By Clare Walla

Three-hundred-sixty-five days of production, nearly 1,500 films, hundreds of thousands of cast and crew, and over 6,000 votes from members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—but in the winner’s circle, it all comes down to one.

This Sunday, February 27, televisions across the United Sates will be tuned into The Academy Awards ceremony, broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., as many wonder who will take home one of those coveted, gold statuettes.

While Sag Harbor may be one of the furthest places in the continental U.S. from the star-studded streets of Hollywood, ties to the film world are peppered throughout our little seaside village.

So, without further ado, here are some of the voices from our community to weigh-in on the nature of this year’s nominees.

As an organizer for the Haywall Summer Film Series at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor resident Hilary Hamann is familiar with the art of selection. And she thinks this year’s nominees for Best Picture adequately reflect the best of what this year had to offer.

“What is so great about this year’s selections is that they demonstrate a mature contentment with the small, local, regional,” Hamann wrote in an email. Referencing her four favorite nominees, “Black Swan,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Fighter,” and “Winter’s Bone,” she continued: “Ballet is regional, as is royalty, as is the boxing ring, as is the world of the girl living in the Ozarks. None of these films sensationalize their subject matter. They investigate the soft underbelly of these places.”

While she praised Darren Aronofsky’s directorial expertise on “Black Swan,” and lauded director Debra Granik’s ability to create raw, almost realistic footage for “Winter’s Bone,” ultimately Hamann hopes “The King’s Speech” will take top honors.

“I think the director’s choices here were impeccable—subject matter, performers, direction, etc.” she added.

Screenwriter and Sag Harbor resident Bill Collage—who will pen the upcoming films “Tower Heist,” “Moby Dick,” and “The 10 Commandments”—agreed with Hamann’s praise for Aronofsky, though he took it a step further.

“The best film of the year for me is ‘Black Swan.’ It’s unbelievable visual story telling. Darren Aronofsky is the genius of our era. This was a great companion piece to [his previous film, 2008's] ‘The Wrestler.’ He did something low-brow, then something high-brow,” Collage said, explaining that Aronofsky has a great ability to tap into the troubling side of human emotion from different angles.

While no one seemed poised to push “The Social Network” to the top slot—even though it nabbed the Golden Globe award for Best Feature – Drama last month—Collage did give it credit in the writing department.

“I think the social relevancy of ‘The Social Network’ is on full display,” he said. “Beyond the characters and the story, I think [Aaron] Sorkin gave the audience a challenge that’s very rare in most films.” The film cuts back and forth between two significant aspects of the story and, as Collage pointed out, there are no subtitles to orient the viewer.

“That kind of faith in the American filmgoer is kind of cool,” he added. “I haven’t seen it since ‘Syriana’ [in 2005].”

He believes “The Social Network” should win for Best Adapted Screenplay, and “Inception” (written and directed by Christopher Nolan) should win for Best Original Screenplay.

“‘Inception’ is top-notch,” Collage added.

But of course, as is the nature of art, not everyone agrees.

“Art is a subjective thing,” said Murphy Davis, artistic director at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. Case in point, Murphy said he actually walked out of “Inception,” and although he really enjoyed the performances in “Black Swan,” ultimately Davis shrugged and said the movie was “eh.”

“The films that affect me the most are the films that speak to the human spirit,” Davis noted. In fact, he said his four top films would be “The Fighter,” “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” and the film he thinks should take the cake: “The King’s Speech.”

However, he reiterated, “The awards are voted in by Academy members, and because it’s a human voting system, the members will have a human response,” he said. “They’re voting on their guts. Who knows what affects us and why?”

It is partially for this same sentiment that Academy member, and Bridgehampton resident, Anthony Harvey (who directed “A Lion in Winter” and “The Glass Menagerie”) doesn’t give too much weight to the final outcome of the Academy Awards. In fact, to illustrate his thoughts he goes back to 1968.

Harvey’s film “A Lion in Winter” was up for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Harvey, and Best Actress for Katharine Hepburn. However, Hepburn chose to stay home in New York rather than attend the ceremony because, as Harvey put it, she didn’t like awards ceremonies.

