I think I wanted to vomit upon reading a recent New York Times article. “A Sun Tzu of Oscar Warfare Resurfaces”, by David M. Halbfinger, reads as little more than Harvey Weinstein hero-worship. This may have even been appropriate if it had appeared in the business section, but real movie fans have little reason to even like the man, let alone put him on a pedestal. The whole piece might even be a little less disgusting if it weren’t a disguised interview rife with questions posed as opportunities for Weinstein to either boast or deflect criticism. Celebrating Harvey Weinstein’s ability to campaign for awards and turn a profit is a lot like praising Karl Rove for orchestrating election wins. (Trust me, I’m well aware that their crimes are on very different levels.) There may be real skill involved there, but at what cost? At some point the mere omission of Mr. Weinstein’s sins becomes questionably intentional, since they’re by no means unknown to people who remotely follow the industry and one would think a piece appearing in the movies section of The New York Times would focus a little more on artistic merit and industry wellbeing than one man’s ego and pocketbook.
Can we stop pretending this man cares about cinema? Going through the article, it’s easy to see both the author and Harvey Weinstein give credit for any award wins solely to the latter man. Only three directors are named in the piece, contrasted to fourteen films. The man seems perfectly eager to give his campaigning the credit for the wins, except for the occasional hypocritical outburst about “leading with the movies” or “car[ing] deeply about these films.” He doesn’t hesitate to talk about the “time and concentration” it took to win past Academy Awards. No mention is made of the winning films’ crews and casts. His actions speak far louder than these hollow utterances however, as I’ll illustrate further later.
The piece segues from the preamble to the interview portion by asking if Harvey Weinstein still cares about regaining his “magic touch” when it comes to Oscars. The real question should be whether anyone wants him to regain it, because the Oscar campaigning he so pioneered over the years has resulted in a meta-contest over hype rather than film quality. A recent film even satirized the whole idea, with the actor characters in For Your Consideration learning that their performances may be awards-caliber in the midst of production. The whole awards system has been reduced to a competition in creating buzz. Even after Harvey Weinstein says winning Oscars is no longer important to him or his business model, Halbfinger writes that Weinstein’s “team of publicists would fight as fiercely as ever [for Bobby].” How comforting. Immediately following this line is a quote from Weinstein where he espouses that “it’s not about me, or the company. It’s about the individual movies.” If that’s the case, why have publicity campaigns? If it were about the movies, let the movies do the talking. All of the Academy voters receive screeners to view. They can watch the movies and decide what’s worth voting for on their own. Marketing can only serve to take those decisions away from the voter, by way of hammering opinions into their heads.
It’s easy for him to say he “care[s] deeply about these films” in the context of an article that doesn’t challenge a single one of his claims. Of course, it’s significantly more difficult to believe such a claim when you hear that he has signed a deal giving Blockbuster exclusive rentals of The Weinstein Company’s library. Granted, this is not legally enforceable because of the first-sale doctrine (in short, anyone could buy a product, like a movie, and then rent it out), but the Dallas Morning News reported the two companies would use their connections with DVD distributors to block sales to other rental houses. They also plan to put threatening messages on their DVDs to intimidate consumers into only renting Weinstein Company films from Blockbuster. This plan is now being contested in court. Notably, the paper says Blockbuster doesn’t question the law says. This deal is all about screwing normal people. If someone “care[d] deeply” about cinema, would they go out of their way to restrict the access to certain films? I think not.
Of course, blocking consumers from seeing films is nothing new for Harvey Weinstein. His tenure at Miramax is characterized by a policy of purchasing the rights to movies, particularly from Asian territories, and just sitting on them. Aside from the occasional revenue-producing release, there were two reasons for doing this. One, so that rival distributors could not pick up the rights. Two, by buying films and pushing their releases to future fiscal years, Mr. Weinstein managed to exploit a loophole in his contract that enabled him to inflate his annual bonus. For more on these accounting schemes, check out Slate’s “The Great Illusionist”. Miramax, under new management since October 2005, is still putting together theatrical and DVD releases of Asian films bought by Harvey Weinstein. One such film, Tears of the Black Tiger, will get a limited theatrical release beginning today after sitting in the Miramax vault for five years. Magnolia is now handling the release, after buying the rights earlier in ‘06.
When Mr. Weinstein did release foreign films, they were controversial events in and of themselves due to his own tinkering. Take Iron Monkey. The film’s political messages were removed via clever subtitling, scenes were shortened and the soundtrack was changed. After all that, Quentin Tarantino’s name was plastered all over the film’s marketing. Tears of the Black Tiger also had its ending changed before it was shelved (but this doesn’t affect the Magnolia release). So much for respecting movies and letting them stand on their own.
Maybe it’s unfair to go off on this in response to Halbfinger and the NYT, but such an article serves no good for the film community. Maybe some heartless capitalists would appreciate it. Harvey Weinstein’s a figure that deserves a critical look, not a mushy profile that gives Weinstein himself the platform to set the record.
Addendum: It also goes without saying that there’s something fishy with this article never fully questioning what these awards even mean. When Harvey Weinstein is the champion of awards, what do they mean and how are they affecting the industry? Now that’d make for an interesting article, especially with the Golden Globes and Academy Awards just around the corner.
