Should the Best Picture Oscar be considered the award for the best producing?
Film Features Oscar ThisIn the 1997 comedy Wag The Dog, Dustin Hoffman plays Stanley Motss, a movie producer hired to distract from a presidential sex scandal by orchestrating a fake war in Albania. Toward the end of the film, as Motss watches the elaborate military funeral he helped put together, he laments that his efforts are destined to go unrewarded—and not just in this instance. “There is no Academy Award for producing. Where do movies come from if nobody produces them?” Producers, of course, do get an award. It’s called Best Picture.
Like many of the Academy Awards, Best Picture has undergone a number of changes, from the discontinuation of Unique And Artistic Picture (a prize handed out solely to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise) to small name tweaks (varying combinations of “Best/Outstanding” and “Production/Picture,” give or take the “Motion” bit) to the recent announcement (and speedy retraction) of the Best Popular Film category. Also of note is that up until 1950, the award went to the production company, after which it was given to all credited producers. In the matter of film ownership, one simply had to follow the money. (Apparently leery, however, of handing out too many golden statuettes, the Academy imposed a limit of three recipients after Shakespeare In Love won for its five producers at the 1999 Oscars.)
What hasn’t changed is that the award isn’t typically seen as an achievement in producing, which is fair enough—that’s why the Producers Guild Awards exist. When voting for Best Picture, one can theoretically judge the film qua film, which is (presumably) why it’s the one category whose nominations are open to all voting members of the Academy, and not delegated to just the Producers Branch. But what if Best Picture was evaluated as an achievement in production? Perhaps this year’s Best Picture race would look a little different. Perhaps we’d be talking about The Other Side Of The Wind.
Frankly, it should be surprising that the film isn’t being talked about more. This is, after all, Orson Welles’ legendary final movie—what was supposed to be the director’s triumphant return to Hollywood after years spent in Europe. Shot on and off between 1970 and 1976, after which it got mired in financial and legal difficulties that prevented completion, Wind became a kind of Holy Grail for many, the subject of continual, obsessive speculation and at least one book: Orson Welles’s Last Movie, Josh Karp’s comprehensive, worthwhile account of the film’s tumultuous production. Starring in Wind as Jake Hannaford, a legendary director who returns to Hollywood to make a comeback film (sound familiar?), John Huston once described the project as “an adventure shared by desperate men that finally came to nothing.” But now, more than three decades after Welles’ death in 1985, it’s here—viewable through no less than Netflix, which put down the funding needed to get the film finished. Something finally came of that adventure—and it’s now possible to begin figuring out what it even is.
Right off the bat, it’s worth noting that Wind’s high virtues should, in my view, already merit serious awards consideration. In a different universe, one could imagine awards frontrunner status for cinematographer Gary Graver, who spent much of his life trying to get the film completed; editor Bob Murawski (The Hurt Locker), who had the unenviable task of figuring out what Welles would have wanted based on an unfinished work print; and legendary French composer Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg), who first collaborated with Welles on F For Fake in 1973. Another thing: This wouldn’t actually be my preference for how Best Picture should be viewed across the board, since it would likely end up elevating degree-of-difficulty over artistic merit—the production equivalent of lauding performances predicated on arduous physical transformations.
But if one were to engage in this thought experiment, there are few more ideal objects of study than Wind, a film whose appeal as a movie is maddeningly, gloriously inextricable from its singular production context. Much about the film’s history can be found in Morgan Neville’s Netflix-produced documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (on which the aforementioned Karp is a credited producer). And though the film too often indulges the kind of reductive artist psychologizing that Wind caustically rejects, it remains a useful primer on the endless funhouse distortions embedded in the project. “Is the camera a reflection of reality, or is reality a reflection of the camera eye? Or is the camera a phallus?” a pseudo-intellectual journalist asks Huston’s director character early on in Wind—a line that’s as indicative of Welles’ position on cheap biographical readings as it is of the film’s dizzying, self-reflective mise-en-abyme.
The actual (post-) production work carried out after Welles’ death in 1985, though, is readily distinguished from the legendary director’s original contributions. Without the efforts of credited producers Frank Marshall and Filip Jan Rymsza, the original film negatives might still be locked away in a French vault. (Only after a legal agreement was brokered between the three major parties with claims to Wind—Orson’s daughter, Beatrice Welles; the French production company Les Films de l’Astrophore; and Welles’ partner Oja Kodar, who cowrote and starred in the film—could the raw materials be transferred to Los Angeles, where much of the reconstruction work took place.) Though Marshall is now a storied Hollywood producer (his credits include Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Back To The Future), he first came on Wind as a novice production manager. “It was before I understood what a producer did,” he says on A Final Cut For Orson, a featurette released on Netflix alongside the finished film.
