In this week's episode of The Substandard, JVL, Vic, and I discuss the Oscars! Not what's going to happen this year, really—La La Land is going to win best picture, director, and actress; the only real drama revolves around Casey Affleck and Denzel Washington duking it out for best actor—but what's happened in past years. JVL chose the five worst winners of all time, Vic picked the five best, and I picked the five worst omissions. It was a lot of fun to record and I think you'll really enjoy it too. Subscribe! Leave a review.
As I was considering which films to include on my five greatest list—harder than you might think, given that most best picture winners are mediocre, at best—I was drawn to the 1970s. Specifically, the work of Francis Ford Coppola. Here's Coppola's resume from that decade:
- Patton (1970), which he wrote and won an Oscar for original screenplay;
- The Godfather (1972), which he wrote and directed, receiving nominations for Oscars in both categories and winning for writing;
- American Graffiti (1973), which he produced, earning a best picture nomination;
- The Godfather Part II (1974), which he wrote and directed, winning Oscars in both categories as well as an Oscar as a producer when the film took home best picture;
- The Conversation (also 1974), which he wrote and directed and earned Oscar nominations in writing and best picture;
- and Apocalypse Now (1979), for which he received three Oscar nominations (directing, writing, and best picture) but did not win.
I'm willing to admit that I'm sometimes prone to exaggeration, but that's the single greatest decade any director has ever had. I'm tempted to qualify that with a "post-studio system" or some such—I mean, Hitchcock made Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, and North by Northwest in the 1950s—but, honestly, I think you could include pretty much all those guys (Ford, Hawks, Wilder, Huston, etc) and none could put together a single decade as impressive as Coppola's run in the 1970s.
I mean, in just the first half of that decade, he was a key part of three best picture winners. In one year, he directed two best picture nominees! In terms of the single greatest years a director has ever had, it's up there with Fleming's twofer (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz) and Spielberg showing his range in 1993 by directing the greatest Holocaust movie of all time (Schindler's List) and one of the ten best popcorn action flicks of all time (Jurassic Park).
The Academy Awards often bungle efforts to award major filmmakers. (Example Number One: Zero awards in competition for Kubrick. Example Number Two: Scorsese's makeup win for The Departed. Example Number Three: Pacino. Scent of a Woman. Come on, people.) But they nailed it with Francis Ford Coppola. Credit where it's due.