Some of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers are speaking out.
Ahead of the 2022 Oscars, more than 70 prominent film professionals, including James Cameron, Kathleen Kennedy, John Williams and Guillermo del Toro signed a letter Wednesday (March 9) urging the Academy to reverse a major decision.
Click inside to read more…
The letter to President David Rubin states that the decision to hand out five below-the-line awards and the three short film awards in the hour before the telecast would do “irreparable damage” by “demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art of filmmaking worthy of celebration.”
The winners’ acceptance speeches for the eight impacted categories — film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design, sound, documentary short subject, animated short and live-action short — will be edited with clips incorporated into the live broadcast.
“Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing and visual effects,” the letter reads.
Another major star also just spoke out about the decision.
Check out the full letter, via LA Times…
Dear President Rubin:
We the undersigned urge you in the strongest possible terms, along with your colleagues on the Awards Committee, to reverse your decision to remove the presentation of eight awards categories from the live telecast of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Original Score, Film Editing, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Documentary Short Subject and both Live Action and Animated Short Film.
For nearly a century, the Academy Awards has represented the gold standard in recognizing and honoring all of the essential crafts in filmmaking. Now, as we approach the Oscars’100th year, we are deeply troubled that this gold standard is being tarnished by valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others and relegating those others to the status of second-class citizen. Critical artistic crafts like music scoring, film editing, production design, makeup, hairstyling, and sound will always deserve the same respect and recognition as crafts like acting, directing, and visual effects. To diminish any of these individual categories in the pursuit of ratings and short-term profits does irreparable damage to the Academy’s standing as impartial arbiters and responsible stewards of our industry’s most important awards.
Seeking new audiences by making the telecast more entertaining is a laudable and important goal, but this cannot be achieved by demeaning the very crafts that, in their most outstanding expressions, make the art of filmmaking worthy of celebration.
Sincerely,
Peter Baert
Bruce Berman
Volker Bertelmann
Terence Blanchard
Scott Bomar
Nicholas Britell
James Cameron
Milena Canonero
John Corigliano
John Debney
Guillermo del Toro
Alexandre Desplat
Ramin Djawadi
Amie Doherty
Tan Dun
Laura Engel
Bruce A. Evans
Sven Faulconer
George Fenton
Dante Ferretti
Simon Franglen
Raynold Gideon
Michael Gorfaine
Peter Gregson
Dave Grusin
Trevor Gureckis
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Alex Heffes
Nate Heller
David Hirschfelder
Natalie Holt
James Newton Howard
Steve Jablonsky
Jónsi
Federico Jusid
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Kathleen Kennedy
Geoffrey Kirkland
Philip Klein
Maria Machado
Patty Macmillan
Judianna Makovsky
Richard Marvin
Nami Melumad
Robert Messinger
Thomas Newman
David Newman
Anne Nikitin
Dustin O’Halloran
Atli Örvarsson
John Powell
Steven Price
Michael Rosenberg
Joe Roth
Sam Schwartz
Lisbeth Scott
Theodore Shapiro
Howard Shore
Alan Silvestri
Sam Slater
Alex Somers
Dante Spinotti
Herdís Stefánsdóttir
Vittorio Storaro
Tamar-kali
Dean Tavoularis
Fernando Velázquez
Chris Walden
Chris Westlake
Nathan Whitehead
John Williams
Andrew Zack
Lili Fini Zanuck