The nominees were ...
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The Academy did several things right this year: For one thing, it gave a best picture nomination to an animated film, Beauty and the Beast, for the first time in its history. But almost more remarkable is that it honored Jonathan Demme's shocker. It's not the type of film that usually gets Oscars, as witness the Academy's long failure to honor Alfred Hitchcock. Those who condemn the portrait of the serial killer as homophobic have a reasonable argument, and one which Demme took note of: He went on to make the AIDS drama, Philadelphia. But The Silence of the Lambs is still an extraordinary piece of filmmaking. It became only the third picture in Oscar history (after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), to take all five of the "top" Oscars: picture, director, actor (Anthony Hopkins), actress (Jodie Foster), and writer (Ted Tally). It might also be noted that the film is an exception to the rule that Oscar-winning movies open in "Oscar season," between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It opened on Valentine's Day (a nice bit of irony) and by awards time had already been released on video. That latter fact may also explain why it won: Since then, Oscar contenders have been diligent in sending videos of their films to Academy members before the awards.
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