majority of them left right around the revolution,” Affleck recalls.

—Christy Grosz

Continued on next page...

08

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

WES ANDERSON & ROMAN COPPOLA

BAFTA AWARD NOMINEE

SPIRIT AWARD NOMINEE

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

WES ANDERSON & ROMAN COPPOLA

WES ANDERSON & ROMAN COPPOLA

WRITERS GUILD NOMINEE

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

WES ANDERSON & ROMAN COPPOLA

I FEEL WE SHOULD GO HALFWAY TODAY AND HALFWAY TOMORROW, SINCE YOU’RE A LESS EXPERIENCED HIKER, AND YOU’RE WEARING SUNDAY-SCHOOL SHOES.” “

—Sam Shakusky

I was consciously trying to capture a sensation, which is that emotion of when you’re a 12-year-old and you fall in love.” “

—Wes Anderson Directed by Wes Anderson Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola

To experience the illustrated screenplay for this year’s most original motion picture, go to FocusGuilds2012.com/mrkscript.

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

beAStS of the Southern WilD (foX SeArChliGht)

PRODUCERS:

EPIC DEMANDS:

Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, Michael Gottwald

“We had to find a 6-year-old, and we wanted to make this film on an epic scale on a low budget,” producer Josh Penn revealed at the PGA Awards Breakfast Jan. 26. “Then we had to make these giant prehistoric beasts that we didn’t want to do via computer, but rather live beings, so we got these baby pigs. Then once you have baby pigs, how do you make them 15 feet tall? Plus, none of us had made a feature film before.”

AWARDS: 4 Oscar noms, 4 Cannes Film Festival awards (FIPRESCI, Golden Camera, Prix Regards Jeune, Ecumenical Jury), 2 Sundance Film Festival wins (Cinematography, Grand Jury Prize), 4 Indie Spirit noms, 1 CCMA (best young actor/actress for Quvenzhané Wallis), 1 BAFTA nom.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME: “We had a similar challenge to Ang Lee (on Life of Pi) in searching for a movie star who we could rest the entire movie upon her shoulders.

It was like the Hugh Jackman kind of thing with Les Misérables where there was only one person who could play the part, and they were somewhere in the first through fourth grade of Louisiana. Literally, a friend of Quvenzhané Wallis’ mother saw fire in (Quvenzhané) and said to her mother, ‘Quvenzhané likes to play make-believe. Why don’t you bring her to this audition?’ She never thought of acting before. We saw 4,000 kids across Louisiana and thought someday, this girl would walk into our lives. If we didn’t find this girl, there was no reason to make this movie.”

From left: Michael Gottwald, cinematographer Ben Richardson, Josh Penn, and director Benh Zeitlin

10

Continued on next page...

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

DJAnGo unChAineD

(the WeinStein Co.)

PRODUCERS: Stacey Sher, Pilar Savone, Reginald Hudlin

AWARDS: 5 Oscar noms, 5 BAFTA noms, 2 Golden Globe wins (supporting actor Christoph Waltz, screenplay Quentin Tarantino).

LOCATION, LOCATION:

.

“Nothing was easy about this movie. It was challenging from day one: Getting going, scouting New From left: Stacey Sher, Pilar Savone, Tarantino, executive producer Bob Weinstein, and Reginald Hudlin.

Orleans and Mammoth Mountain, then building our location there and realizing that we had no snow. Then uprooting to Wyoming, and Quentin driving by an elk field and saying to our line producer and location manager, ‘I want to shoot there.’ Well, that’s a challenge—it’s a wildlife preserve! Quentin will look at you at any given moment and say, ‘I need this actor that I shot with three weeks ago, and I need him tomorrow,’ ” says Savone.

“He always knew when he saw two or three of us approaching, that it was something large like global warming that we had to deal with — like the time when we had to inform him that it’s not going to snow in Mammoth for the first time in 100 years,” adds Sher. “There were a lot of ‘Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West moments.’

But we had a joke among the three of us: ‘No’ is not an option.”

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION OF ACTORS: “We had huge movie stars wanting to do day-player parts, people we had to work a schedule around given the film’s logistics. However, every one of those actors are used to being No. 1 on the call sheet, rightly so, so everyone typically schedules around them. Because of everyone else’s schedule, snow, weather, and location, we couldn’t do that for everyone. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony LaPaglia went off to make other movies. The happy accident was that our schedule and Jonah Hill’s changed, making him available. Who ends up having Jonah Hill in one scene? We were so blessed, but we always knew the tail couldn’t wag the dog. Quentin needed to make the movie the way he needed to make it,” explains Sher.

BEE-STINGING SERENDIPITY: “Christoph Waltz’s horse was stung by a bee during pre-pre-production, and Christoph was thrown and it was going to be a while before he could ride again. This is where the idea of the tooth wagon came from. Christoph suggested, ‘What if I rode a wagon?’ and Quentin and the late J. Michael Riva came up with the wagon, that magical tooth. It was heartbreaking when we lost Michael, and it was devastating for the film, the crew, and his family,” says Sher.

—Anthony D’Alessandro

Continued on next page...

12

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

7

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS ®

INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE

“THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR. ARGO FEELS IMMEDIATE AND RELEVANT. A SEAMLESS BLEND OF DRAMA AND BREATHTAKING SUSPENSE.” CHRISTY LEMIRE,

7

BAFTA AWARD NOMINATIONS I N C LU D I N G

BEST PICTURE

WGA

ACE

AWARD NOMINEE

AWARD NOMINEE

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST FILM EDITING

MPSE

AWARD NOMINEE BEST SOUND EDITING

THE BEST REVIEWED FILM OF THE YEAR ON OVER

“NOTHING LESS THAN

F O R

150

Y O U R

TOP 10 LISTS

“SPELLBINDING, ★★★★ THE CRAFT IN THIS FILM IS RARE.”

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

SENSATIONAL .

ONE OF THE MOST TAUT AND WELL-CONSTRUCTED THRILLERS IN YEARS.

SMART AND ACCOMPLISHED, ARGO HAS IT ALL.” JOE MORGENSTERN,

ROGER EBERT,

WWW.WARNERBROS2012.COM

WINNER

BEST PICTURE

PRODUCERS GUILD AWARDS GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARDS ®

BEST ENSEMBLE

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

®

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

leS miSÉrAbleS (univerSAl)

PRODUCERS: Cameron Mackintosh, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan, Debra Hayward

AWARDS:

From left: Cameron Mackintosh, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan, and Debra Hayward

8 Oscar noms, 1 CCMA win (Anne Hathaway best supporting actress), 3 Golden Globes (best musical/comedy, supporting actress Hathaway, Hugh Jackman for lead actor in a comedy/musical), 1 SAG win (supporting actress Hathaway), and 1 DGA nom.

THE LONG ROAD: “I was originally going to do it 25 years ago after Les Misérables opened on Broadway and came close with Alan Parker. Over the years, we had inquiries, then in 2010, Eric Fellner (approached me); we’re Chelsea football fans, and we got to know each other socially. I like Working Title and they’re a very good company. Bill Nicholson started work on a screenplay. And then Tom (Hooper) rang up and asked to meet me. Being a complete film virgin I hardly knew anyone, and The King’s Speech was only just doing rounds at Sundance. Tom spoke passionately about how he would do it and that he felt it should be recorded live, and I felt passionately about that. That was the clincher, because Tom wanted to take what was a big leap in the dark. Les Misérables isn’t a normal musical; you need people who are comfortable telling a story through music. Tom Hooper was the man to do it. I’d been looking for directors over the years, and the fact that Tom came to me with a POV was the clincher,” Mackintosh explains.

NO WAY, JOSÉ: “There was a suggestion that it should be done in 3D, and I was very against it. Even though it’s my first film, I have joint final cut with Tom and Eric, and I represented all the music on behalf of Alain and Claude-Michel. It was a collaboration and couldn’t be any other way because I’d been so involved in the material for 30 years. This was the best way,” says Mackintosh.

BLOWING UP THE STAGE: “The key challenge was finding the balance of reality, that it looked and felt authentic but at the same time it needed to be heightened. The style had to be similar to the style of the show. Gliding in and out of spoken word and singing so seamlessly that you didn’t realize they’re singing most of the time. Cinema is a medium of realism, and we had to find our brand of realism,” adds Mackintosh.

MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE, POSSIBLE: “This was one of the hardest films we’ve done. It’s a genre that’s challenging by its very nature—people aren’t used to going to see a musical in a movie theater. We also had to make sure that in adapting Les Misérables, we didn’t alienate fans, and having the original team of Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbie Kretzmer, and Cameron Mackintosh, we were able to keep all the original DNA intact. Then, shooting a film with an appetite of $100 million for $60 million was interesting,” says Fellner.

—Cari Lynn

Continued on next page...

14

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

Continued on next page...

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

life of Pi (20th Century foX)

From left: Gil Netter, Ang Lee, and David Womark

PRODUCERS: Gil Netter, Ang Lee, David Womark

AWARDS: 11 Oscar noms, 1 Golden Globe win (best score for Mychael Danna), 2 CCMA wins (cinematography, visual effects), 9 BAFTA noms, DGA nom, WGA adapted screenplay nom.

PRACTICAL PREPLANNING: “I didn’t know if could do this film.

It was still waiting for me after Taking Woodstock. I began to think about it. It was unsolvable both on the economic and artistic sides: The two sides that will never meet, like Pi. Well, what if I had another dimension? And I thought 3D,” Lee said at the PGA Breakfast Jan. 26. “The only reasonable place to do this was Taiwan—I needed every resource from Hollywood. I brought my kids to school over there. It’s a long process. I did all the casting and previsualized the water section, all 70 minutes of it.”

FINDING PI: “Three thousand people auditioned for the part. It was crucial to find a 16-year-old Pi. There’s no Indian 16-year-old movie star. So I had to search for new faces. We have an army under casting director Avy Kaufman. We just asked every high school in India. Most of those who auditioned hadn’t done more than a school play, if that. After three rounds, we came down to 12. Suraj Sharma was one of them. Later, I found out, he didn’t go through the audition. He escorted his younger brother to the audition, and the casting director said, ‘What about you?’ When I met him, he looked like Pi. He’s the everyman. I felt his vibe in his soulful, deep eyes from my professional instinct. When I read him, it was heartbreaking. He started to cry when he told me one of the second stories (I gave him). It was heartwrenching. Halfway through (the audition process), he was the kid. So he anchors everything: The older and younger Pi, the whole picture around him. I was very lucky. He never acted before, and I had three months to drill him.

We shot the movie in order so that he could lose weight,” adds Lee.

Continued on next page...

16

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

universalpicturesawards.com

Š 2012 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

linColn

(DiSney-DreAmWorkS)

PRODUCERS:

GETTING EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE:

Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg

“We had an extraordinary reading in Cooperstown, NY. Doris pulled together an illustrious group of people to read the script for the first time. We knew there were many historians that wrote different accounts of Lincoln and had several different interpretations,” adds Kennedy. “Those fascinated with the voice of Lincoln; details like that we had to extrapolate. I think Tony read 300 books before he wrote this script. He read many details that came from The New York Times.

When those debates went on with the 13th amendment, much of what Thaddeus is saying goes right down to ‘nincompoop.’ ”

AWARDS: 12 Oscar noms, one Golden Globe win (best actor drama, Daniel Day-Lewis), two SAG wins (best actor Day-Lewis, supporting actor Tommy Lee Jones), three CCMA wins (actor, adapted screenplay, score), 10 BAFTA noms, DGA nom, WGA adapted screenplay nom.

From left: Steven Spielberg with Kathleen Kennedy

NO STONE UNTURNED:

“On the surface, it looks like one goes out, buys Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, hires the finest American playwright, gets Steven Spielberg, and just add a little water,” said Kennedy at the PGA Awards Breakfast Jan. 26. “When Tony Kushner’s 500-page script arrived, Steven called and said, ‘What are we going to do? I can’t make this!’ Tony asked, ‘Do you think we can do it as a miniseries?’ Whittling down the script was a laborious process and took years. It wasn’t until Steven recognized a suspense drama inside the legislation, and that isn’t something you walk into a studio and say, ‘Hey! Here’s a great idea!’ It was essentially 15 pages of Doris’ book, but the philosophical idea behind Lincoln having the foresight to bring people into his cabinet who didn’t agree with him was the foundation of the story.”

DETERMINED CASTING: “Daniel said no a lot to the role. But it was an exercise in tenacity on Steven’s part. Daniel inhabits that role. His process for determining what he’s going to do next is a long one. Playing Lincoln was something he wasn’t going to come to easily. When he said yes, it was around War Horse. We had 150 speaking parts that we wanted to cast.

