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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
The day Oscar gave "Cold Mountain" the cold shoulder, Harvey Weinstein claims victory, with Miramax getting the most nominations -- and his famous temper newly in check.
Jan 28, 2004 | In recent years, the Academy Awards seem to have become something of a referendum on the influence of one Harvey Weinstein. The Miramax Films co-chairman has, over the past two decades, changed the very nature of the annual ritual by campaigning for small-budget movies with the same gusto -- and huge marketing budget -- that studios had traditionally trained on voters.
It's Weinstein who is credited with the Oscar success of smaller, art-house fare like "The Crying Game," "The Piano," and "Pulp Fiction." But as Miramax grew, so have some of its movies -- including such Oscar contenders as "The English Patient," "Shakespeare in Love," "Chocolat" and last year's big success, "Chicago" -- and the expectations that go along with them. Tuesday morning, Miramax's much-touted adaptation of "Cold Mountain," starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, was nominated for seven awards, but not for best picture, best director (Anthony Minghella) or best actress (Kidman, who just won last year for "The Hours"), as many expected. Miramax did, however, receive the most nominations (15) of any studio, including coveted -- and wildly unexpected -- nods for best director and best screenplay for the Portuguese-language film "City of God." So what does this tell us about Weinstein and the state of his union? What's the temperature in Tribeca these days?
Salon spoke to Weinstein the afternoon of the Oscar nomination about the day's highs and lows, his big six-hour Italian project, his bad temper and low-carb diet, and his pick for the day's other big race -- in New Hampshire.
First off, the good news: A lot of people were shocked this morning when "City of God" got four nominations, including best adapted screenplay and best director (Fernando Meirelles). Were you surprised?
No. Because I spent 54 weeks keeping this movie in theaters, never released it to video, never sent it out, never did anything on it. You have a situation in which first they didn't choose it for competition at Cannes [2002]. They chose Gaspar Noe's "Irreversible" instead of this movie, so we're up for no prizes. [Then] the movie is eligible for foreign-language film [at last year's Academy Awards] even though we haven't released it -- we were always planning on releasing it on Jan. 24, 2003. But if it didn't get nominated [last year, as foreign-language film] then you're eligible for all categories this year. They didn't nominate it. So now we're eligible in all categories.
My staff said to me 10 different times, "Release it on video already! Get it out! Put it on TV! Do something!" And I and two other people in my company [acquisitions and distribution executives] who loved that movie more than life itself refused to do that. [Releasing a movie on video would make it harder for it to be a success at the box office, even after the attention an Oscar nomination could bring]. Today, we're rewarded. And we're gonna open next week in 200 theaters, and the week after that in 500.
I believed in this movie from the beginning. I begged the L.A. Times to write a story about this movie; I begged the New York Times to write a story about this movie. There is always the contention that I don't support my small movies. I have begged everybody to talk about this movie, [about how] it's been playing longer at the Angelika Theater than any other movie. Nobody wrote the story. They all write the "Cold Mountain," they all write the "Gangs of New York," but this movie was an orphan, except in our minds. We ran an Academy campaign [in which] all the ads said, "this movie is not eligible for best foreign-language film, but it is eligible in all other categories." We ran an Academy campaign on a movie 54 weeks in release. And today: Whammo! And we [Miramax] led the Oscars with 15 nominations.
We lost a streak maybe on best picture [Miramax has had a best picture nominee every year since 1992's "The Crying Game"] but we led the Oscar nominations for the last four years with the most nominations, so our other streak continues.
You say that the press concentrates on your bigger movies and ignores your smaller ones. But recently you've also expressed your interest in making bigger, tent-pole films. Are you now saying that you want to concentrate more on your smaller projects, or are you still interested in doing blockbusters?
I think I'm capable of chewing gum and walking at the same time. And waitressing.
I think the great thing is, why not do a gigantic movie, and then [something like] "City of God?" You know, we didn't acquire that movie. We read the script, it was in Portuguese, we financed it, that's a production. That's a Miramax production, which is even more mind-blowing. We made it. And Fernando Meirelles wanted to take four and a half minutes out of the movie and I said, "No, the movie's perfect."
Really?
Yeah, I swear to God that's true. It may be the only time in history, but it is true.
So will you be releasing a lot of smaller movies in this upcoming year? "The Aviator" -- a blockbuster biopic of Howard Hughes, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio -- has been the one that has received the most attention so far.
Yeah, they're all talking about "The Aviator." I say, "Why don't you write about my very commercial, big six-hour Italian movie called "The Best of Youth"? And everybody goes, "Six hours? I don't even want to sit through it if it's six hours." But I say, "I love this movie, this movie's awesome," and they go, "Six hours? You sure it's six hours?" I go, "Yeah, it's six hours and I'm not cutting it." And they say, "I'm gonna try to get around to it," is what they're telling me.
But somehow, I have the feeling that it's going to be next year's "City of God." This movie was not eligible for [an Oscar for best] foreign-language film because Italy said no [didn't nominate it], so it now becomes eligible in its year of release [2004]. So I'm releasing this movie and my prediction is it's next year's "City of God."
"The Best of Youth." All six hours of it.
