How Harvey Weinstein Destroyed The Academy Awards in 1998
Part 1: Shakespeare in Love and Defeating Spielberg
In the last five years since the accusations Harvey Weinstein began his trials in multiple jurisdiction and the fact that he will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars, a reckoning has begun among the men in Hollywood that have spent decades abusing their power and the toxicity it has led to the film industry. I was amazed in the rapidity of his fall from grace, because in another sense Weinstein toxic approach to Hollywood had done damage to many other institutions.
Compared to the dozens if not hundreds of women he abused and the careers he helped destroy as a result, the fact that while Weinstein was in charge of Miramax he also pretty much laid waste to whatever remaining integrity the Academy Awards might still have is minor by comparison. But considering that the ramifications of it have been nearly as destructive to Hollywood and are in many ways just as vital to the problems the industry is now facing in a larger sense, it is worth noting just how bluntly he destroyed an institution that Hollywood clearly held more dear than the lives of the women he ruined — and how equally destructive the counter-reaction was. So in this article, I will look how in two separate campaigns for Oscar glory in 1998 — one an admittedly good film where the campaigning quickly became a fiasco, the other for a despicable film where personality trumped any ideal at quality — Weinstein would utterly lay ruin to whatever claims the words ‘Best Picture’ had.
In the summer of 1998, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the Best Picture would go to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan a blockbuster war movie that dazzled critics with its extraordinary battle scenes and changed the conversation on who Americans viewed an entire generation. Even though at the time critics like Kenneth Turan and Rex Reed questioned the key elements of the plot — why eight men should be sent out to save one unremarkable one, a problem the screenplay itself seemed unable to resolve — the film was the towering achievement of 1998, the highest grossing film of that year. Some movies that were later to debut were considered possibilities — the mostly frequently mentioned movies at the time were Oprah Winfrey’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (critically received but a box office disaster) and The Thin Red Line, another World War II movie, the first movie to be directed by auteur Terrence Malick in twenty years. (We will get to that film later.) But it seemed mere a formality.
Then the awards season began and it started to seem that momentum had shifted. The National Board of Review gave its Best Picture Prize to Gods and Monsters and Best Actor to Ian McKellen. Best Director when to Shaker Kupur for Elizabeth. Saving Private Ryan went on to take Best Picture from the LA and New York Film Critics, but Spielberg only took the best Director prize in LA — New York gave the trophy to Malick, even though the version they saw was the six hour uncut version. The National Society of Film Critics gave a coup de grace by giving their Best Picture and Director prize to Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (admittedly a brilliant film that in a lesser year might have competed for Oscars). Shakespeare in Love had entered the discussion by this point, but didn’t do particularly well with these awards, taking only the Best Screenplay prize at New York and the Supporting Actress prize for Judi Dench at the National Society. The wealth was generally being spread fairly evenly — Gods and Monsters, A Simple Plan and Bill Murray for Rushmore were the biggest winners of the group.
Already there were warning signs that sailing would not be clear for Saving Private Ryan, signs that became even clearer at the Golden Globes that January. The film did take Best Drama and Best Director, but two other films won more awards — Shakespeare in Love, which took Best Comedy, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow and The Truman Show, which took Best Actor for Jim Carrey, Best Supporting Actor for Ed Harris and Best Score.
When the nominations were announced in February, Shakespeare in Love led with thirteen nods, while Saving Private Ryan got twelve. (The other three nominations for Best Picture went to Elizabeth, The Thin Red Line and Life Is Beautiful, another Miramax film I will deal with later.) It was then that things truly turned ugly.
Harvey Weinstein’s determination to win awards for Miramax had been clear for years, from the days of The Crying Game to Pulp Fiction to the company’s first Best Picture win for The English Patient in 1996. And there had been clear hints at Weinstein’s utter willingness to do anything to get a nomination — he literally mimed the corpse of Marissimo Triosi, the lead of Il Postino in 1995 to get him and the film Oscar nominations. There were signs even then of the ugliness of his character — when the company was unable to win the rights to Shine in 1996, he berated the producer to his face: “You f — -ed me! You f — — ed me! All the while, he continued to mask Miramax as a ‘small, independent film company’. During the campaign for Shakespeare in Love, the lie finally stopping being believable.
Why Weinstein was so determined to beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture will never be known for certain; what is clear was that he was willing to do anything possible to do it. The mailing campaign he waged was the most aggressive and probably the most expensive in Oscar history, though just how much Miramax will never be known for sure. Weinstein insisted it was less than $5 million, but it was probably as much as five times that. And the blowback was fierce and immediately, not just from Spielberg and DreamWorks, but almost all of Hollywood. It became a point of lunacy so that by the time of the Independent Spirits Awards just prior to the Oscars, Ilana Douglas, an independent film queen (whose own career would be torpedoes by another powerful man) would make several gags hosting the awards. The most innocuous was: “The Weinsteins couldn’t be here tonight. They were too busy pressing Gwynnie’s dress.” (That line is actually creepy considering what we know about Weinstein.)
The thing was it seemed to be bearing fruit. Spielberg had won the Directors Guild, but Shakespeare in Love took the Writers Guild Award and dominated the SAG awards, taking Best Ensemble Cast and Best Actress for Paltrow. (They weren’t the only Miramax winners as you’ll see.) But the aggressiveness and relentlessness of the campaign seemed to be backfiring by late March, and many believed that while the campaign might have pushed Shakespeare in Love over the top, the backlash had now made the biggest film of 1998 the ‘sentimental favorite’. On the eve of the Oscars, even Weinstein secretly believed he might have pushed too hard.
But whether or not Shakespeare in Love was a better movie than Saving Private Ryan — and it’s pretty clear that point was basically irrelevant to Weinstein — one could not argue that the former was a clever, stylish and witty film. It may not have been any more special than the films Miramax might have considered to promote for Best Picture in the fall of 1998 — Little Voice, a smaller, more delicate comedy actually was considered and actually got as many Golden Globe nominations as Shakespeare did — but you couldn’t argue that it was a ‘quality film’ in the terms the Academy used and maybe even on the merits. The same could not be said for the other major film he spent longer promoting for Oscar glory, Life is Beautiful. In the next part of the article, I’ll discuss why I personally find this an even greater offense.