GayCultureLand: The Oscar-winning Songs Countdown: 1992

Our last entry for the Oscar-winning Songs Countdown included three classic films that were unlucky enough to be competing against each other. You’d been forgiven for not remembering – after all that story appeared more than 4 months ago - so let me remind you the films: Godfather, Cabaret, and Deliverance. 20 years later, the same thing happened. This is the year we’ll be examining today.

Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game

Clint Eastwood had been in movies since 1955, a movie star in the 1960s and a megastar in the 70s and 80s. He first directed a movie in 1971 and had since made many interesting ones, Bird (1988) being his best until then. In 1992 he returned to the genre that made him famous by starring in and directing a film called Unforgiven. The movie, an instant classic, was many things at once: it was a Western as well as a study of what a Western is, it was an examination of morality as well as a potent character-driven drama. Eastwood was great as the disillusioned retired pistolero and he was surrounded by great actors – Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris who don't do anything they haven't done before, but the roles suit their personae to a degree where they approach archetypal status.

As Kenneth Turan wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

“Simultaneously heroic and nihilistic, reeking of myth but modern as they come, it is a Western for those who know and cherish the form, a film that resonates with the spirit of films past while staking out a territory quite its own.”

When awards’ time arrived, many prestigious film critics’ associations and filmmakers’ guilds showered the film with praise. The Academy followed suit, so Unforgiven won four major Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, and Film Editing). It also collected five more nominations (Best Actor for Eastwood, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Sound).

This is the film’s trailer:

Before David Lean’s A Passage To India (1984) there were no E.M. Forster film adaptations, as incredible as it may seem. Then the magnificent trio (James Ivory, director, his partner in real life Ismail Merchant, producer, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, screenwriter) came along and magnificently adapted three of Forster’s novel in six year’s: A Room With A View (1985), the gay-themed classic Maurice (1987), and finally Howard’s End (1992).

Howard’s End insightfully deals with class relations in turn-of-the-20th-century Britain. As Roger Ebert said in the Chicago Sun-Times, “The splendid cast embodies the characters so fully that the events actually seem to be happening to them, instead of unfolding from a screenplay.” That splendid cast included Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Samuel West.

The film was enthusiastically received by film critics, both at the time, as Ebert’s review testifies, as well as today. Recently, Variety wrote, “Perhaps the best film made during the 30-year partnership of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.”

The Academy responded to the film’s quality, awarding the film with three Oscars (Best Actress for Emma Thompson, Adapted Screenplay, and Art Direction-Set Decoration) and six more nominations (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave, Original Score, Cinematography, and Costume Design).

This is the film’s trailer:

One of the movie’s nomination was for Best Score (Richard Robbins). Here’s the film’s main theme:

Speaking of, let’s listen to the rest of the Best Score nominees. We’ll start with the winner: Alan Menken was on a roll at the Oscars and Aladdin was the highest-grossing movie of the year. It’s no wonder that this is where the Oscar went. This piece is called Jasmine's Garden:

Also nominated was Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It (Mark Isham, composer). The film may have lost the Oscar for music, but it won for its cinematography. This is part of the score:

The fourth highest-grosser of the year was an erotic thriller by Paul Verhoeven called Basic Instinct. Its score, by veteran Jerry Goldsmith, was also nominated:

Finally, another revered veteran, John Barry, was nominated for his score of Richard Attenborough’s biography of the Little Tramp, simply called Chaplin:

The third great film battling for Best Picture that year was Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game. An amazing film that is as much about gender as it is about terrorism, while actually being a deeply moving love story, as well as the best illustration of The Scorpion and the Frog fable ever.

The critics agreed: Washington Post wrote, “From the performances by Rea, Davidson, and Whitaker, to Jordan's endlessly original script, to Anne Dudley's melancholy score, and Lyle Lovett's closing rendition of Stand by Your Man, The Crying Game enthralls and amazes us. It deserves to be called great.”

The Academy justly rewarded Neil Jordan with an Original Screenplay Oscar, one of the most deserving wins for this category. The movie had five more major Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actor for Stephen Rea, Supporting Actor for Jay Davidson, and Film Editing).

This is the scene where Jay Davidson sings the title song:

This is another key scene from the film:

Boy George’s wonderful version of The Crying Game also appears on the film’s soundtrack. It was a hit:

Unfortunately, the song wasn’t eligible for the Best Song Oscar, since it wasn’t original. The original appeared way back in 1964. It was sung by Dave Berry. Here it is:

Speaking of, here are the Best Song nominees: Aladdin had two nominees in the category. Alan Menken wrote the music for both, while Menken’s writing partner, Howard Ashman, wrote the lyrics to one of these, Friend Like Me. Unfortunately, Ashman had died of AIDS before completing the songs – and so Tim Rice (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, etc) filled in for him. It was Rice that wrote the lyrics to A Whole New World, the song that would eventually win the award. This is the movie version, performed by Brad Kane and Lea Salonga:

It was the only Disney animation song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100, as covered by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle:

Here’s the other nominee from Aladdin, Friend Like Me:

There was another film with two nominated songs: it was the romantic thriller starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner called The Bodyguard, the second highest-grossing film of 1992, behind Aladdin. Here’s the list with the ten highest-grossers:

Rank	Title	Distributor	Worldwide gross
1.	Aladdin	Disney	$504,050,219
2.	The Bodyguard	Warner Bros.	$411,006,740
3.	Home Alone 2: Lost in New York	20th Century Fox	$358,994,850
4.	Basic Instinct	TriStar	$352,927,224
5.	Lethal Weapon 3	Warner Bros.	$321,731,527
6.	Batman Returns	Warner Bros.	$266,822,354
7.	A Few Good Men	Columbia	$243,240,178
8.	Sister Act	Touchstone	$231,605,150
9.	Bram Stoker's Dracula	Columbia	$215,862,692
10.	Wayne's World	Paramount	$183,097,323

I Will Always Love You was not nominated since it wasn’t eligible (it was written and first recorded by Dolly Parton.) I Have Nothing, however, was a nominee. It was written by David Foster (music) and Linda Thompson (lyrics):

Here’s the other nominee from The Bodyguard, Run to You, written by Jud J. Friedman (music) and Allan Dennis Rich (lyrics):

The final song to be nominated was from a movie called The Mambo Kings, starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante. The song was Beautiful Maria of My Soul, written by Robert Kraft (music) and Arne Glimcher (lyrics), it was performed twice; in Spanish by Antonio Banderas:

… and in English by Los Lobos:

Strangely, the only original artists to perform the tunes live at the Oscars ceremony were Brad Kane and Lea Salonga, who provided the singing voices for Aladdin and Princess Jasmine in the Disney film. Nell Carter took care of Friend Like Me, Natalie Cole did the honors for Whitney Houston, and since Antonio Banderas – who sung the tune in The Mambo Kings – was not comfortable with doing so live on stage, Placido Domingo and Sheila E. took care of that song. This made Domingo the first Spaniard to perform live at the Oscars.

Other songs that were eligible that failed to be nominated include Madonna’s This Used to Be My Playground from the film A League of Their Own:

Arrested Development’s Malcolm X contribution, Revolution:

Malcolm X, one of Spike Lee’s good films, may not have been nominated for Best Song, it was however nominated for two Oscars: Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Costume Design.

Toys, a film starring Robin Williams, was nominated for Art Direction-Set Decoration and Costume Design but not for its song, The Closing of the Year. Here it is performed by Wendy & Lisa feat. Seal:

Singles was Cameron Crowe’s tribute to grunge-era Seattle. I know that Academy members are probably not grunge music aficionados but a few of the film’s songs are worth mentioning: this is Breath by Pearl Jam:

… this is State of Love and Trust, also by Pearl Jam:

… this is Paul Westerberg’s Dyslexic Heart:

… and this is Waiting for Somebody, also by Paul Westerberg:

The other two films nominated for Best Picture were inferior to the aforementioned three. Not that Scent Of A Woman and A Few Good Men were bad, quite the contrary. They were, however, standard mainstream Hollywood product and they stood in the way of films more worthy of being nominated for Best Picture: like Robert Altman’s The Player, which was at least nominated for Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Film Editing. Here’s part of the famous one-take opening scene:

Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs was not nominated for anything for f*ck’s sake! A worthy Best Picture nominee if there ever was one. Here’s the opening scene from the film:

Not to be unfair to Scent Of A Woman (after all it did give Al Pacino his long-deserved Oscar) this is the famous tango scene:

… And this is Jack Nicholson chewing the scenery against Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men:

Talking about the acting awards, there was a minor shock when Marisa Tomei won the Supporting Actress Oscar against Vanessa Redgrave (Howard’s End), Miranda Richardson (in Louis Malle’s excellent Damage), Joan Plowright (in the nostalgic Enchanted April), and Judy Davis (Woody Allen’s interesting Husband and Wives). Some say it was because Tomei was the only one among the nominees who was American…

These were the submissions of films not in the English language:

Submitting country	Film title used in nomination	Language(s)	Original title	Director(s)	Result
Argentina	The Dark Side of the Heart	Spanish	El lado oscuro del corazón	Eliseo Subiela	Not Nominated
Austria	Benny's Video	German	Bennys Video	Michael Haneke	Not Nominated
Belgium	Daens	Dutch, French	Daens	Stijn Coninx	Nominated
Canada	Léolo	French	Léolo	Jean-Claude Lauzon	Not Nominated
China	The Story of Qiu Ju	Chinese	秋菊打官司	Zhang Yimou	Not Nominated
Croatia	Story from Croatia	Croatian	Priča iz Hrvatske	Krsto Papić	Not Nominated
Cuba	Adorable Lies	Spanish	Adorables Mentiras	Gerardo Chijona	Not Nominated
Denmark	Sofie	Danish	Sofie	Liv Ullmann	Not Nominated
Estonia	Those Old Love Letters	Estonian	Need vanad armastuskirjad	Mati Põldre	Not Nominated
France	Indochina	French	Indochine	Régis Wargnier	Won Academy Award
Germany	Schtonk!	German	Schtonk!	Helmut Dietl	Nominated
Hungary	Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe	Hungarian	Édes Emma, drága Böbe - vázlatok, aktok	István Szabó	Not Nominated
Iceland	As in Heaven	Icelandic	Svo á jörðu sem á himni	Kristín Jóhannesdóttir	Not Nominated
India	Thevar Magan	Tamil	தேவர் மகன்	Bharathan	Not Nominated
Indonesia	Mer's Lips	Indonesian	Bibir Mer	Arifin C. Noer	Not Nominated
Israel	Life According to Agfa	Hebrew	החיים על פי אגפה	Assi Dayan	Not Nominated
Italy	The Stolen Children	Italian	Il Ladro di Bambini	Gianni Amelio	Not Nominated
Japan	The Oil-Hell Murder	Japanese	女殺し油地獄	Hideo Gosha	Not Nominated
Kazakhstan	The Fall of Otrar	Kazakh, Mandarin, Mongolian	Гибел Отрара (Отырардың күйреуі)	Ardak Amirkulov	Not Nominated
Latvia	The Child of Man	Latvian	Cilvēka bērns	Jānis Streičs	Not Nominated
Mexico	Like Water for Chocolate	Spanish	Como agua para chocolate	Alfonso Arau	Not Nominated
Netherlands	The Northerners	Dutch	De Noorderlingen	Alex van Warmerdam	Not Nominated
Norway	The Warrior's Heart	Norwegian	Krigerens hjerte	Leidulv Risan	Not Nominated
Poland	All That Really Matters	Polish	Wszystko, co najważniejsze	Robert Gliński	Not Nominated
Portugal	Day of Despair	Portuguese	O dia do desespero	Manoel de Oliveira	Not Nominated
Romania	Luxury Hotel	Romanian	Hotel de Lux	Dan Pița	Not Nominated
Russia	Close to Eden	Russian	Урга	Nikita Mikhalkov	Nominated
Spain	The Fencing Master	Spanish	El Maestro de esgrima	Pedro Olea	Not Nominated
Sweden	House of Angels	Swedish	Änglagård	Colin Nutley	Not Nominated
Switzerland	Off Season	French	Hors saison	Daniel Schmid	Not Nominated
Taiwan	Peach Blossom Land	Chinese	暗戀桃花源	Stan Lai	Not Nominated
Turkey	Piano Piano Kid	Turkish	Piano Piano Bacaksız	Tunç Başaran	Not Nominated
Uruguay	A Place in the World	Spanish	Un lugar en el mundo	Adolfo Aristarain	Disqualified

Indochine from France was a natural winner: epic in scope and a Catherine Deneuve better than even – she justly received her only Best Actress nomination. Daens from Belgium was also expectedly nominated: a period film about a humanitarian priest who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in factories. Urga/Close to Eden from Russia was also a predictable nominee, the film’s director Nikita Mikhalkov was a highly respected film-maker, fresh off the success of Dark Eyes. In a couple of years, his next movie would be the Foreign Language winner.

Germany’s Schtonk! was a nominee out of left field. A satirical film about Hitler’s diaries hoax, it was too light to be taken seriously and not funny enough to really merit a place in the final five. But the Academy totally f*cked up as far as the fifth nominee was concerned. The film A Place in the World, which was submitted by Uruguay, was disqualified after the nominations were announced in early 1993 when it was discovered that the film was an overwhelmingly Argentine production with minimal input from Uruguayans. Argentina had selected another film to compete for the award, so director Adolfo Aristarain asked Uruguay (which had never entered the competition before) to submit it instead. The Argentine film did not get nominated. A Place in the World was removed from the ballot (leaving only four films in contention for the award), leading the director to sue the Academy.

So, what could have been nominated in the place of these two films? Definitely Léolo, the entry from Canada, one of the best films of the year. Here’s a scene:

Then there was Il Ladro di Bambini (The Stolen Children) from Italy. A very good film. There was Como agua para chocolate (Like Water From Chocolate) from Mexico. There was Benny’s Video from Austria, Michael Haneke’s second film. There was also the Story Of Qiu Ju from China – but although I’m a big admirer of Zhang Yimou, this wasn’t one of his better films.

Other worthy films that came out in 1992 except for the ones mentioned above include Keith Gordon’s A Midnight Clear, Michael Mann’s The Last Of The Mohicans, Woody Allen’s Shadows And Fog, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, Bille August’s The Best Intentions, Chen Kaige’s Life On A String, Claude Sautet’s Nelly Et Monsieur Arnaud, Stephen Frears’ Accidental Hero, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Carl Franklin’s One False Move, Bill Duke’s Deep Cover, George Miller’s Lorenzo’s Oil, Tous Les Matins Du Monde by Alain Corneau, John Sayles’ Passion Fish, Tom Kalin’s Swoon, and Ken Olin’s Doing Time On Maple Drive. The last two are gay-themed.

For the completists among you, here are all the Oscar nominees: