Oscar Wars Quotes

“It’s a town built on a rock-solid foundation of insecurity.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“The editing prize, often an indicator for Best Picture, went to Hacksaw Ridge, eliciting flashbacks to Trump winning Pennsylvania early on Election Night.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“After two timid, uncertain months, Streep—one of the only movie stars with the stature to risk alienating half the country—had unambiguously picked a side.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Recalling with horror his mockery of a disabled reporter at a campaign event,”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“In November, Trump won the election, sending an ugly fissure through the American populace. His upset win, fueled by racist backlash toward Obama, was a particular knife wound for Black America.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Surely there was an element of racial privilege.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“the same day Access Hollywood footage emerged in which Donald Trump boasted about grabbing women “by the pussy.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Then another awful bombshell dropped when the accuser’s brother revealed that she had killed herself in 2012, after suffering from severe depression, drug addiction, and delusions that God was talking to her through her car radio. “He’s probably going to get an Academy Award,” the woman’s sister said of Parker. “It eats me up.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Immediately after that premiere, one of my colleagues texted me, ‘How’s Birth of a Nation?’ And I said, ‘It’s not great, but it’s going to go for so much money right now.’” This was correct.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“But the fact that the Academy’s two Black board members were also related only underscored how anomalous they were in Hollywood.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“The backlash, now noisier than the original outcry, was a funhouse mirror reflection of the political rise of Donald Trump, who was blustering his way through the Republican primaries on a platform of white grievance and ridiculing “political correctness.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Throwing the industry’s hypocrisy in its face, he added, “Everybody in here probably voted for Obama, but when I go to offices, I see no Black folks except for the brother man at security.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“In her will, McDaniel left her Oscar to Howard University, where the drama department had once warmly welcomed her for a luncheon. There it stood, for a time, under glass. Sometime in the late sixties—likely in the heat of campus protests, as students at the historically Black university agitated for a curriculum that more accurately reflected their history—the award went missing and was never seen again.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“On Oscar night, ushers carried trays of rainbow ribbons—another concession to Jackson—so that Black attendees could show their solidarity. Only Quincy Jones wore one. (Will Smith said it would clash with his tuxedo.)”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“In a PR coup, the guest of honor was Hillary Clinton, who gave a fifteen-minute speech praising “my friend Harvey,” then watched beside him from the front row.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“she had recently ditched her Flatliners costar Kiefer Sutherland at the altar.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“He was the face not only of the exploding indie movement but also of Miramax. “I’m their Mickey Mouse,” he’d say.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Quentin brought back that thing that only had existed theretofore in the seventies, the idea of the rock-star director,” says his then publicist, Bumble Ward.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“But whatever career fallout Lowe may have suffered was overshadowed in May, when word got out of a sex tape he had made while campaigning at Michael Dukakis’s Democratic National Convention. The mother of a girl in the video filed a lawsuit, which was eventually settled, but the tabloid feeding frenzy only prolonged the Academy’s nightmare.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“In the audience, his wife leaned over and whispered, “Oh, my God! Steve, you have a big hit!” Silver responded, “It’s a piece of shit.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“I was told by the director, ‘Do not go to Robin Williams, because he’ll start to get involved,’” she recalls.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Finally, Kubrick agreed to address their concerns—but only if they got him a bell to ring when he felt like moving things along.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Actor Malcolm McDowell once remarked on the director’s peculiar dining habits: scooping up a mouthful of dessert, then a forkful of steak, then back to dessert again. “This is how Napoléon used to eat,” Kubrick explained.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“To really help the Indians, for example, I should be on a reservation giving penicillin, not talking on the Dick Cavett Show,” she admitted.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Voight was very much on the “counterculture bandwagon,” Salt says. “His politics were ‘take care of the underdog’ to the tenth power”—a far cry from his turn toward Trumpism decades later.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“After his father went off to fight in World War II, his mother informed Dennis that he had been killed in an explosion during basic training. Not long after, nine-year-old Dennis was stunned when his father returned home from Peking; his death had been a cover story for his work with the Office of Strategic Services in Asia. “Now,” Hopper recalled, “wouldn’t that make you a paranoiac?”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“Movie attendance, which had peaked at 78.2 million a week in 1946, was on a downward slide that would bottom out at 15.8 million by 1971.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“In 1956, Wilson quit the Communist Party, along with many other disillusioned members, after Nikita Khrushchev’s speech detailing Stalin’s abuses of power.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“The win showed that there was still room for Academy voters to embrace a worthy screenplay by a blacklisted writer, perhaps as a form of silent protest.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

“He used the Marxist idea of the dialectic to infuse scenes with human tension.”
― Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears