AFI Pretends Again to Honor Hollywood

Drum roll, please? And the new recipient for the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement is... An actor!!

Well, you could knock me over with a spoon. AFI has honored an actor! And not a director. Who would have possibly guessed?? That makes it only the 10th time in the past 11 years that an actor will be singled out.

Not that it would have been a big switch mind you. In 36 years of presenting their Lifetime Achievement "award," AFI has named 28 actors. And eight directors. That's right, every single person the AFI has ever felt worthy of honoring in the film industry has been either an actor or director.

I want to be very clear, lest someone get the wrong impression. (Which they will.) I think every individual who has gotten an AFI tribute has been richly talented. Moreover, the choices are understandable, too: actors are the face of the movies, and directors shepherd the projects to the screen. So, of course, they will get most recognition. Fair enough.

But always?

Only?

That's the point here. "Always and only." Nothing else.

I understand that this is just a self-congratulating TV promotion. But still, The Movies are at the core of American popular culture, helping define who we are and how we present our nation to the world. If you're going to honor it, do so properly.

That this is all AFI ever does is why I gave up watching years ago, and avoided it again on Sunday. It's not a tribute to film-making. It's a TV show celebrating actors and directors, always. And only. To suggest that acting and directing alone is film achievement does a grave disservice to what has made films worth honoring in the first place. And if it appears that I'm the only one who thinks this way, just know that much of America has given up watching, too, since the once-prized AFI broadcast was bounced off the networks and is now on TV Land.

And even at that, AFI has ceased honoring the lifetime culmination of legendary careers. Today, it only celebrates those you expect to show up on The View the next week promoting their latest flick.

The Kennedy Center Honors recognizes the fullness of culture, saluting artists unknown to the general public, alongside Star Names. And it is their doing so that makes the broadcast so meaningful and substantive -- and varied and interesting -- to the viewing public. The result is that it has remained a crown jewel on network television.

To be fair, several of those honored by AFI have occasionally served other functions. But let's not kid ourselves -- they weren't being honored for that. If it wasn't for them being an actor or director, there is zero chance that AFI would have given them a Lifetime Achievement.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are the closest AFI has come to honoring a producer. After all, they each run film studios. But AFI never honored Lew Wasserman, who for 33 years ran a multinational film conglomerate. And ran Hollywood. What he didn't do was direct.

The closest the AFI has come to honoring a screenwriter is Billy Wilder, who did have a full career as a brilliant writer. But AFI didn't honor his writing partners, I.A.L Diamond or Charles Brackett. Just Billy Wilder, the director.

Again, everyone who has received an AFI Lifetime Achievement award has been very talented. The point is, though, if the American Film Institute is going to honor lifetime achievement in film, they should do so. Precisely as their name suggests, in full.

For starters, how about Neil Simon?? He's one of the few screenwriters whose name the public actually recognizes, and has for 40 years with The Odd Couple, The Goodbye Girl, The Out-of-Towners,The Sunshine Boys and on and on. The only people who don't recognize him seem to be the American Film Institute.

Unfortunately, one of the results of this 36-year oversight is that many of those giants who helped create the culture of movies are no longer here. The opportunity lost.

Before Ernest Lehman passed away only a couple of years ago, why in the world didn't AFI honor this acclaimed screenwriter? He wrote legendary movies like North by Northwest, Sweet Smell of Success, Sabrina, Executive Suite, West Side Story, The King and I and The Sound of Music. And many more. For what it's worth -- a lot -- he was nominated for six Academy Awards. And given an honorary Oscar for his body of work.

There are a great many renowned producers still here, still available for a lifetime honor, but far too many that AFI's myopia lost the chance for -- like Hal B. Wallis. Who's he? Well, Wallis made Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and Yankee Doodle Dandy, not to mention the classics The Rose Tattoo, Sergeant York, Sorry, Wrong Number, Juarez and True Grit -- among his 370 movies. Apparently, the AFI was holding out for him to hit 400.

