Nicole Kidman and the Weinstein Nominees | 2003

in 2003 nicole kidman won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in the ours her narrative was like a perfect storm she had a series of financial and critical successes an unexpected yet transformative role and had triumphed over personal challenges she also had something in common with two other nopony's Miramax he has three of the five best actress nominees in 2003 were in films that unfortunately put them in the presence of Harvey Weinstein once the king of the Oscars Harvey is now a kind of inevitable elephant in the room it's impossible to revisit certain periods in Hollywood history without discussing him in some capacity many stories about his behavior during this season specifically have surfaced in the wake of the me2 movement stories that inform our understanding of how exactly this race broke down so in this video we're going to cover a lot Nicole Kidman's journey to Virginia Woolf how Harvey Weinstein affected the race and what this ceremony in particular can help us understand about our culture today she's 21 beautiful talented and remarkably down-to-earth she also has half a dozen Hollywood producers lined up at her door begging her to appear in their next movies from the very beginning of her career it was obvious that Nicole Kidman was a natural talent her big break came in 1988 when she starred in the thriller dead calm as a grieving mother who set sail only to find more trouble at sea the film was a hit in both Australia and the United States and happened to attract the attention of one Tom Cruise the shoe actors met she secured a role in his next film Days of Thunder and before long the two were madly in love and engaged to be married at the time Tom Cruise was one of Hollywood's biggest leading men turning out popular films like Top Gun and the color of money becoming his wife changed everything as Ingrid's ishi wrote in Vanity Fair it's hard to imagine a more dramatic personal and sociological change than the one Kidman experienced the moment she hooked up with Cruz she went from being an actress who had begun to taste success and who had always insisted on living on her own even during various romances to a woman inside the engine of the Hollywood machine I don't normally like to talk about more gossipy elements in an actor's life but you can't really discuss the first decade of Nicole Kidman's career without talking about Tom Cruise they represented this beautiful Hollywood fantasy come to life but because she was newer to the scene it took the press a while to see Nicole as anything beyond the wife of Tom Cruise in the mid-90s things began to change she starred in Gus Van Sant's satirical film to die for as a twisted weather reporter who dreams of becoming a news anchor then in Jane Campion's adaptation of the Henry James novel portrait of a lady together those films represented what all argue throughout this video has become a constant characteristic Nicole Kidman's career transformative character work on the one hand Suzanne who the New York Times said had cold-blooded perkiness and insatiable narcissism on the other hand Isabelle sexually repressed and intellectually insecure so Nicole starpower began to climb she even won a Golden Globe for to die for and although 1999's Eyes Wide Shut placed her literally as a secondary figure to Tom Cruise she continued to inch away from this perception as his arm candy by adding prominent roles with big directors Kubrick to her filmography however everything would take a big turn in 2001 let's first of all get out of the way the question that everybody wants to ask you nowadays and that's about the divorce early that year Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman filed for divorce ending the nationwide fantasy of the idealized couple a media onslaught followed marked with various tabloid covers wild rumors paparazzi nightmares and truly invasive questions from talk-show hosts when that happened were you surprised because you know there have been lots of media reports that you didn't even know it was going to happen her personal life was dragged through the gutter in an indescribable way only outstanding artistic achievements would bring her out of it that same year Nicole starred in two smash hits the others a psychological thriller in which she plays the mother of haunted children became a sleeper summer hit with ample critical praise and then came Moulin Rouge a big-budget absinthe trip of a pop musical in which she plays an actress fighting off the affection of a wealthy suitor in order to stay with her true love Moulin Rouge launched her into awards contention she won another Golden Globe was named Entertainer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly one of People Magazine's Most Beautiful People and although she lost the Academy Award to Halle Berry you can watch more about her historic win on my channel she left at the ceremony as a certified a Lister with massively sympathetic press coverage with two major successes in a row and without Tom by her side 2001 became the year of a new Nicole the Albuquerque Journal observed now she's no longer Tom Cruise's wife or even Cruz's ex-wife director Sydney [ __ ] echoed this in People magazine saying that she always did good work but half the world thought of her as mrs. Tom Cruise now she's finally come