FRO M THE PRESIDENT EITHER WAY, A SOUND INVESTMENT I?' seems inconceivable that while museums celebrat­ for us: Hollywood, California. We've got our eye on a ing or exploiting flim have been built all over the world, choice spot, and we're going to see ifwe can acquire an from London to Berlin, Melbourne to Turin, there is no entire block for the project. In that block we begin to major one in Hollywood. Two years ago the Board of see something like a movie studio, with open space, Governors resolved that if a movie museum were to be backlot streets, sound stages, theaters and room for visi­ built where movies were born there was no organization tors to rest and take refreshment. more fitted to do the job than the Academy. We We're still at the beginning of the process. The plan­ appointed committees to seek a proper site; to work out ning of what the museum experience will be has been a business model based on demographics of tourism, going on for months, and some of you may already have projections of growth, and the cashflow of existing met with our members and consultants who are doing museums; to research other innovative museums for good the planning, and looking to all of our branches for ideas. ideas to emulate and bad ones to avoid; and to The cost of building something of a stature to match conceive a design built around the role movies play in that of the Academy is beyond even our current the life of the nation and, indeed, the world. resources; it will require an ambitious ftmd-raising pro­ Movies are our cultural diary and our confessional, gram. It will need support from all of us, from the indus­ both a warning and an example: a powerful influence. try, from local and perhaps otller governmental entities, They have the power to change our lives, to change his­ and in the end from the public who will come to visit it. tory. This is the reason for building a museum that is We will build thoughtfully, inventively, responsibly, and if not merely an entertainment, a tourist attraction or an we are successful, they will come. All Is Preparation - a assertion of the Academy's ego. mantra I have learned in making movies. As an organizing principle we (after endless It is still possible that a world-class museum will rewrites) settled on a mission statement: remain a dream beyond our reach. The economic chal­ "The Museum of the Academy of Motion Picture lenge for us will be at least as formidable as the artistic Arts and Sciences celebrates and explores how film has and historical ones, but my own inclination is to plan to reflected and shaped world culture, and helps us all to do the thing magnificently, and back away if we decide better understand what the movies have meant - and that we really can't make the numbers work. The continue to mean - in our lives." Academy can't erect an "ok" movie museum. The very After intensive study of possible sites - from a site best or not at all. across the street from Disney Hall, to Griffith Park, to a And if "not at all" has to be the final verdict, we site near the County Museum, to Exposition Park and should still own eight acres or so in the middle of a once­ more - we are currently targeting a location in what again-booming Hollywood. We'll call it a sound investment. many of us felt all along was the natural neighborhood -FRANK PIERsON ON THE COVER: MARK JOHNSON, ACADEMY QUARTERLY REPORT CENTER, CHAIR OF THE FOREIGN Published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences LANGUAGE FILM 8949 Wil shire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90211 -1972 (310) 247-3000 • www.oscars.org AWARD EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT . .. , • • • . • • • • • . • • • • • . • • . .... Franl<"R. Pierson COMMITTEE, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT .............•• • ............. ••• . ...... ....... • • • ••........... Sid Ganis VICE PRESIDENT . • • . • • • . • • • • • . Gilbert Cates MODERATES THE VICE PRESIDENT . • • . • • • • . Arthur Hamilton ANNUAL SEMINAR, TREASURER .. • • • . • • • . • • • • . Kathy Bates THIS YEAR SECRETARY . • . • • • . • • • . • . • . Donald C. Rogers FEATURING THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR . Bruce Davis Photos: unless otherwise identified, by Long Photography DIRECTORS OF Design: Lisa Carlsson. Carlsson & Company, Inc. FOUR OSCAR- Oscar", Oscars· , Academy Awards·, Academy Award· , A M.PAS· , and Oscar Night" are the trademarks, NOMINATED and the Oscar statuette is the registered design mark and copyrighted property of the FOREIGN Academy of Moti on Picture Arts and Sciences. LANGUAGE FILMS. 