Here's Why Roger Corman Deserves That Honorary Oscar
Filed under: Fan Rant
In 1939 the Academy gave an honorary Oscar to Edgar Bergen for creating a funny puppet. Some people may have thought that was silly. They also may have found it silly that a strange little "cartoon" called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs earned itself an honorary Oscar. The legendary Bob Hope was given a fistful of honorary Oscars over the course of his amazing career ... and I don't remember anyone calling Bob Hope a brilliant actor or influential filmmaker.
In other words, these "honorary" awards that are handed out by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) can be given for any old reason they feel like -- and I for one am thrilled that they've decided to give one to Roger Corman this year. My illustrious colleague Eric Snider clearly doesn't feel the same way, and I'm here to tell Eric he's dead wrong. Wonderfully funny and a snappy dresser, sure, but on this position ... dead wrong.
One day George Lucas will receive a similar award from the Academy. At that time you'll have film fans who say "Absolutely. For just the technical advances that he and his colleagues have created, and for his massive influence on modern-day film exhibition, he's certainly deserving of an Oscar spotlight." You'll also have film fans who say "The director of Star Wars, THX-1138, American Graffiti and The Phantom Menace? Really? The guy who produced Radioland Murders and Howard the Duck? I don't believe it! Typical Hollywood politics!"
The knock against Roger Corman's honorary Oscar seems to be that he's a B-movie producer. Rarely a writer, hardly a great director, but the producer of hundreds of cheaply-made, simplistic movies that pander to an audience's lust for monsters, violence, bouncy babes, and basic exploitation. And to that I say this: "Yeah, so?" With a lot more money in his pocket, Roger Corman could have been the pre-Spielberg Spielberg (if only in his producer's shoes), but instead he was content to fill your local movie house with what he had: monsters, violence, bouncy babes, and basic exploitation.
And what the hell is wrong with that? The umbrage that Mr. Snider exhibits may come from a lifetime of stuffy Oscar awards that are doled out to arthouse films and esoteric filmmakers ... but what's wrong with celebrating one of moviedom's most reliable exports ... the schlock? Must every Oscar be for well-scrubbed period pieces about a hot woman dying of consumption? Is there no room in the Oscar hallways for inexpensive and fun B-movies? Are schlocky films not films?
Sure I could sit here and support Roger Corman by saying he's a film producer who gave early jobs to Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, James Cameron, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Curtis Hanson, Nicolas Roeg, and dozens of other directors. But that's the easy way. I could also assert that, despite what people seem to think, not ALL of Corman's features were bad films. (I'll allow you to decide which ones his best.) But I think the numbers speak for themselves: A "B-movie producer" does not survive hundreds of films and five decades in the movie business unless A) he's doing something right, and B) people actually like working with him.
And that's the message that Roger Corman's honorary Oscar sends to me: That you don't have to grasp for awards with your "disease of the week" Oscar bait movie; that you can build an empire out of motorcycle flicks, monster movies, and (awesome) Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and that (best of all) you can earn a very swanky Oscar for creating cheap, basic, topical B-movies that (here's the kicker) people still love watching four decades later. To say nothing of all the great films that came from directors who learned their craft in Corman's "work as you learn" film school. Or the thousands of young movie geeks who grew up on Corman matinees on their UHF stations ... without even knowing it?
Yes, Roger Corman absolutely deserves his honorary Oscar. Hell, I say give the man two.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-18-2009 @ 1:44PM
chris said...
death race 2000 is my favourite corman produced film. too bad it had to get the remake treatment and lose it's humour, its satire, and its fun. (sigh)
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11-18-2009 @ 2:29PM
Astin said...
I fail to see how it lost any of those things. Sure, the remake was lacking them and sucked, but the ORIGINAL still has it all in spades. Nobody went back and changed that.
I find myself increasingly ignoring remakes. Not just not seeing them, but outright acting as if they never existed (unless they're actually good). Makes being a movie fan less stressful.
11-18-2009 @ 2:14PM
Slappy said...
Bravo, sir! One of the intelligent voices on this site I was speaking of, Mr. Weinberg, for the win!
Your colleague is unfortunately an uninformed idiot who voices his opinions on subjects he doesn't understand.
Thank you for being a voice of reason.
