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For whatever reason, the brain trust of The Oscars decided that this year all of its honorary awards – recognition given for lifetime achievement that not only pushed the art form forward but also helped the industry – did not actually merit inclusion in its television broadcast. The reason is plain enough I guess – they simply don’t consider it of interest to the general public. I won’t argue that point, but it’s still a shame. I enjoy The Oscars for what it is, but I think it should also be a celebration of film. And so I’ve always liked the montage sections of the broadcast that recognized different genres, people and the industry’s own history and appreciated the time they gave to the honorary awards.

These awards are now lumped together and referred to as The Governors Awards. They were handed out for the first time in a separate ceremony just a few nights ago on the evening of November 14th.

The Irving Thalberg award was presented to John Calley, a producer and industry executive who has his name attached to a long list of successful productions. My favourite of the names thrown out in the article is 1965′s darkly funny The Loved One (with Rod Steiger as the perfectly named Mr. Joyboy), but he also produced Catch-22, The Remains Of The Day and The DaVinci Code (plus helped steer countless other big titles as an exec). Three other awards were also divvied up between Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis (cinematographer) and Roger Corman (director and producer extraordinaire).

Some pretty exceptional careers there…I love The Big Sleep as my favourite Bacall picture, but also have a strong leaning towards her role in Douglas Sirk’s fun melodrama Written On The Wind. Willis was the lensman for the Godfather trilogy and some of Woody Allen’s best films (Manhattan is gorgeous) which alone should be enough to get him the award – turns out he also did All The President’s Men, The Paper Chase and Parallax View. Great looking pictures all…
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It’s Corman who gets most of my love from this group though…When I first started paying attention to the names of people behind the cameras, I remember occasionally stumbling across Corman’s name – usually in association with not-so-great movies. As I began watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I came across his name yet again – once more in relation to films not considered cream of the crop. It wasn’t until later in my “education” did I realize what Roger Corman had accomplished…The stats (over 300 films produced, 50 directed) are pretty impressive, but in many ways it’s about how he made those pictures that really mattered. He innovated constantly to work around budget issues, he gave many young filmmakers/actors the opportunity to experiment and gain experience (Scorsese, Coppola, Dante, Bogdanovich, Nicholson, De Niro, etc.) and he became a distributor of important foreign films (Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, etc.). He could also direct the hell out of a movie – his Edgar Allen Poe tales from the 60s (with Vincent Price) are amazingly entertaining and visually stunning – and was completely engaging when speaking about his experiences and filmmaking in general.

Wouldn’t that have been great to hear Corman reminisce during the Oscars about taking acid on the beach while prepping the Peter Fonda drug film The Trip? Or talk about Price in his prime? Or clue us in to his many inexpensive shortcuts to getting the right image? Wouldn’t it have been great to hear all of these lifetime achievement winners accept their awards? Yeah, it would’ve.

It’s not the same, but here are some video highlights from the ceremony (introductions, etc.).