The 38-minute documentary isn’t much more than a solid extra, but for those interested in process, it’s a fascinating watch—an abridged but reasonably detailed rundown of the logistical maneuvers and artistic decisions required of both Marshall and Rymsza at each step of the reconstruction process. Guided by de facto blueprints of Welles’ vision—stray memos, notes, annotated scripts, and even sound dailies of his on-set direction—both men were involved in artistic choices major and minor, from hiring Legrand to finessing his score’s inclusion in specific scenes. (Though Rymsza came to the project relatively late, in May of 2009, he reportedly familiarized himself with Wind-related material stored in the Welles archive at the University Of Michigan.) Even the crucial matter of who to consult with occurred under their watch: Kodar provided notes on a rough cut, and Peter Bogdanovich (who appears in the film and promised Welles he’d complete it in his stead 40 years prior) offered essential support throughout. Which is all to say that while one could quibble with the choices overseen by both producers, their considerable impact on the film’s current, 122-minute form is undeniable.
It’s worth reiterating that, in most cases, evaluating an award on such extra-textual details would be ill-advised. The achievement of Best Picture is superlative precisely because, unlike the other Academy Award categories, it doesn’t require one to untangle individual artistic contributions from the larger work of art. Sussing out a director’s contributions already presents myriad difficulties; determining a producer’s precise input on any given project is arguably even more fraught, since modes of production vary widely from film to film, with individuals often taking on multi-hyphenate roles. (Of the 10 films nominated in the 2019 PGAs, for example, six have their respective directors credited as producers.)
But there is something to be said for recognizing feats of producing that aren’t so easily separated from the finished project—those rare, cherishable instances where the circumstances of production don’t constrain a film but actively enrich it. Take Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a movie that’s nigh-impossible to view outside its singular context. Shot piecemeal over a staggering 12 years—an impressive logistical achievement in and of itself—the film effectively harnesses Jacques Rivette’s now-famous observation that every film is a documentary of its own making, and feeds that awareness back into the work. Along these lines, one might consider something like Mariano Llinás’ La Flor (produced by Laura Citarella and included in last year’s New York Film Festival), a behemoth 868-minute Argentinian film shot over nine years, starring the same four actresses. Though production is often seen as a task of securing funding, it certainly doesn’t preclude genuine artistic collaboration. After all, genius can’t exist in a vacuum.
On the whole, making a producer’s contributions the sole basis of Best Picture would still be misguided. But in those instances where they so naturally augment the experience of the film itself, why limit one’s assessment? The version of Wind that now exists may be incomplete in that it’ll never truly be the film that Welles would have put together; the choices made by Rymsza and Marshall are speculative—necessarily so. It’s not hard to imagine a different pair of producers (or even the same producers in another time or context) coming up with an appreciably different version of Wind. But there’s something apropos, even ideal about this irresolvable state. Though not mangled in the way that The Magnificent Ambersons was, the film still carries a sense of tantalizingly unrealized potential. Put together in this way, The Other Side Of The Wind feels a bit like a labyrinth of mirrors with no exit—and in doing the crucial restorative/reconstructive work, its producers have granted us entrance. That alone should merit some sort of award. Best Picture wouldn’t be a bad start.
21 Comments
No.
On the whole, making a producer’s contributions the sole basis of Best Picture would still be misguidedPrecisely. That’s why I’ve said this for years… Best Overall Production.If the other categories are identifying individual contributions, the ultimate award should be the product of all those accumulated contributions. The EP, it would follow, is just that… the person overseeing (or at least taking responsibility for) all of those pieces. It still gives producers a recognition without saying that one movie is inherently “better” than another (effects-driven movies that have garbage acting and terrible writing getting rewarded with a best picture almost solely for their technological achievement, for example… though based on that idea of taking all categories as a whole might still create that problem…).Dogs have “Best in Show.” Movies should have the same.Stops all the chatter that’s akin to what makes a “Most Valuable Player” in sports.
EPs generally don’t take part in production and have mostly limited artistic input. They put up the money. Any individual (usually through their production company) that puts money towards the budget gets an EP credit. There will always be the EPs on a production that deal with the logistics and accounting of financing. The rest basically just invested in the film. Line Producers are the ones that deal with day to production and are on set most of the time. EPs are rarely on set outside of indie productions.The line can blur a bit, particularly on smaller productions where an EP might be more directly involved, possibly even being the director or other role, because they are also involved in financing it. EPs can also, on any level of production, exert their influence through insisting on particular casting choices or insisting on changes to the script or film edit. That depends on contracts, particularly how much autonomy the director has as opposed to the studio EPs. Director’s will often get EP credits as part of the deal, even if they didn’t personally invest money into the film, as an easier way to bundle residuals into their contract, as that’s a given in any EP contract. That has been a lot more common in the last couple decades even in larger studio productions.