Thank God for the Internet. It allows directors and producers to get into a room and look at a wide variety of talent. We had the benefit of Tony Kushner who had amazing relationships with amazing actors in New York. We had these big boards in front of us with faces of real people. We knew it was going to be hard to keep track of the Democrats and the Republicans and knowing that the Democrats are what the Republicans use to be, and whether they were from the north or the south, when the vote took place, keeping track of who you saw before, all of that was a quite a jigsaw puzzle,” explains Kennedy.

Continued on next page...

18

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

Silver lininGS PlAybook

(the WeinStein Co.)

From left: Bruce Cohen with Jonathan Gordon

PRODUCERS: Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti, Jonathan Gordon

AWARDS: 8 Oscar noms, 4 CCMA wins (acting ensemble, actor in a comedy for Bradley Cooper, actress in a comedy for Jennifer Lawrence, best comedy), 1 Golden Globe win (best actress in a comedy/musical), 1 SAG win (best film actress), 5 Indie Spirit noms, WGA adapted screenplay nom.

From left: Jennifer Lawrence with Donna Gigliotti

SYNTHESIZING:

“Getting the tone right was a challenge,” says Cohen. “The script that David O. Russell had written and the movie we fell in love with was an intense family drama and romantic comedy. Those types of films are very hard to do. It’s hard to market them and assemble them.”

TIMING: “Making this movie in 33 days was a Herculean undertaking, and the script was 152 pages long. That’s a challenging schedule for any movie, let alone a script that is that long—40-45 days would have been ideal,” says Gordon.

FALLING STARS: “When we received the greenlight from the Weinstein Co., as a producer you typically take the money and say, ‘OK, here’s the start date.’ But Mark Wahlberg (who was to play Pat Jr.) had Contraband. We

would have been backed into Thanksgiving 2011, and we couldn’t go beyond that date in terms of shooting given our budget constraints. It would have meant we pushed into the New Year in terms of shooting.

Then Anne Hathaway (who was to play Tiffany) had this crazy Dark Knight schedule. They would get her for this huge period of time, and then she would drop in and out of that schedule,” explains Gigliotti.

THE RIGHT FACES AT THE RIGHT TIME: “Casting was the biggest challenge and getting the right actors in these roles. By comparison to the other films that are nominated, we had a pretty small budget, and it’s not as though we had a lot of money to spend in terms of cast. We had to have actors that were recognizable in order to make the numbers work—that’s for the business side. The challenge for the creative side is to find actors who could inhabit those characters and be authentic. Bradley Cooper is a big movie star in terms of The Hangover. That’s a plus on the business side, but then one needed to evaluate whether he was right for the role. That’s a total tribute to David O. Russell since he understood Bradley’s depth and how he could get that performance. Jennifer Lawrence was a different kettle of fish. She was in the middle of Hunger Games. We didn’t know it was going to be so behemoth. She did the Skype interview; we showed it to Harvey Weinstein, who is fearless when it comes to these things.

He took one look and said, ‘Cast this girl! She’s unbelievable!’ I don’t know if we would have made this movie if Bob De Niro said no. We didn’t have a lot of money. How do we get Bob De Niro and not pay him a fortune? It came down to David. It’s really a potent thing when David and his actors connect. Jacki Weaver was the casting director’s idea. Jacki was in a production of Uncle Vanya in Washington, D.C. One look at her eyes and Cooper’s eyes and you think they were connected.

You believed she could have been Bradley’s mother,” says Gigliotti.

—Anthony D’Alessandro

Continued on next page...

20

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

THE BATTLE FOR BEST PICTURE A ProuD feW:

zero DArk thirty (Sony)

PRODUCERS:

NO FEAR OF BABEL:

Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Megan Ellison

“I like going to these places where there isn’t a lot of film infrastructure. Jordan has absolutely none. India has some. Of course there’s a big film industry there, but it wasn’t really geared to making a movie about an American CIA team hunting a terrorist, for any number of reasons. It’s hard to shoot action in India—very, very, very hard. You can’t do aerial photograph; there’s a million permits if you want to take a gun out,” adds Boal.

AWARDS: 5 Oscar noms, 1 Golden Globe win (best dramatic actress for Jessica Chastain), 2 CCMA wins (actress, editing), 5 BAFTA noms, DGA nom, WGA original screenplay nom.

EVERYWHERE AT ONCE: “This is not a $45 million movie; this is an $85 million movie. There’s From left: Kathryn Bigelow with Mark Boal over 100 different sets in this movie, we filmed on three continents with helicopters and special effects and (covering) a 10-year time period and 100 speaking parts and a giant action sequence, and at times we were shooting like a TV schedule—five pages a day. Part of the challenge was getting this much scope—we filmed in Pakistan, we filmed in India, we filmed in Jordan, we filmed in Washington, we filmed in the U.K. Part of the challenge was getting this much scope on the screen, and we could really do that because Kathryn had a vision for how to do it, and because she shoots it and it’s done and we can move on.

There’s not a lot of second-guessing going on,” says Boal.

RED TAPE: “These are hard movies to get made. Negotiating with those governments, moving equipment in and out, dealing with security issues, dealing with the secrecy issues, dealing with the press, dealing with government pressure and investigations from our government. We were under investigation by Republicans since the day we started this movie for just trying to get information. That’s not easy to have hanging over your head when you’re simultaneously trying to arrange for the use of three military Black Hawks from a foreign government.

It gets complicated pretty quickly,” adds the screenwriter-producer.

WORST-CASE SCENARIO—PRODUCTION OR POST-RELEASE: “The politics is pretty tough, I will say. I would take the logistical challenge of trying to find a 40-ton crane in Jordan over dealing with Washington any day of the week,” Boal says.

—Paul Brownfield

22

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

5BEST PICTURE AC ADEMY AWARD N O MINATIONS ®

INCLUDING

STACEY SHER

REGINALD HUDLIN

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR CHRISTOPH WALTZ

2

PILAR SAVONE

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY QUENTIN TARANTINO

GOLDEN GLOBE AWAR D WINNERS ®

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR CHRISTOPH WALTZ BEST SCREENPLAY QUENTIN TAR ANTINO

©HFPA

DR. SCHULTZ (CONT’D) The state places a bounty on a man’s head. I track that man, I find that man, I kill that man.

After I’ve killed him, I transport that man’s corpse back to the authorities - and sometimes that’s easier said than done.

I show that corpse to the authorities - proving, yes indeed, I have truly killed him At which point, the authorities pay me the bounty. (lifting his beer) Cheers.

The two men touch glasses, and take a drink.

DJANGO What’s a bounty?

DR. SCHULTZ It’s like a reward.

DJANGO You kill people and they give you a reward?

DR. SCHULTZ Certain people, yes.

DJANGO White people?

DR. SCHULTZ Mostly. A few Mexicans.

Couple Chinamen.

DJANGO Bad people?

DR. SCHULTZ Badder they are, bigger the reward.

THE NEW FILM BY QUENTIN

TARANTINO

ON OVER

155

TOP TEN LISTS

JAMIE

FOXX

CHRISTOPH

WALTZ

LEONARDO

DiCAPRIO

KERRY

WASHINGTON

and

SAMUEL L.

JACKSON

ARTWORK ©2013 THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SeASoneDSet Nearly All of the Supporting Players Are Past Oscar Winners

by Pete hAmmonD

24

B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3 Tommy Lee Jones inF E lincoln

This season’s supporting actor and actress Oscar races can be summed up in one word: Winners! A remarkable seven of the 10 nominees actually already have at least one Oscar on their mantel, and all of them have been previously nominated.

Unlike the marquee lead races, not a single newcomer has been invited to the supporting party. In fact, all five supporting actor nominees are past winners, a rare occurrence that proves Feb. 24 will indeed be veterans’ day at the Dolby Theater. And though there is a strong frontrunner emerging for the women, the male race is one of the most wide open in years, with no one taking the lead to date and the outcome a real question mark. So how did they all get here? Here’s the rundown.

Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained

Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook

SUPPORTING ACTOR Alan Arkin | Argo This veteran actor got his first lead actor Oscar nomination in 1966 for his film debut in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. And then a second just two years later for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. But it was a near-record 38 years before Arkin returned to Oscar’s inner circle, finally winning a supporting actor prize for Little Miss Sunshine. Now, six years later, he is back in contention as the Hollywood film producer in Argo, and the reason is simple: He not only gets the best lines, he’s playing the kind of industry insider that Oscar voters will instantly recognize.

As Lester Siegel, who becomes the fake producer of a fake film created to free six American hostages in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, Arkin is perfection, delivering his lines with the kind of droll style for which he is known. He plays a character that, oddly enough, makes Hollywood proud of what they do: He uses a schlocky script to save lives and make a difference, instead of making money.

Robert De Niro | Silver Linings Playbook One of the most revered—if not the most revered— living actor, De Niro has won two Oscars and been nominated six times. Remarkably, his last nomination came 21 years ago for Cape Fear, and since then he has been criticized in some quarters for taking on too many commercial projects (Fockers, anyone?) and not enough so-called Oscar worthy roles. However, with films like Casino and Heat to his credit in the interim, this isn’t really true: He’s got one now for which he

Alan Arkin in Argo

Philip Seymour Hoffman (right, with Amy Adams) in The Master

scored a touchdown. As Pat Sr., the obsessive-compulsive Philadelphia Eagles-loving family man, De Niro has some of his richest moments on film in years.

He’s alternately funny, touching, and real. Clearly, the actor in him was energized, and the role fit him like a glove. As Pat Sr., De Niro is back in the (Oscar) game, and that might be irresistible for Academy voters, who have been waiting since his iconic role as Jake La Motta in 1980’s Raging Bull to find an excuse to give this legend another statuette.

Philip Seymour Hoffman | The Master Hoffman won best actor for playing Truman Capote just a few short years ago, and now he’s managed to find another great role suited to his immense talents.

In the same year he wowed Broadway as Willy Loman in a landmark new production of Death of a Salesman, Hoffman won raves as the title character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, playing Lancaster Dodd, the L. Ron Hubbard-style founder of a religious cult in the early 1950s. Reaction to the movie among filmgoers was decidedly mixed, but nearly everyone agreed Hoffman was brilliant, going toe to toe with Joaquin Phoenix’s unbalanced Freddie Quell. In fact, though Phoenix is nominated for lead actor, both these roles are of equal weight, and that could help Hoffman, who perhaps has the meatiest role in this entire category. After all he is the Master and totally in control in scene after scene, giving this bigger-than-life character real dimension when it could have been over the top.

Tommy Lee Jones | Lincoln Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar in 1993 in this category by chasing Harrison Ford around in The Fugitive.

He has a chance nearly two decades later to repeat the feat by taking on Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s quiet epic on the fight to pass the 13th amendment. In a sterling ensemble cast, Jones has the most colorful and vivid role as Thaddeus Stevens, a deeply passionate man set on ending slavery. By contrast, Daniel Day-Lewis is positively subdued, but Jones has the kind of scenes that, quite frankly, win Oscars in this category. He could win for the wig alone. It’s a memorable turn in a very good year for Jones, and it earned him a supporting actor trophy from the Screen Actors Guild. That one-two punch in voters’ minds could remind them what a great and versatile actor he is, cinching the deal.

Christoph Waltz | Django Unchained As Dr. King Schultz, a dentist/bounty hunter, this Austrian-born international star takes another tailormade Quentin Tarantino character gift and socks it home with deadpan delivery, sly glances, and scene-stealing aplomb. He understands Tarantino’s rhythms like few others do, and it pays off. A winner here just three years ago for Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Waltz got back in the race this time by standing out as the lone cast member of the large ensemble to grab an Oscar nomination. Largely unknown to most American audiences until he exploded on the screen in Basterds, Waltz has become a go-to character actor in a short amount of time. His role as a take-no-prisoners practitioner of bringing in “the bad guys” is a priceless reminder he’s got what it takes to win over audiences and win Oscars. Whether the Academy will want to give him a second one so soon is another question, but with a Golden Globe already in his pocket for this role, don’t count him out.

Continued on next page...

Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables

Amy Adams (left, with Hoffman) in The Master ...from previous

Helen Hunt in The Sessions

SeasonedSET

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Amy Adams | The Master Amy Adams is getting to be a regular in this category.

