Why did the Oscars snub Fred Rogers documentary?
PASADENA, Calif. — Every time there are nominations for Hollywood awards, there are snubs, deserving entries that get overlooked.
But the failure of Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” to secure an Oscar nomination last month seemed particularly egregious. After all, the film was a critical hit (98 percent favorable among critics on RottenTomatoes.com) and a popular box office hit, too (95 percent fresh among audiences on Rotten Tomatoes).
The Morgan Neville-directed film received a slew of other awards — 35, according to its page at IMDB.com — including the Producers Guild of America Award for best documentary.
So what gives?
Lois Vossen, executive producer of PBS’s “Independent Lens,” which was a production entity involved in “Won’t You Be my Neighbor?,” said all the movie’s producers have been trying to figure out what happened.
After talking to numerous filmmakers at the recent Sundance Film Festival, Ms. Vossen said producers have a sound theory: The film was so successful it became an afterthought in voting during nominations among members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“Talking to filmmakers, everybody said, ‘Well, it was a shoe-in so I wanted to give this dark horse a little bit of support,’” Ms. Vossen said last week after a “Lens” press conference during PBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association winter 2019 press tour. “Or they said, ‘I didn’t vote for it because, of course it
was going to get nominated, and I thought X film needed a little bit of love.’ You hear that from enough filmmakers [who vote in the documentary Oscar nominations], and you realize it’s kind of like an election [with] Nader or somebody, when you think, ‘My vote doesn’t count cause so-andso already has it in the bag,’ and it’s never in the bag unless people actually vote for somebody.”
Despite the disappointment, Ms. Vossen said the Oscar snub won’t take away from the film’s effect on those who have seen it or who will watch it when it has its television premiere at 8 p.m. Saturday on PBS and HBO.
“This film has already impacted people’s lives. People have laughed and cried. Eighty-year-old grandparents bring their grandchildren to this movie,” Ms. Vossen said. “It’s had an impact beyond any documentary can hope for, and it hasn’t even been broadcast yet. It’s gonna have a life that’s so big. Not that the Academy Award is insignificant — it isn’t — but the legacy of this film is going to be how it literally changed people and made them feel different about themselves and their relationships to people in their lives and, of course, hopefully their relationship to public television.”
U.S. DRAMA ON BACKBURNER?
After PBS failed to sustain Americanset scripted drama series “Mercy Street” (2016-17) due to funding challenges, PBS president Paula Kerger said the public broadcaster was still looking to program more American drama.
But with a flood of scripted drama in the current entertainment ecosystem, Ms. Kerger suggested Saturday that American drama may not be as high a priority at the moment.
“If a really great [American drama] project came in the door … we certainly would look at it very carefully,” she said. “Right now there’s a lot of drama, and so I think that from our perspective, because we, one, always look for stories to tell that are not well told, and, two, we look to fill gaps that we think are not being met by other media organizations, we don’t have to look as carefully for a great American drama. But if one presented itself, believe me, we would take advantage of it.”
PBS’S ‘SUMMER OF SPACE’
On July 20 the world marks the 50th anniversary of the moment a human first set foot on the moon. PBS has dubbed it the “Summer of Space” with programs dedicated to “The Planets” (9 p.m. July 24 on “NOVA”); “8 Days: The Journey of Apollo 11” (9 p.m. July 17); and centerpiece program “Chasing the Moon” (9 p.m. July 8), a six-hour “American Experience” production that explores the scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle and personal drama that was part of the quest.
“I didn’t want this to be a nostalgiafest for baby boomers to relish in their glory,” said writer/producer/director Robert Stone. “There’s an element of that to this, but I see this story as something that really can offer a lot to the present moment. There’s a hunger in this country and the world to be part of something bigger than ourselves, some grand aspirational goal that’s bigger than going to the shopping mall on the weekend.”
The film eschews talking-head interviews in favor of period footage designed to immerse viewers in the era.
“Imagine looking at the whole story through the opposite end of the telescope,” Mr. Stone said. “It’s a human story about what it was like to do this and what it took to do it.”
PBS isn’t alone in its space-themed programming. National Geographic Channel plans its own “space week” for July including the two-hour documentary “Apollo: Missions to the Moon,” which will feature never-before-heard mission audio recordings and rare photos.