I agree with all of that, and it’s why the producers come on stage to receive Best Picture (same with the Tonys as well). And I also admit that as soon as I wrote EP in the original post, I was really thinking more in terms of EPs on television… the creative driving force. In movies, this is more often than not the director.But, still, it’s sort of the same reason that a team’s owner is presented with the World Series trophy. Even if they’re just taking care of funding versus line producing, EPs/Producers are sort of the “team owners” in this scenario, right? They made it happen, brought the talent together, let the people do their thing.I think the similarity between the production as the end product of artistic work vs. production the act of doing the work of a producer make this a difficult thing to recognize without getting technical (and why there’s a PGA).The Academy Awards are far too self-congratulatory and are placed on, imo, too high a pedestal to begin with. But if we want to find a way to recognize production and have a clearer cut definition of what “Best Picture” means, I think it should be labelled “Best Overall Production.”
The team owner analogy is apt. I like that. I also made it sound like they are just money lenders but there is a reason why there are so many well renowned EPs in film: they consistently bring good “teams” together. I also totally agree on the Academy Awards, or really any “prestigious” awards actually, being held on too high a pedestal. Though the Academy Awards are particularly self-congratulatory. It basically started as, and always has been, a famous person pageant. On top of that, trying to assign “best” amongst a field of ostensibly artistic endeavors is ridiculously reductive and flies in the face of the idea of art as a personal expression in the first place.
flies in the face of the idea of art as a personal expression in the first place.Who the fuck are you? Barton Fink? 🙂
YOU DON’T KNOW THE LIFE OF THE MIND, DESERTBRUINZ!
This is where the “special achievement” Oscar could get more use. Did “Return of the King” deserve Best Picture? Hmm. On the fence. But did “The Lord if the Rings Trilogy” deserve a special Oscar for overwhelming achievement? Hell yes.While we’re at it, add “Best Cast Performance.” Move the visual fx Oscars to the technical Oscars broadcast. Broadcast the technical Oscars live on E! or SyFy for us nerds. And move the Feature Animation Award to once every two years, then, on the off year have an award for Best Animated Feature Vocal Performance. It would make the animation Oscar more of a horse race.
“Producer” is too nebulous a title for anything like this to happen. It could mean anything from an established person attaching their name to give their blessing then never involving themselves until the see the final product to someone working their ass off 16 hours a day micromanaging everything. Often it’s a director, writer or actor demanding a second title in their contract for prestige and royalties.
I’d say executive producer is too nebulous. Line producers are the producers that deal with the minutia of day to day production. Executive producers traditionally deal with only the financing but that turned into anyone who contributed to the actual financing getting an EP credit. From their it also, as you mention, became a vehicle for giving directors residuals as it’s boilerplate in EP contracts and easier from an accounting standpoint.
How do you judge “producing?” “Wow, she really wrote that check amazingly well! “The way he snorted that cocaine was just brilliant!”“That was easily the best fondling of a lead actress all year.”
Straight up answer to the title: no, because the producers don’t do shit to make a movie. ‘Able to Pick A Decent Movie to Give Money To’, maybe. Even then that’s bullshit cause they sit on set and hold the pursestrings and barely give money to the actual movie making but criticize everything.
“The Other Side of the Wind” is borderline unwatchable. But okay.
Yes. And it is.
I’m officially giving this The Kinja Caffeine Spider Who-Gives-A-Shit Award For Lifetime Achievement In The Internet.
Does make me think of a Screen Junkies’ “Celebrity Movie Fights” at a convention, with Kevin Smith and Elijah Wood. The question posed was the greatest filmmaker today…. Wood, I believe, said Speilberg. One of the hosts said Scorcese. But Smith said Kevin Feige, who produces the Marvel movies. And it was a compelling argument… while the other two went for directors, Smith went for a producer. And while the directors handle a move every 2-3 years, Feige has been doing 2 movies a year for a decade, most of them very good. He’s not writing or directing or casting so much, but he’s in charge of putting the people in place who do all of that… who thought the Russo Brothers, known for half-hour sitcom work, would be great comic movie writers and directors? Or that the third Thor movie, leading into the biggest movie of the series, should be handed over to an offbeat and funny New Zealand director… which was the perfect choice.