It has taken her just seven years to amass a remarkable four nominations: Junebug (2005), Doubt (2008), The Fighter (2010), and now her startlingly different role as Peggy Dodd, the faithful wife who might really be the one in control in The Master. The only thing that links these four characters is the actress herself, and she got in this time taking real risks, making choices other actors know aren’t the easy ones. This is a role she seems to disappear almost completely in at times, but she gives the role its greatest power in the subtle, nonshowy way she spends each scene, never once succumbing to the temptation of going over the top and always standing head to head with costar Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Sally Field | Lincoln A two-time winner for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984), Field has a perfect Oscar track record: Two for two. Now this plucky veteran is back to try for a third as Mary Todd Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln’s long-suffering First Lady. She was a cinch for a nomination because fellow actors love the grit and determination she showed just in

26

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

hanging in there as the film went through development hell over the course of a decade, while she slowly started to age out of the part. Insisting on a screen test and not giving up, Field won the role by sheer will—and talent. Her powerful scenes opposite Daniel Day-Lewis prove the decision was right.

Anne Hathaway | Les Misérables If there is a frontrunner in any Oscar category this year, the mantle surely belongs to Anne Hathaway, who takes the small but pivotal role of the tragic Fantine in the iconic musical and somehow not only makes it her own, but probably delivers the definitive version. In closeup, singing live, one take at a time, Hathaway is heartbreaking. Something otherworldly seems to take hold of her, so much so that it’s not possible to believe she could have nailed it over and over. There were eight takes, she says, but she only felt she got it perfect on the fourth, and that’s the one that wound up in the film. It’s not a large part compared to some others in the category, but it’s one from the heart, and that counts a lot with Oscar voters. Both Globe and SAG voters have already given her the statuette for this role.

Helen Hunt | The Sessions Helen Hunt won four Emmys for her role on TV’s Mad About You and then a best actress Oscar for 1997’s As Good as It Gets. After those triumphs, it seemed like

Sally Field (right, with Daniel Day-Lewis) in Lincoln

Jacki Weaver (center, with Bradley Cooper, left, and Chris Tucker) in Silver Linings Playbook

her career got a little spotty, and she couldn’t quite recapture the magic, despite some fine work in littleseen projects in the last few years. And then along comes the true story of Mark O’Brien, a man in his late 30s living in an iron lung and who longs to lose his virginity to Cheryl, a sex surrogate played by Hunt.

She clearly could relate to this woman because rarely have we seen such an open and vulnerable Hunt on screen. It might be her finest performance, one in which she is naked, both physically and emotionally.

Opposite the equally remarkable John Hawkes, who was clearly robbed of a best actor nomination, Hunt got to show she still has it.

Jacki Weaver | Silver Linings Playbook As the mother in a dysfunctonal Philadelphia family, Weaver finds herself back in the same category she first appeared in 2010 in the gritty crime drama, Animal Kingdom. However, this role could not be a more different kind of mother. Weaver’s nomination might be the biggest surprise in the category because it is by far the least-showy role. Unlike her nominated costars, she doesn’t have the “big scene,” there are no real histrionics, no big laugh lines, no heavy drama.

She’s just real, and as director David O. Russell says, “She manages to be the heart and soul of this movie.”

Roles like this don’t often get recognized because they seem so effortless. You never once catch Weaver acting, and that’s a rare gift.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ®

PRODUCERS GUILD AWARD

WINNER

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

10

ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS

CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

——————————————————————————— INCLUDING ————————————————————————————

WINNER

WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER

BEST ANIMATED FILM BEST ANIMATED FILM BEST ANIMATED FILM BEST ANIMATED FILM BEST ANIMATED FILM AUSTIN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

HOUSTON FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

OKLAHOMA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

OUTSTANDING ANIMATION

WINNER

NOMINEE

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION WaltDisneyStudiosAwards.com ©2013 Disney

PHOENIX FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

CINEMA AUDIO SOCIETY

NOMINEE BEST SOUND MIXING

ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

MPSE GOLDEN REEL

NOMINEE

BEST SOUND FX EDITING

I BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

StorieD

5 broken CAmerAS

liveS

Emotional, Issue-Oriented Experiences Characterize the Five Documentaries Nominated for Oscars

the GAtekeePerS

From the homemade, unpolished qualities of 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers to the journalism of How to Survive a Plague and the investigations of The Invisible War and Searching for Sugar Man, this year’s documentary feature nominees traverse challenging and rewarding territory. Here’s a look at the films from which voters must choose.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST ANIMATED SHORT ®

28

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

The homemade quality that permeates 5 Broken Cameras is its greatest strength. For what this plainspoken documentary lacks in polish, it makes up for in heartfelt emotion. The film centers on the life of its filmmaker, Emad Burnat, a Palestinian resident of Bil’in, a village in the occupied West Bank near the Israeli border. It opens with the birth of Burnat’s son Gibreel in 2005. Then, paralleling the first few years of Gibreel’s life, the film charts the hardships endured by the village as it copes with the erection of a barrier, built by Israel, that separates Bil’in from its olives groves.

“I just started to film and document my people’s nonviolent struggles in the village in 2005,” Burnat says, speaking recently by phone from Bil’in. “I decided to take part with my camera. I used it for many purposes. I was the only one in my village with a camera. I used it to protect myself and to spread the news to TV. I wanted to make this not like any other documentary. I was filming for more than five years, and then I decided to start the editing.”

Soon the nonviolent protests in Bil’in attracted sympathetic outsiders, including Israeli peace activists, one of

Dror Moreh’s documentary The Gatekeepers isn’t fancy.

But it is sobering. In fact, the director’s unsentimental examination of Israel’s ongoing Palestinian problem gains force because of its simplicity—it’s essentially six talking heads (all the living former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service) and some elegant reenactments.

Those six men live up to their billing as stoic sentinels of Israel’s precarious security, and Moreh’s achievement is to get them to speak straightforwardly, if sometimes cautiously, about Israel’s untenable occupation of Palestinian territory.

“I wanted to make a movie from the most prominent people who were dealing with the conflict,” Moreh says. “If there’s someone who understands this situation, it’s them. They dealt with the terrorists. If there’s someone who knows about this situation, it’s them.”

The hard part, obviously, was getting security chiefs who made their careers in the covert world to open up in front of the camera. But Moreh had a strategy. “When you are trying to get to these people, it’s not like they have a club where they all sit around

whom, Guy Davidi, was also a filmmaker. Over time, Burnat and Davidi got to know and trust each other, resulting in a collaboration that produced this film.

an occupation. I want my children to grow up in my home as others do in the world. I want them to have freedom and justice.”

“Of course, I wanted to say something political,” Davidi explains, speaking by phone from Tel Aviv.

“But my real message was an emotional journey. In order to change opinions, you have to go through an emotional experience. You may do it through art. If you’re open emotionally to experiences, then you’re shocked and change your ideas. I’m looking to build motivation for change. There are a lot of ideas in the film. And you see how the Israeli side is reacting in a violent, aggressive way to this movement. You see how the government is treating a modest, friendly movement. And yet those Palestinians who are protesting are criticized by other elements in Palestinian society. Both of us, Emad and me, took big risks to do this film.”

Burnat’s big ambitions for this film might have seemed unrealistic before its Oscar nomination, but now this documentary’s reach has clearly widened. “I hope for this movie to go out and reach every house in the world,” Burnat says. “People can get to know more about our lives and about reality and truth. This is my personal story. I was suffering with my family.

I made it very real. This is our life here. I didn’t want to make it like other documentaries, talking about violence and politics. I want people to see the reality.

And they will be touched by seeing this story and feel very close to it. We are all human. I wanted to make it so everybody in the world can think together and make change together.”

—David Mermelstein

Explaining his motivations not just to make this film, but also to do so by working with an Israeli, Burnat says: “People are suffering. Children are growing up here in a very bad situation, not a normal situation.

We are the only people in the world who live under

drinking whiskey and smoking cigars,” he says. “But I knew that getting one was the key—because if the first one says no, you’ve failed. If the first one says yes, you have a chance.”

That approach worked, though it wasn’t always easy.

His toughest “get” was Avraham Shalom—Moreh calls him “the old man”—who ran Shin Bet from 1981 to 1986 and was forced to resign over allegations that he ordered the summary execution of two terrorists following a bus hijacking in April 1984. “He never spoke before—especially after the bus incident, where he gave the order to kill those guys,” Moreh says. “The first interview I did with him—and he said yes only after three meetings—it was like banging my head against the wall. He answered only ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘OK,’ like that. In the second interview, he was more open. Before the third interview, I told him he had to speak about the bus incident. He said, ‘I will see.’

And in the movie, you see me prod him. It was the toughest interview of my life. I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe. When he’s angry, that’s very hard.

And you see his look in the movie. It’s really not easy.

The confrontation between us is much more fierce than you see in the movie. But after the movie came

out, he told me it should have been more harsh on the politicians.”

Moreh says his documentary will resonate with American audiences for various reasons, most obviously because of the historically close ties between the U.S. and Israel. But there are other, more recent, points of tangency, he maintains. “I think there is something parallel in America—the questions of torture and drone assassination,” he says. “Issues raised in my film are relevant to public debate in America—whether such things are morally acceptable. Where are the boundaries? And does it lead to a better future? The strategic question in The Gatekeepers is: What can we do to prevent the next attack? Israel has dealt with this for a long time, and now America is dealing with it. So The Gatekeepers is very relevant to the American people.”

—David Mermelstein

Continued on next page...

STUTTGART FILM FESTIVAL

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2013

DC SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2013

...from previous

StorieD liveS

hoW to Survive A PlAGue David France became a journalist because of the AIDS crisis. “I thought maybe I could find answers,” he recalls of the early, desperate days of the epidemic, when he cut his teeth as a science reporter for the weekly gay newspaper The New York Native, in 1982. France was a witness to the dawn of AIDS activism at a time filled with rage and fear, when members of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and its spinoff TAG (the Treatment Action Group) rattled the cages of the political and medical establishments. “There had been this hard-and-fast rule that you don’t discuss anything about your findings until after peer-review publication,” says France.

Thirty years later, his film How to Survive a Plague, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award, revisits the small group of people who succeeded in getting drugs approved more quickly—work that helped to transform AIDS from a death sentence into a livable condition. “It’s an unknown story, really.”

Unknown, that is, beyond those present at the time. But even they rarely discuss it. “No one really spoke of it after ’96,” says France, who continued writing about science and went on to become an editor at New York magazine. All the while he held onto the notion that someday he would make a “big project” that would give context to those years. He started off with some magazine articles.

“I was surprised by how little people knew about (what had happened),” he says of young readers, gay and straight, whom he heard from across the country.

“They were shocked by the herculean effort, the grassroots mobilizing it took to get the system to respond; that gays and lesbians were so disenfranchised; that we weren’t always just talking about marriage.” Those ideas can be empowering to a younger generation, to learn that just a short time ago a group of people were fighting, France says, to be treated as human beings.

His mission articulated, France began gathering video. He remembered that there would be as many as five video cameras present at every ACT UP meeting and demonstration. When he got ahold of one tape, he’d scan it for passing shots of other people with video cameras and track those people down. “That’s how I found more footage.” In fact, he says, “That’s how I got coverage.”

The term “found footage” doesn’t quite do justice to the wealth of video France amassed. “People were using their footage to create important pieces along the way, whether they were art pieces, gay TV journalism for public access cable,” he explains. “Some of it was shot to be brought back to meetings to show what (subgroups) had accomplished.” Often cameras were present as a check on police brutality.

The footage allowed France to craft the film entirely without narration and with relatively few talking heads. Watching How to Survive a Plague feels much like watching the issues unfold in real life, as if you were there.

“There was no way to tell the story without acknowledging the camera,” France says. “The camera itself was a main character in the history.”

the inviSible WAr Kirby Dick is a master muckraker. His first Academy Award nomination was for his 2004 documentary Twist of Faith, which exposed the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in the face of increasing accusations of child sexual abuse by priests. Dick’s next doc, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, took on a less far-reaching but perhaps no less mysterious monolith of an organization, the Motion Picture Association of America, and its highly secretive ratings board. He then had a crack at Republican politicians who vote against gay rights but who, according to Dick’s 2009 film Outrage, are themselves secretly gay.

Now, with The Invisible War, Dick and Amy Ziering have turned their lens on the U.S. armed forces and the scores of women and men who have been sexually assaulted by officers or fellow service members, and whose lives have been destroyed by the systematic negation of their accusations. The film has earned Dick his second Academy nomination, but more importantly, it is having significant impact on the policies and culture of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

Last April, before the film was released in theaters, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta viewed it and promptly executed a shift in policy. He took away commanders’ power to decide whether to prosecute their service members for rape. It’s a massive accomplishment, and yet it doesn’t go anywhere near resolving the issue, a limitation Dick forthrightly acknowledges. “One year of changes is not going to address the problem,” he says. “Panetta did not take it out of the chain of command, so there is still a conflict of interest.” Dick says that putting the issue in the hands of investigators and prosecutors who are trained to handle these things would be the “single most important thing they could do.”

