Pining Oscar hopes on a song

WHEN the director Davis Guggenheim was completing the documentary AnInconvenientTruth, his team had an idea: Let’s get a famous singer to write a song to end the movie. Al Gore suggested Melissa Etheridge.

The resultant song, INeed toWakeUp, was crowned best original song at the 2007 Academy Awards. (The movie won best documentary feature.) Since then, no song from a documentary has won the prize. But it’s not for a lack of trying.

Among the contenders this year are Sia’s AngelbytheWings from TheEagleHuntress; the Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready’s HopingandHealing from Gleason; and Common’s LettertotheFree from 13th. Those films have made the shortlist of possible Oscar nominees. (The nominations will be announced on January 24.) Other songs that remain in contention even though the films themselves didn’t make the cut include Flicker by Tori Amos (from Audrie &Daisy), TheEmptyChair by Sting and J Ralph (from Jim:TheJames FoleyStory), and I’mStillHere by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings ( MissSharonJones!).

For nonfiction films, traditionally ignored at the Oscars in everything but the actual documentary categories, a song has meant a 100 percent increase in their Academy Award chances. It has also helped raise awareness of what Guggenheim described as “challenging” films. “So you say, ‘Well, maybe a song by a famous person will help you’.”