into her own finally in 2002 comes the hours the hours follows three women who each interact with Virginia Wolf's novel mrs. Dalloway in some capacity Nicole plays Virginia herself as she writes the novel and struggles to come to terms with her troubled marriage and mental health the role seemed to find Nicole at an oddly appropriate time in her life the public dissolution of her marriage had understandably left her feeling raw and vulnerable so she was ready to receive the works of Virginia Woolf and tap into what makes her a fascinating and enduring figure she came along it's interesting because that was a line that was in the film it's saying the dead give us gifts and that really resonated with me because the jigna gave me a gift at this time in my life by by exploring just what she says about life what she does her ability to sort of exist within her struggles and then let that fade into her life the performance was there she just had to make it through Oscar season for the first half of 2002 Miramax wasn't doing so great its relationship with parent company Disney was strained over financial concerns it had laid off 75 employees and its films give the studio's worst box-office performance in five years Hollywood was ready to count Harvey Weinstein out but he barreled forward with his usual hubris leaving that Miramax's fall lineup would make up for everything and did it ever I've detailed on my channel before how Harvey Weinstein became known for his ability to get nominations and win Oscars for his projects 2003 brought that reputation to a new level just months after being vilified by his peers and magazine articles and derided by the hollywood grapevine as a mogul in decline Harvey Weinstein dominated the Academy Awards race in a way that no single studio had done in more than half a century his projects earned 40 nominations that year no studio had surpassed that number since 1940 when United Artists had 45 nominations four of the five Best Picture nominees were produced by Weinstein and as I mentioned earlier three of the five best actress nominees were in Weinstein projects basically he was campaigning against himself in a Weinstein and post Weinstein world's campaigning matters well okay it always did but now it's an industry in itself so how a studio decides to campaign says a lot about its priorities and its strategy it's like having children Weinstein said one has certain needs at one time another at another time and you manage to handle it as events demand by comparing the journeys of these three women we can learn a lot about Miramax and how shitty a person Harvey Weinstein was first among these nominees was Renee Zellweger in Chicago an adaptation of the 1975 musical Renee plays Roxie Hart an aspiring star who schemes her way out of a murder conviction similar to Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge the glittering musical prompted the entertainment community to reevaluate her as more than the woman from Bridget Jones certainly she'd earned recognition including an Oscar nomination for her romantic comedies but Chicago revealed a grittier Renee and audiences and critics loved it it became a runaway hit grossing over a hundred and seventy million dollars in the US and Canada the highest-grossing farest picture nominee besides two towers Miramax aka Harvey never really anticipated Chicago becoming a massive hit despite the success of Moulin Rouge movie musicals still felt like a gamble he was convinced that Gangs of New York was Miramax's big winner that season so Chicago had less than half the budget of gangs of New York and while Harvey spent nearly four months patrolling the gang set he spent only a few days on Chicago's by the time the Oscars whirled round the director of Chicago Rob Marshall even privately complained about Harvey's heavy campaigning on behalf of Martin Scorsese to win Best Director still Chicago's success was undeniable and it built the bulk of its own campaign and Rene along with it she won the SAG and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a comedy or musical Harvey was clearly invested in Rene as one of Miramax's frequent players all three of her Oscar nominations come from Miramax projects so far like Chicago the film she was strategically unwise they knew she'd already finished filming cold Mountain which like gangs of New York they plan to push as a major awards contender the next season it also started cold so another good reason to hope that she'd win this year they could build up goodwill based on Renee's performance in Chicago and launched a full-scale campaign later and while guess how that turned out Renee Zellweger a mountain by this point Harvey Weinstein already had the reputation of being aggressive Ken Auletta wrote in The New Yorker those who have been witnessed his outbursts public and private describe not a loveable rogue but rather a man with little self-control whose tone of voice and whose body language can seem dangerous of course we know now just how dangerous he actually was Renee recently told vulture that she was largely spared from his predations that she wasn't around Hollywood culture enough to really know revisiting this time in the me2 era Harvey spent the year preoccupied with another any for Salma Hayek Frieda was a labor of love my greatest ambition was to tell her story she recently wrote it became