Tag: academy award

Hattie McDaniel, First Black Person to Be Nominated For And Win An Academy Award, Replacement Oscar Ceremony At Howard University October 1

(Original Caption) 3/2/1940- Los Angeles, CA: Actress Hattie Mc Daniel is shown with the statuette she received for her portrayal in “Gone With The Wind.” The award was for Best Supporting Role by an Actress, and was made at the 12th annual Academy Awards ceremony.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced today the Academy will gift to the Howard University Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts a replacement of actor Hattie McDaniel’s Best Supporting Actress Academy Award® . Howard University will host a ceremony titled “Hattie’s Come Home” at its Ira Aldridge Theater in Washington, D.C., on October 1, 2023.

The ceremony will celebrate the life and legacy of McDaniel, her historic Academy Award win, and reunite her Academy Award with Howard University as she originally intended. The event will include opening remarks by Phylicia Rashad, Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, the performance of a medley of songs from current students and faculty of the College, and an excerpt of “Boulevard of Bold Dreams,” a play by LaDarrion Williams.  Representatives of the Academy and the Academy Museum will be at the ceremony, including Jacqueline Stewart, Ph.D., Director and President of the Academy Museum, and Executive Vice President of Oscars Strategy Teni Melidonian, who will present the plaque to the university. Stewart will host a moderated conversation about McDaniel’s career with Greg Carr, Ph.D., Howard University Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies; Rhea Combs, Ph.D., Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery; Kevin John Goff, filmmaker, actor and Hattie McDaniel’s great-grandnephew; Khalid Long, Ph.D., Howard University Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, author, director and dramaturg; and Rashad. The plaque’s new home will be in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.

Reproduction of the Award Presented to Hattie McDaniel in Recognition of her Performance in Gone With The Wind of Merit for Outstanding Achievement, Presented to Howard University by The Academy, Photographed on Tuesday September 19, 2023 at The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California

“Hattie McDaniel was a groundbreaking artist who changed the course of cinema and impacted generations of performers who followed her. We are thrilled to present a replacement of Hattie McDaniel’s Academy Award to Howard University,” said Stewart and Academy CEO Bill Kramer. “This momentous occasion will celebrate Hattie McDaniel’s remarkable craft and historic win.”

“When I was a student in the College of Fine Arts at Howard University, in what was then called the Department of Drama, I would often sit and gaze in wonder at the Academy Award that had been presented to Ms. Hattie McDaniel, which she had gifted to the College of Fine Arts,” said Rashad. “I am overjoyed that this Academy Award is returning to what is now the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. This immense piece of history will be back in the College of Fine Arts for our students to draw inspiration from. Ms. Hattie is coming home!”

The Academy Museum has honored and contextualized McDaniel’s legacy in both the Academy Awards History Gallery and its temporary exhibition Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971. A performer on stage, radio and screen, McDaniel appeared in some 300 films throughout her career. In 1940, McDaniel made history as the first Black person to be nominated for and to win a competitive Academy Award for her supporting performance as “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind (1939). At the 12th Academy Awards c eremony at the segregated Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel, McDaniel and her guest were seated separately from the film’s other nominees.

McDaniel received not a statuette but a plaque, as was customary for supporting performance winners from 1936 to 1942. Though its whereabouts today are unknown, McDaniel’s award stands out in Academy history; it would be 51 years before another Black woman would win an acting Oscar®. McDaniel bequeathed her Academy Award to Howard University upon her death in 1952. The award was displayed at the university’s drama department until the late 1960s.

Reproduction of the Award Presented to Hattie McDaniel in Recognition of her Performance in Gone With The Wind of Merit for Outstanding Achievement, Presented to Howard University by The Academy, Photographed on Tuesday September 19, 2023 at The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California



McDaniel’s acceptance speech can currently be viewed in full in the museum’s Academy Awards History Gallery, and, notably, her win is recognized in the Oscars Gallery of statuettes, but through a vitrine that stands empty. Her acceptance speech, as recorded for newsreel cameras at the time, is noted below:

“Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science[s], fellow members of the motion picture industry and honored guests. This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of you who had a part in selecting me for one of the awards for your kindness. It has made me feel very, very humble and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel. And may I say thank you and God bless you.”

Image Credits: Actor Hattie McDaniel c. 1940 with her original Academy Award plaque for Actress in a Supporting Role for Gone with the Wind (1939). Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images; Reproduction of the original plaque of Hattie McDaniel’s Academy Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for Gone with the Wind (1939). Gift from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to Howard University. Photo by Owen Kolasinski/© Academy Museum Foundation.