In the meantime, the film has placed increasing pressure on Congress and the Department of Defense to address a problem that is truly staggering in its scope—it’s estimated that half a million women have been sexually assaulted in the military. The film has become the reference point for this issue in the military and Congress. “We’ve had four-star generals tell us that this film told them more than all their briefings in 40 years of service,” says Dick. “Chiefs of staff are using lines right out of the film.”

Dick says that Ziering was instrumental in convincing nearly 50 abused women, and one man, to tell their stories on camera. The result is a shocking collection of accounts. “These interviews were emotionally devastating for us, and equally enraging,” he says. “What the audience feels is what we felt.”

The emotional effect has not been lost on those with the power to change things. “I thought they were going to try to discredit the survivors,” says Dick, who knows from experience that large institutions typically respond to criticism with a closing of ranks. “They tend to react with a powerful P.R. counterattack, but they didn’t because the film made such a powerful case that it’s across the force, in all branches. The people at the top really do care about their soldiers, airmen, and marines.”

He can’t help but conclude: “It moved them.”

—Ari Karpel

30

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

—Ari Karpel

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ®

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM-DENMARK

“SUPERBLY ENTERTAINING and sumptuously produced. Mads Mikkelsen gives a marvelous performance.”

– Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

SeArChinG for SuGAr mAn In 2006, Malik Bendjelloul quit his job as a reporter for a weekly arts and culture television show in Sweden to embark on a six-month-long backpacking trek around the world, camera in tow, in search of new stories. He came upon a goldmine of a tale in South Africa.

Back in the early 1970s, when South Africa was under apartheid rule, there was one singer-songwriter whose folk-rock protest music captivated and inspired a white, liberal audience yearning for a new way to live. Rodriguez was the singer’s name. He was an American whose career had failed in the States. But in South Africa, his 1970 album, Cold Fact, was bigger than the Beatles’ Abbey Road.

Still, no one knew anything about Rodriguez. Rumors swirled that he had killed himself on stage. By some accounts he had set himself on fire; others said he shot himself in the head. Either way, it was a gruesome tragedy and it drove Steven Segerman, a Capetown record-store owner known as “Sugar Man,” for one of Rodriguez’s best-known songs, to spend a decade searching for the true story of Rodriguez.

“A SLAM DUNK IN THE GENRE, satisfying every period piece craving. Enthralls where many historical dramas start to sag.

Nothing beats a well told tale of scandals past that you’ve never heard before.”

– Mary Pols, Time

“FIRST RATE.

Ever so much more than a historical romance.”

– Roger Ebert, Chicago SunTimes

Golden Globe Nominee ®

Best Actor Best Screenplay

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

He found more than he’d bargained for. It turned out Rodriguez was alive and well and living in a ramshackle old house in Detroit, oblivious to the legendary renown he had achieved halfway around the world. And he had never seen a cent of the royalties for his South African success.

This is the story that Bendjelloul recounts in Searching for Sugar Man, his documentary that won the Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, the PGA Award, and has BAFTA and Oscar noms for best documentary feature. Bendjelloul tells it pretty much as he learned it, from beginning to end, from rumor to fact, from mystery to revelation. “It’s just beautiful,” he says. “It’s like a Cinderella story, a true Cinderella story, about a man who lives life as a construction worker in Detroit and doesn’t know he’s bigger than the Rolling Stones halfway around the world.”

As the film details, Sugar Man eventually tracked down Rodriguez via the Internet. He told the musician of his success and brought him to South Africa to perform for his ecstatic fans. Since the film came out, Rodriguez’s career has been fully resuscitated. He has appeared on Leno and Letterman, and he’s about to begin a tour of South Africa, one Bendjelloul hopes doesn’t keep the singer from attending the Oscars.

“I was aiming for people to engage on an emotional level, not just cerebrally feel for him,” says Bendjelloul. The emotion of the fans, and of Rodriguez, is palpable in the film. Rodriguez is living the life he’s long been meant to lead, that of a musician singing his truth. “His life is changing,” Bendjelloul says of the 70-year-old musician, “but only in an abstract way. He’s always going to live in that house.”

Bendjelloul finds inspiration in that for his own work. Having made Searching for Sugar Man on a shoestring, he intends to continue that way of working. “I think the key is to try to keep it small enough to be in control, to do what you want to do. Not having people tell you what to do.”

To that end, Bendjelloul says, “I may go travel for six months again.” After all, the world is full of extraordinary stories.

A ROYAL AFFAIR Directed By Nikolaj Arcel

OFFICIAL AMPAS SCREENINGS

LOS ANGELES

—Ari Karpel

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH 2:00PM LINWOOD DUNN THEATER • 1313 Vine St. • Hollywood

EXCLUSIVE RETURN ENGAGEMENTS NOW PLAYING IN NEW YORK AT THE QUAD CINEMA AND IN LOS ANGELES AT THE LAEMMLE ROYAL AMPAS MEMBERS AND THEIR GUEST ALLOWED MON-THURS WITH THEIR MEMBERSHIP CARD

the m

by mike fleminG Jr. 32

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

movie mAeStro Master Oscar Strategist Harvey Weinstein Talks About His Contending Films When Harvey Weinstein sat down at Sundance for what has become an annual interview with Deadline, he looked as tired as I felt. He, David Glasser, and the rest of the team stayed awake all night to make a splashy deal for Fruitvale, one of the bestliked titles at Sundance. A fixture at this festival since he helped turn it into a lucrative market back in 1989 when he bought and found crossover success with Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies & videotape, Weinstein is several years removed from reports of money problems and a studio that had to refocus because he was preoccupied with other businesses. The reigning two-time best picture Oscar champ has two films in this year’s wide-open race; and he’s making a fortune on a film he’s not releasing, The Hobbit, because of gross points he took to allow Peter Jackson shop The Lord of the Rings. He discusses politics, Sundance, and of course the Oscars, though remains circumspect on the latter, fully aware that the voting period is in full swing.

AWArDSline: And here I’d read in The Hollywood Reporter that you’d be at Barack Obama’s inauguration today. On behalf of Deadline, thanks for cancelling. He’s the leader of the free world, so this can’t be about me. Is Nikki Finke that powerful? hArvey WeinStein: (Long pause). I’ll say yes. (Laughs.) The thing I love about Nikki Finke is, I’ve got Silver Linings Playbook in its 12th week, grossing $13+ million. Unheard of for a movie to complete the platform it had and go wide like this, and it kills it, the No. 3 movie in the country, beating all the new releases. Does she write, “Outstanding!” “Boy they were smart!” “God, they’re going to do $100 million,” or “Shit I was wrong”? Nothing. The movie’s at $58 million now, and we’re six weeks until the Oscars. Silver Linings is going to gross $100 million. And when it does, I suppose she’ll just say, “Silver Linings grossed $100 million.”

AWArDSline: You’ve had the best picture winner two years running. This year, two of the nine nominated pictures are yours. Make a case why Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained would each make a worthy winner.

WeinStein: I don’t want to do that. Anyone who talks about this Oscar race has to deal with the fact that this was such a good year for movies that, who knows? Life of Pi, brilliant—Ang Lee at his absolute best. Lincoln’s a masterpiece. Ben Affleck hit it out of the ballpark with Argo. Zero Dark Thirty. Amour, amazing, and those guys did such a good job getting that film noticed and nominated. Beasts of the Southern Wild, Les Misérables. Stupendous year.

AWArDSline: Let’s attack it another way. You worked on Silver Linings Playbook for years, and it started as a Sydney Pollack project. He couldn’t crack the idea of a comedy with a bipolar protagonist. He brought in David O. Russell, who made it work. What was the creative breakthrough?

Harvey Weinstein (center) with Bradley Cooper (right) Continued on next page...

the movie

mAeStro

...from previous

‘‘’’

After We Put our heArt AnD Soul into the movie, the oSCAr CAmPAiGn WAS SeConDAry.

WeinStein: Here was the eureka moment: People who are bipolar or depressed or are borderline don’t usually say, “Hey, that’s me.” The same way stutterers felt before The King’s Speech. They hid it in shame.

The movie destigmatized that, same as The King’s Speech did. David O. Russell’s son, as he’s admitted, is borderline. And he one day said to him—and this was the key that unlocked the movie—“I don’t want to live in this world.” To hear that as a father, you can just imagine how he felt. And he wrote this to give hope to people who have this problem. Everyone in this movie has something. Bradley Cooper’s character is bipolar, Jennifer Lawrence’s character has problems, and Bob De Niro’s character is obsessive compulsive. It is no day in the park, but David used humor beautifully to deal with an important subject, in a way that gives people hope. Sydney going to David was serendipitous for all of us. This is the last project for Sydney and Anthony Minghella, the final project for two exceptional men who influenced our industry in an incredible way. This was Sydney’s more than Anthony’s; it’s really Sydney’s last hurrah and that means a lot to us. And of course, Django means a lot to us because it’s Quentin.

AWArDSline: People seem to tiptoe around controversy during Oscar voting. Anybody who read Quentin’s Django Unchained when it circulated two years ago could see what was coming, from the violence to the degradation of slaves, to the used of the N-word, to the spaghetti-western style and humor.

When media reports count the number of times the “N” word was used and play that as big news, how much harder does that make it for you during this voting period?

WeinStein: The movie has had champions from Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton to BET to the NAACP; it got five Oscar nominations including best picture. The people who are for it are much more influential than the people who are against it, and they’ve put out a lot of those early fires started in some cases by people who hadn’t even seen the film, which is irresponsible.

The “N” word was in Lincoln, too, because that’s what they were called. It was in Roots. They weren’t called African-Americans then; the reference was way more derogatory.

AWArDSline: Was Quentin robbed of a nomination for director?

WeinStein: I don’t want to use the word “robbed,” but Quentin Tarantino not in the running for best director? He is one of the greatest directors of our time. Here’s what I think happened on Django. We finished the movie Dec. 1. We didn’t show it until a few days later. The race was early this year: The voting cutoff was Jan. 3. We tried to show it to people in theaters, not on DVD. It’s an epic movie and that

34

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

man put his whole life and heart into this. It’s his most important movie, his most important subject matter, and the idea of DVDs stopped me cold.

AWArDSline: What do you mean? Even I have an Oscar DVD. WeinStein: I delayed them. I wanted people to see it on the big screen. I told Quentin we’d probably pay the price at the Oscars, but it was the right way to see an epic period movie about a man who does not give up. Eventually, we gave out the DVDs, but we paid the price for being late. We paid no price as far as the gigantic business the movie’s doing. It’s the biggest of Quentin’s career. After we put our heart and soul into the movie, the Oscar campaign was secondary. But make no mistake about it—we got five nominations including best picture, and we only had one week. We sent the DVDs out on Dec. 17.

AWArDSline: The first script had an even harsher depiction of how slave women and Broomhilda in particular were used for sex by their masters, and how male slaves were used in gruesome fights to the death to entertain those masters. Did you ever say, “Quentin, I don’t know”? After all, you have been in business with him his whole career, and you’re the one who markets these movies.

WeinStein: Quentin is so educated on the subject that the original idea for this wasn’t even a movie.

Ten years ago, he spoke to me about how Birth of a Nation had been lauded and yet there was this strand of racism in it that had been ignored by major critics who’d put it at or near the top of their all-time best lists. I watched Birth of a Nation and suggested that he do a piece for The New Yorker, a 30- or 40-page treatise. You know Quentin, he can write like any film professor. He writes brilliant scripts, and trust me, I read pages of the treatise. It was astounding. And the amount of research he put into the slave era is astonishing. If anything, I’m the one who said to him, “If you really want to show slavery, show it.” It was worse than what we put on that screen. Way, way worse. All I said was, “We’ve got to find a way to get an audience inspired by this, to do their own research, but not turn them off at the same time.” I knew Quentin knows this subject better than anybody, and when you’ve got someone like that who wants to bring that incredible knowledge to the screen, you just let them be.

AWArDSline: What about Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master? Why didn’t it click with a wider audience?

WeinStein: I probably could have marketed it better.

I probably should have prepared the audience. We opened up to the highest arts per screen ever, and I just think the audience had trouble with the movie.