my mission to portray the life of this extraordinary artist and to show my need of Mexico in a way that combated stereotypes they said there are no parts for Latinas here what do you want to play the maid mm-hmm you you start you a star in Mexico why don't you go back to Mexico and they were not trying to be mean or anything they were trying to give me good advice that you will never get a leading role for a Latina and this is what truly inspired me various producers circled the idea of a Frida Kahlo biopic for decades drawing interest from actresses like JLo and even Madonna a Hayek through sheer power of will was the one who got it made it took seven years to find a home for the film and as a co-producer she pushed to have it made with Miramax she believed that surely a producer with a record like Harvey's would give Frida the attention she deserved she quickly realized she was wrong someone recently detailed her encounters with Harvey during this time his frequent enquiries to give or receive sexual favors his demands to make major changes in personnel and impossible timeframes his threat to halt the film unless she added a lesbian sex scene I would recommend reading the article in full to get a true picture but she describes a man who was all too eager to demean and disrespect a man with no interests or belief in the film at hand quote when Harvey saw the cut film he said it was not good enough for a theatrical release and that he would send it straight to video in his eyes I was not an artist I was not even a person there was a thing not a nobody but a body in the end Frieda received positive reviews while artists biopics are notoriously difficult to present in a unique way under Julie Taymor direction the film broke out of realism to suggest the fanciful colors of Frida's imagination ultimately Salma did end up with an Oscar nomination when which was regarded as historic although that wasn't really true of Hernando Montenegro was nominated just a few years earlier but could she really expect to receive campaigning resources from a man who buried her performance who told her the only thing she had going for was her sex appeal she publicly predicted her own loss and attributed it partially to a lack of campaigning she told one paper we haven't had the promotional campaigns of other films nor of other actresses Harvey's interference with the production of the hours paled in comparison to Freda unlike Freda the behind-the-scenes drama was contemporaneously public and reported on Scott Rudin the other producer of the hours had a notoriously adversarial relationship with Harvey Weinstein Harvey openly complained about Philip Glass's score for the film to reporters and even attempted to get Nicole Kidman to convince Rudin to change it he refused to screen the film at the Venice Film Festival and oh yeah he hated the nose so everyone's talking about the nose so the first thing you probably notice in the hours is that is not Nicole Kidman's face the nose was something that Ann Roth the costume designer and stupid daughter suggested and I was like yes because to change not to look like Virginia but to find her to find the essence of home for some reason that came through a nose and obviously everyone had an opinion about the nose some people loved it a lot of people didn't and even more made fun of it just because even Denzel Washington couldn't resist when the time came via nose nicole kidman personally I get both sides of this debate it sometimes has an unnatural greenish hue or is oddly textured but also it does accomplish its goal of erasing Nicole Kidman the actress and as far as I could tell that was much more significant to viewers than anything else of course the nose was a physical transformation a sort of D glamming that a lot of naturally gorgeous people get a lot of credit for but for many journalists the transformation was much less literal the depth and quality of her performance represented the making of Nicole as a megastar it proved that the one-two punch of Moulin Rouge and the others was not a fluke but rather the results of a series of canny and admirably risky strategic choices as a Oh Scott wrote in the New York Times miss Kidman's physical transformation into Virginia Woolf seemed so impressive and was so extravagantly praised in part because it seemed so unlikely because she had not struck anyone until then as the kind of actress who could disappear so completely on-screen still reeling from the successes of Moulin Rouge and the others she immediately entered the Miramax publicity machine as Roger Ebert pointed out she was considered the front-runner not least because Hollywood admires the class with which she handled her divorce from Tom Cruise and the Flair with which her career has gone from one good choice to another this was her year and Miramax seemed to understand that for example the Los Angeles Times reported that Harvey loaned her and Catherine zeta-jones out to Jeffrey Katzenberg to host a giant party two weeks after nominations were announced Nicole like Renee luckily avoided any extreme behavior from Weinstein she recently revealed to variety that she disliked his controlling personality and while she insists she did not know about his rampant sexual assaults she kept her distance from him because she didn't care for his angry outbursts now let's not forget about the