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Randy Newman's Oscar

© Enoch Allen

by Enoch Allen

He is one of animation’s most gifted composers, yet he didn’t always compose exclusively for animation. He received Oscar nominations for pictures like “Parenthood” and “The Natural”, starring Robert Redford. Oh, but then he received a bunch of other Oscar nominations, for which he was subsequently denied the statuette. What was astonishingly amazing was, on March 24, 2002, he finally won.

But this time around, he should have been denied a 17th time.

Or was it a 16th? Heck, I’ve lost count. But the nominees for that category produced material that was superior to his. However, none in the same category was more superior to Enya’s “May It Be”. NONE. Most, if not all in attendance that night were transfixed by her soothing, almost spiritual, voice. Just hearing her sing put all of my nerves to rest, and made me dream of an intangible place. The song made me (and I wasn’t the only one experiencing this) escape. Not many, if any, songs make people do that.

John Goodman’s singing, complementary to Randy Newman’s piano performance, made me shake my head. I thought, “There’s no way he’s going to get it. No way.” It was good enough for a nomination, though. The words to the song reminded me strangely of the relationship between Boo and Sulley in “Monsters, Inc.”, from which the Oscar-nominated song was part of. Oh and by the way, the song was called “If I Didn’t Have You”. The song personified, and put into human definition something that couldn’t have been explained otherwise. But the tone, the music that the words were put to didn’t connect somehow to the animated movie, quite the same way that Enya’s “May It Be” connected to “Lord of the Rings”. And so, the song did not deserve to be recognized and distinguished with a golden statuette*.

Nevertheless, Randy Newman got it. I guess that the Academy made a moderately wise tradeoff by giving Howard Shore an Oscar for his overall score to “Lord of the Rings”, over Newman, in which he was also nominated in that category for his scoring of “Monsters, Inc.”. If you ask me, “Lord of the Rings” should have received Oscars in both categories, instead of just one--but I’m positive that I’ve made that point known already.

Thus, many viewers believed that Newman’s Oscar for Best Song was a Pity Oscar (and Newman himself acknowledged that it was a Pity Oscar by stating in his acceptance speech, “I don’t need your pity”). Even if the Oscar had been awarded to other nominees like Paul McCartney for his “Vanilla Sky” or Sting for “Until” (“Kate & Leopold”), they would have been more deserving but less so than Enya’s “May It Be”. Even now, it almost seems like the Academy has committed an astonishing act of injustice towards Enya.

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