In the final week’s run-up to this year’s birthday party for Uncle Oscar, i.e. the 97th Academy Awards, there have been surprises, rumors, and scandals. In other words, the movie and awards business as usual. Each batch of pre-Oscar awards (SAG, BAFTA, Critics Circle) has led journalists to conclude that this movie or that movie is definitely gonna win because of some quasi-statistical calculation. Some of the nominations have been controversial. “The Brutalist” was slammed for using a little bit of AI-based technology. The “front-runner” for Best Actress made numerous racist and Islamophobic statements on social media a few years ago, so now has quasi-apologized, though what this has to do with her performance may seem head-scratching.
Personally, what I find most head-scratching is that movies which premiere in one theater for one day at the end of December can somehow be considered better than any other movie that is seen by the rest of us all year long. It seems like cheating. But then artistic contests have a history of cheating, campaigning, and judging biases. Patriotism, popular sentiment, and politics influence the voting. It’s not just in the movies. Classical art and classical music have also had their own versions of campaigns and contests. Let’s go back a few centuries and take a look.
The Politics of the Salon, 1863
Maybe the French Impressionists wouldn’t have become so influential if the French art elite hadn’t tried so hard to to squash them. In the 1860s, as Manet, Monet, and Degas were tried to get their paintings displayed on museum walls, the established Académie des Beaux-Arts refused to display their work. Even when the artists found wealthy or influential patrons to convince the decision-makers in the Paris Salon to put up the work, the paintings would get an unfavorable spot on the wall.
Remember that before movies, television, and Tik-Tok, visual arts and music were part of the average person’s experience, unlike today, when museum and symphony attendance is sparse. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, the average Josephine went to museums a lot, and the curators stuck ALL the paintings, on the wall, at one time, floor to ceiling. Even when they were judged in annual contests, it was all at once. (There’s a great book on this topic by Ross King, The Judgment of Paris.)
In the 1860-70s, the artistic toast of Paris was Ernest Meissonier, whose style favored exquisitely-rendered depictions of battles and slice-of-life street scenes. Friedland was considered a true masterpiece, an epic view of one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s great triumphs. You can see the foam on the lips of the horses and count every blade of grass. Meissonier’s work was seen at eye level.
In contrast, Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass (Le Dejeneur sur de L’herbe) was gauche, vulgar, blurry, scandalous AND it showed the paint strokes. *Gasp* The Impressionists chose inappropriate subject matter, said the judges, and their painting technique was not even good. Paintings were supposed to be about spiritual or nationalistic values. If all the cherubs were naked prancing around Venus, fine, but if the women are naked and the men are not, then they must be… les putes. And, Claude Monet, what even is that blob of colors supposed to be? Mon enfant pouvait peindre ça… The Impressionists, if they were shown at all, were at the top, in the corner.
Nevertheless, a revolution was under way, even when the Salon awards in the 1860s, the established jury selected by Académie des Beaux-Arts rejected Manet and Monet. The French Emperor, Napoleon III, intervened and proposed an alternative display that was called Les Salon de Refuses… let’s show the works that were rejected! Imagine, the alternate Oscars? (Do we still have the People’s Choice Awards)?
Ma/onet got the last laugh. The Impressionists crowded out the Realists until blurry scenes and paint-by-dots became the only art game in Paris, New York, and London. The next revolution had to think even harder about breaking rules, maybe paintings that were all black or stripes or a banana taped to a wall. Wouldn’t mind seeing a horse or two now, would we? Anyway, a hundred and fifty years later, the Impressionist room at the New York Met is jam crammed full of people, and Friedland sits alone in the hallway outside the door, barely receiving a glance as the crowds rush in to see more haystacks.
The Piano Duels
But politicking in the art world was nothing compared to that other crazy social roller coaster known as the royal conservatory performance. Without the NBA Dunk Contests to entertain the masses, people turned to the next best throwdown–the piano duel. both Mozart and Muzio Clementi were child prodigies, which set the stage in 1781 for the big battle.
By then, Clementi was a little older, and Mozart still the boy wonder. If you saw Amadeus, you know that Mozart regularly did this, trouncing old farts like Salieri with both skill and parody. After the performance for the Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph II declared that Clementi and Mozart were both exceptional but history says that the audience found Mozart slightly more entertaining. Perhaps it was the maniacal laughter? (you really should see Amadeus if you haven’t, especially since it won Best Picture in–see what I did there)?
That 1781 duel had nothing, however, over the big mamajama of 1837. Here was Virtuoso a Virtuouso, the greatest pianist in the world and the sexiest-er-showiest pianist in the world. This was the Sigismond Thalberg vs. Franz Liszt, the Legend vs. the Hunk. Liszt had a reputation for energy and skill, but also for romancing the ladies. Not everyone liked his crashing and flailing. At least one modern expert, Marc-André Hamelin, calls Liszt “polarizing.”
