Saint Oscar

I braved the street closures and security juggernaut of Hollywood Boulevard yesterday to take a look at how preparations for the Oscars were going. Hundreds of workers were laying red carpets, setting up lights, moving bushels of white roses, and carting around so many giant Oscar statues it was starting to look like the city that the Hebrew slaves built for the Pharaoh in “The Ten Commandments.”

Did you know that long before the Charlton Heston version, Cecil B. DeMille made an epic silent film of “The Ten Commandments” in 1923? He built one of the largest sets in film history and the fascinating part is that instead of striking the set when shooting was completed, he had it buried in the California desert. In his autobiography DeMille gives clues as to the whereabouts of this gigantic set and speculates about the confusion it might cause to archaeologists a thousand years in the future who might think that ancient Egyptian culture extended to the western coast of North America! Following these clues, archaeologists in the 90s used sonar waves to find the buried set including the dozens of gargantuan sphinxes. Last I heard they needed about a million dollars to excavate it in its entirety so apart from a few items most of it is still buried deep in the California dunes.

Those old film sets were on my mind yesterday because the Kodak Theatre, site of the Oscars, is at the Hollywood & Highland complex which incorporates the recreated set pieces from D. W. Griffith’s 1916 film “Intolerance,” at the time the most expensive set ever built. It used to stand just a few blocks away at Sunset and La Brea. This was Griffith’s first film after the controversial “Birth of a Nation” (which glorified the Ku Klux Klan) and, as if to make up for it, he focused the epic around four wildly different yet parallel stories about man’s inhumanity to man and what can result from bigotry and religious hatred. The imposing Hollywood & Highland set piece is from the Babylonian sequence in which peace-loving Prince Belshazzar must cope with the fall of Babylon into the hands of King Cyrus the Persian. Griffith used over 16,000 extras in the outdoor set which cost a full third of the film’s massive two million dollar budget. If you ever get a chance to see this rarely screened film, you should run to the theatre, preferably at the nearby American Cinematheque, once Grauman’s Egyptian, so that afterwards you can walk a block over and traipse through the Babylonian set yourself. I give the designers of Hollywood & Highland a lot of credit for building their otherwise humdrum shopping complex around this very appropriate design.

But even more striking than the ancient Babylonian archway was the scene I stumbled onto when I arrived in Hollywood, surely one of the most unusual sights I’ve ever seen. If I had been ten minutes earlier or later I would have missed the whole thing. There, walking in a solemn, single-file line, were 60 or so people, each carrying one of the Oscars that will be given out tonight. Wearing black gloves and clutching their Oscar like it was the Holy Grail, they marched the statues into the Kodak Theatre one by one in what looked like a religious event, every bit as laden with meaning as any scene in Griffith’s “Intolerance” or DeMille’s “Ten Commandments.” I guess the Oscar is our modern-day Golden Calf—God knows we are only too quick to worship at its altar. Where is our Moses to lead us out of the desert into the Promised Land? Jon Stewart? Why not, the Oscar telecast does sometimes feel as long as the exodus from Egypt!

Wish me luck, I’m going to attempt to breach the near-total Hollywood lockdown one more time to get to the Sunday Farmer’s Market to buy treats for our viewing tonight. I’m having some second thoughts about a few of my Oscar predictions although I still think it will be a big night for “Brokeback Mountain.” I really hope that “Walk the Line” wins either of the top acting honors and I realize I never commented on the writing awards. For Best Original Screenplay I predict that Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco will win for the superb “Crash” (I hope that film wins enough to warrant a new widespread release), and for Best Adapted Screenplay I predict Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana will take it home for “Brokeback Mountain” (but in fairness to the other writers, I will say that I still haven’t seen “The Constant Gardener” or “A History of Violence”). I thought McMurtry should have won 35 years ago for “The Last Picture Show.” Oh, and last night I saw the German Best Foreign Film nominee “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” which deserves to win for the superb performance of Julia Jentsch as the young woman who was part of the German resistance group called “The White Rose” during World War II and was guillotined by the Nazis along with her brother Hans. I only wish the film had focused more broadly on the group and less on her last days in prison, but I do hope more people see this film. I’m sure there will be some fireworks on both sides if the Palestinian film “Paradise Now” takes home the prize.

Why don’t they just abolish the Best Original Song category at this point? The days of great movie songs are long over and now it’s so disgustingly obvious when filmmakers throw a new song in the closing credits that they’re just doing so to try to get an Oscar nomination. Still, it would be fun to see Dolly Parton win for her song “Travelin’ Thru” from “Transamerica” and I do look forward to watching the faces of the stodgier members of the Academy tonight as they’re listening to “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from “Hustle & Flow.” Don’t adjust your sets—that sound you hear is Irving Berlin spinning in his grave.

Comments

[Randi(cruisin-mom)]

Danny, that is an amazing picture of the Oscars being brought into the Kodak theatre.
I'm with you about the Best Song. When was the last time there was a truly great original song?

[Neil]

There is so much wrong with the Oscars, I don't know where to begin. It's just such a tedious show. Can't the best minds in TV and movies do something? Either make it a five hour industry event and let everyone just talk as much as they want -- maybe someone will actually say something interesting before the music starts to play -- or bring back the stupid entertainment. I like Jon Stewart, but he is too low key for this event for my taste. If American Idol had been on, I would have watched that instead.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

What a terrific moment to have caught with your camera, Danny...I've never even seen another photgraph of that 'happening'...Wonderful! Frankly, I was thrilled when the song "It's Hard Out There For A Pimp" won...at least it is an integral part of that film, which I liked very very much, by the way...including the building and creating of that song....I found that quite a wonderful part of that film!!! And BTW it's the first song in years and years that can lay clain to that!

Did you ever see the Mocumentary made by Peter Jackson somewhat based on the sets being buried idea.only it takes place in New Zealand I believe....OY..I cannot think of the name of it right now..It should be on IMDB of course....well, I had no idea it was not 'the real thing' and bought it, hook line and sinker!

Anyway...I love that you went up to my neighborhood and got those great pictures!

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

"FORGOTTEN SILVER" is the name of that Peter Jackson Mocumentary..1995! It is on DVD if you ever are of a mind to see it...

[LondonGal]

I'm so glad that I'm not alone in the desire for abolishment of original song! What a waste of air-time, and frankly, embarrasing spectacle it is. I also think it slightly degrades those film makers and composers who have toiled for years on a picture when some of the songs just feel like an afterthought. Most people have left the cinema by the time the song is heard over the credits anyway. Please - let that be the last time....

Also, has anyone else noticed how the front row of these events cease to applaud the film makers before they have reached the stage? Please! No more embarrasing frittering of applause. They don't have to whip up a frenzy but at least look like you give a damn!! Also, to non Americans, some of the chat and references are completely lost on us. It's all about the speeches and the glamour so let's have more of that and less of the time killers, thank you.

Love this site though, keep up the good work. It certainly brightens a grey London afternoon!

[Wendy Wings]

Naomi pointed me in your direction ( I get here and she is talking about Forgotten Silver how ironic lol. I was not taken in for a moment when I saw it air but a LOT of people were )

I am so wrapped to see that picture of the set tribute, top floor of the Highland centre, I loved it and sat there eating cookies in the sun back in June when I was on a very quick semi working trip ( for E ! ugh lol)
I had to laugh at the pictures of the "Parade of Oscars" can you believe they actually have a name for that "event". Only in Hollywood.