At one point during his Oscar monologue Sunday night, host Jon Stewart rattled off the names of some of the actors he spotted in the Kodak Theatre who were in the movie "Crash": Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard, Brendan Fraser and Ryan Phillippe.
Then he suggested that it might be easier for the actors in the audience who weren't in the film to raise their hands.
The joke was funny, but it made a subtle point. A big ensemble production, "Crash" is an actor's film, which probably best explains why it upset "Brokeback Mountain" to win the best picture Oscar.
Much of the morning-after punditry and blog logic has centered on whether members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had trouble giving "Brokeback Mountain" a best picture nod because of its gay love theme. Another theory: Like a cinematic John Edwards, "Brokeback" peaked too early and its Oscar buzz dissipated.
In fact, the key to the success of "Crash" was that the film itself -- and the carefully orchestrated promotional campaign undertaken by its distributor, Lionsgate -- appealed to the academy's largest voting bloc: actors. With 22% of the voting members, the acting contingent is nearly three times as big as the next-largest group, producers.
It was actors -- specifically, those in Los Angeles -- who were targeted to deliver votes. And judging by the upset, deliver they did.
Oscar voting results are known only to a couple of accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers, so it is impossible to compare actors' voting habits with, say, those of writers or directors. Unlike a political election, the best anyone can do is offer educated guesses as to why any film won or who voted for it.
Ultimately, enough voters have to like a picture for it to win -- especially one as polarizing as "Crash," because people don't vote for movies they detest.
Still, one can't ignore the effect of the finely tuned Oscar strategy of Lionsgate and its parent, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. The company opened its wallet at key times in January and February to allocate an extra $2 million, bringing its total outlay to $4 million. Targeted were Los Angeles actors, the niche it needed to emerge from a field of five films, none of which was an obvious front-runner.
