TENSIONS are high and building to fever pitch in Los Angeles this weekend in the countdown to Hollywood's biggest night of the year, the 69th Academy Awards. Anticipation is keener than it has been for many years with very few sure shots, like Schindler's List and Forrest Gump were in recent years, on the shortlist.
The closest thing to a certainty is that the Hollywood studios will have a disastrous year, except in the unlikely event that Jerry Maguire cleans up. For although many of the. main contenders are movies produced or distributed by essentially autonomous companies owned by the studios, Jerry Maguire is this year's only major nominee directly produced by a Hollywood studio. Last year's other Tom Cruise blockbuster, Mission. Impossible figures nowhere on the nominations, while other mega hits from 1996 such as Independence Day and Twister secured just two technical nominations each.
One studio picture which looked like an early front runner for Oscars acclaim - Columbia's The People Vs. Larry Flynt - stumbled at the politically correct hurdle in January when feminist Gloria Steinem wrote a New York Times article spearheading a vigorous backlash against the movie for portraying a pornographer, Hustler publisher Flynt, as a champion of free speech. The result was just two nominations, one for director Milos Forman and the other for Woody Harrelson, who plays Flynt, and the chances of either taking home an Oscar on Monday night are remote.
Meanwhile, a, movie turned down by a Hollywood studio has far and away the best chance of sweeping the boards on Monday. 20th Century Fox decided against bank rolling the commercially risky Anthony Minghella movie, The English Patient, when Minghella resisted the studio's request for star names in the leading roles and persisted with the casting of the as yet less than stellar Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche. Eventually, the movie was made with the support of an independent, Miramax, which is owned by Disney but operates autonomously, and it went on to get 12 nominations, including best picture, director - and best actress (Scott Thomas) and best supporting actress (B)noche).
Should The English Patient win in every one of its 12 categories, it will set a new Oscar record. With 11 Oscars, the 1959 Ben Hur still holds the record, followed by West Side Story with 10 and Gigi and The Last Emperor with nine each. If The English Patient takes eight Oscars, which is quite feasible, it will be in the exalted company of eight other movies: Gone With The Wind, The Best Years Of Our Lives, From Here To Eternity, On The Waterfront, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, Gandhi and Amadeus.
The traditional American domination of the nominations is diluted with five of the 10 nominees for best actor and actress coming from outside the US and just one American among the five nominees for best director. Continuing the wind of change which has been blowing so much uncertainty, only six of the 20 acting nominees have been nominated in the past, and only one of them has won - Diane Keaton.
Here is how the nominations shape up in the principal categories, along with some risky predictions.
BEST PICTURE
WITH the Golden Globe for best picture (drama) already in the bag and a total of 12 Oscar nominations, The English Patient is firmly in place as the front runner for the Big prize. It is joined on a very strong shortlist by Joel Coen's dark humoured kidnapping tale, Fargo; Scott Hicks's film of the troubled Australian pianist David Helfgott, Shine; Mike Leigli's picture of an emotionally distraught Englishwoman encountering the daughter she gave up for adoption in Secrets & Lies, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year; and Cameron, Crowe's Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise as a disillusioned sports agent.
Most unusually, three of the nominees - Fargo, Shine and Secrets & Lies - were made for under $10 million. Fargo and Jerry Maguire are likely to be rewarded elsewhere on the night, while Shine and Secrets & Lies could well emerge empty handed from the ceremony. In addition to being a fine film in its own right The English Patient has so ,many of the elements adored by the Academy's electorate - an epic sweep, a turbulent historical background exotic locations and an accomplished cast that will be very surprised if it does not win best picture.
BEST DIRECTOR
IN a truly international line up, there is one American among the final five - Joel Coen for Fargo. There are two Englishmen - Mike Leigh for Secrets & Lies and Anthony Minghella for The English Patient - and an Australian, Scott Hicks, for Shine. The fifth place goes to the only former winner, the Czech director Milos Forman, who won Oscars for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus and is nominated for The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
Given that the best director generally - though not always - goes to the maker of the best picture winner, my money's on Minghella here. His victory in the Directors Guild of America awards two weeks ago further strengthens his chances.
BEST ACTRESS
THE only former nominee here is Diane Keaton (Marvin's Room), who won the Oscar for Annie Hall in 1977, and the only other American nominee is Frances McDormand for Fargo. British actresses take the other three places: Kristin Scott Thomas for The English Patient; Brenda Blethyn for Secrets & Lies and Emily Watson for her screen debut in Breaking The Waves.
This a very tough one to call, although it can be narrowed down to Blethyn and McDormand. Blethyn is going for a hat trick, having beaten McDormand for the best actress award at Cannes and for, best actress (drama) at the Golden Globes in January. I will stick, my neck out and tip McDormand to win this time out. If she does, it will be the second consecutive year in which the best actress winner gets the Oscar for her performance in a movie directed by her husband - last year Susan Sarandon won for Dead Man Walking, directed by her husband Tim Robbins, and Fargo, for which McDormand is nominated, was directed by her husband, Joel Coen.