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11-18-2009 @ 3:20PM
speeding_slowly said...
"Your colleague is unfortunately an uninformed idiot who voices his opinions on subjects he doesn't understand."
I'd say this describes you more than Eric, 'Slappy'.
While I may not necessarily agree with Eric's stance on this issue (though I can see his point), he is a very talented writer and a great critic. Your insult of him on such a trivial matter is completely pathetic and uncalled for. I hope it's just your undying love of Roger Corman speaking and not a demonstration of your character (or lack thereof).
11-18-2009 @ 4:41PM
Slappy said...
Unfortunately for you, although you clearly don't like me personally, you cannot deny my posts on a factual basis. Were I to write a big op-ed blasting somebody's deserving such an accolade, I would do my fucking homework first before putting myself out there with all sorts of gaping holes in my knowledge of said topic.
His assertion based upon a false thesis is pathetic and uncalled for.
He threw himself to the wolves and he got appropriately torn apart for posting such a disrespectful, ignorant op-ed.
I was attacking his journalistic credibility. I don't know what the hell he's like in real life so I wouldn't make an assertion. He's probably a nice guy. He's just inept when it comes to writing on topics like this where his opinion is completely uninformed.
You fail to realize that I was talking about his writing.
11-25-2009 @ 3:20PM
fairportfan said...
In the spirit of even-handed, reasoned discourse which you have so ably demonstrated and upheld in your felicitously-phrased and well-documented post, i must respond.
You are a flaming dork.
Thak you.
Have a nice day.
Somewhere else.
11-18-2009 @ 3:39PM
Davey said...
Hear hear. In my book, some of the greatest films ever made are B movies. I think Corman's Poe movies are, in their way, some of the best horror films ever made. Mario Bava totally should have gotten an honorary Oscar; he's one of the most talented and interesting directors in film history. Bava is certainly a more skilled artist than Corman, but the point is that the Academy Awards honor movies that are Prestigious or Important, and generally forget that genre and B movies can be great cinema too--and, even when they're not, they can still be enormously entertaining (Corman's created films that fall under both categories).
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11-18-2009 @ 6:41PM
Linus the Dragon said...
SHaka Shaka! Calamity Linus says Shaka. That is dragon for great job Weinberg! I love Roger Corman movies and they are certainly more fun to watch than half the crap that wins oscars. There are so few comedies even nominated for an oscar that when an artist who celebrates the fun of cinema rather than the "power" gets nominated people are up in arms. Having fun can often times be harder than being moved because you have to be willing to let go and enjoy yourself. Oscar winning films, cough cough crash (and burn please), are often so heavy handed that they make you feel like an idiot for having sat through them as opposed to feeling like an idiot of your own volition. So in conclusion I say shaka to Corman and Shaka to fun!
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11-19-2009 @ 1:48AM
Tor Hershman said...
I know a wee bit about cinematography and Roger Corman’s “The Undead” is the most spine-tingling, by far, film EVER crafted; it is beyond Bergman and Hitchcock combined.
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11-19-2009 @ 2:39PM
monstermac said...
" ...that you can build an empire out of motorcycle flicks, monster movies, and (awesome) Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. "
But at least they be WELL-DONE motorcycle etc. flicks - AND to be specifically honored for being so. That's the point Eric Snyder was making. I mean, if he was being awarded for the 'warm and fuzzy feelings' it gives certain folks, then what would differ that from the sentimental Oscar bait you have derided ? What's the difference between that, and giving Best Picture nod to Forest Gump, instead of Pulp Fiction ( or snubbing 'The Dark Knight' in favor of ' The Reader ', a work of a WW2 subgenre that's apparently close to quite a few people's hearts. An empire has been created out of these Nazi Holocaust drama flicks as well, much as it pretends to be a cottage industry, a specialty shop like the artsy-fartsy, sex crap often would ).
" and that (best of all) you can earn a very swanky Oscar for creating cheap, basic, topical B-movies that (here's the kicker) people still love watching four decades later. "
Lots of people love Twilight.
Is the demographic THE achievement. I mean, we are suppose to be talking about cinematic merits, right ?
