Steven Spielberg has hit out at The Academy for its decision not to televise eight award presentations, with the West Side Story director pointing out that every category is ‘indispensable.’
The filmmaker, who’s up for the best director award and has been nominated a whopping 19 times in his life, said he strongly disagrees with the choice.
‘I disagree with the decision made by the executive committee,’ he told Deadline. ‘I feel very strongly that this is perhaps the most collaborative medium in the world.
‘All of us make movies together, we become a family where one craft is just as indispensable as the next. I feel that at the Academy Awards there is no above the line, there is no below the line.
‘All of us are on the same line bringing the best of us to tell the best stories we possibly can.’
Referring to the start time of the ABC telecast, he went on: ‘And that means for me we should all have a seat at the supper table together live at 5.’
The Oscars, which will take place on March 28, will see a return to the Dolby Theater and, fingers crossed, the glitz and glam of old after the 2021 event was majorly scaled back due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, fewer awards will be televised, with production design, sound, original music score, makeup and hairstyling, film editing, documentary short, live action short, and animated short being awarded before the telecast.
West Side Story is up for seven Oscars, including production design and sound, with the director going on to say that the film would not have been possible without both of them.
Academy president David Rubin previously said that the choice was an attempt to keep the telecast from running well over three hours and insisted that all categories would still be ‘celebrated’.
He told Deadline: ‘We thought how do we preserve our values which are have all 23 awards on the show, but still allow for a three-hour show that the TV audience wants to tune into, and other ways to celebrate movies within that show?
‘And we looked at a lot of different ideas of taking categories, and doing like the Emmys, and presenting them on another night, or another way. But, we thought if we can be the most respectful to all of our nominees and winners, how do we do that?
‘And so, this year, a critical year where we knew we had to make changes, we worked out this plan.’
The 2022 Academy Awards will air on March 28.
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