Or if AFI wanted to honor a cinematographer, how about Haskell Wexler? He filmed the Best Picture Oscar-winners One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and In the Heat of the Night, as well as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bound for Glory -- and about 60 others. And he has two Academy Awards of his own. And he's still working.

It's a mark of shame that AFI never honored Edith Head. Easily the most celebrated costume designer in film history, all she did was earn 35 Oscar nominations and win eight Academy Awards. Apparently though, that's not enough of a lifetime achievement for AFI. (Side note -- some recent AFI recipients haven't even made 35 movies.)

AFI never saw fit to have a tribute for Elmer Bernstein, who composed the brilliant scores to The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Ten Commandments, True Grit, and even Animal House, Airplane! and Ghostbusters -- not to mention about 220 others. But he died a mere five years ago, and they won't get the chance.

At least they still have the chance with Ennio Morricone, whose 492 movie scores (!!) include The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, La Cage aux Folles, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America, Days of Heaven, and The Battle of Algiers. Or even Randy Newman who has 15 Oscar nominations, including the music for Toy Story, The Natural, Ragtime and Monsters Inc. But don't hold your breath.

(Sorry, I'm still adjusting to the concept of someone writing 492 movie scores. Most people probably haven't seen that many movies.)

Obviously this isn't intended to be any kind of a list. Just a few random examples. A real list is far deeper.

And I know the response from AFI -- "We're producing a TV show, and we need to honor a Star Name, so that people will tune in to watch."

There are several answers to this. All easy --

1) If that's your criteria, then be honest about it. Don't pretend that you're a lifetime achievement for the film industry. Just say that you're a TV show honoring popular actors and directors. Call it the "AFI Achievement Award for Acting and Directing."

2) No, you don't need a Star Name to Honor, to get an audience. When any awards show is promoted, we're simply told all the stars who are "Scheduled to Appear." That's the selling point. It is impossible to imagine that any AFI Lifetime Tribute couldn't fill the ballroom with legendary celebrities to attract a TV audience. In fact, when AFI itself honors something like the "Top 100 Comedies," it's only movie titles they're honoring, no Big Star at all -- they draw an audience with the film clips and by promoting stars "Scheduled to Appear." (And by the way, audiences love these shows, which is why they're on network TV.)

3) Better still, follow the lead of the Kennedy Center Honors, and do a tribute to perhaps three separate talents -- an actor, if you insist, and mix-and match between whatever other fields you want.

4) And y'know, ultimately you can always just salute other crafts separately, and show excerpts of "those honored earlier" on your broadcast. At least they'd be honored, and you'd demonstrate you understand and care about how film-making actually works. Which is a good thing for a film institute.

There is no excuse for the American Film Institute to honor only filmmakers who must be actors or directors. It's too easy to put on a vibrant, highly-promotable show that honors those worthy of a lifetime tribute. Once the decision is made that motion pictures are a part of American culture worth honoring in the first place, you ill-serve that culture and the audience if you do any less. If you are truly an American film institute and truly are honoring lifetime achievement for the history of movies, then live up to your name and honor it.

There is value in honoring American culture for the full depth of what it has brought to America and the world. But if one is just a TV show fawning on actors and directors alone, then it becomes nothing more than a empty sideshow, which explains why what was once a high-water event of the broadcast season is now a footnote. It could be more. It should be.

Comments

[ramblingjohnny]

Am still waiting for Stan Winston and Howard Shore to get an AFI tribute after all Winston got four Academy Awards plus six nomination for his work in special effect. Howard Shore also got 3 and a truckload of other awards.

[StrunkNWhite]

As someone who wrote five of these AFI Life
Achievement Award tributes, I say, "Hear! Hear!"
We did honor John Huston and made much
of his achievements as a screenwriter. But
screenwriters and people who practice other
important crafts need more recognition from the AFI -- and there
never have been enough women getting
these awards, either. Only six of the thirty-seven
recipients have been women.

