The Oscar-winning Songs Countdown: 1984

1984 is an important year, because, you know, Orwell. So, weird things were happening to the Oscars as well; like an all-time record that occured concerning the Best Song category. More of that in a moment. Let's begin!

At least three glamorous leading ladies traded haute couture dresses for farmers' overalls that year - and it paid off. First off the (farm)gate came Places In The Heart, Oscar winner Robert Benton's (Kramer Vs Kramer) Depression-era childhood recollection, filmed on location in his hometown in Texas. With good up-and-coming actors like Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, John Malkovich, and Lindsay Crouse in the supporting parts, the central role went to Sally Field, who coincidentally (?) won her first Oscar for Norma Rae the same year that Benton got his own. (I have a theory for that, because it happens often; it seems that people who win the Oscar in the same year for different movies form a kind of bond leading them to later work together.) Anyway, Sally didn't have a great career after Norma Rae, and welcomed the opportunity to return to great parts. The film opened to good reviews, especially for Sally Field.

Jessica Lange had been approached to star in The River, a modern-day drama about a Tennessee farming couple besieged by mortgage foreclosures and flash floods, but she decided instead to produce her own farm vehicle, Country, about an Iowa farming couple besieged by mortgage foreclosures and a tornado, costarring Lange's real-life leading man, Sam Shepard. When critic Gene Siskel asked her why Country and The River (starring Sissy Spacek and Mel Gibson) had so much in common, Lange responded: "I think these films only have a vague similarity to each other." But columnist Harry Haun snickered, "C'mon now, do you really think it's a coincidence that the cow in The River is named Jessica?"

When the returns were in, Places In The Heart made more at the box-office than the other two farm movies combined. One area in which The River came on top, however, was the film's score; it was composed by none other than the great John Williams:

Some actresses did have a chance to wear glamorous clothes in that year's movies, but they had to look back in time: James Ivory wasn't yet the household name that he became after his next movie, A Room With A View. Still, he was respected enough to be entrusted with an adaptation of Henry James' The Bostonians. His original leading woman, Glenn Close, walked out on him, so Ivory's producer (and life-partner) Ismail Merchant persuaded Vanessa Redgrave, who had previously turned down the part, to reconsider. But then the US State Department wouldn't let Vanessa in the country. It took a very sympathetic immigration officer who had loved Merchant-Ivory's previous offering, The Europeans, to speed things up and thus allow the film to happen. It became a modest arthouse hit, and the reviews were very good.

David Lean hadn't made a movie for more than a decade. "After Ryan's Daughter I had such terrible notices that I really lost heart," he confessed. However, when producers Brabourne and Goodwin obtained the film rights to the late E.M. Forster's novel A Passage To India, a film Lean had been wanting to make since 1958, he came out of retirement. Lean cast Australian Judy Davis in the central role. He also insisted on Indian actor Victor Banerjee for the role of Dr. Aziz. For the part of the enigmatic Mrs. Moore, he pressured Dame Peggy Ashcroft into accepting the part: "Mr. Lean, I'm 75 years old," she protested. "So am I," he retorted.

David Lean needn't have bothered about critical reception; both The New York Film Critics and The National Board Of Review named A Passage To India Best Picture and David Lean Best Director. A lot of awards' love also went to the film's soundtrack, composed by the man who had already won two Oscars for his other two classic soundtracks of Lean's movies: Lawrence Of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. We are of course referring to the French genius of Maurice Jarre (Jean-Michel's father):

The LA critics, however, chose another movie for Best Picture: Milos Forman's Amadeus. An adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning play that portrayed Mozart's life and career through the jealous but admiring eyes of his rival Salieri, it was notable for some very daring, anti-Hollywood decisions by Mr. Forman. First of all, he cast two unknowns in the leading roles. F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce were barely known before Amadeus. Another decision that Forman made was to eschew Hollywood soundstages in favor of the natural scenery of his native Czechoslovakia. "Prague is a gem," he said, "because it's possible to pivot the camera a full 360º and never encounter a modern vision."

The soundtrack couldn't hope for an Oscar, but it's really worth listening to anyway, don't you think?