BEST ACTOR
UNKNOWN outside his native Australia a year ago, Geoffrey Rush (Shine) already has collected a shelf full of awards and was sure of a nomination here, as were Tom Cruise (Jerry Maguire), Woody Harrelson (Larry Flynt) and Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient). The big surprise is the nomination of Billy Bob Thornton for the low profile Sling Blade, which he also wrote and directed. Two of the nominees have been nominated in the past - Cruise for Born On The Fourth Of July and Fiennes for best supporting actor in Schindler's List.
The Academy's preference for physically or mentally impaired characters is very much,, in evidence here. Harrelson spends much of his movie in a wheelchair. Fiennes is shockingly physically scarred in his film. Rush plays a tormented child prodigy who suffers from nervous breakdowns. And Thornton plays a mentally retarded man released from an institution and struggling to come to terms with the outside world.
The general consensus is that the award is between Cruise and Rush, but here 1 am going to stick my neck out further than in any other category. Having seen and been deeply touched by Thornton's riveting performance in Sling Blade, which has yet to acquire a distributor here, I am predicting Thornton to send shock waves through the audience when Susan Sarandon opens the best actor envelope on Monday night.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
GOLDEN Globe winner Lauren Bacall was a certain nominee for her performance as Barbra Streisand's mother in The Mirror Has Two Faces, and given the 72 year old Bacall's recurring reminders that she's never won an Oscar before, she must be the front runner in this category. The other four places are taken by Barbara Hershey (Portrait Of A Lady), Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), first timer Marianne Jean Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), and the only previous nominee, Joan Allen (The Crucible), who was up for Nixon last year.
Allen deserves the award most, but sentiment will be heavily on the side of Bacall, who, incidentally , was married to two Oscar winners, Humphrey Bogart and Jason, Robards jnr. Expect the first standing ovation of the night when Bacall steps up to the podium and expresses her utter astonishment at winning.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
THE gifted young Edward Norton, who has already won the Golden Globe for his film debut in Primal Fear, is up against Cuba Gooding Jnr (Jerry Maguire), Armin Mueller Stahl (Shine), William H. Macy (Fargo), and the only former nominee, James Woods (Ghosts of Mississippi), previously nominated for Salvador.
The most promising new American actor to emerge for quite some time, Norton seems assured of several Oscars in the years ahead. But he was the only good thing about Primal Fear, a movie well forgotten since it opened in the US last spring, and I imagine he will be pipped on the night by Cuba Gooding Jr for his flamboyant performance in the recent big hit, Jerry Maguire.
FOREIGN FILM
A FORMIDABLE line up of foreign language films features the Czech Kolya, the French Ridicule, the Russian Prisoner Of The Mountains, the Norwegian Other Side Of Sunday, and a film from Georgia, A Chef In Love. However, my bet is that Kolya will become the third Czech movie to win this Oscar, following The Shop On Main Street in 1965 and Closely Observed Trains in 1967.
BEST SCREEN PLAY
THIS is often an area where smaller films get their recognition and its good to see John Hodge (Trainspotting) and John Sayles (Lone Star) on the shortlists. Hodge is nominated for best screenplay based on material previously produced or published, along with Arthur Miller (The Crucible), Anthony Minghella (The English Patient), Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet) and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade). Minghella is the favourite here, and he should just about shade it from Miller.
Joining John Sayles in the nominations for best original screenplay are Jan Sardi (Shine), Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire), Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies) and Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo). This award is down to the two American movies, and while Crowe probably looks strongest, the Coens are long overdue Oscar recognition. Letting my heart rule my head, go for the Coens here.
OTHER CATEGORIES
IF The English Patient goes on a roll, as it will, it should walk away with most of the other awards for which it is nominated: cinematography (John Seale); costume design (Ann Roth); film editing (Walter Murch); dramatic music score (Gabriel Yared); and sound, which would bring its haul to eight. Its other category, art direction, is also a possibility but The Birdcage is the favourite there.
Expect You Must Love Me, to be performed on the night by Madonna, to take best song as the only award for Evita, and The Hunchback Of No tre Dame to take best musical or comedy score, with The Nutty Professor receiving the make up Oscar, Twister winning visual effects and The Ghost And The Darkness taking sound effects editing.
In the extremely unlikely event that all of these predictions come true, it would mean no Oscars for any of the following films which have two nominations or more: Shine, Secrets & Lies, Hamlet, The Crucible, Emma, Ghosts Of Mississippi, Independence Day, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, The Portait Of A Lady and Michael Collins.
Special honorary awards will be presented, on the night to producer Saul Zaentz, whose latest movie just happens to be The English Patient, and to the great choreographers Michael Kidd, whose credits span four decades and include The Band Wagon, Seven, Brides For Seven Brothers and Guys And, Dolls. However, the biggest ovation of the,, night can be expected when Muhammad Ali steps on the stage when, as must happen, the fascinating When We Were Kings - which chronicles his 1974 rumble in the jungle with George Foreman in Zaire - takes the Oscar for best documentary feature.
And the good news for all of us planning to watch the whole three hour plus show is that the sharp witted Billy Crystal is back in the saddle as the show's compere.