My editor at Daily Variety, the late Tom Pryor, thought the AFI
should honor five people each year, so that way
they could mix in screenwriters, cinematographers,
editors, costume designers, et al, with actors
and directors. I thought that a good idea. This
writer throws such an idea into the mix by proposing that
the AFI honor three people each year. With three
or five, It would be more like the Kennedy Center Honors that
way, and those do well on TV.

Joseph McBride

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

Most of your points are well taken, although you almost lost me completely when you suggested Neal Simon, whose overinflated sitcom scripts are NOT worthy to be mentioned in the same article with the comedies of, say, Billy Wilder. He should be removed from consideration permanently for SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES alone, and I could write a long list of other punishingly mediocre Simon scripts. And even his best, while very good, is never as good as the very best screen comedies.

This week's AFI Tribute was the first-ever that I just skipped altogether. Honoring Michael Douglas was really scraping the bottom. It sort of devalues the same honor being given to Hitchcock, Wilder and James Cagney, GENUINE screen legends.

Also, as regards the comment: "Sorry, I'm still adjusting to the concept of someone writing 492 movie scores. Most people probably haven't seen that many movies." Without question, Morricone's is an awe-inspiring achievement, but assume that the average moviegoer sees 4 movies a month (and real movie buffs see vastly more. I watched 4 movies yesterday alone, all moon-related natch) for 40 years, that's 1920 movies. There are well over 500 movies just in my home collection, and I've seen all of them, and they only scratch the surface of my lifetime total.

We see more movies than you apparently realize.

But I'm with you on your primary points.

[JeffPoster]

Granted, I wasn't that fond of "The In-Laws", the remake of the far superior pairing of Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. But Douglas has made some decent films over the years; to do that, he apprenticed in TV under the watchful eyes of producer Quinn Martin and co-star Karl Malden("Streets of San Francisco"). I thought "The Game" was one of Douglas' better films, rapidly followed by "War of the Roses".

[JailNeoconVicts]

Writers? You mean...someone actually has to think up, structure and write these stories? Create these characters, situations, laughs and tears? No way, that just sort of happens on the set, right?

Every dam time a star driven movie tanks, and an almost unknown cast ride a movie like Paul Blart or Juno to success, wise heads nod and say "it's all about the story, without that, stars don't matter."

But when it comes time for recognition, let alone compensation, writers get a big fuggedaboudit.

[Steamboater]

Never was much of a fan of Neil Simon. "The Out Of Towners" was a good idea but not that funny. There were storeis too that Edith Head didn't always design the costumes she stook credit for having designed.

[kathy001]

Great article. Frankly, as a viewer, I am insulted when an organization like the AFI assumes that the only reason I would tune in would be to see a "movie star". The viewing audience is not as ignorant or oblivious as Hollywood treats us, which is why many of us are not seeing as many movies as we used to.

One of the first groups we blame when we hate a movie - or an entire crop of movies - is the screenwriters. "Why can't they write something with a little intelligence for a change?" So, seeing a brilliant screenwriter honored for their writing would be fantastic for the viewing audience. But that's not the only group we appreciate. We'd like to see the people that have brought us enjoyment through cinematography and music honored just as much (sometimes even more so) as the movie stars who bring the characters to life.

[JeffPoster]

Jack Nicholson was on the bill at the AFI honors for Michael Douglas for a very good reason. Douglas, through his Fantasy Films production company, put together Nicholson's first big, big film, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Is there something wrong with that? Arguably, some of the names you suggested to win a Lifetime Achievement Award are valid, but did you ever wonder what someone like Billy Wilder did to get to where he was in Hollywood? He escaped Europe as Adolf Hitler took over Germany, Austria-Hungary, etc. Wilder had to learn English when he got to the States, so he could be one of the best screenwriters this country ever had.

[LawrenceOfAcademia]

Here's hoping this fine article can affect some change at AFI.
If it happens we'll know who to thank.