other two nominees in this category [Applause] hailed as an ex Grace Kelly at age 14 by Laurence Olivier she spent a few years climbing to the peak of stardom but instead of soaring to the top she spent the 90s as a working actress a hidden diamond than a string of also-rans and occasionally excellent Indies unfaithful returned her to that peak status although her performance was well received the film had less fans and her performance Julianne Moore rounded out the category for her role in far from heaven which again had her in a 1950s sexually repressed household or as I like to call it the Todd Haynes special overall it was a big year for Moore who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the hours despite having more screen time than Nicole Kidman which is another clue to the studio's priorities sometimes two nominations can backfire Roger Ebert predicted for example that Moore's vote would be split between her two nominations and she ended up losing to Catherine zeta-jones for Best Supporting Actress [Music] the 75th Academy Awards ceremony can tell us a lot about where we find ourselves in culture in 2019 many issues that pervade the news today we're just beginning to bubble up to the surface so despite the ceremony occurring less than 20 years ago it feels like a different world entirely just days before the ceremony the United States invaded Iraq the mood across the country was decidedly somber and the Academy mindful that the glitz and glamour of an award ceremony might read poorly in that environment eliminated the red carpet for the evening the war seeped into little moments here and there throughout the ceremony most notably in various acceptance speeches including Nicole's today politically aware speeches are common some would say embraced but this was not the case for Michael Moore that night we are against this war mr. Bush shame on you mr. Bush shame on you and anytime [Music] [Applause] Harvey's films when over ten Awards that evening Ahmir max did miss out on a big one Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist over Martin Scorsese for Kings New York the director of course did not attend to the ceremony having fled the United States in 1978 to avoid jail time after he pled guilty to raping a 13 year old I'm not going to fully address the separating the art from the artists issue here that is enormous Lee complex but this win gives us an idea of how those discussions shaped our past a minor debate did ignite about Polanski's nomination some of which Harvey was ironically rumored to have fuelled but for the most part the consensus fell on the judge the art not the artists side of things survivor of his assault even appeared on morning talk shows in CNN to echo that sentiment at the end of the day the Academy did not revoke his nomination and when his name was announced the audience gave him a standing ovation except her she was not having it I bring this up because I think it's helpful context for why the art vs. artist debate is important his win begs the question why would Harvey Weinstein ever believe that he would face consequences for what he did sure he had power and money he could silence people if he really wanted to but he also had the confidence of the status quo he had proof that he could continue his abusive behavior and still receive the prizes he valued more than anything else we've come a long way since then the Academy has since expelled both Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein from its membership a tweet can cause you more trouble than statutory rape cause permanent alliance key in 2003 of course these issues aren't solved and the nuances are often buried but as frivolous as award shows can be they matter because they affect stuff like this it's important to keep talking about it and to be careful about the examples we set for the future in 2003 the star is aligned for Nicole Kidman she honed her skills as an actress and found the right role at a time when she was vulnerable enough to master it she had overwhelmingly positive press not to mention nasal buzz and momentum from her previous work later that year a o Scott profiled Nicole for the New York Times he wrote that she refused to follow the usual paths trod by most movie stars filmography since her Oscar wind has only confirmed this thesis the sheer number of wigs she goes through is kind of a meme now but I think they're convenient physical symbols of what I mean she's shown a consistent commitment to independent films and supporting roles that very few actors of her caliber and status have stoker earth rabbit hole the killing of a sacred deer destroyer not all of these films have performed well at the box office but they show a complete openness to divisive directors unconventional storytelling and unlikable characters which clarifies her priorities as an actress she curates her roles as a list of challenges and continues to prove that her transformation in the hours was not an anomaly but a key characteristic [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 1,100,168

Rating: 4.8406634 out of 5

Keywords: Nicole Kidman, Best Actress Oscar, Academy Awards, The Hours, Chicago, Renee Zellweger, Salma Hayek, Frida, Harvey Weinstein, 2003

Id: z4GvecFjLkU

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 22 2019

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