They needed to be guided. I was so enamored with the film that I didn’t think the audience would have

Harvey and Bob Weinstein (Getty)

that trouble. Other people around me did say the audience was going to have that trouble but I personally loved the movie and Paul. Maybe I would have done him more of a favor being a better devil’s advocate, instead of a cheerleader. That is what I always think a distributor should be, a cheerleader and not a devil’s advocate. I seem to do better when I’m devil’s advocate. I do think the film will live stand up and have a long life down the line.

AWArDSline: Everybody says you do this Oscar campaigning the best.

WeinStein: It’s always about the movies. I don’t know what people think we’re campaigning. Where? Have you seen me campaigning?

AWArDSline: No. Well, for Obama.

WeinStein: That’s about the only campaigning I’ve done this year and last.

AWArDSline: What prompted this political activism?

WeinStein: I was cursed with it when I went to college.

I had two Irish roommates, Dennis Ward and Eugene Fahey. Eugene is now a New York State Supreme Court Judge, one of the highest in the state; Dennis is a constitutional lawyer. Instead of going out and having a good time like I should have in those college years, I went with these guys as they ran the campaign for the mayor or the councilman and I’d be out there hanging posters and handing out stickers. Politics has been part of me since I was 17, when I met those guys. They still call me every five minutes. There’s always another issue, another problem. We should have been in more bars having fun, and instead we were in town hall meetings.

AWArDSline: How has your flair for marketing and organization helped in being an ally for the president or other politicians?

What has been most gratifying?

WeinStein: The concert for Hurricane Sandy was more gratifying than anything I’ve done in movies. We raised over $60 million in one night. Jim Dolan, John Sykes and I produced that show. This started the same way as the 9/11 concert. I was in Los Angeles, watching Hurricane Sandy on television. My grandma used to have a little cottage in Rockaway. We didn’t go to the French countryside back then, you know?

The Weinstein family was packed into this Rockaway bungalow. I’m watching the TV and there is no Rockaway. The boardwalk was floating in the water.

I called Jim Dolan and said, “We gotta go do something.” So where was I campaigning for movies? I was producing that concert around the clock, 24/7, right after the election.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE - BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ®

GOLDEN GLOBE

®

® HFPA

WINNER

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE BRITISH ACADEMY OF FILM AND TELEVISION ARTS N O M I N AT I O N

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE PRODUCERS GUILD AWARD N O M I N AT I O N

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

10

ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD N O M I N AT I O N

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

4

VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST VFX IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE

CINEMA AUDIO SOCIETY N O M I N AT I O N

BEST SOUND MIXING MPSE GOLDEN REEL N O M I N AT I O N

BEST SOUND FX EDITING

WaltDisneyStudiosAwards.com ©2013 Disney/Pixar

AmeriCAn iDol

36

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

In Silver linings Playbook, Robert De Niro Further Cements His Status as One of the Industry’s Most Iconic Performers

by Pete hAmmonD

Robert De Niro hit his stride in terms of movie recognition in 1973 when both Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets put him on the map. The latter remains a special favorite because it marks the beginning of his long association with Martin Scorsese. Remarkably, De Niro didn’t come close to peaking after winning his first supporting actor Oscar for 1974’s The Godfather Part II—he’s still going strong nearly four decades later, thought by many to be our greatest living film actor. But effortlessly playing the young Don Corleone and doing it entirely in a Sicilian dialect should have signaled to anyone that this was a talent like no other. A look at the other roles that won him recognition from the Academy an impressive six times overall between 1975 and 1992 only confirms that early promise. There’s Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Cape Fear, and of course, Raging Bull, which brought him a second statuette for best actor in 1980. But consider some of the brilliant performances Oscar didn’t recognize, and you get an idea of the career we are talking about here: The King of Comedy, The Mission, Midnight Run, Awakenings, Once Upon a Time in America, Casino, Heat, and one especially close to his heart, Everybody’s Fine, to name just a few. As a producer, entrepreneur, and founder of the ever-growing Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro is not only a multifaceted actor, he’s a multifaceted person, who might be hitting his stride again in the same year he will turn 70. After waiting 21 years, De Niro now has a richly deserved seventh Oscar nomination for his role as Pat Sr. in Silver Linings Playbook, and he’s back in the supporting actor category for the first time since the Academy started its admiration society for him 40 years ago. Will history repeat itself ? For De Niro, he’s just happy to still be in the starting lineup and still getting roles as rich as this one.

AWArDSline: How did Silver Linings Playbook come about? The character in the book is markedly different than what Pat Sr. became in the movie. robert De niro: Yes, a lot different. (David O. Russell) turned the character inside out. (Pat Sr. is) very interesting in the book, but this was another way to do it. There were more colors in a sense and the other was more consistently not communicative, kind of funny in his own way.

AWArDSline: How was working with David O. Russell’s directorial style? It’s freewheeling and creative, shooting at 360-degree angles…

De niro: It is different. I have done some things like that, but not really. His style is very unique, specific to him, and I think it’s really great because it adds an immediacy, a spontaneity, an unpredictability. You don’t know where it is really going to go, and it has that energy to it with a lot of the handheld stuff. He will throw lines at you. You already know what you are doing scriptwise, but there are times he is going to throw lines at you that are spontaneous and right. And that’s great.

AWArDSline: There is a lot of Oscar buzz again for Silver Linings.

Does that mean much to you?

De niro: Of course I am happy about it all, but I don’t want to expect much because I don’t want to be disappointed: You expect, and you think, and it never happens. So all I try to do is be even-keel about stuff.

AWArDSline: Are the movies you received the Oscars for the ones you think you should have won for or are there others where you thought you should have won instead?

De niro: I don’t know. There’s so much competition out there.

There’s so many good performances, so many good movies I don’t know what I would be. It depends on the alignment of the stars sometimes for certain things. I think for Godfather II, Raging Bull, yes. There were others. Who knows?

AWArDSline: Were there any films in the past 20 years that have been really frustrating experiences for you? Looking down the list, I see one: Everybody’s Fine. I thought it was terrific.

De niro: I think it was left flat by Miramax and the parent company (Disney). They said they weren’t going to do that,

Original photography by Jeff Vespa

but of course they did. How you present it is important— I know the director (Kirk Jones) was concerned about it, in America at least. In England, they had an interesting poster which is more right for it. I never say this about myself, but I was proud of that (performance), and Kirk is a terrific director.

I certainly worked very hard on that one.

AWArDSline: Is it tougher finding scripts you are excited by these days?

De niro: It’s always hard to find good scripts. That’s just the way it is, unless it is a director like David or (Martin) Scorsese or certain directors who you know are smart and whatever they do is going to be interesting. You just have to rely on the director, because it is not always on the page.

AWArDSline: You seem to be working all the time—you obviously still love making movies.

De niro: You do a movie, and you don’t know it is going to be received. If Silver Linings Playbook was received in another way, I would say it doesn’t really take away from everything we did. You can’t predict how the public or the audience is going to feel about something. Taxi Driver was the same thing. I just don’t know. I am happy when people like them, but you do your best, and that’s all you can do.

AWArDSline: I personally loved Bang the Drum Slowly at the beginning of your career in 1973, but is there one movie that stands out from the rest?

De niro: Mean Streets. I had a great time with Marty, being the first feature we did together. There’s also working on something that is not the most fun, but that could be one that’s received well. You just never know.

AWArDSline: Will you be teaming with Scorsese again anytime soon?

De niro: Yes, we are planning on it. We are trying to narrow the time down. Its original title was I Heard You Paint Houses. They have been calling it The Irishman lately—I don’t know what it will be called. But it is me, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Marty directing. I never talk about stuff—I don’t like to because it seems whenever you do, it never works out. I’m so careful. But this one I did. I am feeling good about it and hoping it will all work out.

PlAyinG the mAveriCk

by Pete hAmmonD

Alan Arkin Prefers to Focus on the Work, Rather Than Competing With Other Actors

38

With a best actor Oscar nomination for his very first film, the comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and a second one for the drama The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter just two years later, Alan Arkin got off on the right foot early in his career. It would be 38 years later before he got a third nomination, and it turned out the third time was the charm when he won best supporting actor for Little Miss Sunshine. But don’t think the long wait to get to Oscar’s stage mattered much to Arkin. He has a tough time dealing with the whole idea of competition between actors and is happy just letting his work speak for itself. This versatile actor, who is now 78 years old, is still going strong all these years after getting his start as a founding member of The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago.

Memorable performances in films as varied as Catch-22, Wait Until Dark, The In-Laws, Glengarry Glen Ross, Edward Scissorhands, and so many others have marked a long career that seemed to win a second life after the Oscar. His fourth nomination is for Argo, in which he plays the ultimate insider Hollywood producer, Lester Siegel, who is called upon to use his expertise in a very different and important way. In typical fashion, Arkin hits it out of the park, and also in typical fashion, he’s not bragging about it.

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

AWArDSline: Argo has passed $100 million at the boxoffice domestically. Did you have any idea that this movie would be that kind of hit it when you got involved?

AlAn Arkin: I never think about it. I don’t spend a lot of time concerning myself about the grosses. I thought it might be possible—I get a bump in my salary then I start caring. (Laughs).

Otherwise, it’s not something I care about. It’s just something I want to do or not.

AWArDSline: So what attracted you to playing Lester Siegel?

Arkin: I felt like I knew the guy. I felt he was wonderfully humorous, completely real. I mean, it was a lot of funny material, but I felt it served the entire piece. Stylistically, it’s the way movies used to be. You (would have) a serious movie and have no problem with having comedic elements in it. For some reason, that seemed to change over time, and this film brings it back to where you can have a serious moment and pull out some humor. I love that idea.

AWArDSline: Why do you think it changed? Argo does seem to be embraced by people in the industry, because it is something that feels different now.

Arkin: (The business is) more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential.

AWArDSline: What makes you say yes to a project these days?

Arkin: It’s a combination of things, like a graph. It depends how high something goes on the graph: It could be the director, the script, the part—it could be any one of those things alone if I feel strongly about it. There are times when I like the character and not the director, or the other way. Usually it has to be a combination of the three.

AWArDSline: There’s Oscar buzz this year for you in Argo. Does that mean something to you at this point in your career?

Arkin: It’s a euphemism for people telling you they like your work. I had a hard time treating my field as if it’s horse racing, putting actors in competition against each other. I see how the industry and the studios feel it’s important, but I don’t really have a feeling for being in competition. I want to feel sympathetic and close to others, not opposed to them. Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works—winning best actor is arbitrary.

AWArDSline: But you are one of the rare actors to get an Academy Award nomination for best actor on your first feature film, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.

Arkin: It was one of the many times in my life where I disappeared. Somebody was in my body and answered for me. I went away and didn’t come back until the awards were over with. Somebody was there, I have a vague impression of it, but I just ran away.

AWArDSline: I was at a recent screening of the film, and it still holds up.

Arkin: It’s a sweet film; I love it. My main memories of that were that (director Norman Jewison) ruined me for the next 10 people I worked with. He was so extraordinary to work with. It was like a dream come true. It was a totally embracing

Original photography by Jeff Vespa

experience in every way. Norman got the entire town involved in shooting; everybody in the town was an extra. Everybody was invited every day, to the point that they had to ask people to keep their children home and doors closed because we couldn’t hear the sound guy. It was to me what I always hoped movies were going to be. But it didn’t happen again very frequently.

AWArDSline: That nomination led to a lot of great movies for you, including Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn.

Arkin: She was a dream, she was everything you had hoped for.

I was a little bit tongue-tied around her. She was very accessible, very hardworking, great sense of humor—but regal.

AWArDSline: You really terrified her, and she was playing a blind woman.

Arkin: I had a miserable time because I liked her so much. I couldn’t stand what I was doing to her—very unhappy about it.

AWArDSline: Do you like doing theater? You were so successful on stage; you won Tonys.

Arkin: I would rather die than do a play—10 years in solitary instead. Here’s how much I want to do it: If you told me I could rehearse this play for two days and perform it for one night with the book in my hand, you said you’d pay me $10 million, and not only that but (we’d have) world peace for the next 50 years, I’d have to think about it for six months. And then I’d say no. The repetition of it drove me crazy—nothing creative about it for me. I need to be inventing and playing, and not doing the same thing over and over again.

AWArDSline: But you did spend a good amount of time on stage as a founding member of The Second City…

Arkin: Once I got to Second City, I found the kind of acting I enjoyed. We’d do a show for three months, then the next show would be based on improvisations that worked on the show before that. (It was a) constantly rotating series of set improvisations.