Snyder's point remains : awards are suppose to recognize excellence. The real points of contention here, it seems, are as to WHAT type of 'excellence' an award giving body, much less a film one, should ought to recognize, and under what premises. The Academy, for example, once again shows here its true colors, and the overtly commercial nature of its shtick ( the nod towards the high-end stuff is really branding, if not desperate bid for credibility ). Yet, the Cannes-esque standards don't seem to fare better, either - which is bent on doling out trophies to Third World countries so the judges could bask on their exoticism, even as the actual merits of those works would make even the Roger Corman of Snyder's world cringe. It's really a choice between the industry power-brokers, or a self-aggrandizing, pretensions clique : who among them gets to decide what's good for everybody else ? Whose judgment should a film work's validation be hinged upon ? And why does anyone have to put up with any of that shit ?
If he's being honored for having fostered 'schlock cinema', fine; but I don't think it's wise to award films based on their audience.
P.S. Fitting that Snyder mentions Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, two people who have not won Oscars, yet whose work are far more distinctive, resonant, and idiosyncratic than whatever the adults of this generation thought Corman's work was. Their stuff were not the ' disease of the week ', sappy tripe. But those are far more household, and would last far longer than this whole hipster reappraisal of 'grindhouse' w/c is just fashionable to do these days. Academy Awards have meant nothing in their world. Neither did it matter to their achievements...
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11-21-2009 @ 7:44PM
Osvaldo Neto said...
It's for serious that i read? The love for Twilight is nothing if you put it along with the love for Corman's classics.
If i have kids someday, there will be a movie produced by Corman for them. STEPMONSTER is something i would love to watch if i was on my 9, 10 years old. And you can always count with Roger's entertainment factory when you start to grow up.
Twilight is for teenagers. Nothing else. It'll be forgotten.
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11-25-2009 @ 3:47AM
Risto said...
I don't know if this comes as a shock to you, but George Lucas won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1992 for a body of work that reflects a consistently high quality of motion picture production.
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11-25-2009 @ 1:40PM
Mesnard said...
I thought Lucas actually earned an honorary Oscar which was flown in the space shuttle (maybe Lucas was 50 at the time if I recall).
There was a screen showing the thing floating around, but I'm not certain if it was a via satellite thing or prerecorded footage. Sorry for the cloudy memory, but I am only saying it in a constructive way.
Reading the autobiography and "unauthorized" bio on Corman, it's easy to see why he deserves recognition (which he has not been vying for but those who did succeed thought he needed one).
He always seemed to be happy to let people prove themselves by working through the Corman system; doing it without him being upset, but rather proud, when people became successes.
Many people lament or regret, but not Corman. He still defended the fact he was right in not producing Easy Rider (of which Nicholson approached him with first to produce) since he couldn't fathom putting up the money at the time. At least Roger hasn't been known for his speeches of "could have been a contender" and now has an honorary Oscar to show he made a positive contribution in the industry - even if it's for producing talent rather than product.
11-25-2009 @ 4:30AM
roberto said...
I am thrilled that he got this award.
Masque Of The Red Death, The Intruder and The Raven are some of my favourite movies. I am glad that Oscar has widened his field of appreciation and recognised that a good 'B' movie is as worthy, and often more enjoyable, as a good 'A' movie.
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11-25-2009 @ 3:18PM
fairportfan said...
If you haven't seen "Targets" (the Corman-produced film that launched Peter Bogdanovich's career), or "Rock and Roll High School", you need to.
And, if you have, why didn't you mention them?
11-26-2009 @ 9:44AM
Uncle Richie said...
Don't forget he also gave an job early on to a little known actor named Jack Nicholson. I wonder whatever became of him? Oh yeah, 3 oscars.
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11-27-2009 @ 1:00AM
Collette said...
Roger Corman deserves an oscar for many reasons.
My favorites are Vincet Price movies.
However, I am truly thankful that he brought over one of the biggest cult films ever, The Wicker Man.
I understand that not everyone agrees with me. It is very like my inability to see why some other pieces of offal are given multiple awards when I couldn't even stay awake for them.
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12-01-2009 @ 1:54PM
Wendy said...
For all you Corman fans out there - there's a documentary coming out about him soon!
...maybe for all you non-Corman fans it will shine some light on why he is SO deserving of an Oscar!
Bravo Mr. Corman! Bravo.
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