And the Criticisms Are . . . : Movies: In light of the 'Hoop Dreams' Oscar controversy, the academy will take a look at the documentary selection process. Foreign film rules have also drawn fire.

By ELAINE DUTKA

March 31, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It was the morning after.

“You have reached the mournful, baleful and generally sad Bill Haugse . . .,” intoned a phone message recorded by one of the three editors of “Hoop Dreams”--the critically acclaimed story of two high school basketball players, which having been snubbed as a best documentary nominee, failed Monday night in its bid for an editing Oscar.

“Without a branch of our own, we’re regarded as a stepchild of the academy, which is a commercially oriented group focused on popcorn and stars,” said Haugse, whose picture’s current $7-million gross is huge for a documentary but is peanuts by feature film standards. “After the initial rebuff, this was salt in the wound.”

One that won’t heal quickly, it seems. After the “Hoop Dreams” furor in February, academy President Arthur Hiller vowed to take a “close, hard look” at a documentary selection process that also spurned such highly regarded entries as “Roger & Me,” “The Thin Blue Line” and “Shoah.” But with controversy brewing on a number of fronts and the Oscar ceremonies looming large, he had little time to follow through.

Hiller did meet with academy executive director Bruce Davis and a few documentary committee members to discuss the issue. He asked Price Waterhouse to examine the category’s balloting to see if anything was irregular or “off-base.” The real work, however, lies ahead.

“There’s sufficient reason to conduct an investigation which I plan to start on Monday,” Hiller said. “But more than that I can’t promise. We’ll consider the possibility of a new documentary branch or changing the size and composition of the committee--anything a reasonable person suggests. Maybe we’ll make changes. Maybe we won’t. It could go either way.”

After Freida Lee Mock--former chair of the documentary committee--and her husband, Terry Sanders, walked off with the best documentary Oscar for “Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision,” a lingering controversy was rekindled. If her nomination raised eyebrows in some quarters of Hollywood, current chair Walter Shenson viewed her victory as a vindication of sorts.

“The Oscar is voted on by the entire academy--or at least those who have seen all five nominated documentaries,” Shenson said. “So the award puts an end to charges of cronyism leveled at us for making Freida one of the nominees.”

After the trades ran an ad protesting the exclusion of “Hoop Dreams” and calling for an investigation of the nominating process, Shenson asked Hiller to invite “heavy hitters” such as Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who signed the petition, to come aboard. Letters were sent to all of them, asking that they convert their interest in the issue into “real and valuable participation” next year.

That’s a difficult proposition for anyone gainfully employed, however, let alone someone on the fast track. Not only must committee members be L.A.-based, but they must have the time and determination to see 80% of the 63 entries over a three-month period in order to vote.

“It’s easy to follow the leader and play the game of political correctness--but you have to earn the right to criticize,” Shenson said. “It’s not a big committee, but it is a big commitment. (Director) Michael Apted (“Nell,” “28 Up”) joined but left after two screening sessions. We have only 47 people compared to 400 on the foreign-language screening committee--and the more people participating in a democratic process, the fairer it is.”

Maybe so. But critics say the foreign-language nominating process is also badly outmoded with rules out of sync with global realities. Foreign films are often joint productions of a number of countries, with cast and crew drawn from each. Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red” earned him nominations for best director, screenplay and cinematography. But because none of the major creative team members was born in Switzerland, which financed the film, the academy refused to accept it as the Swiss foreign-language film entry.

“These little rules work most of the time, but when they fail, they fail big,” said producer-director Lili Zanuck (“Rush”), alluding not only to the disqualification of “Red” but to the refusal of the Writers Guild of America to let “Pulp Fiction” compete because it wasn’t produced by union signatories.

If change in the documentary arena seems a distinct possibility, the likelihood of revising the foreign-language film guidelines is far more remote. Neither Hiller nor executive director Bruce Davis regards the system as problematic.

“Right after we decided that ‘Red’ wasn’t a ‘Swiss’ film, the movie was submitted as a domestic film in the French equivalent of our National Society of Film Critics,” Davis noted. “It also competed as a French film in the Cesar Awards, that country’s equivalent of the Oscars. We stand by our decision. Our rules provide for enough flexibility. Had the movie been submitted as a French film, it would probably have been accepted.”

Controversy, Hiller observed, comes with the turf. “While we want to be fair and responsible, we can’t respond to every barb--especially those from people trying to fit the rules to their projects,” he said. “We’re accused of being too liberal, too conservative, anti-male, anti-female. It drives you up a wall if you listen to it all.”

Next on the academy agenda is a board meeting in May during which a preliminary report on “Hoop Dreams” will be presented. In August, the academy will elect a new president, who will choose the 1996 Oscar show producer, who in conjunction with Hiller and ABC will select next year’s Oscar host.

Rumors to the contrary, six-time Oscar producer Gil Cates said he has no plans to bail out.

“The show is so big and enervating that the week or so afterward, I swear religiously that I’ll never do it again,” he conceded. “Then, come August or September when the president calls, I look at my schedule and consider whether to do it again. This year is no different. To quote Mark Twain, ‘reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’ ”