A fantasy scenario

The final Lord of the Rings movie will likely become the first of its genre to win best picture.

[Photo: New Line Cinema]

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

	[Photo: Universal Pictures/DreamWorks]
	Seabiscuit
	Lost in Translation [Photo: Focus Features]
	[Photo: Universal Pictures/Miramax/20th Century Fox]
	Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
	[Photo: Warner Bros.]
	Mystic River

Tonight's 76th annual Academy Awards program likely will shatter an artistic barrier and bestow its highest honor on a cinematic style as old and unrewarded as The Thief of Baghdad and The Wizard of Oz.

If The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is named best picture of 2003 - as most anyone paying attention expects - it will be the first fantasy film to win the movie industry's most coveted prize.

Funny that Hollywood is known as a land of dreams, yet academy voters have never chosen a dreamscape as its best picture.

Raoul Walsh's Arabian Nights classic The Thief of Baghdad (1924) is older than the Oscars. Fritz Lang's futuristic Metropolis was released the year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began, but it never received Oscar recognition. The Wizard of Oz (1939) lost to Gone with the Wind. Star Wars (1977) was outvoted by Annie Hall. King Kong and 2001: A Space Odyssey didn't even make the list of best picture finalists.

Some best picture winners - Forrest Gump and any musical, for examples - contain elements of fantasy but are grounded in reality. Academy Award voters traditionally prefer historical dramas, sweeping epics, feel-good flicks and socially relevant works. Even comedies have earned more Oscar respect than fantasy and science fiction films.

Two reasons for this lack of respect come to mind. First, fantasy and science fiction are considered in some corners the domains of kids and geeks, sources of escapism depending more upon special effects than traditional drama and emotions.

Acting nominations are rare for sci-fi and fantasy performers. The exceptions have included Alec Guinness and Ian McKellen as fantasy sages and Jeff Bridges as the down-to-Earth alien in Starman. The academy prefers its best picture winners to be built on flesh and blood performances; fantasies dominate technical categories such as best visual effects, makeup and sound mixing. A win for The Return of the King would make it the eighth best picture in Oscar history without an acting nomination. The last such winner was 1987's The Last Emperor, which was the first to accomplish that feat in 31 years.

Second, those kids and geeks have money to burn. Since Star Wars arrived in 1977, moviegoers have flocked to films about adolescent wizards, comic book superheroes, time and space travelers, and Jurassic-sized adventures. Eight of the top-10 ticket sellers of all time are fantasy or science fiction films.

Academy voters traditionally have seemed to think a hefty box office take is enough reward. Titanic (No. 1 overall) and Forrest Gump (No. 10) are the only films among the top 50 moneymakers to have won best picture Oscars, and both relied heavily on special effects. The Return of the King has grossed $361-million, ranking sixth of all time.

Momentous as it would be for fantasy fans, though, a best picture prize for The Return of the King wouldn't have the cultural impact of several other recent Oscar breakthroughs.

It wouldn't match the social significance of Denzel Washington and Halle Berry's awards in 2002, the first time African-Americans actors won both lead acting prizes in the same year, with Berry becoming the first black female named best actress.

It wouldn't be nearly as daring as the academy's acceptance of X-rated cinema in the 1970s with a best picture Oscar for Midnight Cowboy and major nominations for A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs and Last Tango in Paris.

It wouldn't signal growth of the academy's willingness to look beyond U.S. borders for winners such as Pedro Almodovar for best original screenplay last year for Hable con ella (Talk to Her), the first screenplay winner written in a foreign language. Or for winners such as actors Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful) and Benicio Del Toro (Traffic), honored for non-English performances. Or to give an impressive number of nominations, including best picture, to films such as Benigni's and Hong Kong'sCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This year's global hot spot is Brazil, with four nominations for City of God.

Instead, a best picture prize for The Return of the King would most closely compare with last year's choice of Chicago, the first musical selected since 1968's Oliver!. Of course, that 34-year drought was a measure of the genre's declining quality and popularity in the years after nine musicals had won best picture Oscars.

Fantasy films have become more accomplished artistically and financially, making more money than any other genre. Yet Oscar voters have never been impressed enough to call a full-blown fantasy film the best that their industry can offer. This year's Academy Award nominees also include several artists who continue to expand the academy's cultural and artistic horizons. It's hard to believe that no American woman had been nominated as best director before Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation). Although Peter Jackson (The Return of the King) is a strong favorite to win, Coppola's name among the finalists is a step forward.