AWArDSline: How did you initially get involved in it?

Arkin: A friend of mine married a guy named David Shepherd who was one of the founders of Campus Theater, and we did a thing in St. Louis in the summer—improvisational theater.

Paul Sills, who no one had ever heard of, came down and told me if I ever wanted a job a Chicago to give him call. I said, “Fat chance. I’m going to have a big career in New York, so I’m not going to bury myself in Chicago.” After starving for six months in New York, I called him, and I thought I’d be there for the rest of my life earning $800 a week. Six months later, it got national attention, (and) it was the beginning for me.

AWArDSline: Do you still love the business?

Arkin: I don’t love the business. I never wanted to be a part of it. I don’t think any actor does. Most of the time, I’ve been really fortunate to work with people who are really fun to work with. It doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously, but no one is under the delusion (that we’re) bringing world peace for the next 100 years. If anybody told me 40 years ago what would be happening, I’d think they were crazy.

The Nominated Costume Designers Discuss the Vision Behind the Attire

by CAri lynn

Snow White and the huntsman

Colleen AtWooD | SnoW WhiTe AnD The hUnTSMAn No stranger to the Oscar race with three wins (for Alice in Wonderland, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Chicago), plus another seven nominations, Atwood didn’t originally plan on a career in costume design. She’d gone to art school to study painting, but when she became pregnant in high school, her path diverged to retail fashion so she could earn a living. It wasn’t until her daughter was in high school that Atwood moved to New York and took a film class, where she found herself the go-to person for sets and costumes for her fellow students. Her first break was in 1980, working on sets and props for Ragtime.

Why it’S oSCAr-Worthy: “Any time you’re able to design a whole new world it sets it apart,” she says.

“Personally, my work on Snow White and the Huntsman is some of the most interesting I’ve ever done because I got to use new and innovative materials and applications and shapes. To be nominated by your peers is fabulous and exciting because these are the people who really scrutinize your work, whereas everyone else can have an emotional experience to the costumes, but that’s pretty tied into the movie.” the ShoW-StoPPer: “I was asked to do a presell image, so I designed a feathered, raven cloak for Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). All the feathers were hand-trimmed, and I worked with an amazing milliner in London so that, like a real bird, all the feathers

40

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

Mirror Mirror

go in different directions and catch the light in an amazing way.” biGGeSt ChAllenGe: “The fact that we manufactured 2,000 costumes. We had two armies designed from the ground up, three courts, peasants, scary creatures, and dwarves, where everything had to be scaled down to size but still be realistic. Also, Snow White had to wear the same costume throughout much of the movie, and you couldn’t get tired of looking at it, plus it had to go through variations. When I found out she was running through the woods, I thought, We’re going to get sick of seeing the same dress full of mud.

We decided to put in the story that the huntsman trims the dress, and I put Snow White in leggings underneath. After the dress is trimmed, I love what happened—it’s a look young people could associate with, and on practical level Kristen Stewart does a lot of her own stunt work so the leggings protected her from the branches and cold and elements of the forest.” hoW WoulD you DreSS the oSCAr StAtuette?: “The raven cape would look great with the gold body.

And a crown. We used an awesome Gothic crown in the movie.” eiko iShiokA | Mirror Mirror With a previous Oscar for Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, a Grammy for the 1986 Miles Davis album

les Misérables

cover Tutu, and a Tony nomination in 1988 for M. Butterfly, acclaimed Tokyo-born designer Eiko Ishioka passed away of pancreatic cancer prior to learning of her Oscar nomination for Mirror Mirror. Hailed by The New York Times as one of the foremost art directors in the world, Ishioka also has work that is featured in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. We spoke with Mirror Mirror director Tarsem Singh on the legacy of a pivotal designer, with whom he collaborated on all of his films.

Why it’S oSCAr-Worthy: “Eiko was a hell of an inspiration for us,” Singh explains. “Her verve flows out from her. Her DNA is completely in this film. You never had to say, ‘Think outside the box’ to Eiko.

She belonged to a different planet. Usually people pull references from other films or research, (but) she never did that. She’d pull a photograph of an animal and say, ‘When the lizard is agitated, this is what it does with its neck.’ Her inspiration comes more from the natural history museum than any fashion magazine.” the ShoW-StoPPer: “The wardrobe was written into the script—Eiko took my belief so viscerally. So if I say, ‘Let’s have a costume ball and make the queen stand out,’ she puts everyone in white on white and makes it an animal theme. Then there’s the Battleship game played with people’s hats. She does things I don’t think about until I see it, and I realize that every idea I talked about was incorporated. Then there are the dwarves. I wanted them to do fighting and didn’t want it to look CGI, but because this movie is also for

children, the fighting couldn’t be aggressive. One of my biggest problems was solved by Eiko in a single conversation when she thought of doing accordion legs. We also discussed how the dwarves’ individual personalities had to come out through the clothes, but at the same time, they still needed to look like one group. So Eiko decided everyone’s personality should be in their hat.” biGGeSt ChAllenGe: “Eiko was never fond of the practical. She would make what filmed the best, but it may not have moved. The toughest was for the dwarves— we didn’t want to have a Disney look, but they still had to look like a gang. Then, the Queen’s (Julia Roberts) wedding dress took a team to move it, and we made several dresses to shoot from different angles. If Julia was sitting, there was one dress, another for when she was in the coach. I was trying to make things easy for Eiko because she was undergoing cancer therapy, but she doesn’t know easy. She’d make seven choices of everything; I’d pick one, and then she’d present seven more variations on that. We spoiled her and said, ‘Let her have her time.’ It does make it more difficult for actors though—take a step in this (version of the costume), sit in that one, say your line in that one.” hoW WoulD eiko DreSS the oSCAr StAtuette?: “It’s so hard to try to guess. You would never tell Eiko what to make! I imagine she would have done something that would’ve been very hard to lift. If someone complained it was too heavy, she would have said, ‘You go put on weight then!’ ” PACo DelGADo | leS MiSérAbleS Trained in set and costume design at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, Delgado has worked extensively with Spain’s most famous director, Pedro Almodóvar, on 2004’s Bad Education and 2011’s The Skin I Live In, as well as on Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-nominated Biutiful in 2010. In a twist of fate, Delgado met director Tom Hooper (Les Misérables, The King’s Speech) when they worked together on a Captain Morgan TV ad, and now Delgado has earned his first Oscar nomination for the epic film adaptation of the longest-running musical in history.

Why it’S oSCAr-Worthy: “This is about the history of France, but also about the history of the Western world,” Delgado says, “and it was a big responsibility to create this world, but I also had to remember I was doing a musical with drama, and I needed to have color and fantasy.”

discussed a leitmotif, so I evoked the colors of the French flag throughout, using blue costumes in the early factory scene, then red for the revolution, and then moving to white for the wedding and nunnery scenes. Also, there’s always a fight with the budget and with time.” the ShoW-StoPPer: “I wanted to try to interpret personalities and characters through the costumes. In Victor Hugo’s book, Fantine is coquettish and beautiful and had some views of the petty-minded society, so I wanted her factory dress to belong to her lost past. [Ed. note: Fantine’s dress was pink in the scene, in stark contrast to the other factory workers in drab blue.] It was all hand-embroidered and had a level of craftsmanship that would make Fantine appear as an outsider among the rest of the women.” hoW WoulD you DreSS the oSCAr StAtuette?: “He already looks so sexy naked. After all, every woman and even every man wants to bring him home. I would do a version of the sexiest dress ever, like the transparent glittering dress that Marilyn Monroe wore at President John F. Kennedy’s birthday at Madison Square Garden. It’s very appropriate for Oscar who only appears in his birthday suit—and I’m very proud I have been invited to his 85th birthday!”

JoAnnA JohnSton | lincoln Johnson’s biography reads like a “best films” list spanning more than three decades. She cut her teeth on Roman Polanski’s Tess in 1979 and went on to be the go-to designer for Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa), Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Cast Away), M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable), and Steven Spielberg (the Indiana Jones franchise, The Color Purple, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse).

Somehow, though, Oscar evaded this British designer until now, with her much-lauded Lincoln, Johnston’s eighth Spielberg-directed film.

biGGeSt ChAllenGe: “We created 1,500 new costumes, out of a total of over 2,000 costumes, and many of them we had to break down with mud, grease, sand, brushes, and blowtorches because we wanted to reflect how poverty-stricken Paris was at that time. (In my research) I learned they used an amazing secondhand market where clothes were sold and resold and resold again until they were rags. Also, Tom and I had lincoln

Continued on next page...

Clockwise from above: Wardrobe sketches for Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror Mirror, Les Misérables, Lincoln, and Anna Karenina

...from previous

Why it’s Oscar-worthy: “I suppose it hits a button with the balance of the piece as a whole,” she says.

“I think the work is quite quiet—most of my work is not showcase-y but relatively character-driven. The academics and the historians seem to be happy at the accuracy, and my thought is (voters) normally go for the very expansive and forward-projecting and not necessarily the things that are understated, so all I can say is I’m really, really pleased.”

The show-stopper: “I don’t have a piece designed to be a show-stopper—it’s not that kind of film; Lincoln himself is the most iconic, but if there’s one that pushes above in my mind, it’s Mary Todd’s cream dress when she goes to the theater. You see it as a whole dress, and I based it off of two dresses of hers that I saw in portraits and fused together. I embellished the neckline and the sleeves because I wanted to do something to help Sally Field’s physicality get more into Mary Todd’s physicality, so I depicted Mary Todd’s affectation of fussiness in her dress.”

Biggest challenge: “The whole film! Each film is unique, but this is a completely different film, a different creature than anything else—it had its own character and rhythm and roots and had a very long gestation period of eight years. I was involved to a tiny degree over a six-year period.”

How would you dress the Oscar statuette?: “I would keep him as he is. I don’t think he could be improved—although I think he’d look kind of cool in armor, beautiful armor with a lot of tooling.”

42

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

Jacqueline Durran | Anna Karenina

The show-stopper: “My personal favorite is the cream dress in the tea room in Moscow—I thought it really suited Keira Knightley, and also it was the

A favorite collaborator of director Joe Wright’s, British designer Jacqueline Durran has garnered two other noms for Wright’s Atonement and Pride & Prejudice.

Not bad for a designer who says she couldn’t understand why Wright had even asked to interview her for his first feature, Pride & Prejudice, given that Durran hadn’t previously done pre-20th-century designs.

Why it’s Oscar-worthy: “I think it’s the whole thing, how all the elements mesh together and become such a complete vision,” Durran says. “The way they move through the theater and the colors and the costumes, we all benefit from each other’s work. Joe had such a strong vision; he always had the idea that the film would be stylized, and in our first meeting he said he wanted to concentrate on silhouettes. We got to talking about how 1950s couture is about silhouettes, and how dramatic and beautiful it was, and from there it seemed we could combine 1870s dress with elements from the ’50s.”

Biggest challenge: One part is that Joe is a challenging director because he pushes you to do more, to rethink things or to come up with different ideas. The other part is the idea of Anna Karenina, you hear it and you say, ‘Oh, god. It’s such a big idea.’ She’s got to look beautiful, the world has to be beautiful, you have to capture this luxurious beauty, and for that I had to raise my game. You feel you have something to live up to.”

Anna Karenina

most fully fledged version of the 1950s/1870s combo, with traditional skirt and then a pillbox hat. There’s no point in trying to make a stylized statement if it doesn’t end up looking like anything, and this came together. However, I do think the overall show-stopper has to be the ball because of all the elements there—26 dancers, in what I call ‘sour pastels,’ surround Anna Karenina, all in black, and Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), all in white.

How would you dress Oscar: “In diamonds and furs.”

‘‘

he WAnteD the SonG to hAve the SAme SWeeP AnD ePiC quAlity the film hAS.

’’

Global Village Kon-Tiki

War Witch

By David Mermelstein

Divergent Narratives Linked by the Personal Nature of Their Stories Comprise the Foreign Film Nominees If one thing links all five of this year’s nominees for the foreign film Oscar, it’s that the director of each picture was driven to make his movie because of strong, deeply personal feelings. These five films—a varied batch if ever there was one—have nothing in common in terms of where and when they are set, but they all deal, unapologetically, with powerful emotions. And those feelings are expressed not only by the characters in these films, but also by their creators.

Perhaps the most obviously personal is Michael Haneke’s Amour, which achieved the rare feat of earning best picture and director noms, as well.

