And The Oscar Could Have Gone To...., Part 4:
Alternate Best Picture Winners
At The Academy Awards
by Chris Oakley
 Summary:
Well, we’ve covered the first five-plus decades of Oscar history in our previous three chapters, so now let’s turn our focus to the
dawn of the CGI era in moviemaking and see how film history and pop culture might have been changed if just a few ballots in the Academy voting process had gone differently between the day Reagan was sworn in for his second term in the White House and the day Clinton started his first...
#18: Sour Note: Amadeus is beaten out by A Passage To India or Places
In The Heart in the Best Picture category(1984)
Call this alternate Oscar timeline “Antonio Salieri’s Revenge”. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s archrival spent much of his life trying to one-up the young Austrian musical prodigy, and nothing would have made his ghost happier than to see the Milos Forman biopic about Mozart’s wild life and untimely death beaten out at the Oscars by its two chief rivals for the Best Picture race, the Depression-era drama Places In The Heart and David Lean’s screen adaptation of the E.M. Forster bookA Passage To India(which, incidentally, marked Lean’s directorial swan song).
If Passage or Places had managed to take the coveted Best Picture statuette away from Forman’s brainchild, it could have been a major setback for 18th century historical drama films, which are hand enough to get made in the first place. It also could motivated Forman to try and gain redemption by making a film set in more recent times in hopes of having better luck with the Academy judges. Whether it would have had any impact on the popularity of Mozart’s music is a question that,
frankly, is best left for greater minds than my own to ponder.#19: Great Scott!: Back To The Future receives a Best Picture Oscar
nomination(1985)
It sounds strange to call a picture which grossed $210 million worldwide “underrated”, but that word definitely describes Back To The Future when it comes to the question of Oscar-worthiness. In spite of getting rave reviews from nearly every critic who screened it and from movie-going audiences around the world, the only category in which it was nominated for an award was Best Original Screenplay-- a category
in which it lost to the Harrison Ford crime drama Witness. Apparently
sci-fi comedies aren’t very high on the AMPAS board of directors’ list
of favorite film genres.
But let’s imagine for just a second that someone, anyone, at the
Academy had dared to put BTTF forward for an Oscar nomination in the
Best Picture category. It would have touched off a cultural earthquake
whose ripples would have been felt throughout Hollywood. Even if BTTF
had lost in the Best Picture race, the very fact of its nomination
would have lent science fiction films in general and sci-fi comedies
in particular a new degree of cachet. And if it had won the Oscar for
Best Picture....it would have been a game-changer for the whole film
industry. (To say nothing of what it would have done to boost resale
values for the DMC-12...) Time travel stories, for years regarded in
most respectable Hollywood circles as strictly Saturday morning fare
before BTTF and even in some quarters after BTTF, would have gained a
new level of respectability in the eyes of studio executives and film
directions. Who knows, Michael Crichton’s Timeline might have even
gotten some love from Cannes when the cinematic adaptation of it was
released in 2003.
#20: Mission Accomplished: Roland Joffe’s The Mission beats out
Platoon in the Best Picture category(1986)
For reasons that are as varied as the number of feature films
which get released to your local cineplex every week, the Vietnam War
tends to linger in the American collective mind more fully than the
Spanish conquistadors’ exploits in South America in the 16th century.
One such reason is that it’s been less than forty years since the last
U.S. combat forces left Southeast Asia, whereas nearly four centuries
have elapsed since the heyday of the Spanish empire. So maybe it was
inevitable Platoon would have a better chance of winning in the Best
Picture race than The Mission did.
But what if the Academy voters had opted to give Mission the
nod instead? What would the consequences have been(aside, that is,
from Oliver Stone experiencing a mild case of sour grapes)? For one
thing, an Oscar for Mission would have boosted Joffe’s Hollywood
stock considerably; for another, it might have sparked a renewal of
interest in a period of history which in recent years has been for
the most part overlooked except by those engaged in the seemingly
nonstop debate over what’s popularly referred to in some quarters as
“political correctness”. And last but not least, Robert De Niro could
have gotten major props for stepping outside his customary “wiseguy”
comfort zone to play a swashbuckler.
#21: A Real Piece Of Work: Working Girl tops Rain Man in the Best
Picture category(1988)
By all rights Rain Man should have been little more than an
art house footnote in movie history. The acting skills of Messrs.
Cruise and Hoffman notwithstanding, the story of a fast-talking car
salesman hitting the road with his autistic brother isn’t exactly
the foundation for a guaranteed box office smash. Even with the Las
Vegas sequences added to the mix, there was still an outside chance
the movie could have tanked with audiences. Yet in spite of the long
odds against it, the movie recorded a highly respectable box office
take and eventually won the Academy Award for Best Picture, beating
out the office-themed romantic comedy Working Girl.
Now let’s consider for just a second what the ripple effects
might have been if conventional wisdom prevailed and Working Girl had
taken home the Best Picture prize instead of Rain Man. Would Rain Man
still be remembered today? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s a safe bet that
pictures with themes as heavy as Rain Man’s would have had a harder
time getting green-lighted by studios or seen in theaters. At the time
Rain Man was released, America was in the last stages of the Cold War
and on the cusp of what today is called the War on Terrorism; escapist
fare tended to be the rule rather than the exception in most American
movie theaters. Working Girl, for all its aspirations to feminism, was
to a certain degree in the escapist category, and if it had edged out
Rain Man for the Best Picture Academy Award pictures like it may well
have become more prevalent as the ‘90s began.
#22: Ghost of a Chance: Ghost beats out Dances With Wolves for Best
Picture(1990)
To say that the bestowal of the 1990 Best Picture Oscar on the
Kevin Costner-helmed Western Dances With Wolves was a controversial
decision for some movie critics would be an understatement. There are
some reviewers who feel the movie owed its triumph more to Hollywood
PC than to whatever actual merits it might have. And Costner’s later
cinematic missteps(e.g. Waterworld) admittedly haven’t done anything
to squelch those suspicions. Nor has the controversy which erupted in
the wake of his involvement with a proposal to build a South Dakota
hotel/casino complex on land regarded by the Lakota people as sacred
ground. Indeed, the debate over Wolves’ merits as a film will probably
still be going on long after Costner has gone to that great soundstage
in the sky.
Keeping all that in mind, let’s ponder the effect it might have
had on Costner’s reputation as a filmmaker if one of Wolves’ biggest
competitors for the Best Picture award, the romantic fantasy Ghost,
had overtaken it to win the award in 1990. Some of the luster could
have been taken off Wolves and the criticisms directed against the
film carried a bit more sting to them; furthermore, Costner’s ability
to get his future movie ideas green-lighted might have been seriously
impaired. For that matter the entire Western genre, which was starting
to make a comeback on the silver screen at the time Wolves, could have
been sent back into decline. On the other hand, supernatural-themed
movies might have seen a spike in popularity if Ghost had taken home
the Best Picture Oscar.
In our next and final installment we’ll look at some of the Best
Picture Oscar contenders of the last twenty years and speculate about
how a change of heart by just one or two Academy voters might have in
turn changed those contenders’ fates on Oscar night.
To Be Continued
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