TCM Remembers - Oscars Forget
Although we’re nearly two months away from the Academy Awards ceremony (March 2, 2025), and the announcement of nominees is still several days from now (January 17), I’ve been thinking about one specific aspect of the show. Perhaps I’m not alone:
I don’t watch the Oscars anymore. Haven’t seen them in years. In the time it takes to slog through the ceremony, I can watch two movies, which I usually do. The next day, I’ll go online to discover who won and who lost. The only clip I watch is the “In Memoriam” segment, which always omits or slights someone. When that happens (and it does every year), we’re angered at the injustices and move our thoughts away from those who were recognized. Too often, it’s a lose-lose situation.
Turner Classic Movies knows how to do a tribute correctly. Watch this clip of TCM Remembers 2024. Afterward, I’ll have a few comments. (Maybe you will, too.)
The Oscar “In Memoriam” section normally runs three to four minutes. TCM’s video lasts slightly more than five, but the time spent isn’t as important as what you do with it.
TCM strives to honor those who have passed away, highlight their achievements, and give us something to remember. These sounds and images also make us want to go back and watch the works these artists created. And in doing this, TCM succeeds.
Here’s how they do it:
Rather than give us the most famous shots/images/lines from movies we all recognize (and have probably seen hundreds of times), TCM offers viewers a glimpse of something they perhaps haven’t seen before, maybe even moments from an unfamiliar film.
Take, for example, Teri Garr. TCM could’ve chosen a well-known clip from Young Frankenstein, Tootsie, Mr. Mom, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but instead, they pick one of Garr’s greatest performances from a box office failure, Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart (1982). It’s the perfect choice because it reveals Garr’s grace, charm, and power in a film that should be better remembered. A casual Teri Garr fan may look at that brief scene and then search to track it down. And they should. That experience is new to the viewer and moves them forward to discover more of Garr’s work. More importantly, it keeps her alive in our hearts. She continues to communicate with us.
Somehow, TCM selects moments, photos, film clips, or parts of interviews that do the impossible: encapsulate an entire career (or at least attempt to do so) in seven seconds or less. Consider two shots of master composer Quincy Jones, one when he was young, the other when he was much older. You’ve heard his music in countless films, but by including the two images, you can see that this man spent decades writing scores that brought pictures to life for our eyes and ears.
Or consider Dame Maggie Smith. She appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), then flashbacks 39 years to Travels with My Aunt (1972), a largely forgotten movie, yet the image we see from that clip captures surprise, joy, and wonder, all in under three seconds. But the distance between those two movies isn’t even close to the whole story: Smith enjoyed a career that began onstage in 1952 (and before the cameras in 1956) and ended in 2023, an astounding 71 years. We’re compelled to see more from that vast body of work.
I was delighted to see two people celebrated who many moviegoers may not recognize but should: film historian and writer David J. Skal and film scholar David Bordwell. Please seek out their work and investigate other names you may not know.
Imagine what you would want your tribute to look like. Okay, probably no one reading this is a movie star or famous director, but you could be working in film, television, music, dance, theatre, or any other visual or performing art. Yet you don’t even have to be in the arts at all. What if you’re a teacher, a farmer, a fitness instructor, an IT professional, a mom, a dad, anything? What would you want people to know about you in just a few seconds? If someone were asked to encapsulate everything about you into one short sentence, what would it be? “She was kind.” “He was a jerk.” “She was difficult, but she cared about people.” “He was demanding but would do anything for you.”
How do you want to be remembered?
And also, what are we doing to make sure someone else is remembered?
Maybe there’s a coworker who’s working her butt off doing great work but never gets the recognition she deserves. Or it could be the person working behind the scenes, someone you can always count on to get things done, doing what no one else wants to do. I’m willing to bet the people honored in the TCM Remembers segment had someone to help and guide them somewhere along the way, or at least someone who said, “That was a great job you did.”
When awards are given out anywhere, we usually have a pretty good idea of who the winners will be, but when I was a 9th grader, I was stunned at our end-of-the-year awards ceremony. One girl in the senior class won awards for science, math, English, social studies, and library. I didn’t really know her. I’d see her walking down the hall between classes, but she was very quiet, never bringing any attention to herself. When they kept calling her name out for awards, we were all stunned. Who was this person?
She finally got recognized. But some never do.
That’s why people feel slighted when their favorites don’t get the recognition they deserve (or any recognition) during the Oscar “In Memoriam” section. While it’s true that a person’s life means far more than the recognition they receive, that recognition is important.
The 2024 TCM Remembers tribute celebrates and inspires. When I hear Donald Sutherland state, “Discovering your destiny… Once you do that, it just flows,” I want to get off my butt and do something that matters.
And may we all have Gena Rowlands’s voice whispering, “…it’s always there, and you can find it inside of you and take it where you wish to.” She did that for her entire career. We can, too.
There’s something about art that moves us. We long for beauty, for something that gives us hope. That can be an actor onscreen, a writer who crafted the words that the actor spoke, the person who designed the costumes, and more. It’s great to see the TCM Remembers clips and say, “Hey, what film is that? I’ve got to see it!” It’s also great to be moved by the talents and gifts people share with us for the short time we’re on this planet. Celebrate those gifts, those people, even the ones who may not be famous. Everyone has a gift of some kind. When you see it, celebrate it.
I know I have several people to explore from this video. Maybe you do as well. Thanks for reading.