Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1963

The Contenders:

Federico Fellini: 8 ½
Elia Kazan: America, America
Otto Preminger: The Cardinal
Martin Ritt: Hud
Tony Richardson: Tom Jones (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1963

The Contenders:

8 ½
America, America
The Four Days of Naples
How the West Was Won (winner)
Love with the Proper Stranger

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1963

The Contenders:

America, America
Cleopatra
How the West Was Won
Lilies of the Field
Tom Jones (winner)

It's Greek to Me

Film: America, America
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s not often that a director breaks the fourth wall him- or herself, but America America opens with director Elia Kazan speaking to the audience. He tells us that this is the film of his family and how his ancestor came to the United States. While it’s not stated overtly, with any story like this, there is certainly a mixture of fact and fancy, of unvarnished truth and unrepentant elaboration and truth stretching. None of that makes the film any more or less compelling, but for Kazan, this story was evidently family legend.

It’s worth noting that America America is about the journey that took Kazan’s ancestor to the United States, which means that the bulk of the film takes place elsewhere, the bulk in Turkey. We start in Anatolia, spend a great deal of time in Constantinople (now it’s Istanbul), and eventually get to a ship that heads off to America.