The Long and Short of Oscar Brouhaha

Short documentaries--once a staple at movie theaters--have gone the way of black-and-white cinematography, at least as far as the Oscars are concerned. Deeming the form all but dead theatrically, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will do away with the category next year, lumping short films with feature-length documentaries in one Oscar category.

Theoretically, short films may still win Oscars, but many documentary filmmakers are angry at the academy because they say the two forms are different and shouldn’t be compared.

“They’re as different as television shows and commercials,” said Bob Rogers, who has made short documentaries for 30 years. “There is no short that is going to beat out a feature in any category, be it documentary, narrative feature or whatever. It’s a joke to say that it’s possible.”

Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy, said the categories are being merged in part because so few short documentaries are submitted each year, and some members of the short documentary executive committee have complained about the quality.

In fact, it was Chuck Workman, a documentary filmmaker, who proposed the change while he was on the executive committee last year. He raised the issue, he said, because few short documentaries are shown in theaters nowadays and most of them reflect so little effort and artistry that awarding an Oscar to them “debased the process for me.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “There are some wonderful short documentaries and some very, very good filmmakers who make them.” But he added, “It had gotten to the point where a proficient filmmaker could get a nomination” simply by filming some interesting event, without having to do the painstaking preparation and work required for other Oscar-worthy films.

Workman, who does the film compilation segments for the Oscars, won an Oscar for best short subject in 1986 for “Precious Images,” a 7-minute compilation of film clips he did to commemorate the Directors Guild of America’s 50th anniversary.

At the committee’s first meeting after the Oscars last year, Workman said he suggested either that the categories be merged or that the short documentary category be removed from the televised portion of the awards.

“Everyone sort of murmured in a positive way,” he said. “There was a lot of interest in that suggestion.” The issue was supposed to be discussed at the next meeting. Because Workman’s term on the committee expired, he said he never heard anymore about it until he read about the academy governing board’s decision this week.

Short documentaries once were regularly shown in theaters in conjunction with narrative features, but Davis said they began disappearing from movie screens three decades ago. He compared shorts to black-and-white cinematography, which used to have its own Oscar category. Cinematographers came to the academy and asked to eliminate the category, he said, because few black-and-white films were being made.

The difference, say supporters of short documentaries, is that the form is still vital, even if rarely seen in commercial theaters.

“A lot of people think shorts are a farm club for features,” said Rogers. “To some extent, that is true. But they are an art form. I have no plans to move over to features.”

Jessica Yu, who won the Oscar two years ago for her short “Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brian,” said she spent a year on the 35-minute movie, which is about a poet who has spent nearly all of his life inside an iron lung. Yu said short movies require as much dedication and effort as a longer work.

“It’s like a great short story--you have to try to say as much as you can in a short period of time,” she said.

The Case to Keep Two Separate Categories

Walter Shenson, chairman of the academy’s short documentary executive committee, said he believes the committee now is overwhelmingly in favor of keeping two separate categories. He spoke against merging them at last week’s academy board of governors meeting, and he said he hopes the board can be persuaded to reverse itself.

“We feel we have a good case,” he said.

Some filmmakers charge that the change is being made to improve viewership of the Oscar telecast.

“There is only one reason why the governing board wants to eliminate the Oscar for short documentaries,” Rogers said. “They’ve got a lot of rhetoric about it, but the real reason is television ratings.”

“Most of the academy’s income is derived from producing one really snazzy variety show every year on television. The academy needs to make a decision about what it is,” he said. “Are they in the television business or the movie business? If its primary thing is television, then ratings are important, and the academy should go around eliminating all of the little Oscars and the Oscars that are given to people that nobody’s heard of, and they can create more categories for actors. This way they can get more actors on the air and won’t have to take up time giving Oscars for sound effects.”

But Davis maintains that it is precisely because it is a movie academy that the change is being made. The vast majority of short films submitted each year is made for television, with most of them receiving only the minimum theatrical release necessary to qualify for an Oscar--seven days in a theater in Los Angeles.

“Television is having a new golden age of documentaries, and that’s fine,” he said. “But television has it’s own academy to recognize it’s work.”

In 1993 the academy’s governing board voted to eliminate both the short documentary and live-action shorts. “There was a great hoo-ha about that, and the board was persuaded to restore the categories,” said Davis. The feeling then was that, while relatively few short documentaries were being submitted for Oscar consideration, there was a possibility of a resurgence.

Only 23 short documentaries were submitted last year and about the same number this year, he said. By contrast, narrative features drew 286 eligible films and from 60 to 70 feature documentaries are submitted most years.

The only short films that consistently are commercially successful are large-format movies such as the current “Everest” and Imax films such as “The Dream Is Alive,” about the American space program. The latter film, which was released in 1985, grossed $145 million. “Everest,” released last year, has made $57 million.

Giving Awards to Works Rarely Seen

The Oscars always have been important to helping short films get noticed. “It’s always difficult to get attention paid and to get them seen,” said David Haughland, president of the International Documentary Assn., who was saddened by the change. “The academy’s recognition always really kept them alive and vital, and was very important to these films. Recognition can help the filmmakers reach a bigger audience and put the work out there.”

But Davis was unmoved by that argument. “It’s not really our role to help them with their marketing campaigns,” he said. “One complaint we get [from moviegoers] is that the films aren’t really available to people. We’re giving awards to films that they want to see and they can’t see them.”

Supporters of a separate category for short documentaries say it should be retained because it is how many talented people enter the industry. Filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas got their start making well-received short documentaries, Shenson said. He maintained that it shouldn’t matter whether the films are popular or get bookings in commercial theaters.

“We’re not talking about box-office numbers,” Shenson said. “We’re talking about the art of filmmaking, of short filmmaking.”

Both Workman and Davis acknowledged that it will be difficult for short films to compete against feature-length documentaries. But Workman said some 40-minute-long large-format films are quite impressive and might win. The academy defines a short film as one that is 40 minutes or shorter.

Alec Lorimore, of MacGillivray Freeman, which produced “Everest,” a commercially popular large-format film released this year to critical acclaim, says even short films such as his are at a disadvantage and will have an uphill battle just getting nominated.

Even the best short films will be hurt when judged against feature-length films, because the academy looks for elements such as depth of story and character when judging the works, Lorimore said. “Obviously, you’re talking apples and oranges in terms of 40-minute films and films that are 90 minutes or longer. The forms are completely different. It’s like the difference between a short story and a novel.”