ANALYSIS : Academy’s Balancing Acts

The Academy Award nominations pretty well fell as they had been predicted to this year. Very few long shots came in; films that few academy members troubled to see, such as “To Sleep With Anger” or “Men Don’t Leave,” did not magically surface with nominations for their actors or their writing. The closest thing to that was “Metropolitan,” which got director-writer Whit Stillman a nomination for his screenplay.

The two biggest surprises, a best-picture nomination for “Ghost,” a best-actress nomination for “Pretty Woman’s” Julia Roberts, carried more than the sweet smell of box-office success. There was the sense of sanctifying with an Academy Award nomination movies that had already been ratified at the box office.

“Ghost” may be the real shocker among the best films, as purely commercial a choice as “Fatal Attraction” was in 1987, but you might hazard a guess that a state of war will give it even more believers. “Ghost” says that the dead are not forgotten, that they are with us exactly as we knew them, that rather than needing us to protect their memory, they are even here to protect us.

It’s not too far-fetched to suggest that in this age of AIDS, a ghostly lover is the safest kind to have. All told, that’s a pretty seductive message. All that and $213-million worth of endorsement already.

Where Julia Roberts’ Hollywood Boulevard hooker fits in in the age of AIDS isn’t quite clear, unless heaven--and Roberts’ character’s rainbow assortment of condoms-- does indeed protect the working girl.

Roberts’ nomination isn’t the sore thumb that “Ghost” is. Along with Meryl Streep, cuttin’ loose in “Postcards from the Edge,” it’s the feel-good performance of the five nominees. Anjelica Huston’s brazen mama from “The Grifters,” Kathy Bates’ nightmare fan from “Misery” and Joanne Woodward’s magnificently suppressed Mrs. Bridge, brilliant as all three are, were hardly likely to send voters away elated.

And while one might have offered to trade for Andie MacDowell in “Green Card,” or certainly for Debra Winger in “The Sheltering Sky,” Roberts’ choice is cheerful and populist. The truth is, as Meryl Streep noted pointedly last year, the number of powerful roles for leading women are embarrassingly slim.

It’s not quite the case among supporting actresses, where there were many more extraordinary performances than places for them. Here, the stunner may be Diane Ladd’s nomination as the year’s most overprotective mother in “Wild At Heart.” Like Richard Harris’ nomination for “The Field,” it is renewed proof that over-the-top never hurt.

For a performance that might absolutely define superb supporting/ensemble acting, think of Blythe Danner’s fatally out-of-place Midwestern wife in “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” Dianne Wiest’s resolutely cheerful mother in “Edward Scissorhands,” Joan Plowright’s stoic pessimist in “Avalon” or the layers upon layers to Bonnie Bedelia’s wife in “Presumed Innocent.”

It’s a far different story over on the men’s side. Probably the strongest and most balanced slate--and the hardest from which to sight a clear favorite--was the supporting-actor category. Bruce Davison’s citations from the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle may give him a slightly higher profile going in, but there isn’t a ringer anywhere among his competitors and not too many left out.

Most impossible to decipher is how the actors’ branch managed to peel pairs of performances apart, to salute one and discard the other. If there was ever a year of equal pairs, it would seem to be Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine in “Postcards From the Edge,” Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in “Awakenings,” Kathy Bates and James Caan in “Misery,” Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge,” Al Pacino and Warren Beatty in “Dick Tracy,” even Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman.” Very strange and one might think, very thorny decisions being made in here.

It was good to see the academy again recognizing artists from abroad in categories quite apart from the best foreign-language film: Gerard Depardieu for his high-definition Cyrano in “Cyrano de Bergerac,” director Stephen Frears for the cutting desperation of “The Grifters,” director Barbet Schroeder and Jeremy Irons (at last!) for the icily sophisticated “Reversal of Fortune.”

One might wonder, as one did with Bruce Beresford and “Driving Miss Daisy” and Steven Spielberg and “The Color Purple,” how the director of “Awakenings” was overlooked, when Penny Marshall’s actor, picture and screenplay adaptation were nominated, but that imbalance has been noted more than once.

However, has anyone noticed the downturn in the caliber of screenplays written directly for the screen today? Yes, it’s nice that Whit Stillman’s modest and charming “Metropolitan” got a nomination for its screenplay--with “The Grifters,” it’s one of the last remnants of the once-proud independent film movement. And that the screenplays of “Green Card” and “Alice” had their day too. “Ghost” is what it is.

But in all honesty, these are pleasant but slight. In that whole category, “Avalon” works from from the broadest canvas and is the most ambitious. Many will find its omission from the best-picture slot a loss.

Yet, every film among the directors’ nominations is an adaptation of a novel, and, duplicating these in some cases, four of the five best-picture nominations are too. (The exception is “Ghost.”)

“GoodFellas,” “Awakenings,” “Reversal of Fortune” were exceptional filmic solutions to knotty and challenging novels. “The Godfather Part III” is a triumphant summing-up of characters born between the covers of a book, and revivified by the filmmaking process. “Dances With Wolves” is a lyrical extension of a book patterned on its director/star.

But it still makes one wonder when the industry, with its love of already-proven product, will ever again encourage and nurture original visions with the audacity of “Citizen Kane,” “2001,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “Bonnie and Clyde” or . . . name your own favorite.