Sound familiar? Swifties vs. the Haters. Grande vs. Erivo? There’s a really fun rendition of this duel in a Hungarian movie, excerpted on YouTube. Savor the camera close-ups on the audience members–the princess in her jewels, holding her breath while her beloved Franz attacks the keys. Thalberg executes his piece with panache at the outset (0:35), then Liszt comes in (2:45), tossing his gloves to the floor disdainfully, flipping his blonde hair and tails as he sits. With crashes and flourishes, he pounces on the keyboard like a panther bringing down a gazelle. In the film clip, anti-Liszters int he audience interrupt his piece with whistles, fistfights ensue, and it’s all great fun. Imagine what Liszt’s Twitter’s feed might have been like!
Historical sources say the Princess and audience declared the two men to be equal winners, though she secretly favored Liszt. Centuries later, the scuttlebutt is still that Liszt might have been technically better, but his showiness undercut his capabilities. Think Liberace.
The Cold War of … Pianos?
I have to include one more example on how music competitions weren’t always about music. Just like sporting competitions–oh like, say, the Olympics–are often about much more than sport, the arts also become embroiled in patriotism and politics. this was particularly true in 1957, when the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow had a noteworthy entrant: Louisiana-born, 23-year-old Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr. Aka Van Cliburn.
Russians believed that their composers (and ballet companies) were second to none, the way Americans brag about Gershwin or inventing jazz. To have an American come into Moscow in 1957–the year that Sputnik launched–was like Jesse Owens competing in Berlin. Except, apparently, the Russian crowd was enthusiastic about Van Cliburn’s performance, awarding him an eight-minute ovation and the top prize in “their” contest. He turned to the crowd, thanked them briefly in Russian, then launched into his cover of their beloved hometown anthem, “Moscow Nights.” They ate him up with a spoon.
It was a small step toward international peace, though it didn’t last long. Between Kennedy and Nixon’s sword-rattling and Khruschev’s shipping a few missiles over to Cuba, the Cold War soon reaffirmed itself. Still, Van Cliburn came back to the U.S a legend, earning a ticker tape parade, the adoration of teenage girls ( a la Franz Liszt), and a lifetime of sold-out concerts. Who knew that complex tonalities, frenzied arpeggios, and intricate pedaling could turn you into a hearthrob?
A Banquet of Union-Busters
So, if you’ve been hearing the “Oscar buzz” and pondering whether Karla Sofía Gascón‘s nasty texts about George Floyd or 9/11 should disqualify her from winning an award for her acting performance or thinking that Demi Moore ought to win because she made a good speech at the SAG Awards, then you might not be surprised that a contest to judge relative artistic merits seems to involve a lot of things beside the art. Same as it ever was.
After all, the origin of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and/or Sciences was not created to bestow honors, anyway. As detailed in another fascinating book, Inside Oscar (Mason Wiley and Damien Bona), MGM Studio executive Louis B. Mayer was trying to get his house remodeled. He hired some MGM carpenters, but those union guys were so damn expensive! He started to panic thinking about the actor’s union, wondering if there was a way to tame the beasts before they got out of hand, maybe by offering them a chance to join the prestigious club. The club created by executives, whose awards would be chosen by those executives, and handed out with some consommé Celestine and chicken on toast.
The winners were announced months in advance. Several did not show up–Best Actor Emil Jannings sent a brief note. The judging was opaque. No one knew who and how the winners were selected. But Hollywood loved it. Louis B. considered it a great success, noting: “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them … If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted.”
Over the years of Oscars (which is rapidly approaching its jubilee 100th year, can you believe it?), the studios have turned their own game into knock-down drag out fights, using out-right campaigning to get their movies into contention for awards and box office. Hedda Hopper, a minor actress in the first Best Picture winner Wings, went on to become a gossip columnist who could kill a career with a whisper or an adjective. What happened outside the movie influenced what happened on the screen. For example, when Ingrid Bergman took up with director Roberto Rosselini when her Swedish husband refused her a divorce. Having Rosselini’s children caused her to be criticized in Congress and blackballed by the studios. She was unable to work in Hollywood for a decade, until she returned to make Anastasia, for which she won–you guessed it–an Oscar.
Actors and studios would literally campaign door-to-door, as Barbara Stanwyck put it, on behalf of their favorites. Katherine Hepburn found the whole thing vulgar and never showed up (4 wins). Dustin Hoffman called the awards “obscene” and nothing more than “a beauty contest” (2 wins). The controversies before, during, and after the awards show itself have since become part of the larger show. Frank Sinatra hastily writing a note backstage to disavow political statements made by winners of Best Documentary. Vanessa Redgrave. Marlon Brando. The announcement of the wrong Best Picture. The streaker. The punch.
In theory, great art–a challenging piece of music played by a virtuoso, the way the angle of the woman’s face in the portrait reminds you of a memory, an actor’s sigh before he says that famous line–all of it is supposed to rise above the mundane to become something unforgettable. It can change your life to experience great art.
But art was created by people and experienced by people, and people are messy. Whether it’s the bias in the salon, the duel in the conservatory, or the scandal before the Oscars, the judging of artistic endeavors has always been about things besides the art.
Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, Isabelle Rossellini, is nominated this year for Best Supporting Actress, by the way. She’s not the front-runner. You should go see Conclave anyway to watch her exquisite performance, which will remind you so much of …