2 A C ADEMY Q U ARTERLY R E PORT' VOL U M E 1 7 liThe BiCJ Parad,lI LECTURE HONORS ARTISTRY OF March,s to ANIMATOR FREDERIC BACK Academy In honor of its eightieth anniversary, King Vidor's silent classjc "The Big Parade" was screened by the Academy in March, the West Coast premiere of a restored print. "The Big Parade," one of the first pictures produced after the forma­ tion of Metro-Goldwyn­ Mayer, was the company's largest-grossing film until "Gone with the Wind" 14 years later. The 1925 negative, originally thought destroyed FREDERIC BACK, RIGHT, WITH ACADEMY SHORT FILMS AND FEATURE ANIMATION BRANCH in a 1960 MGM vault fire, GOVERNOR CARL BELL. was rediscovered at the George Eastman House in to slow the Rochester, New York, by destruction of visiting film scholar Kevin Lecture on the earth's frag­ Brownlow. Warner Bros. Animation ile ecology. He Entertainment's Richard took the form urged the audi­ May used the 80-year-old of a tribute to ence to "use negative and incorporated the artistry of the individual modern technical capabili­ Academy power we have ties to recreate the original FROM LEFT, PROGRAM MODERATOR CHARLES SOLOMON, PETE Award-win- to be partici­ color tinting used. DOCTER, PAUL FELIX, GLEN KEANE AND BOB KURTZ. ning animator- pants in the The print was screened director Frederic Back by a panel of protection (of the environment)." with its original score per­ several of today's most respected Both of Back's Oscar-winning shorts, formed by the 22-piece animators and historians, including Pete "The Man Who Planted Trees" and "Crac," Robert Israel Orchestra. Docter ("Monsters, Inc. "), production screened in their entirety. designer Paul Felix ("Lilo & Stitch" and The evening's moderator, animation FROM LEFT, ACADEMY VICE PRESIDENT AND HOST OF "The Emperor's New Groove") and critic Charles Solomon, noted that Back THE EVENING ARTHUR animators Glen Keane ("Tarzan" and and his family have planted over 20,000 HAMILTON, ROBERT ISRAEL AND RICHARD MAY. "Pocahontas") and Bob Kurtz (of Kurtz trees themselves. and Friends Animation Studio), aU of Back said he hoped he could "influ­ whom found themselves inspired by his ence in some way the production of artwork and his "evocation of the world new material because there are not around the characters." enough hopeful films made, and anima­ In his remarks, Back pleaded for tion is magic for proposing solutions, more meaningful films that could help beauty and hope for the future." ACADEMY QUARTERLY REPORT· FIRST Q UARTER 2005 3 FIFTH PAIR NAMED ACADEMY FILM SCHOLARS o new Academy Film She thanked the ars received their cer­ Academy "not just for tificates and the first half of this incredible honor, their $25,000 prize at a but for the respect for luncheon in January at the the history of ftlm that Beverly Hills Hotel. They are permeates so much of writer Cari Beauchamp and what you do." Yale professor Charles Musser echoed her Musser. thanks. "The Academy They are the fifth pair has been a cmcial institu­ of ftlm scholars to be tion for the support of selected by the Grants mm scholarship, and the Committee of the Academy introduction of the Foundation for the honor. Academy Film Scholar The newest Academy program is only the most Film Scholars were selected recent and high-prome on the basis of their propos­ substantiation of this." als for new scholarly works Musser is co-chair presented to the committee. of the Film Studies Beauchamp will write a program and professor biography of Joseph P. of American Studies and Kennedy focusing on his Film Studies at Yale Hollywood career, and University. His book Musser will complete a CARl BEAUCHAMP AND CHARLES MUSSER will be titled "Film Tmth, study of the changing Documentary Practice: approaches to "tmth" in nonfiction mm. A History." 'Joe Kennedy's Hollywood" will be the fourth The remaining half of the prize money will be cinema history book by Beauchamp, a prolific writer presented upon completion of the manuscripts. of essays and articles about Hollywood's past, and the The Academy Film Scholars program was created first Academy Film Scholar not teaching full-time at a in 1999. Beauchamp and Musser join eight other university. "My friend Doris Kearns Goodwin has Academy Film Scholars who currently are at work on decided that I've probably gotten more satisfaction their projects: Tino Balio, Donald Crafton, Thomas from spending time alone with Joe Kennedy than any Doherty, Jane Gaines, Dana Polan, David Rodowick, other woman ever did," Beauchamp said. Steven J. Ross and Shelley Stamp. Ten short and feature-length documentaries, including the Oscar-winning "Chernobyl Heart" and four other nominees, were included in Part Two of the 2004- Part Two 2005 Contemporary Documentary Series, presented by the Academy Foundation Acad,my/U(LA and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. In addition to "Chernobyl Heart," they were nominees "Asylum," "Capturing Doc S,ri,s the Friedmans," "My Architect: A Son's Journey" and "Ferry Tales," as well as "Bus 174," "Terminal Bar," "I Used to Be a Filmmaker," "Inheritance: A Fisherman's Story" and "Lost Boys of Sudan." The films ran January through March.