A-List: Best Oscar Losers
By Josh Spiegel
October 8, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
There are some obvious choices here (if you're at all familiar with the films of 1980, you can probably take a wild guess and know exactly which of the Best Picture nominees will show up), and some that are just movies I can't believe didn't get the golden boy on Oscar night. In some ways, this A-List is easier to narrow down than one about all the many films that should have been nominated, but didn't even get that honor. This is a list for those films that only had the honor of being nominated for Oscars, for the people who had to smile politely when their names weren't called and pray for the cameras to stop filming them so they could curse under their breath. There have been over 80 Academy Awards ceremonies, so there's no shortage of losers.
Of course, another A-List could delve into the many, many people who have fallen under the Oscar curse, also known as the Cuba Gooding Jr. effect. Sure, Gooding Jr. won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Jerry Maguire, but...what else has he done? No, I'm not forgetting such timeless classics as Snow Dogs or Chill Factor (and I have seen the latter film, so I know of what I speak). The Oscar gives a person prestige, but only for so long, and only if they choose to capitalize on it correctly. Doing a movie with wacky Alaskan huskies doesn't get the job done. Who could have won instead of Gooding Jr.? Who had to lose? Let's get to the list.
Raging Bull
As I mentioned above, anyone who knows anything about the 1980 Oscars knows that Raging Bull was shafted. Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford, may be a perfectly good movie (I say "may" because it is on my ever-growing list of movies I need to see), but it's almost universally agreed that Raging Bull, the biography of boxer Jake LaMotta, is not only one of the best films of 1980, but potentially the best film of its decade; yet, when it came to the Academy Award for Best Picture, Martin Scorsese had to sit by and lose yet another Oscar to another actor-turned director; in 1976, his Taxi Driver lost out to Rocky, written by Sylvester Stallone; the latter is an arguably entertaining, crowd-pleasing hit, but the former is...well, it's Taxi Driver.
In 1990, Goodfellas would lose to Dances With Wolves, directed by its star, Kevin Costner. In 2004, The Aviator lost to Million Dollar Baby, directed by its star, Clint Eastwood. True, not every one of Scorsese's films lost to a film written or directed by an actor, but the pattern is just a bit disturbing. Yes, Scorsese's first Best Picture and Best Director Oscar did finally come, but The Departed is no Raging Bull, despite it being a great movie. There's no denying that, Oscar or not, Raging Bull is regarded as a classic. Still, it'd be nice to have seen the film walk away with Oscar at the big award.
A Fish Called Wanda
Seeing as it's one of the best comedies of the past 25 years (and you have seen it, right?), A Fish Called Wanda deservedly walked away with an Oscar, awarded to Kevin Kline for his sterling supporting work in the film as Otto, a vicious American with a penchant for misinterpreting Friedrich Nietzsche - just don't call him stupid. However, the film's deliriously complex script, by Monty Python veteran John Cleese and Charles Crichton, only got nominated for Best Original Screenplay, losing out to Rain Man. Yes, the latter film is heartwarming and has great performances. What Rain Man does not have is a scene where one man tortures another by eating his pet fish. "What do you call this one? I think I'll call him lunch. Hello, lunch! Hello! Oh...ooh. Don't try the green ones, they're not ripe yet".
If you know A Fish Called Wanda, you're not just laughing, but you can picture the scene, as Kline mischievously chomps on little fish while a stuttering Michael Palin, with French fries stuck up his nose, whimpers and moans as his pets meet the same gruesome end. Despite having a wicked sense of humor, the script by Cleese and Crichton is brilliant, even when it provides the main characters with a not completely deserved happy ending. Who's going to complain if the guy gets the girl (despite the age difference), if the stutterer gets over his speech impediment, and the loutish American gets what's coming to him? A Fish Called Wanda is one of the more brilliant comedies, and should have gotten that writing Oscar.
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
Dr. Strangelove is well-known as one of the all-time great satires, showing us the weirdest and worst of what would happen if a nuclear bomb was let loose in the world. Despite not being content with playing one character, Peter Sellers dominates the film by playing three characters (and it was nearly four), including the title character, an ex-Nazi working with the Americans, even though he might prefer the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. Sellers was justly nominated for Best Actor in 1964; unfortunately, he lost out to Rex Harrison, as Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady. I won't deny liking the latter film, and Harrison's performance; however, if I'm meant to choose which man delivered the better performance, I'll take Sellers any day of the week.
How can you turn down a man who can not only pull off English, American, and German accents with aplomb, but can say the following line without laughing: "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" What's even more fascinating is that Sellers was originally meant to play a fourth character: the gung-ho soldier played by Slim Pickens in the final product, directed by the late Stanley Kubrick. Sellers apparently had doubts about his Southern accent, though I'm sure his chameleon-like qualities would have served him quite well as the goofy yahoo who rides the bomb to glory. How Sellers didn't walk away with an Oscar for the film (or for any of his work) is beyond me, and is one of the great misses in Oscar history.
The Third Man
When it comes to film noir, one of the best ever (if not the best of them all) is The Third Man, a twisty picture if there ever was one. Directed by Carol Reed, the film tells the story of Holly Martins, a pulp novelist who comes to Vienna to meet an old friend and ends up trying to solve his murder. Holly falls in love with his friend's girlfriend, who still holds out hope and memories for her lost lover. Or is Holly's friend, Harry Lime, dead at all? Who is the third man who was seen at Harry's death scene? And what the hell is all that zither music? Seriously, one of the great pleasures of The Third Man is Reed's direction, filled with slanted camerawork, bleak lighting, fast-paced chases, and a constantly shifty tone. When it came to Oscar time, Reed came up short, losing out to Joseph L. Mankiewicz for All About Eve.
There's no question that All About Eve is a great film, a slick, snappy, sharp comedy-drama about the trials and tribulations of actresses young and old. However, it cannot hold a candle to the auteurish vision that Reed had for this cynical downer of a movie. In future years, the Academy would make up its slight to Reed, awarding him the Oscar for Best Director...for Oliver! No offense meant, but it's not only a huge stylistic jump from The Third Man to Oliver!, but you get the feeling that the award was more of an apology for past transgressions than an honor for the actual movie. Of course, the idea that the same man who ended The Third Man so unhappily could also give us a cheerful retelling of Dickens' classic is perhaps worthy enough of an award.
The Godfather, Part III
Now, before you get out the pitchforks and torches, let me explain. By no means am I saying that, among the trilogy, The Godfather, Part III is great. However, what the film does have, and what the entire trilogy has, is Gordon Willis as its cinematographer. Moreover, since Willis, perhaps one of the best and underrated cinematographers of the past 50 years, only received two Academy Award nominations in his entire career (and not even for the films that deserved it), I feel it necessary to single him out. Willis lost this time around, as he did for his other Oscar nod (1983's Zelig), this time to Dean Semler and Dances with Wolves. What made Willis stand apart from his colleagues was his use of light and shadow, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. If you remember the inherent darkness from the first two Godfather films, you have Willis to thank.
Also, what of the lush black-and-white cinematography of 1979's Woody Allen classic Manhattan? Willis there, too. Cinematography, in my opinion, is one of the parts of filmmaking that should get nearly as much hoopla as acting or directing, because of its truly critical importance, and the experimentation that can be done by those working the cameras. Willis was unlike some other cinematographers, choosing to play down color, letting darkness take its toll. Though he did get an honorary Oscar last year, Willis didn't win or get nominated for the work he should have; Brando and Coppola make The Godfather classic, but so too does Willis. If you're not familiar with his work, check it out.