Reproduction of the Award Presented to Hattie McDaniel in Recognition of her Performance in Gone With The Wind of Merit for Outstanding Achievement, Presented to Howard University by The Academy, Photographed on Tuesday September 19, 2023 at The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California

LEGO Scenes of Best Picture Oscar Nominated Films

With the coming 83rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony, Alex Eylar has used LEGOs to recreate scenes from each of the ten movies nominated for Best Picture. Some of them are easy to guess, others aren’t quite so obvious, but they’re all darn cool! Although, now I kinda wanna see someone follow this up with a Mr. Potato Head version…

I love seeing creative people who use whimsical ways to honor the things they love. While we’re on the subject, I thought I might as well throw out another master of whimsical motion picture homage in The Clay Guy. He creates hand-crafted clay sculptures of all the greatest icons from motion picture history.

Check out all the nifty LEGO recreations at gawker.com

15 Documentaries Make the Oscar Cut

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I’m sure if you analyze and dissect the rules for eligibility, you’ll find some kind of loophole that kept films like  CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, ANVIL!: THE STORY OF ANVIL, and CRUDE off this list of finalists for Best Documentary Feature.

Maybe it’s not based on eligibility at all.  Maybe those movies just didn’t make the cut, which, in my opinion, and a lot of other people’s, as well, is a shame.  This isn’t even taking into account some of the festival docs that didn’t make the cut, films like PULLING JOHN, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, and THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD.    Politics wins out once again (as if there was every going to be a question of it), and here are the list of 15 films that have moved on in the voting process:

  • THE BEACHES OF AGNES directed by Agnès Varda
  • BURMA VJ directed by Anders Østergaard
  • THE COVE directed by Louie Psihoyos
  • EVERY LITTLE STEP directed by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo
  • FACING ALI directed by Pete McCormack
  • FOOD, INC. directed by Robert Kenner
  • GARBAGE DREAMS directed by Mai Iskander
  • LIVING IN EMERGENCY: STORIES OF DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS directed by Mark N. Hopkins
  • THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
  • MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN directed by Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey
  • SERGIO directed by Greg Barker
  • SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman
  • UNDER OUR SKIN directed by Andy Abrahams Wilson
  • VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR directed by Matt Tyrnauer
  • WHICH WAY HOME directed by Rebecca Cammisa

The final five nominations will be announced on February 2nd.

‘The Dark Knight’ Score Disqualified from Academy Awards


So, it’s not been a good week to be someone who worked on ‘The Dark Knight’.   First off, your film is getting sued by the mayor of a little town called Batman, Turkey for name infringement (see that article here), and, now, your film is getting one less Oscar nomination than it deserves.

The executive committee of the Academy music branch (all 2 of them?) have decided to disqualify the score for ‘The Dark Knight’ from Academy Award competition.   The reasoning?   Too many chefs in the kitchen.   Apparently, five names were listed as composers on the music cue sheet, the official studio document that specifies every piece of music in the film.

Composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard collaborated on the music, but, evidently, multiple names were listed on the cue sheet as a way to financially reward parts of the music team.   This cue sheet is used by performing-rights societies in order to disperse royalties.   Zimmer; Howard; music editor, Alex Gibson; ambient music designer, Mel Wesson; and composer, Lorne Balfe all signed an affidavit stating that the score was primarily the work of Zimmer and Howard.

That wasn’t enough to dissuade the committee from disqualifying the film’s score.   Documentation was supplied to the committee stating that more than 60%, but less than 70%, of ‘The Dark Knight’s score was credited to Zimmer and Howard.

Just for your information, here are the rules for eligibility for Best Musical Score:

B.   ELIGIBILITY

1.   The work must be specifically created for the eligible feature-length motion picture.

2.   The work must be the result of a creative interaction between the filmmaker(s) and the composer(s) or songwriter(s) who have been engaged to work directly on the film.

3.   The measure of the work’s qualification shall be its effectiveness, craftsmanship, creative substance and relevance to the dramatic whole.

4.   The work must be recorded for use in the film prior to any other usage, including public performance or exploitation through any media whatsoever.

5.   Only the principal composer(s) or songwriter(s) responsible for the conception and execution of the work as a whole shall be eligible for an award.   This expressly excludes from eligibility all of the following:

a)Â   supervisors

b)Â   partial contributors (e.g., any writer not responsible for the overall design of the work)

c)Â   contributors working on speculation

d)Â   scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music

e)Â   scores diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs

f)Â   scores assembled from the music of more than one composer.

6.   No more than two statuettes will normally be given in the Original Song category.   A third statuette may be awarded when there are three essentially equal contributors to a song.

7. The Executive Committee shall resolve all rules interpretations and all questions of eligibility.

8. It is within the sole and confidential discretion of the Board of Governors to determine what awards, if any, shall be given.

So, what do you think about this ruling?   Let us know below!

Source: Variety