Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Sabin wrote:Can't vote because I haven't seen The Emigrants, Sleuth, and Sounder, but I'm pretty interested in seeing if The Godfather can come out on top here.

I think the silent majority will go with it.

Voted for The Godfather picture and director.

Went with the Academy's choices.

My picks for 1972:

Best Picture
1. The Godfather
2. Cabaret
3. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
4. What's Up Doc?
5. Deliverance

The 6th Spot: Sleuth

Best Director
1. Bob Fosse, Cabaret
2. Luis Bunuel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
3. Francis Coppola, The Godfather
4. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Sleuth
5. John Boorman, Deliverance

The 6th Spot: Alfred Hitchcock, Frenzy

Can't vote because I haven't seen The Emigrants, Sleuth, and Sounder, but I'm pretty interested in seeing if The Godfather can come out on top here.

This was to me a very strange Oscar year.

The year's two strongest contenders, Cabaret and The Godfather, opened early in the year making the other nominees also-rans for most of the year. Although I was aware of the eligibility disparity between critics awards based on New York openings and Oscar nominations based on Les Angeles openings, I was surprised that a film as "important" as the NYFC winner, Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, wasn't eligible because it had not opened in L.A. until 1973. At the other end of the spectrum I was stunned that Charlie Chaplin's twenty year-old Limelight, which received a nomination for Best Score, was, because it had not been shown in L.A. until then even though it had long been a TV staple.

If they could nominate Chaplin's twenty year-old film then why couldn't they nominate Yasujiro Ozu's nineteen year-old Tokyo Story which was given its first U.S. theatrical release along with most of Ozu's other films in 1972? Probably because it didn't play L.A. for the requisite seven days whereas Limelight presumably did. Indeed, my five favorite films given their initial U.S. release in 1972 were Cabaret; The Godfather; Tokyo Story; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Cries and Whispers. My five favorite directors of the year were the directors of those films including Ozu, who had been dead for nine years, and Luis Bunuel, who they actually did nominate for his screenplay for Discreet.

I liked Jan Troell's The Emigrants enough to place it sixth on my list of the year's ten best films, but its nomination over the Bergman, Bunuel and Ozu masterpieces seemed to me to be somewhat of a bland substitute.

I liked Sleuth and Sounder about equally well and was bemused by the more sensationalistic Deliverance's nomination in Best Picture over Sleuth and Boorman's nomination for Best Director over Martin Ritt for Sounder.

My choice for Best Director would have been Bunuel had he been nominated. Of the nominees I liked winner Bob Fosse the best, even though Cabaret is the only film he directed which I liked unconditionally. I think the film should also have won for Best Picture over Coppola's good, but overly long Godfather epic, which might have been my choice if they had cut that opening wedding scene by half.

Voting for Cabaret and Fosse here.