James L. Brooks wins the Oscar for Directing for Terms of Endearment at the 56th Academy Awards. Hosted by Johnny Carson; Richard Attenborough presents the award.
Sir Richard Attenborough is a great man. Quite old now and in a nursing home, he has never really recovered from the deaths of several family members in the Christmas tsunami.
I respect James L Brooks (God his movies are great) but You don't need to be a fan of Bergman to know he was the best director...Fanny and alexander was his best movie.
It was a trend in the 80's to have a golden opportunity to reward a legendary, non-American filmmaker for one of their great works...only to cave and go with a safer, Oscar-baity Hollywood film (see Kurosawa losing in 1985).
James L. Brooks's job on Terms of Endearment was great and I loved the film, but Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander remains memorable (he should have won, at least, for best original screenplay).
Interesting that both Fanny And Alexander and Das Boat were both originally conceived and produced as television productions and were adapted to theatrical versions.
It's interesting that the executive producer of The Simpsons is an Oscar winning director. He's mostly known for television than movies anyway. This is before The Simpsons aired.
"Terms of Endearment" was a good movie, interesting and sad, but the directing was not very good. As much as I like Shirley MacLaine, I have to say that this is a pretty bad role of hers because of the direction, not because of her. Her character was exaggerated. According to me the right Oscar choice here was Mike Nichols for "Silkwood".
How come he didn't thank any of the Actresses and Actors from the Movie: Shirley McLain, Debbie Winger, Jack Nicolson, etc. Nor did he thank the Novelist who wrote the book from which the MOvie is based upon: Larry McMurty.
I don’t think so. Achievement and direction means a lot including pleasing its audience. And after seeing both pictures, I can truly say the people watching tears of endearment had a much better time than those that Saw Fanny and Alexander
Odd that Philip Kaufman didn't make it onto the final five - in both the writing & directing categories - given how many nominations The Right Stuff got. I guess it was the bad box office that did him in. Had he been nominated, he'd easily be my choice: that's my top film of 1983, and probably of the whole decade. The lineup being as it is, I'd go with Bergman, but Brooks is by no means a bad choice either.
I genuinely think it was such a shame not having nominated Barbra Streisand as best director, even morr so when she won the golden globe for both Best comedy/musical picture and best director.
He's a Jew who grew up in poverty in North Bergen, New Jersey and who also became the modern-day Moses who seeks to liberate his people from modern-day golden calfs many in the older generation of Jews idolized, such as the Kennedys and Disney
Barbra Streisand was robbed of a nomination as Best Director that year, after all, she had won the Best Director award at the Golden Globes several weeks earlier, competing against all these nominees here on this video! It is shameful the Academy (back then) was just a Good Ol Boys exclusive club
