Movie Academy Is No Retirement Home

You’d like to think that a man who’s just written a book about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would have acquired a reasonably clear understanding of the makeup of the organization. But in his Feb. 16 Times piece (“Does Oscar Prefer Noble Themes to GoodFilms?”), and in his book, “Oscar Fever: The History & Politics of the Academy Awards,” Emanuel Levy describes the academy membership as “about a generation older than Hollywood’s movers and shakers.”

That’s a jaw-dropping assertion, a little like Margaret Mead assuring the readers of her first book that most Samoans are Amish, or Roger Kahn pointing out that everybody on the 1953 Dodgers was an infielder. When a writer whiffs so spectacularly on such a fundamental point, it sets you to wondering about the depth of his research.

Levy doesn’t define Hollywood “movers” (or “shakers”), but he makes clear they are something quite apart from academy members, who are off sitting very still, probably watching “Matlock.”

As a test of Levy’s pronouncement, though, we might turn to Premiere magazine’s most recent list (without in any way endorsing the exercise of compiling such a list) of the “100 Most Powerful Folks in Hollywood.” The people on that roster presumably have a strong claim to mover-and-shakerhood.

There are (mysteriously) 122 names on Premiere’s list. Disregarding the 10 of those individuals (lawyers, mostly) who aren’t eligible for membership, all but nine--NINE--of the remaining 112 are academy members, and a couple of the others have been invited to join but haven’t sent back their acceptances to date.

For a group being defined as well past its prime, that sounds like a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.

The academy is not an organization that filmmakers join when they retire. We don’t kick members out as they become older, but we do invite them in as soon as they’ve demonstrated a knack for first-rate work. That means that actors and visual effects specialists often join in their 20s; directors, writers and executives are more likely to have reached their 30s when they join; and many cinematographers are geezers of 40 or more before they’ve had a chance to show that they belong with the cream of their craft.

Nearly all of the most talented mid-career American actors working in theatrical features (and lots from other countries) are members of the academy, as is virtually every major director except George Lucas and Woody Allen. (Both have been invited, of course.) The same is true for art directors, producers, animators and editors: The key creative people putting together the best theatrical pictures we see, unless they’re very new to the field, are far more likely than not to be academy members.

Even Times reporters occasionally betray a tendency to view the academy as an annex of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital. If Levy and other entertainment writers prefer to give their readers the impression that Chloe Sevigny, M. Night Shyamalan, Tobey Maguire and Susannah Grant are wrestling walkers to the post office to cast their academy ballots, maybe there’s no help for it.

But readers would do well to keep in mind that writers sometimes find it more satisfying to be sardonic than accurate.