D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2010
Enchanting Oscar
New Mexico's Academy Awards hopes this year ride on Crazy Heart and Transformers. But this ain't our first time at this rodeo.
By Jeff Berg
In recent years, films with a New Mexico connection have often been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences, the folks who hand out those little Oscar statuettes.
This year's nominations, however, brought recognition for only two films with New Mexico ties. The highly mediocre Crazy Heart, which received three, was filmed in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Española and Galisteo. When the Oscars get handed out on March 7, Crazy Heart will be contending for Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Best Original Song ("The Weary Kind"). The song nominee was co-written by a former Hobbs resident, Ryan Bingham, who ironically shares the same name as George Clooney's character in the Best Picture-nominated Up in the Air. The second Land of Enchantment flick to earn a nomination was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, filmed near Alamogordo, which is up for Best Achievement in Sound.
If you want to fudge a little bit on Oscar night, you can claim Hurt Locker, which is up for nine big ones, including Best Picture. Its connection to New Mexico is that one of its executive producers is Tony Mark, who has been a Santa Fe resident for a quarter-century. Mark was also involved in the Georgia O'Keeffe made-for-cable movie that played on Lifetime last autumn, which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including best made for TV movie.
Prior to his recent success, Mark was the producer of a number of made-for-cable pieces, and a few features including a couple of others with New Mexico connections. Among these were the never-released Bordertown, directed by fellow Santa Fean Gregory Nava, which put Jennifer Lopez in peril as a reporter covering the continuing femicide in Juarez, and two other border-related films, Starring Pancho Villa as Himself and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
In a recent interview with the Albuquerque Journal, Mark was quoted as saying, "I have several more projects I'm trying to bring to New Mexico. [The Oscar nomination] makes the project a little bit more attractive. My ideas were just as good two months ago, but, in an industry where image means so much, this is a good time for me."
But, he added, "the state needs to maintain its incentives if those films are to come here."
Those tax incentives that have enticed filmmakers to New Mexico, to perhaps hope for an Oscar, have been responsible for the ringing of cash registers in the Land of Enchantment. Since 2003, nearly 140 film productions have used the incentives to cut their costs, while New Mexicans, including the 1,200 or so with film-crew training, have also taken advantage of it. Santa Fe and Albuquerque have seen most of the lights, camera and action, as few filmmakers dare to venture out of for more than a few days to other less-civilized locales, lest they have to consume their vichyssoise in a cup rather than a bowl.
Oscar has been more generous to New Mexico in years past, including films from our corner of the state. In 2005, one of only two movies shot (in part) around Silver City since 1914 (the other being 1954's Salt of the Earth), North Country, was nominated for two awards: Best Actress (Charlize Theron) and Best Supporting Actress (Frances McDormand). Brokeback Mountain, which won three Academy Awards and was nominated for five more in 2006, had one very brief scene shot in Mesilla.
Recently, too, Santa Fe resident Alan Arkin received a Best Supporting Actor award for his work in 2007's Little Miss Sunshine. And in 2008, Oscar tried to come to New Mexico 14 times, eight via No Country for Old Men, and the rest for technical awards among three other films shot here. Filmed in part in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Vegas (the New Mexico one), No Country for Old Men brought home four golden statues, including Best Picture.
Since the Academy Awards were first presented in 1929, Oscar has made his presence known in many lesser-known and rarely seen made-in-New Mexico films, such as 1947's superb film noir, Ride the Pink Horse (Best Supporting Actor nomination for Thomas Gomez). In 1950, The Atomic City was nominated in the Best Screenplay category.
Among better-known films, the 1940 classic, Grapes of Wrath, which was shot in part around Gallup and Santa Rosa, won two of the seven Academy Awards it was nominated for.
John Wayne even made a flicker that was partially shot in New Mexico, 1942's Flying Tigers, which was nominated for three Oscars.
King Vidor's 1936 The Texas Rangers, filmed in Diablo Canyon near Santa Fe, earned a Best Sound Recording nomination (losing, probably because of that Texas connection). One of the best films ever made in New Mexico, Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, received nominations, and rightly so, for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. The film about an Albuquerque newspaperman (Kirk Douglas) was shot in Albuquerque, Gallup and Laguna Pueblo.
