It’s Saturday evening in Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles. Inside the home of producer Mark Johnson, a casually dressed, bearded Mexican director named Alfonso Cuaron is caught in a rib-crushing vise of Hollywood partygoers who have come to shake his hand, share a drink, sample some shrimp in pesto and gush over his film, “Y Tu Mama Tambien.”
Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer leans against a wall, deep in conversation with Variety Editor in Chief Peter Bart. Another Oscar winner, director Steven Soderbergh, schmoozes with reporters while simultaneously fending off on-the-record contact, saying, “No press! No press!” Even Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is here — as a co-host, no less.
Within the guidelines
All in all, an amiable and festive gathering of Hollywood elites, clearly helpful to Cuaron’s Oscar hopes. And, had it been thrown by a studio instead of an individual, strictly forbidden.
Although the Academy Awards are more than three months away, Hollywood’s great race has begun, and its campaign route winds through a sprawling but highly entertaining gray area in which it’s sometimes hard to tell the socializing from the politicking.
In any case, the town is awash in would-be Oscar candidates out pressing the flesh at parties, private screenings and a blizzard of year-end gatherings where academy voters might just happen to congregate. The proximity of other awards shows is a factor too; Thursday’s announcement of the nominees for the Golden Globes — given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and often seen as playing New Hampshire primary to Oscar’s election night — got things going in earnest.
In an attempt to ward off the more brazen attempts to woo votes, the academy each year goes to great lengths to police the Oscar campaigns. To the outside world, the rules may seem obsessive, arcane, even something to wink at. But to the academy — and the studios and independent distributors with Oscar-worthy films to promote — the provisions carry the high seriousness of the California penal code, or the DMV rulebook, at the very least. To wit:
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– On screenings: “The Academy encourages the screening of eligible films in a theatrical setting for its members. However, such screenings should not be accompanied by receptions, buffets or other refreshments, nor should such screenings feature the live participation of the film’s artists before or after the screening.”
– On screening schedules: “Screening schedules or notices or upcoming screenings may be mailed to members, but only in letter format (8 1/2-inch x 11-inch paper, no photographs, no glossy or card stock) or postcards (maximum size 4-inch x 6-inch, logo and title only, no photographs, no key or other art, no glossy stock.)”
– On events: “Receptions, dinners or other events to which Academy members are invited and which are specifically designed to promote a film or achievement for Academy Awards consideration are expressly forbidden.”
Yet just as politicians have figured out ways to skirt federal campaign finance laws, savvy studios and publicists know how far they can push the envelope regarding Oscar regulations.
The rules prohibit studios from inviting academy members to question-and-answer sessions with the stars? No problem. Send out invites to the Hollywood guilds representing directors, actors, writers and producers, many of whose members — surprise, surprise — are also among the 6,000 or so card-carrying members of the academy.
“Campaigners take the rules seriously but that doesn’t mean they don’t try to get around them — and that is OK; it’s the American way,” said Tony Angellotti, an Oscar campaign consultant who advises the studios on strategies to win nominations and awards.
Changing the game
Many point to Miramax’s 1998 “Shakespeare in Love” as the film that changed the dynamics of the Oscar race, causing it to resemble presidential politics as never before.
For the most part, previous Oscar campaigns had been more understated, relying more on behind-the-scenes lobbying than saturation marketing and the brash style personified by Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein.
Not only did Miramax spend a fortune placing ads touting the film and performances in Hollywood’s two trade papers, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, but actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who went on to win the best actress Oscar for her performance in the film, was seemingly everywhere in the run up to the Oscar show.
Private parties like the one held earlier this month for Alfonso Cuaron do not violate any Oscar rules, but they do show the blurry line between campaigning and socializing.
The party was deemed legal under academy rules because academy members were not specifically invited and the distributor, IFC Films, did not underwrite the bash. However, IFC Entertainment President Jonathon Sehring flew out from New York to attend the party.
“I admire this picture and I wanted to meet the filmmaker,” said academy president Pierson, who won an Oscar for best screenplay for “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), as he stood across the crowded room from Cuaron.
“It’s a social occasion. There is nothing wrong with that.”
Yet in one of those strange juxtapositions that can give this time of year a certain “Alice in Wonderland” quality in Hollywood, only the night before Pierson had pulled out of co-hosting a screening followed by a Q&A for Cuaron at the Los Angeles Film Academy. That’s because an advertisement for the event appeared in Variety mentioning that an academy membership card and ID were required for admittance — a clear violation of academy rules.
Fredell Pogodin, the publicist handling the film, received a letter from the academy alerting her that her ad had stepped over the line. The academy took no immediate action and Pogodin had no comment.
(If it wants to get serious with violators, the academy carries a big stick: denial of the highly sought-after tickets to the Oscars ceremony, held this year on March 23.)
Friendly thing to do
Meanwhile, Johnson (“The Rookie”), the chairman of the academy’s foreign-language film selection committee, said he saw no problem with holding a party for Cuaron in his house. “The reason we threw the party was because Alfonso is a good friend and we wanted to do it,” he said.
But the room clearly was filled with heavy hitters from the film community and opinion-makers from the entertainment media who could help get the Oscar buzz going for Cuaron.
When 20th Century Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman spotted Cuaron, he made his way through the crowd to give the director a bearhug. He told Cuaron, an old friend, that he always wins the office pool so he was sure the director would be nominated this year.
The 41-year-old director, who only a few years ago was making commercials in his native Mexico, flew in for the party from London, where he was preparing to direct “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” the third installment in the blockbuster series.