History Crunches Popcorn

By Gerald Clarke

Gandhi captures the prize Oscars from E.T.

Americans must love the movies. Why else would they spend 3 1/2 hours every spring watching what may be the dullest show on earth--the Oscars? But, then, they may merely like puzzles, such as this year's: Why were the musical numbers so bad? Why was the multiuntalented Peter Allen chosen to sing and dance a medley of Irving Berlin songs, when he can do neither? Or, more to the point, why was Gandhi, good as it is, chosen Best Picture over E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, the most popular movie of the year and the highest grosser (more than $350 million) of all time?

Except for Gandhi, most of the major winners were hardly surprises. Meryl Streep was named Best Actress for her dazzling performance as the doomed survivor of the Nazi camps in Sophie's Choice. Ben Kingsley won the Best Actor award for his uncanny portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi; Louis Gossett Jr. was chosen Best Supporting Actor for his hard-nosed drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman; and Jessica Lange, who was also running in the Best Actress category for Frances, was picked as Best Supporting Actress for playing the girl who gets the girl, Dustin Hoffman, in Tootsie.

E.T., which appeared almost certain to sweep many of the top prizes just a few months ago, managed, by contrast, to crawl away with only four minor trophies. Gandhi took most of the awards E. T. was expected to get, including Best Director (Richard Attenborough), Best Original Screenplay (John Briley), Best Cinematography (Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor) and Best Film Editing (John Bloom). All in all, the 3-hr. 5-min. epic won eight prizes, more than any other film since Cabaret, which snatched eight in 1972.

The triumph of Gandhi was so sweeping that many people in the industry viewed it as a deliberate rebuke of E.T. and Steven Spielberg, its creator, producer and director. Though he is only 35, Spielberg has directed four of the ten biggest money makers in Hollywood history, including, besides E.T, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Yet neither he nor any of his pictures has ever won a major award.

Even Tootsie 's director, Sydney Pollack, who was competing against Spielberg, voiced misgivings about this year's snub. "The entire world has endorsed everything Steven has ever done, and the academy ignored it," he said. "Probably Steven's hair must get whiter before he can win." In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Spielberg openly expressed his disappointment: "I've been around long enough to know that peopie who deserve Oscars don't always win them. The tendency is for important films to win over popcorn entertainment. History is more weighty than popcorn."

That, even more than any backlash against Spielberg, seemed to be the reason for Gandhi's success: all appearances to the contrary, the 3,953 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences like to think of themselves as responsible citizens. Given the choice between a serious movie and one that is merely entertaining, they will almost always choose the former. Examples in the past: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest over Jaws (1975) and Gentleman's Agreement over Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

This year, says Producer Lester Persky (Taxi Driver), "they voted for everything they thought was noble. Gandhi was a good, safe vote for people who wanted to look above their bellybuttons." Wrote Columnist Joe Morgenstern in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner: "Gandhi was everything the voting members of the academy would like to be: moral, tan and thin."

Academy Awards reflect the concerns of the time as well as the merits of the films themselves; a winner one year might be rejected the next, when the public's mood has shifted to a different topic. This year's dominant concern surely is fear of war, and Gandhi has had a ready and receptive audience. "People are preoccupied with destruction and nuclear war, and this story of nonviolence is irresistible," says Pollack. "When the academy voted, it was saying, This is the most important subject in the world, and this picture must be rewarded.' "

That, at least, was the opinion of the winners themselves, who in speeches that occasionally verged on the sanctimonious, continually invoked the magic name of Gandhi. "I believe he had something to say to all of us everywhere in the world," said Attenborough, as he accepted the award for Best Picture. "In all truth, it is not me . . . that you truly honor. You honor Mahatma Gandhi and his plea to all of us to live in peace." In India, where Gandhi is a smash, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (no kin) used almost the same phrases, adding that Gandhi's ideals are "very relevant in a world of increasing violence."

Peace and good will on earth are clearly what most of the voters believed in as well. E.T. is peaceful too, but he is sitting there in his galaxy 3 million light years away. He will have to be satisfied with those Reese's Pieces that he used to munch and, if he wants it, a pot of gold awaiting him here below. --By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Joseph J. Kane/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York

With reporting by Joseph J. Kane/Los Angeles and Janice C. Simpson/New York This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.