Despite its title, Oklahoma!, the famed musical, featured New Mexico as an extra, using Santa Fe in its opening credits — the closest the crew ever got to Oklahoma. But Oklahoma! was Oscar gold, dancing away with two Oscars. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, filmed partly around Chama, won four of its seven nominations. Silkwood, the biopic about one of the country's better known whistleblowers, Karen Silkwood, was also nominated for a fistful of awards, but won none. Small parts of that still-riveting film were shot around Los Alamos and Albuquerque.
In general, since southern New Mexico is not generally considered to be part of the state by filmmakers and location scouts at the state film office, this part of the state gets short shrift from Hollywood. Lordsburg in particular fares badly in film attracting, and its only major screen credit ever dissed that town good: The makers of the mediocre 2007 western Seraphim Falls listed the town as "Lorsburg."
The 1939 classic Stagecoach, which won two Academy Awards and was nominated for five more, including Best Picture, was filmed in Colorado, Arizona and California despite the fact that the stagecoach's supposed destination was Lordsburg.
Deming has had a couple of interesting films shot thereabouts in recent years, including Gas, Food, Lodging and a bit of the last Indiana Jones flick. None won Oscars, although Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did "win" a Razzie Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.
Recent years have seen debate and several conflicting studies about New Mexico's film incentive program. Filmmakers benefit by skipping gross-receipts taxes and a 25% tax rebate for production expenditures. Albuquerque was ranked the number-one place to shoot a film by MovieMaker Magazine.
For the last three years, lawmakers in Santa Fe have introduced bills to limit the incentive program, with this year's measure dying in the Labor and Human Resources Committee by a 5-2 vote. If passed as written, the state would have had to cap the production expenditures at $2 million. Predictably, most of the bills are introduced by legislators whose areas see little if any of this cash cow; as a recent column in the Farmington Daily Herald asked, "What about us?" Rep. Dennis Kintigh from Roswell maintained that film incentives cost the state more than $80 million last year.
One study, by accounting firm Ernst and Young, showed that 30 films in New Mexico in 2007 generated more than $250 million in spending. But another study, from NMSU of all places, concluded the state nets less than 15 cents for every dollar spent on the film industry.
Political infighting aside, the film industry remains robust in parts of New Mexico. Five films are in production right now, all in Albuquerque and points north. Seven other productions have just wrapped up their filming in New Mexico, including one, Due Date, that was in Las Cruces for a few days for some second-unit shooting. It's doubtful that film crew will ever return here, due to the overwhelming amount of grousing about the traffic snafus the crew created during its short time here.
One of the most interesting shoots taking place up north is the remake of True Grit by the Oscar-winning filmmaking brothers, Ethan and Joel Coen, who were last here to shoot the magnificent No Country for Old Men. They have returned with the Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges and Oscar-winner Matt Damon to bring new life to the only film for which John Wayne ever won an Academy Award.
With the film due to release this December, one can only ponder what the Duke would say if he were asked to make a film in southern New Mexico.
Perhaps he'd say, "That'll be the day."
(In the 1956 movie, The Searchers, John Wayne used that phrase several times, and the noted Buddy Holly song of the same name and era is said to have been inspired by the uttering.)
Despite his overwhelming workload for Desert Exposure, Jeff Berg finds time to write film reviews for two other publications and the occasional movie-related piece for other publications as well. He coordinates the Saturday CineMatinee series at the Fountain Theatre in Mesilla.
| And the Oscar Goes to: Film fanatic Jeff Berg's unscientific Academy Awards predictions: BEST PICTURE What will win: Up in the Air What should win: The Hurt Locker (actually, my pick is Whatever
Works, but it wasn't nominated) BEST ACTOR Who will win: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) Who should win: George Clooney (Up in the Air) BEST ACTRESS Who will win: Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia) Who should win: Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM What will win: The White Ribbon What should win: Well, the others haven't really been released in the
US yet, but White Ribbon will be a tough one to beat. BEST DIRECTOR Who will win: James Cameron (Avatar) Who should win: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) |