That’s the line that grabbed me in this Susan Wloszczyna feature on Oscar producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark. If there’s anything that drives me up the wall, it’s the musical interjection of a speech, no matter how rambling. This is a person’s moment and ignorant, cue-happy conductors (and presumably the producers chattering into their ears) have to crank up the orchestra to send them on their way. Meanwhile, the Academy offers up the most rank stretch of montages (however pointless) and any other number of dubious production choices.
We’re all pretty well assured that kind of hogwash isn’t going to fly this year, but it’s nice to see Condon and Mark taking a stand for the speech thing. Then again, he pulls his punch later in the story, so who knows?
Here’s a bit from the piece:
When it comes to entertaining the masses, it doesn’t really matter what is on the ballot, Mark insists. His and Condon’s primary objective is “to celebrate all the movies of 2008.” Blockbusters, sleepers, art-house fare, you name it. Attention will be paid to movie history, too, “but no clips of Gone With the Wind.”
In other words, these fellows aren’t losing sleep over how the voters went for the low-profile Holocaust-themed drama The Reader over superhero sensation The Dark Knight in the top contest.
“We have enough great material to attract a crowd,” Condon says. “It’s the academy’s job to honor the best movies, not what will provide the highest ratings. We both feel they show great integrity in what they do.”
Even though I choked on Condon’s — let’s say — diplomatic quote at the end there.
The rest is the same old, same old you’ve read on the dup elsewhere, though I remain excited by nuggets like this:
Condon doesn’t just want a ceremony. He wants to throw a party.
If that means dismantling the Kodak Theatre to better encourage a sense of community among the attendees, so be it. “You don’t have to have large columns or a big staircase or 20-foot-tall Oscars on stage,” he says. “That’s not in the bylaws.”
They have hired David Rockwell, who designed the theater, to make adjustments and create sets.
As I was when we first caught wind of the “party” vibe.
Finally, I like the balls Condon shows here:
Regular Oscar watchers often cringe when homage is paid to those in the movie business who died in the past year. That is because the audience can’t help but clap harder for better-known names, essentially turning the solemn segment into a popularity contest.
Not this year. “We can’t control the applause,” Condon says, “but we can control what you hear on TV.”
Anyway, even if I’m eternally pissed the Academy proved itself to be so out-of-step this year, nothing can take away the excitement of seeing what Condon and Mark come up with. Here’s hoping the show is as good as it promises to be.
No pressure. Right?
(apologies to Larry for cropping him out of the pic, but somebody had to go!)
Comments
10 responses to “No “embarrassing interruptions of impassioned speeches””
Your know, if they cut all the montages that are pointless there’d be plenty of time for winners to give a coherent, unhurried speech – as well as untruncated clips for the acting races.
Yes, there should be the “In Memoria” montage; yes, there probably should be a montage for Jerry Lewis this year; yes, there ought to be a montage of sorts for when samples of the scores are played. But – even though I did enjoy it – we don’t need Jon Stewart’s “gay cowboy” montage or most of Chuck Workman’s other montages they ask him to put together.
But, still, I understand that the producers are putting on a show for a few thousand people in the theatre and the filmed bits help break up the monotony for the guests.
I just really don’t like it when they get to the lead acting categories and the clip we get is half a line with no context. I pretty much want a scene – and I wouldn’t be surprised if most others want that too.
So the movies that were nominated were the best but fack TDK, Wall-E, etc.. and yes that last comment, LOL
Mr. Condon, I will be your biggest fan forever if you don’t include the “Applause-O-Meter.” Yes, you can’t stop people from clapping, but if you save those of us at home from this tackiness, I will be forever grateful.
I guess that sounds a little extreme, but I’ve had to start putting my TV on mute because of the applause contest.
Hmm, very little there that really sounds refreshing. Guess we shouldn’t keep our hopes up except for the speeches.
Please don’t blame the conductors for cutting off speeches. It is absolutely the producers/directors in their ears calling the shots. Blame them.
Sorry, but am I the only one who really doesn’t get the presenters thing? So, Marion Cotillard, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton could actually be passed over just to include a big star from a 2008 movie to present? That’s stupid. Oscars are all about the tradition and this tradition includes last year’s winners. And yeah – I think that the montages sometimes work very well and help the show – like last year’s acting winners clip before each acting award and then the presenter takes the stage. Sorry, but Oscars are nothing without the tradition.
richard: I do blame the producers, as I mentioned. But I’m not just going to let the conductors skate. After all, their flick of the wrist gets the orchestra going. Maybe they should be defiant!
Ross: I somehow doubt Condon would change that tradition. We can probably expect those four will be involved, but beyond that, it’s just a big secret. And that’s fine, I think.
I think that it’ll be hard to get the show down to 3 hours. If they do it, they could rush it and totally ruin it. Am I the only one who really has no problem with the show being 3.30 or even over that?
Wait, no gone with the wind clip? does that mean they aren’t going to do the 1928-2007 montage of best picture winners before they annonce the 2008 winner? That’s my favorite part of the entire night!!!
The best thing about hiring Hugh Jackman as host is that he knows he’s not a stand up comedian so there won’t be skits spread throughout.
And I’d love them to use at least 20 second clips for each performance. The SAG clips were ridiculous.