I can’t recall if Smith won that specific debate, but it really was a good highlight that some producers – which is too general a term – make a lot of decisions when everything is just conceptual that makes the final work succeed or fail.
As noted, the challenge is defining what constitutes the picture. Indeed in the early decades of the Academy, before the age of the auteur when the studio system and its monopoly of the theaters was in full swing, the Best Picture award indeed was the de facto producing award, and its recipient often the head of the studio. Here you saw names recognized who stood above the directors of their films. Here was where David O Selznik and Irving Thalberg gained recognition. The Capital P Producers who exerted total control over every aspect of the production, including the director, and was an organizer of a large, collaborative team. The award, therefore, recognized the production group, of which the Producer was leader.But then the model shifted as the studio system crumbled and actors and directors and technical staff were no longer contractually tied to one studio (when you see an actor’s credit on a film that says something like “By arrangement with MGM,” that’s because the studio that owned the actor’s contract made a special arrangement to lend them out to another, competing studio, usually for in exchange for a cut of the gross, or exclusive rights in certain markets), and the power of the producer waned to the point that they were really just in charge of the purse strings, and ensuring the production stayed on schedule. The director emerged as the new auteur, and in many cases they took dual credit for direction and production (such as Francis Ford Coppola or Michael Cimino). The Best Picture award gradually evolved from being a recognition of the producer, and more of the product, it being a creation of the auteur much like a painting would be of an artist. In the ensuring years this emphasis has fluctuated. After many of the 70s auteurs suffered notorious flops in the early 80s, the studios reasserted control, shifted focus to high concept entertainment that emphasized cash over awards. The age of the independent studio emerged, and Best Picture became more a recognition of the film as an art object with important things to say. This was the age of Orion Pictures and Miramax, and independent producers like Saul Zaentz and Harvey Weinstein, who made and distributed through larger studios but without as much oversight.
But lately, I’ve begun to see a new trend, one that emphasizes Best Picture as a cumulative work of on-screen and off-screen participants, with emphasis on the collaborative nature of the work. It has become more of an award for best ensemble, or best team. Think of the cast and crew of Spotlight, or the deep bench of on and off camera talent behind the spate of films helmed by the great Mexican filmmakers like Cuaron and Innaritu and Del toro, with their wonderful acting ensembles. I rather like this notion of the Best Picture award as being plastic, and meaning different things to different ages and periods in the cinematic art. Perhaps in a few more years it will evolve again. Into what, I know not. Personally I wouldn’t mind at all a few more awards recognizing the creative aspects of filmmaking, such as an award for best producing, or best ensemble. Or for that matter, I’d like to see some awards tied to budget, in order to give recognition both to big budgeted type films that usually get excluded from all but the technical awards (think The Dark Knight), as well as films that are too small to really penetrate into theaters, such as ones with budgets under a million. I would also be pleased if the broadcast was live streamed instead of broadcast, or perhaps split up along lines like technical categories, so their respective recipients can have time to get to speak more than a paltry thirty seconds, which is an insult when one is receiving the award of a career.
This is my favorite movie of 2018 so I appreciate everything said here and the fifth paragraph in particular. I’ve been pretty disillusioned about the Academy for a while but the fact that even the critics’ awards almost completely ignored this stuns me. That we can have something this remarkable and invigorating but then Peter Farrelly and Bradley Cooper are considered the artists more worthy of attention is pretty high on the list of reasons I’ve never felt more detached from an awards season than I do from this one.
Giving an award on the basis of quality of the work of the producer would be am on to an award for Best Budget or Best Scheduling. Best Creative Accounting. How about Best Case Scenario? They actually got the damn thing made and released. Best Picture has to be based on artistic merit and it should include all the creative principals. The Producer represents that group and they better damn well thank the rest, especially if they don’t win in their respective individual categories.
The award for Best Producer is money.
“But what if Best Picture was evaluated as an achievement in production?”
Is the point of the academy awards for Hollywood to give statues to each other, or to market movies?
It’s to market movies.
Audiences don’t care about Best Production, only Hollywood watchers do.
If you want to create a “Best Production” award, say that, but don’t forget that all of the major awards are to sell movies. If the public doesn’t believe the “Best Picture” is the “Best Picture’, it won’t sell a movie. (It hardly matters if it is the “Best Picture”, it just matters that they choose a film that audiences will believe is “Best Picture”).
The fact that the “Best Picture” award goes to the producer has to do with Hollywood business practice, but the public doesn’t care who picks up that trophy, they care what movie gets that trophy.