Some Oscar voters want ballots back

LOS ANGELES, March 14 (UPI) -- Some Oscar voters are so angry about politicking for Best Director they're demanding their ballots be returned, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

The paper said they want to take back their vote for "Gangs of New York" director Martin Scorsese because of an ad that Miramax Films ran on his behalf, featuring an opinion column by Oscar-winning director Robert Wise urging a vote for Scorsese.

Miramax co-financed and released "Gangs of New York," and studio chief Harvey Weinstein has led an energetic campaign to get a directing Oscar for Scorsese. Miramax arranged to have Wise's essay reprinted in Hollywood trade papers, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

Wise is a two-time Oscar-winning director -- "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music" -- and a former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Oscar politicking has been an issue in Hollywood for several years, leading to complaints about aggressive campaigning for Oscar gold. The Los Angeles Times reported that the ads provoked a rare -- and unusually harsh -- public reaction by current academy officials.

Academy President Frank Pierson said the column explicitly violates academy rules prohibiting voters from telling anyone how they vote.

"It's a corruption of the process," said Pierson. "The reaction among our membership has been real dismay, anger and outrage is not too strong a word."

Although some academy voters have demanded that their ballots be returned so they can recast their votes for Best Director, Pierson said ballots that have already been mailed to the academy will not be returned to voting members. Ballots are due at academy headquarters on March 18.

A publicist for Scorsese, Lois Smith, told the Times the director was not happy when Wise's essay was reprinted in ads.

"Marty was very touched by what Bob Wise said," Smith said. "But he never knew it was going to become an advertisement."

Although Oscar campaigning has become increasingly bold in recent years, Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson ("Rain Man") told the paper that the use of Wise's endorsement in ads for Scorsese crossed a line.

"There is just something extremely vulgar about the idea of a blatant campaign advertisement like this," said Levinson. "You look at an ad like that and say, 'My God.' Why don't we just give money to people and tell them how to vote? This has gone too far. It's too sinister. I don't think it shows Robert Wise in the best light, and it tarnishes Martin Scorsese because it's such and ugly campaign."

Miramax's Chief Operating Officer Rick Sands in a statement that the company did not intend to offend anyone, and pulled the ad as soon as it realized there was "a negative reaction amongst a few academy members."

"We were completely unaware that this was something academy members found offensive," said Sands. "And since there is nothing that addresses this in the academy marketing guidelines, we certainly did not know this practice was a violation of academy rules."

Wise told the paper he had not heard that anyone was upset with his column. He said he wrote it because he wanted to do something to help "Gangs of New York," which he said "certainly deserves some help at the box office."

In the column, Wise wrote that the movie is "both a remarkable movie in its own right, and in many ways a summation of (Scorsese's) entire body of work." Scorsese has been nominated for the directing Oscar four times, but has never won.

Pierson said the contretemps might lead to reform.

"It has raised the issue of (Oscar campaigning) in such a dramatic way," Pierson said, "that there is now a concrete possibility of doing something about it, and reversing the trend."