John Malkovich had more than one big film out that year; as well as Places In The Heart, he had a part in a movie based on an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg about his search for his Cambodian interpreter Dith Pran, who had been imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge for four years before escaping to Thailand. The producer was David Puttnam, fresh off his triumph with Chariots Of Fire. The director was a film novice, although he had plenty of experience on TV and theatre, Roland Joffé. The part of Schanberg was given to Sam Waterston, who hadn't had a big film part since The Great Gatsby. Finding someone to play Dith Pran was more difficult; over 300 expatriate Cambodians were interviewed, before casting agent Pat Golden saw a photo of Dr. Haing S. Ngor enjoying himself at a wedding reception. Upon investigating, Golden learned that Ngor's Cambodian escape was a virtual rerun of Pran's but with a difference - whereas Pran's loved ones had fled and were waiting for him in the US, Dr. Ngor watched almost his entire family die of starvation. The film was a critical and commercial success.

Also very successful was the soundtrack, by Mike Oldfield. Here's the exquisite Etude:

If the film's finale doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will:

Glenn Close may have left The Bostonians, but she was far from idle; she starred alongside Robert Redford, Barbara Hershey, and Kim Basinger in Barry Levinson's adaptation of Bernard Malamud's The Natural. Close's performance was singled out by the critics. So was the film's soundtrack by Randy Newman:

Glenn Close was heard, but not seen, in another of that year's Oscar movies: Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes starred newcomer Christopher Lambert and Calvin Klein model Andie MacDowell alongside screen veterans like Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm and James Fox. Three days before the film bowed, it was revealed that MacDowell had not been able to overcome her thick Southern drawl and that all her dialogue had to be redubbed by Glenn Close. So whether by her presence or by her absence, by her image or by her voice, Close was a definite factor that year.

John Huston's latest work was an adaptation of Malcolm Lowry's cult classic Under The Volcano. Albert Finney, an actor who never appeared at the Oscars on any of his five nominations, excelled at the central role. Also receiving raves was Alex North's score:

The Nominations

The Oscars verified the trend; to get a Best Actress nomination, one should either play a farmer, or a woman from the 19th or early 20th century. Sally Field, Cissy Spacek and Jessica Lange were all rewarded for looking unglamorous. Judy Davis and Vanessa Redgrave were rewarded for giving us repressed sexuality.

The two most nominated movies battling it out against each other were Amadeus and A Passage To India (11 nominations each). They both competed for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Costumes, Cinematography, Editing, and Sound. Amadeus also competed for Makeup and for Best Actor twice over; both Abraham and Hulce were nominated. A Passage To India was also nominated for Best Actress (Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Ashcroft), and Best Original Score.

Also big Oscar players were The Killing Fields and Places In The Heart (7 nominations each). They were both nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor. Except for Ngor in The Killing Fields and Malkovich for Places In The Heart, the other Best Supporting Actor nominees were: Ralph Richardson for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, who had died before the film was even released. Noriyuki Pat Morita for one of the most popular films of the year, Karate Kid. And Adolph Caesar, for Norman Jewison's racially charged crime drama, A Soldier's Story, which was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The other four nominations for The Killing Fields were Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, and Best Actor for Sam Waterston. Except for Waterston, Abraham, and Hulce, Finney was nominated for Under The Volcano and finally Jeff Bridges for John Carpenter's cute sci-fi adventure, Starman.

The other four nominations for Places In The Heart were Best Original Screenplay, Costumes, Best Actress for Sally Field and Supporting Actress for Lindsay Crouse. Along with Ashcroft and Crouse, nominated for Best Supporting Actress were: Christine Lahti for the Goldie Hawn vehicle Swing Shift, the veteran Geraldine Page for Village Dreams, and Glenn Close for The Natural.

Other notable nominated films included Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose (Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), the sequel to 2001 called 2010 (Art Direction, Costumes, Sound, Visual F/X, and Makeup), Coppola's Cotton Club (Art Direction, Editing), Zemeckis' Romancing The Stone (Editing), Ron Howard's Splash (Original Screenplay), another of the year's biggest hits, Beverly Hills Cop (Original Screenplay), Gregory Nava's El Norte (Original Screenplay), David Lynch's Dune (Sound), and Robert Epstein's groundbreaking documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk.