The film has been cited for, among other things, its unblinking look at the degradations inflicted by illness on an aged couple. The German-born writer-director says that his recollections of a beloved aunt’s increasing infirmity inspired him to make the film. “I was forced to look on as someone very close to me suffered, someone for whom I cared very much,” he says, noting that the specifics of his aunt’s condition were not replicated in the movie. “What’s shown in the film is the product of lengthy research and my imagination.”

Yet one especially chilling aspect of his aunt’s situation—her asking him to assist in her suicide—was strongly echoed in the film. “Of course I had to tell her I was unable to do it,” Haneke recalls, “because I would have been put in jail if I had done it. I was grateful for that alibi, for I don’t know if I would have had the strength to do it otherwise. But she did it anyway, without my help.”

Asked whether he himself—now age 70—worries about a fate similar to that faced by the principal characters in Amour (portrayed with uncanny and moving effect by octogenarians Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, who earned a best actress nomination for the role), Haneke responds wryly and invokes another, very different, master filmmaker.

“Billy Wilder was asked a similar question,” Haneke says, “and he responded by saying that the bombardments, so to speak, are coming ever closer.”

44

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s closeness to the subject of his film No is palpable, even though he was only 12 years old when the1988 referendum that removed strongman Augusto Pinochet as president of Chile occurred. His film examines that historic vote from an unconventional perspective—through the eyes of a young marketing executive, played by Gael Garcia Bernal—but the view is no less compelling for its novelty.

“It’s a big shadow for everyone in my country,” Larrain says, referring to Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship. “We are still quite divided. You cannot avoid it or pretend it never happened. Pinochet died at the end of 2006, not long ago—a free man and rich. He’s a very controversial figure. He really damaged our society and created a lot of pain. You can’t pretend it doesn’t affect you.”

Though Larrain didn’t encounter outright opposition to his unconventional dissection of a delicate subject, his approach did elicit some head scratching in his country. “There were people who were curious why we picked the ad guy’s perspective,” the director acknowledges. “When you do a movie like this, a period movie but not from long ago—and it’s a huge date in my country—everyone has an opinion about it. So we had to deal with walking on eggshells.”

Politics weren’t the issue. “Now most people—nearly 90 percent—would say no to Pinochet, or to another one like him,” insists Larrain, whose choice of protagonist proved more controversial. “Some people felt we were telling this story to the world through the eyes of people who weren’t the most important, but I think the ad guys were important on many levels.

Pinochet imposed capitalism on Chile and brought with it the logic of marketing and advertising. So without realizing it, he created the tools that finally pulled him out. And we thought that was fantastic.

There were other people who were important in the No campaign, but I’m not sure they would have succeeded without these ad guys, because they made people feel more comfortable about voting no.”

Larrain offers an unexpected analogy to explain his film’s foundation. “It’s like ancient Greek tragedy,” he says, noting how Pinochet was, in effect, undone by instruments of his own making. “The more you try to avoid your death, the closer you get to it. What happened with Pinochet is a little Greek story, in my opinion. If they had known, they would have reacted differently. But by the time they knew, it was already too late. It’s a paradox, and we know that works very well in movies.”

Though the director at first maintains that his movie “doesn’t intend to be a political film,” he then allows, “I would understand if somebody thinks so.” Ultimately, he broadens his definition of the term. “Every movie by anyone is political,” he said, “because it has a perspective on human behavior. It could be a comedy or drama, brilliant or not. Movies always have a political point of view somewhere.”

Politics with even more immediate resonance seems to lie at the heart of Kim Nguyen’s War Witch, a French-language Canadian production that focuses on child soldiers in present-day Sub-Saharan Africa.

But what motivated Nguyen to spend almost a decade nurturing the project was its humanity. “As I started doing research for the script, it came quite early on that the point wasn’t an educational film but rather a dark poem about 21st-century Sub-Saharan Africa in turmoil,” the writer-director explains.

“I’d seen a lot of movies about Sub-Saharan Africa, and it always ends up as the white man who saves Africa,” Nguyen says. “I thought it was important to give a voice to the forgotten ones, who often find inner strength to survive these horrendous situations—especially women who are child soldiers. About half are girls. And unfortunately the girls are not only soldiers but sexual slaves and forced laborers as well.”

Nguyen immersed himself in research to create his complex characters—often a compelling mixture of childlike innocence and sociopathic brutality—but

A royal Affair

no

Amour

he didn’t limit himself to the safety of his computer screen. “I went to Burundi and met ex-child soldiers,” he says. “And in the Congo, where we eventually filmed, I saw things like houses built out of abandoned billboards. They’re used for survival, and it creates a whole new postmodern message. The film carries a lot of those symbols of reinvention.”

having felt intimated by the prospect. “I was terrified, actually,” he says. He didn’t even have the comforts of home to console him, for re-creating 18th-century Copenhagen proved impossible in 21st-century Denmark, and the Czech Republic had to substitute. What drove him forward were the progressive ideas at the heart of the film.

Many Americans might expect the Danish film A Royal Affair to unspool as a dry history lesson— though the movie is more like a political thriller with powdered wigs. But for Nikolaj Arcel, the film’s director and cowriter, the 18th-century story of Dr. Johann Friedrich Struensee, Queen Caroline Mathilde, and King Christian VII remains resoundingly contemporary. Though the forward-looking physician and the good-hearted if naïve royal couple tried and failed to bring reform to Denmark, they paved the way for the next generation to effect lasting change.

“I’m a little bit of a political nut,” the filmmaker says.

“There are some movements in Denmark and also here in America that are moving away from the Age of Enlightenment. I have quite a liberal viewpoint. I truly believe that every man is equal and should have an equal chance in life. And that’s what Struensee fought and died for, and it’s something we have to keep fighting for—rationality rather than irrationality.”

“It’s almost impossible not to know this story if you’re from Denmark,” Arcel says. “Every school kid knows it. So it was more a question of getting to a point of where I was mature enough to do the film. I’d been thinking about it for some time. It was a bit of a daunting prospect. I spent a year writing the script and then about four years trying to finance it. So it wasn’t that easy. In fact, I did a whole other film while waiting for financing.”

Germans and Britons had previously filmed the story, but apparently poorly. Yet no Dane had succeeded in getting it to the screen, despite repeated attempts. “A lot of great directors, even idols of mine, had been trying to make it,” Arcel says. “It was sort of like: Let me try and fail like the others. And we almost failed.

There were times I felt we’re never going to make this. I was actually quite depressed for a while.”

But Arcel did succeed. The film has done huge business in Denmark and fared extremely well in the U.K., Australia, and France. Arcel had never directed a period drama before, and he owns up to

It could be said that the opposite—irrationality over rationality—drives the figures at the center of Kon-Tiki, a re-creation of Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl’s epic trek across the Pacific, from Peru to Polynesia, which is codirected by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. Some older Americans might recall this incredible feat, which occurred in 1947, but many more know of it through Heyerdahl’s bestselling book, also titled Kon-Tiki, and the identically named documentary it inspired, which won an Oscar in 1951.

But Rønning and Sandberg’s enthusiasm for this story goes far beyond that of an armchair explorer. Like Arcel and his film, these helmers—who have been making movies together since they were kids—feel a personal tie to the tale they tell. “Thor was extremely well known, maybe the biggest celebrity of all in our country,” Sandberg says. “But he was even more important to Joachim and I because he came from the neighboring town, even smaller than ours. And he made the life he wanted for himself. And in that sense he was a huge inspiration for us becoming directors.

In Norway, you’re not really supposed to stick your nose out, so to have a man like that from almost the same place as ourselves was a great inspiration.”

Though Sandberg allows that Kon-Tiki didn’t necessarily have to be made by Norwegians, others had tried and failed, including Hollywood. “We’ve been working on it for four years,” he says. “We tried to get ahold of it earlier because we were so interested in it, but we were told to forget about it. As the saying goes, luck is where persistence meets opportunity. And this movie is bigger than the system here in Norway allows. There’s only 5 million of us—a number we hit just three months ago.”

The shoot required four weeks on the open sea and another four in a tank, with the production based in Malta. The raft they used could hardly have been more real, as it was the same one, slightly modified, that Heyerdahl’s grandson used to re-create his grandfather’s famous voyage. As for the realisticlooking shark scenes, Sandberg owns up that “all the sharks are Scandinavian”—in other words, virtual, thanks to CGI technology.

‘‘ ’’ every movie by Anyone iS PolitiCAl beCAuSe it hAS A PerSPeCtive on humAn behAvior. it CoulD be A ComeDy or DrAmA, brilliAnt or not.

Regarding the division of labor, Sandberg jokes that he and Rønning alternate at the helm “every other day.” But seriously: “We grew up together in this small town and have made movies together since we were 10,” Sandberg says. “So the process evolved with Joachim taking care of visuals and me talking to the actors on set. But we talk about everything all the time. And because we’ve always done it this way, it’s completely natural.”

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

Sidney Poitier

Academy Award winner Jack Lemmon hosted the 36th Academy Awards, which took place April 13, 1964, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Though the Academy still rarely awards comedies, best picture and director honors went to Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones. Hud claimed two of the acting trophies, for lead actress Patricia Neal and supporting actor Melvyn Douglas, while Sidney Poitier was best actor for Lilies of the Field and Margaret Rutherford was supporting actress for The V.I.P.s. Among the acting winners, only Poitier was on hand to accept his statuette at the ceremony.

“Because it is a long journey to this moment, I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people, principally among whom are Ralph Nelson, James Poe, William Barrett, Martin Baum, and of course, the members of the Academy. For all of them, all I can say is a very special thank you.”

Sidney Poitier accepting his first Oscar for Lilies of the Field.

He won a second honorary Oscar in 2001.

46

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

© A.M.P.A.S.

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

Barbra Streisand

The 41st Academy Awards took place April 14, 1969, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with a group of 10 hosts that included Ingrid Bergman, Sidney Poitier, and Burt Lancaster. The best picture Oscar went to Oliver!, and its director Carol Reed also took home a statuette. Cliff Robertson won the lead actor trophy for Charly, but the actress category was a tie—the second in Oscar history— between Katharine Hepburn for Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl. It was the first Oscar for Streisand, and Hepburn’s third— director Anthony Harvey accepted for Hepburn, who was not in attendance.

“Hello, gorgeous. And I’m very honored to be in such magnificent company as Katharine Hepburn. And gee whiz, it’s kind of a wild feeling… Somebody once asked me if I was happy. And I said, ‘Are you kidding? I would be miserable if I was happy.’ And I’d like to thank all the members of the Academy for making me really miserable. Thank you.”

Barbra Streisand accepting her first lead actress Oscar for Funny Girl. She earned her second in 1976 for writing “Evergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born)” with Paul Williams. © A.M.P.A.S.

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

Tatu m O’Neal

The 46th Academy Awards took place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 2, 1974, and was hosted

by John Huston, Diana Ross, Burt Reynolds, and David Niven. Not only did three-time winner Katharine Hepburn make her very first appearance at the ceremony, but a first-timer, Tatum O’Neal, became the youngest Oscar winner in history that evening. Ten-year-old O’Neal earned a supporting actress trophy for playing opposite her father, Ryan, in Paper Moon. Her costar Madeline Kahn was nominated in the same category, along with another young star Linda Blair (The Exorcist), Candy Clark (American Graffiti), and Sylvia Sidney (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams). Jack Lemmon earned a lead actor Oscar for Save the Tiger, and Glenda Jackson was best actress for A Touch of Class. The picture and director trophies went to George Roy Hill’s The Sting. It was also the year of the infamous streaker…

“All I really want to thank is my director Peter Bogdanovich and my father.

Thank you.”

Tatum O’Neal, whose grandfather accompanied her to the stage, accepting her first Oscar for her supporting role in Paper Moon.

48

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

© A.M.P.A.S.

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS First-time Oscar emcee Billy Crystal hosted the 62nd Academy Awards, which took place March 26, 1990, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. And when the independent feature Driving Miss Daisy took home best picture without a directing nomination for Bruce Beresford, the Oscar-prognosticating rulebooks were forever altered. The film won a total of four trophies that night, including best actress for Jessica Tandy. Daniel Day-Lewis took home best actor for My Left Foot, and directing honors went to Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July. Supporting honors went to Brenda Fricker for My Left Foot and Denzel Washington for Glory.

Jessica Tandy

“I never expected in a million years that I would ever be in this position. It’s a miracle. And I thank my lucky stars and Richard and Lili Zanuck, who had the faith to give me this wonderful chance. And also, most especially, to that forgotten man, my director Bruce Beresford. The cast that was with me which made a wonderful, happy family. It was a pleasure to go to work with them all each day. And to Sam Cohn, who takes such good care of me. Thank you, the Academy, and all of you. I am on cloud nine!”

