{"id":26700,"date":"2022-03-24T06:13:27","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T06:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=26700"},"modified":"2022-03-24T06:13:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T06:13:27","slug":"a-best-director-oscar-rematch-after-28-years-jane-campion-vs-steven-spielberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=26700","title":{"rendered":"A best-director Oscar rematch after 28 years: Jane Campion vs Steven Spielberg"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nIf the best director matchup at the Academy Awards on Sunday looks familiar, you aren\u2019t hallucinating: On a warm spring night in Los Angeles in 1994, Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg, who are nominated this year for The Power of the Dog and West Side Story, went head-to-head. But unlike this year, when Campion and her queer Western, The Power of the Dog, are the runaway favourites, both directors had a fighting chance in 1994. At the time, Spielberg was 47 and had yet to enter the greatest-of-all-time conversation, although he had a stellar three Oscar nominations for directing. That was the backdrop when he was nominated for Schindler\u2019s List, the Holocaust drama about a German businessman who saved more than 1,100 Jews from Nazi death camps. The film was the most-nominated feature that year, with 12 mentions in all, including one for best picture.<\/p>\n

Although the directors\u2019 field included James Ivory (The Remains of the Day), Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) and Robert Altman (Short Cuts), Spielberg\u2019s strongest challenger was Campion, then 39, who was just the second woman ever nominated in the category, for her period drama The Piano. That film about a Scottish woman finding love outside an arranged marriage in 19th-century New Zealand earned eight nominations, including best picture. (Campion wrote the screenplay and had become the first female filmmaker to win the Palme d\u2019Or, the highest prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the previous summer.) At first, Campion had the edge after winning best director at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, but both groups gave best picture to Schindler\u2019s List. Spielberg\u2019s film picked up a third accolade from the National Board of Review, which gave best director to Martin Scorsese for The Age of Innocence. Film critic Jack Mathews noted in Newsday that the first three critics awards naming Schindler\u2019s List as their best picture while snubbing Spielberg in the director race recalled the controversy over The Color Purple eight years earlier, when that Spielberg drama received 11 Oscar nominations but none for directing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe charge made then by outraged Spielberg supporters was that his colleagues were too jealous of his success to honor him,\u201d Mathews wrote. But in 1994 Spielberg mounted a comeback, winning the Golden Globe in January and the Directors Guild Award in early March. By the night of the 66th Academy Awards ceremony, on March 21 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the race was his to lose.<\/p>\n

He got off to a strong start: Schindler\u2019s List picked up awards for the best-adapted screenplay, art direction, cinematography, film editing and original score (John Williams\u2019 third Oscar for collaboration with Spielberg). The Piano won best actress for Holly Hunter\u2019s wordless performance as a sign language-using piano player; a surprise best-supporting actress statuette for Anna Paquin, who at 11 became the second-youngest winner of a competitive acting Oscar (after Tatum O\u2019Neal for Paper Moon); and a best original screenplay prize for Campion. Although it was a great night if you were Spielberg, the stack of Schindler\u2019s List victories hardly made for gripping television \u2014 Orlando Sentinel film critic Jay Boyar bemoaned that \u201cthis year\u2019s Oscarcast was only a little more exciting than a wine snob droning on about his favourite vintages.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, it was time for the big reveal. The best director presenter, Clint Eastwood, who had won the previous year for Unforgiven, slid open the envelope. \u201cThe Oscar goes to \u2014 this is a big surprise,\u201d Eastwood said dryly before reading the name everyone knew was coming. \u201cSteven Spielberg.\u201d A teary Spielberg kissed his wife and hugged his 74-year-old mom. He made his way to the stage as the room gave him a rousing standing ovation. He hugged Eastwood and took the statuette \u2014 his first Oscar \u2014 clutching it to his heart as he tentatively felt its weight. \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve ever had one of these in my hand,\u201d said Spielberg, who had previously been nominated for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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