By the end of tonight's show, Oscar presenters might announce the first acting winner from Africa (Djimon Hounsou, In America) or Iran (Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog), or the second from Japan (Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai). At 13, Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) is the youngest nominee ever as a lead actress.

The academy's embracing of art house films, which began in earnest a decade ago with The Crying Game, continues with Charlize Theron favored in the best actress category for Monster, plus major nominations for City of God, In America, 21 Grams, Whale Rider, Thirteen, Pieces of April and The Cooler.

Oscar voters searched more widely than ever to locate top cinematic accomplishments, despite the most abbreviated voting calendar in academy history. As usual, films had to have opened with weeklong engagements in Los Angeles and New York by Dec. 31 to qualify for awards. After that, every other deadline was moved up a month.

That gave voters less time to catch up with contenders at academy screenings and - after a testy debate - on DVD and VHS screeners provided free. Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti called for a ban on screeners to prevent piracy through bootlegged copies and Internet downloads. Creators and distributors of films without major studio backing protested that banning screeners would put them at an unfair disadvantage during awards season. A U.S. district court judge in New York agreed, granting an injunction allowing screeners to be delivered.

That didn't matter to The Return of the King, because New Line Cinema declined to use screeners, preferring voters to experience the film in theaters, and 11 nominations resulted. Another action epic, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, was sent to voters on DVD and earned 10 nominations, including best picture. Another best picture finalist, Seabiscuit, was already available to the masses on home video and DVD, having had its theatrical release last summer.

For other films, especially best picture, actor, director and original screenplay nominee Lost in Translation, sending screeners to voters apparently helped. Coppola's movie is now available on home video, but the head start enabled voters to consider it while marking their nomination ballots.

Certainly screeners leveled the playing field between Lost in Translation and Mystic River, an immediate best picture contender in October with its heavyweight cast and Clint Eastwood directing. Lost in Translation was released around the same time, in many fewer theaters, making screeners a more necessary campaign tool.

The screener debate is certain to continue, after the FBI filed copyright infringement charges against an Illinois man caught duplicating screener DVDs obtained from an academy member, actor Carmine Caridi. Caridi's academy membership was revoked, but that's precisely the situation Valenti's ban would have avoided.

Academy members will want screeners, if only to keep up with a movie audience getting smarter by the minute. Moviegoers know more about the filmmaking process than ever. DVD bonus features are turning home viewing into film school, and the Internet allows more exchange of ideas, access to critics' reviews and independent film news than ever.

The academy knows its credibility depends upon rewarding the best worldwide cinema, not just the movies Hollywood brags loudest about. Sentimental Oscars for aging legends seem to be a thing of the past, as we saw on the shocked face of Lauren Bacall when she lost during the 1997 show (Juliette Binoche won for The English Patient). Slowly but surely, the academy is catching up to the present state of cinema.

What's left for the academy to recognize? For starters, it's a shame than John Singleton (1991'sBoyz N the Hood) is still the only African-American ever nominated for best director. But it's also a reason for Spike Lee to find his muse again and younger black filmmakers to tackle classier productions. Many academy members are still embarrassed about ignoring Lee's race relations manifesto Do the Right Thing in 1990 while handing the best picture prize to Driving Miss Daisy with its white Southern matriarch handling her kindly black chauffeur.

Fantasy isn't the only genre awaiting Oscar's golden touch. Though Philadelphia won an Oscar for Tom Hanks, gay-themed cinema (with the possible exception of Midnight Cowboy) still hasn't registered enough with voters to rate best picture honors. Creating a separate category in 2001 for animated feature films simply gives voters a reason to keep them out of the best picture race. Probably the next breakthrough will be a documentary nominated for best picture because much of our most satisfying cinema these days is reality-based.

Tonight, however, should be all about fantasy. Jackson's epic appears invincible. Fantasy fans should discover a feeling they've never enjoyed, a sense that their tastes have been justified, that Academy Award voters finally appreciate the power of unlimited imagination. Somewhere, E.T., Luke Skywalker and Dorothy Gale will be smiling.

Preview

The 76th Academy Awards will be presented at 8 tonight on WFTS-Ch. 28.

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