50 Oscar Nights by Dave Karger
It’s Oscar season and TCM host Dave Karger looks back with 50 Oscar Nights. Karger’s new book is a collection of his interviews with Oscar winners responding to a set of questions regarding: The Atmosphere (of their Oscar-winning night), The Celebration (the after parties), The Look (gowns worn by female winners), The Speech (what they said when accepting), The Production (thoughts on their Academy Award-winning film).
Unique circumstances led to additional questions for some interviewees. Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, Best Adapted Screenplay, 2017) was queried about The Controversy, because the presenters, handed the wrong envelope, announced La La Land as the winner. That year’s Oscar took place only weeks after Donald Trump’s inauguration and Jenkins used his acceptance speech, Karger writes, “to address anyone who felt marginalized or unseen.”
Karger’s introduction to each of the winners stirs many memories. In 2003, when Nicole Kidman won Best Actress for The Hours, the U.S. invasion of Iraq had just begun, stifling “much of the celebratory atmosphere,” even nixing the red carpet. Dustin Hoffman recalls being berated in absentia by Frank Sinatra at the 1974 Oscars for criticizing the Motion Picture Academy. Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, Best Actor, 2015) reflects on the pressure after being nominated. He told Karger, “I’ll never forget there was an article in one of the trades saying something like, ‘Eddie Redmayne is cast as Stephen Hawking, the sort of part that wins Oscars.’ From the second it was announced, I was like, You basically fail if you don’t win an Oscar.”
50 Oscar Nights can be praised for including at least one category that serves as refrigerator breaks and bathroom dashes for many viewers (Kevin O’Connor, Best Sound Mixing, 2017). Major directors aren’t overlooked. Of The Godfather Part II (1975), Francis Ford Coppola remarks, “I got to see my father win an Oscar, and I can’t tell you what that meant to me.” Martin Scorsese recounts that, at age 11, he watched the first Academy Awards ever televised. After many nominations, he finally took home the trophy for The Departed (2007). “If it had happened earlier, I might not have found the strength to keep making the films I wanted to make, as opposed to the ones I would have been offered,” Scorsese said.
50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars & Filmmakers on their Career-Defining Wins is published by TCM/Running Press.