The Foreign Film Category surprisingly didn't include any international hit. The five were: Dangerous Moves from Switzerland, Beyond The Walls from Israel, Camila from Argentina, Double Feature from Spain, and War-Time Romance from the Soviet Union.

What about the nominees in the music categories? In the Best Music, Original Score category, the nominees were: Maurice Jarre (A Passage To India), Alex North (Under The Volcano / his 15th nomination without a win!), Randy Newman (The Natural), and two nominations for John Williams: one for the River, and one for Spielberg's blockbuster, Indiana Jones Temple of Doom:

There was one film that was left out of the Oscars altogether, very unjustly in my opinion: Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon A Time In America, which was accompanied by the best score of the year - not nominated - by the great Ennio Morricone:

Heck, one track is not enough:

The nominees for Best Music, Original Song Score were: Kris Kristofferson for Songwriter:

Jeff Moss for The Muppets Take Manhattan:

Finally Prince, in that year's most important musical statement, Purple Rain:

In The Best Music, Original Song category, something happened that never happened before and will probably never happen again: all five nominees had been #1 hits on the US Hot 100. Here they are:

From The Woman In Red; I Just Called To Say I Love You written and performed by Stevie Wonder:

From Against All Odds; Against All Odds written and performed by Phil Collins:

From Ghostbusters; Ghostbusters written and performed by Ray Parker Jr.:

From Footloose; Footloose, music and lyrics by Kenny Loggins & Dean Pitchford; performed by Kenny Loggins:

Also from Footloose; Let's Hear It for the Boy, music and lyrics by Dean Pitchford & Tom Snow; performed by Deniece Williams:

Who could have been nominated instead? Well, Prince, duh, for any song from Purple Rain. We've listened to the title song, how about When Doves Cry:

... Or Let's Go Crazy:

Also eligible: The Heat Is On, by Glenn Frey, from Beverly Hills Cop:

I Can Dream About You, by Dan Hartman, from Streets On Fire:

There's No Stopping Us, by Ollie & Jerry, from Breakin':

If You Were Here, by the Thompson Twins, from 16 Candles:

Not to forget the songs from This is Spinal Tap. For instance, Stonehenge:

The Winners

Amadeus was the biggest winner of the evening, with 8 (out of 10 possible) wins (in the Best Actor category, Abraham defeated Hulce). It only lost Cinematography and Editing to The Killing Fields, which also won Best Supporting Actor for Haing S. Ngor, the second time (after 1946) when an amateur was crowned the winner in this category.

A Passage to India got Best Supporting Actress for Peggy Ashcroft and Best Music, Original Score for Maurice Jarre, his third. Places In The Heart got Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Sally Field (and her famous "you like me!" speech).

The Times Of Harvey Milk made us proud and emotional; it won for Best Documentary Feature. Indiana Jones got Visual F/X, while The River got Sound Editing. Best Foreign Film went to Switzerland and Dangerous Moves.

Prince deservedly won Best Music, Original Song Score for Purple Rain and made a dazzling appearance. Which brings us to the Best Original Song award: it went to Stevie Wonder and The Woman In Red.

Now, Stevie Wonder is one of my favorite musicians. Especially in the 70s, almost every song he made was a masterpiece. I Just Called To Say I Love You, however, is one of his weaker songs. I wouldn't dare call it bad, but I would dare call it bland. In fact, all four other nominees deserved the award more than him, as well as a couple of songs from Purple Rain. The clear winner for me though was Against All Odds. First of all, it's a heartbreaking song on its own. Then it absolutely complemented the movie it was made for. I could say that while the song could (and did) survive beyond the movie, the movie would be much less without the song. That's the definition of Oscar for Best Song. However, Phil Collins wasn't much of a veteran yet, while Stevie was. Also The Woman In Red was seen by many more Oscar voters than Against All Odds. Which is a pity, because it was a very good movie with an excellent song soundtrack that included, except for the song in question, songs by Stevie Nicks, Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford, Big Country, and Kid Creole & The Coconuts.