Some of Hollywood’s most high-profile filmmakers, including director James Cameron, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Lili Fini Zanuck and composer John Williams have joined the growing chorus of voices asking the Academy to reverse course and present all 23 Oscars on the live March 27 telecast.
In a letter sent today to Academy President David Rubin and obtained by Variety, more than six dozen film professionals, including multiple Academy Award winners, contend that the plan to present eight awards during the pre-telecast hour will “demean” these crafts and “relegate [them] to the status of second-class citizens.”
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The eight are original score, film editing, production design, makeup and hairstyling, sound, documentary short, live-action short and animated short. The Academy continues to insist that the nominees in those categories will be announced, and the winner’s acceptance speech aired, in edited form and aired as part of the three-hour ABC show.
That’s not good enough for these artists. “To diminish any of those individual categories in the pursuit of ratings and short-term profits does irreparable damage to the Academy’s standing as impartial arbiters, responsible stewards of our industry’s most important awards,” the letter says.
“Seeking new audiences by making the telecast more entertaining is a laudable and important goal, but this cannot be achieved by demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art of filmmaking worthy of celebration.”
They urge Rubin and his colleagues on the Academy awards committee “in the strongest possible terms… to reverse your decision. For nearly a century, the Academy Award has represented the gold standard in recognizing and honoring all the essential crafts in filmmaking. Now, as we approach Oscar’s 100th year, we are deeply troubled that this gold standard is being tarnished by valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others, relegating those others to the status of second-class citizens.
“Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing and visual effects,” the letter reads.
Ninety-year-old composer and five-time Oscar-winner John Williams — who, at 52 nominations, holds the record for the most of any living person — is among the signers. Director Steven Spielberg cited Williams’ “Jaws” score earlier week in his own denunciation of the decision, saying “without John Williams, ‘Jaws’ would wear dentures.”
Directors Cameron, Joe Roth and Guillermo del Toro; producers Kennedy and Zanuck; writer Tony Kushner; costume designer Milena Canonero; production designers Dean Tavoularis, Dante Ferretti and Geoffrey Kirkland; and cinematographers Dante Spinotti and Vittorio Storaro are among the other signees. Roth is also a former producer of the Oscar telecast; he was in charge of the 2004 show.
Also signing are more than three dozen composers, including Oscar winners Howard Shore, Dave Grusin, Alexandre Desplat, Steven Price, Hildur Guðnadóttir, John Corigliano, Tan Dun and Jan Kaczmarek; past Oscar nominees John Debney, George Fenton, Nicholas Britell, Terence Blanchard, Thomas Newman, James Newton Howard, David Newman, Dustin O’Halloran, Volker Bertelmann, John Powell and Alan Silvestri; and Emmy winner Ramin Djawadi.
The complete text and roster of signers:
President, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
Dear President Rubin:
We the undersigned urge you in the strongest possible terms, along with your colleagues on the Awards Committee, to reverse your decision to remove the presentation of eight awards categories from the live telecast of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Original Score, Film Editing, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Documentary Short Subject and both Live Action and Animated Short Film.
For nearly a century, the Academy Awards has represented the gold standard in recognizing and honoring all of the essential crafts in filmmaking. Now, as we approach the Oscars’ 100th year, we are deeply troubled that this gold standard is being tarnished by valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others and relegating those others to the status of second-class citizen. Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling, and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing, and visual effects. To diminish any of these individual categories in the pursuit of ratings and short-term profits does irreparable damage to the Academy’s standing as impartial arbiters and responsible stewards of our industry’s most important awards.
Seeking new audiences by making the telecast more entertaining is a laudable and important goal, but this cannot be achieved by demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art of filmmaking worthy of celebration.
Sincerely,
Peter Baert
Bruce Berman
Volker Bertelmann
Terence Blanchard
Scott Bomar
Nicholas Britell
James Cameron
Milena Canonero
John Corigliano
John Debney
Guillermo del Toro
Alexandre Desplat
Ramin Djawadi
Amie Doherty
Tan Dun
Laura Engel
Bruce A. Evans
Sven Faulconer
George Fenton
Dante Ferretti
Simon Franglen
Raynold Gideon
Michael Gorfaine
Peter Gregson
Dave Grusin
Trevor Gureckis
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Alex Heffes
Nate Heller
David Hirschfelder
Natalie Holt
James Newton Howard
Steve Jablonsky
Jónsi
Federico Jusid
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Kathleen Kennedy
Geoffrey Kirkland
Philip Klein
Tony Kushner
Maria Machado
Patty Macmillan
Judianna Makovsky
Richard Marvin
Nami Melumad
Robert Messinger
Thomas Newman
David Newman
Anne Nikitin
Dustin O’Halloran
Atli Örvarsson
John Powell
Steven Price
Michael Rosenberg
Joe Roth
Sam Schwartz
Lisbeth Scott
Theodore Shapiro
Howard Shore
Alan Silvestri
Sam Slater
Alex Somers
Dante Spinotti
Herdís Stefánsdóttir
Vittorio Storaro
Tamar-kali
Dean Tavoularis
Fernando Velázquez
Chris Walden
Chris Westlake
Nathan Whitehead
John Williams
Andrew Zack
Lili Fini Zanuck
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