NYT: Social Issues Fuel Race for Oscar

[DeepModem Mom]

Social Issues Fuel Race for Oscar
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: February 22, 2005


WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - As audience members walked into the Avalon Theater here Wednesday night, they passed a refreshment counter offering popcorn and candy and a folding table offering brochures and condoms. But this was not unusual for a private screening of "Vera Drake," the British director Mike Leigh's film about a good-natured London woman in 1950 who breaks the law by performing abortions.

Groups that promote abortion rights, like Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which sponsored the showing, have embraced the movie as a cautionary tale for women, should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that made abortion legal in the United States....

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The rich mix of film and politics in a year that saw the release of both Michael Moore's Bush-bashing documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which received no Oscar nominations, and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which was nominated for its cinematography, music and makeup, has perhaps inevitably carried some film promotions into difficult places.

Don Cheadle, for instance, nominated for a best actor Oscar for his work in "Hotel Rwanda," was so disturbed by the 1994 mass killings at the heart of the film that he traveled to Sudan last month with a Congressional delegation and the man he portrayed in the movie, Paul Rusesabagina, to see a region where more than 70,000 people have been killed in civil war. When the ABC News program "Nightline" recently broadcast a segment on Sudan, Mr. Cheadle served as narrator, much to the delight of marketing officials at the film's distributor, who helped arrange the collaboration. "We wanted to seize every opportunity we could to draw attention to the movie," said Eric Kops, executive vice president of publicity for MGM and United Artists.

"The Sea Inside," a Spanish film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and an Oscar nominee for best foreign film, and Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby," a best picture nominee, similarly have fueled debate over assisted suicide. While Mr. Eastwood has dismissed charges that his film, distributed by Warner Brothers, glorifies such an emotionally charged act, Fine Line, the American distributor of "The Sea Inside," a true story of a quadriplegic man who sought help to die, considered staging promotional events for the woman who has now admitted to helping him. The woman, Ramona Maneiro, told reporters in Spain that she had delayed her confession until the statute of limitations for prosecution expired....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/movies/22vera.html