Jessica Tandy in accepting her first and only best actress Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy.

© A.M.P.A.S.

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2:

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS

Tom Hank s

The 66th Academy Awards took place March 21, 1994, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, the first African-American to host an Oscar telecast alone. All four of the year’s acting trophies went to first-timers, too. Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin earned lead and supporting actress honors for The Piano, while Tommy Lee Jones won supporting actor for The Fugitive. But the most moving speech of the night came from Tom Hanks, who won best actor for playing a man with AIDS in Philadelphia.

Not only did he pay touching tribute to his wife and costars in the speech, he thanked a teacher and classmate who inspired him in the role. Steven Spielberg won his first directing trophy for Schindler’s List, which also gave him a second Oscar that night when it also took home best picture.

“I would not be standing here if it weren’t for two very important men in my life: Mr. Rawley Farnsworth—who was my high-school drama teacher, who taught me to act well the part, there all the glory lies—and one of my classmates under Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. John Gilkerson. I mention their names because they are two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same sort of friends.

“And there lies my dilemma here tonight. I know that my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all—a healing embrace that cools their fevers, that clears their skin, and allows their eyes to see the simple, self-evident, common-sense truth that is made manifest by the benevolent creator of us all and was written down on paper by wise men, tolerant men, in the city of Philadelphia 200 years ago. God bless you all. God have mercy on us all. And God bless America.”

Tom Hanks accepting his first best actor Oscar for Philadelphia.

He won his second Oscar the following year for Forrest Gump.

50

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

© A.M.P.A.S.

F

O

R

3 Y

O

U

R

C

O

N

S

I

D

E

R

A

ACADEMY AWARD N O M I NAT I O N S

T

I

O

N

®

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS · BEST MAKEUP AN D HAIRSTYLING · BEST PRODUCTION D ESIGN

“SPECTACULAR VISUAL EFFECTS.” RICHARD CORLISS,

“THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FANTASY FILMS EVER MADE.” RENE RODRIGUEZ,

“A BIG, BOLD, BEAUTIFUL TRIUMPH ON EVERY LEVEL.” MARK HUGHES,

BAFTA AWARD N O M I N A T I O N S INCLUDING MAKE UP & HAIR • SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

3

DOWNLOAD

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY AWARDS 2012 iBOOK FROM iTUNES

W W W . WA R N E R B R O S 2 0 1 2 . C O M

Havin g a Ball

The Academy’s Governors Ball Represents the Best and Most Exclusive Oscar After-Party in Town

by CAri lynn

© A.M.P.A.S.

After the elation (or heartbreak) of Hollywood’s most coveted awards ceremony, 1,500 guests will flock to the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the top level of the Hollywood & Highland complex to let it all hang out at the storied Governors Ball, the Academy’s official Oscar after-party.

No real Oscar to flaunt? Grab a Patron and Ultimate Vodka cocktail, rimmed with 10-karat gold while you nibble on Wolfgang Puck’s signature smoked-salmon Oscars, coated in dill creme fraiche and topped with caviar. Still craving gold?

Pluck one of 5,000 mini chocolate Oscars, wrapped in shimmering gold foil—or snag one of 50 statuette-sized chocolate Oscars (they’re made from Cacao Barry’s 64% semisweet).

Pastry chef Sherry Yard will also have 30 pounds of edible gold dust on hand to sprinkle on truffles, bon bons, and macaroons.

Academy governor Jeffrey Kurland, an Oscar-nominated costume designer whose lengthy list of feature credits includes numerous Woody Allen films, Erin Brokovich, Inception, and Ocean’s Eleven, will return for his fourth year as chair of the Governors Ball, overseeing decor, menu, and entertainment, as well as designing the staff attire.

Returning for her 24th consecutive year, event producer Cheryl Cecchetto of Sequoia Productions will handle all the details, including what she calls “the piazza,” which is an Oscar embedded into the floor, and the installation of a 120-foot chandelier—surpassing the largest chandelier listed in the Guinness Book of World Records—that will sparkle with 18,000 LEDs of alternating jewel-toned hues, reflecting the evening’s chosen colors of aubergine, chartreuse, and champagne.

“Jeffrey said he wanted a chandelier,” explains Cecchetto, “and I came back and said, ‘Here’s the biggest chandelier in the world.’ ” The chandelier theme will also be reflected in the signature dessert of the night: The Vacheron Chandelier, a bejeweled and tiered meringue filled with cream and berries.

“This year’s look goes across traditional and nontraditional lines,” Cecchetto says. “It’s more about practicality and flow. We do not have assigned seating this year, instead we are using lounge furniture and cocktail tables.” The more than 400 pieces of furnishings will be provided by Lux Lounge EFR and will be covered in velvets and silk in the theme colors; also included are a new collection of Twist cocktail tables.

Mark Held, co-owner of Mark’s Garden, who’s returning for his 20th

52

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

consecutive year, has added an ingenious floral design to the cocktail tables, fashioning a centerpiece of orchids, green anthurium, and purple kale under the tables and wrapping around the pedestals—leaving the tabletop free for Wolfgang Puck’s delicacies.

Puck, who’s created the menu for 19 consecutive years, is almost as signature to the ball as Oscar himself. Along with chef Matt Bencivenga, Puck will feature what he calls “a mix of comfort and innovations,” with returning favorites, such as mini Kobe burgers with aged cheddar, assorted pizzas, and chicken pot pie with shaved black truffles, along with a sushi and shellfish station, hot and cold small plates, and, new this year, an expanded vegan menu, including kale salad with grilled artichoke, beluga lentils with baby vegetables, vegan pizza, and farro with apple, beet, and spiced walnut. “This is the greatest party in Hollywood,” Puck says, “and people know they can get great food.” Attention will also be paid to sourcing local organic and sustainable cuisine, including wildcaught fish; hormone and antibiotic-free dairy, poultry, and meat; cage-free eggs; and California-grown produce.

Sterling Vineyards of Napa Valley will be returning for their seventh year with a 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2009 Reserve Chardonnay, both chosen at a tasting by the Academy’s board of governors.

New this year is Champagne Thiénot, a small, young brand with a production of only 300,000 bottles a year that is run by the brother and sister team of Garance and Stanislas Thiénot. Not only is this the first time the Academy has chosen a rare and little-known Champagne, but it is the first time Champagne Thiénot will be served in the U.S.—not bad to have your launch party at the Oscars. The Thiénot Rosé and a 2005 vintage will be served, with price points ranging from $40 to $150 a bottle.

Returning this year is Marc Friedland of Marc Friedland Couture Communications, reprising his role in designing one of the biggest focal points of the evening: The gold Oscar envelope, with the easy-open red ribbon primed for “And the Oscar goes to….” But in a new take, Friedland has also designed a digital collection of Academy-sanctioned invites for home Oscar parties. Free to download via Evite Postmark, the Oscar Collection by Mark Friedland will comprise 10 designs and will be available only for a limited time.

As Oscar night comes to an end, additional environmentally responsible initiatives will kick in, including a push to recycle and repurpose everything from plastics, metals, glass, and even the plywood used. Floral arrangements will either be donated to homes for the aging or composted leftover food will be donated to L.A. Specialty Chefs to End Hunger. “I’m Canadian, so green is a way of life,” says Cecchetto, who also smiles when asked about her record 24 years producing the ball. “It’s like my child,” she says, “although sooner or later I will have to retire.”

F O R

Y O U R

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM ®

INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARD NOMINEE BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

“A MOVING

AND EMOTIONAL POWERHOUSE.” -MOVIELINE

a film by

Kim NGUyEN

warwitch - film . com

AWARDS OFFICE: required viewing: (212) 206-0118 or warwitch@tribecafilm.com Deadline Awardsline Wednesday, 2/6 1/2PgH(9.5x5.875)

For the Best Actor of 1978’s coming home, Oscar Night Meant More Than the Trophy

From left: 1978 Oscar best actor and actress winners Jon Voight and Jane Fonda from coming home

© A.M.P.A.S.

Jon voiGht

the niGht i Won the oSCAr:

There were wonderful films represented and great actors that evening.

Bobby De Niro was up for The Deer Hunter, Warren Beatty for Heaven Can Wait, Gary Busey for The Buddy Holly Story, and Laurence Olivier for The Boys From Brazil, and I was the frontrunner according to Vegas odds and everything else. It seemed to be a moment between two Vietnam films, one being Deer Hunter and the other being our film, Coming Home.

A couple days before, I flew in from New York. Two seats away from me was Laurence Olivier. He was just recovering from prostate cancer. He had very thick glasses, as he could hardly see, and had arthritis that was so severe (that) when he stood up to put his coat on, he needed the help of his son Richard. It was very sad for me because I had seen Olivier play kings and do a magnificent job. I was really attentive to his entire career, and in his generation, he was the great actor who inspired and created dreams for other actors. So he was the man. Then I saw him in this state.

Then the night before the Oscars, I got a phone call at home. ‘Hello, Jon, this is Larry Olivier.’ I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God, I didn’t know what to call him!’ It was Lord Olivier. I explained my real attentiveness to all his work and the kindness of his call, and he called to say how wonderful my performance was. Can you imagine? That was a big deal.

Now, I go the Oscars and I’m sitting there with the nerves of that event.

I had a little something prepared to say if it came my way, and all of a sudden Cary Grant introduces the lifetime achievement award, and it’s going to Laurence Olivier. There I am, part of this focus of that evening and even the center of that focus in some way because the best actor award is one of the big ones. So Cary Grant comes on stage and introduces very beautifully, as he does in his charming style, his friend, Larry Olivier.

And Larry Olivier walks out on stage. And he has no glasses. And he’s standing erect. And he gives a speech that is prepared, like a piece of poetry: A brilliant, beautiful speech of gratitude to the Academy, and to the business and to the art of filmmaking and his career. It was like watching a great sports moment. I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my God!’ He’s like a tightrope walker. I know the guy can’t move his arms. I know he can’t see. I know he’s in a debilitated state, but look what he’s doing. As I’m watching him, the people who are running the show saw my response immediately. I was very moved by him. And then as he started doing his speech, I was overwhelmed because no one comes that prepared in some sense. He was showing us not only through his career, but through his appearance, how to handle that moment in the spotlight. They cut from his speech to my response, back and forth. Finally, when he finished, I went ‘Phew!’ It was like watching an impossible act happen, and when he concluded with such a gracious speech, finishing with a perfect manner and words, it was ‘Bravo!’ for all that it meant.

When they finally announced my name, the first thing I said graciously and profoundly is that I was overwhelmed by listening to that great man speak. Sometimes, when they replay my Oscar acceptance, they play back that moment when I’m moved by Olivier as though it was my response to getting the Oscar. But it wasn’t. My response to getting the Oscar was to put my head down and say, ‘OK.’ I took a real long pause and made my way to the stage eventually. I didn’t have that kind of emotion coming off the announcement of my name. It was quite a stirring moment.

My real focus was on Olivier. It took away from me a little bit, so I was a little bit more comfortable, and it put my award in perspective in some fashion. It was a great thing to see the great man in that moment and to know all the things that I knew about him. I wasn’t so moved by receiving the Oscar. I was moved by it, but the emotion of that evening was invested in watching Olivier take the stage.

—As told to Anthony D’Alessandro

54

F E B R UA RY 0 6 , 2 0 1 3

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE - BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ®

5

ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS

BRITISH ACADEMY OF FILM AND TV ARTS

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

I N C LU D I N G

CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD NOMINATION

NOMINATION

GOLDEN GLOBE® NOMINATION

PRODUCERS GUILD AWARD NOMINATION

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE BEST ANIMATED FEATURE BEST ANIMATED FEATURE WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER

BEST ANIMATED FILM BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

BEST ANIMATED FILM FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

BEST ANIMATED FILM KANSAS CITY FILM CRITICS

BEST ANIMATED FILM LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS ASSOC.

BEST ANIMATED FILM NEVADA FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

WINNER - ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST PICTURES LOS ANGELES TIMES • NEW YORK POST • TIME • THE ATLANTIC • THE STAR-LEDGER • USA TODAY • CNN

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION I BEST ANIMATED FEATURE WaltDisneyStudiosAwards.com ©2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

BEST ANIMATED FILM NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

AnD then there Were

AWArDSline PreSenTS

ACtorS & ACtreSSeS nine:

MoMenTS in oScAr hiSTory, PART 2: ON THE DETAILS BEST PICTURE NOMINEES TANDY | HANKS | POITIER | STREISAND | O’NEAL