 |
Mark
Johnson tells Jeffrey R Sipe why chairing the Academy's Foreign
Language Film Award Committee is pretty much his dream job.
For my generation," says Mark Johnson, "foreign films were very
important. I saw all of the Ozu films, the French New Wave, Italian
Neo-Realism... I was reared on these films." And being reared in
Spain allowed Johnson to see more than his fair share of non-American
cinema, providing him with an opportunity to develop an appropriately
expansive sense of film history. It is this sense of the international
character of the movies that makes Johnson an obvious choice for
chairing the Academy's foreign film nominating committee.
"My sense of film history is American and European... and, you know,
it's tough enough to see all the American films that come out, let
alone foreign films," Johnson says as part of the explanation for
why he "loves" being part of the foreign Oscar process. "This almost
forces me to see what else is out there."
And 'what else is out there', in Johnson's opinion, is likely to
be both surprising and exhilarating - two qualities that are sometimes
forgotten by film-lovers-turned-film-executives mired in the politics,
gossip, blockbuster mentality and 'strictly business' attitude that
pervades almost all of Hollywood. "When you're in the middle of
the film business, you tend to know everything about films that
are being made," Johnson says. "You know what the budget is, you
know who is sleeping with who, you know who quit the production
and why, you know which endings tested good and bad. There are very
few surprises. With foreign films, it's different."
Johnson has served on the nominating committee for about 10 years,
but this is his first stint at the top of the heap.
"The biggest problem," he says, "is getting young people involved
in the foreign Oscar process. It's difficult when people are working
on movies to get the time to see all the submitted films. There's
a real time requirement... But we've made it a little bit easier.
Now, you don't have to see all the movies submitted in order to
vote on which films should be nominated."
Generally, two of the submitted foreign films are viewed per day
except when a particular film is so long that members are not likely
to want to sit through another film. Those members wanting to vote
on the submissions essentially qualify after having seen the requisite
number of films. Once five films have been nominated, all members
of the Academy are eligible for voting for the Oscar, though, again,
seeing all five films is requisite.
"You have to see the films on a big screen," Johnson explains. "Of
course, every movie should be seen on a big screen, but in this
case, producers are not allowed to distribute the films on tape
to members."
The reasoning behind that prohibition is two-fold. For one, Johnson
explains, some countries do not have the money to make copies and
distribute them to the Academy's 5,500-plus members. Secondly, the
policy ensures that the version of the film voted on is the original
film as shown in its native country and not a version re-cut by
an American distributor for an American audience.
All of which dovetails nicely into Johnson's personal sensibilities.
"After getting a Master's in films studies," he remembers, "I thought
about getting a PhD and becoming a film scholar. But it's probably
a good thing I didn't, since having a master's in film can actually
be a roadblock in Hollywood."
Clearly, however, it has not been a roadblock to getting involved
in films that could be described as very much Hollywood product
but with a strongly humanistic bent. Johnson's producing career
has, in some ways, mirrored his affinity for foreign films, most
of which, it seems, rely strongly on character-driven narratives
as opposed to modern Hollywood's typical reliance on action.
As a producer for Barry Levinson, Johnson was involved with primarily
character-based works ranging from the seminal Diner to Avalon,
Rain Man, Bugsy and many more. Johnson
admits that the films he has been working on recently, however,
have been "all over the place" thematically.
Galaxy Quest, a big-budget sci-fi comedy that Johnson
terms "atypical" of his oeuvre, opened on Christmas Day. At the
other end of the scale, My Dog Skip, whose entire
$5 million budget was provided by American Express president, Fred
Smith, has just finished production. And he still works with Levinson,
most recently on An Everlasting Piece, which was shot
in Ireland with a cast of Irish actors.
Johnson's move from film scholarship to Hollywood producer may not
be quite as dramatic as, say, Alain Robbe-Grillet arriving in Hollywood
to pen the script for the next Die Hard sequel, but
it does bode well for foreign films in America. It's good to know
that cinema from the rest of the world has a friend in LA.
|