And as luck would have it, she won.

“I called her that night and I said: You’ve won!” Harvey recalled. “And she said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’m asleep—just put it in a parcel and send it to me.’”

Harvey continued, “Eight or nine years later, I was at her apartment in New York for dinner and she was looking in her cabinet for chocolates, or something, and there it was, still wrapped. It hadn’t even been engraved.”

Harvey is still amused by the story, and said he sympathized with Hepburn’s point of view.

“She though all the other nominees were just as wonderful as she was,” he said.

As for this year’s Best Picture contenders, Harvey said they’re all great films. “Being nominated is a pretty good honor in itself,” he said.

By law he’s not allowed to reveal what his pick for top honors would be. But, Harvey did say one of his favorite films this year was also “The King’s Speech.” For what it’s worth.

The Bay Street Theatre will be broadcasting the show live on Sunday, February 27, beginning with Joan Rivers’ annual red carpet commentary at 6:30 p.m.  There will be raffles, champagne specials and a cash bar.  Entrance is free.

by Raphael Odell Shapiro

 Marcia Milgrom Dodge is more than familiar with the musical “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” which opens this week at the Bay Street Theatre. “I’ve done the show nine or 10 times now,” she said. Indeed, the critically acclaimed, award-winning director and choreographer has lost count of the number of times she has mounted her version of the 1978 Broadway musical built around the music of jazz legend Fats Waller.

Dodge first directed and choreographed the show in 1991 with the Virginia Stage Company in Norfolk, Virginia. The original Broadway production, written by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr., was constructed as a musical revue. The production, directed by Maltby and which starred Nell Carter and Andre DeShields, won the 1978 Tony for Best Musical. When Dodge re-imagined the celebrated play, she established a more concrete sense of story and place.

 “We have a very specific environment,” she explained. The thrust stage at Bay Street will be transformed, like so many other theaters have been around the country, into a 1930s Harlem apartment on 134^th Street and Lenox Avenue.

The central characters are all attendees of a rent party, functions that were commonly thrown by tenants to be able to pay the landlord. It was at these parties where many musicians and composers like Fats Waller would have started to make some noise, so to speak.

“Fats,” born Thomas Wright Waller in New York City in 1904, was a jazz pianist and prolific composer who left an indelible mark on the pages of American music history. Some of his tunes include “Honeysuckle Rose,” “This Joint Is Jumpin,” and of course “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” All of these are featured in the Horwitz and Maltby musical. “Fats Waller was quite an amazing talent,” said Dodge. “And he only lived to 39.” A boisterous man who “lived hard,” Waller died on a train en route to New York from Los Angeles in December of 1943.

The roles in the show dedicated to Waller’s huge talent typically retain the names of the original cast members. Dodge, however, has given the characters their own aliases. In that way, according to Dodge, the new actors never feel like they have to replicate those original performances. In recent years she has also added a few additional characters to the cast, bartenders and neighborhood personalities, in order to provide an even more “fleshed out” environment.

“I always say, ‘Here is the blueprint,’” said Dodge, talking about the beginning of each rehearsal process. “And on top of that we always have new changes and embellishments.”

“The show is very cast dependent,” she noted. “You have to tailor it to the performers, and allow them to take off.”

Most of this cast already participated in a production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” earlier this year at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. “So they’re all Marcia Milgrom Dodge veterans,” laughed the director. She continued, “It’s a labor of love…everyone involved loves it and has a very strong connection with the material.”

Apparently Dodge is fortunate to have cast members so familiar with the show. “Ain’t Misbehavin’” was reportedly first scheduled to fill the first slot in Bay Street’s summer Mainstage series. After conflicts arose with another production, the musical was moved to become the grand finale of the summer season. For Dodge, who was committed to directing a production of “My Fair Lady” in Sacramento opening in August, this was a problem.

Said Dodge, “I told them that’s fine, you can have the show, you just can’t have me.”

 So for the first time, Dodge has handed over the directorial reigns to actor, director and friend Jim Weaver. Dodge cast Weaver as King (the Andre DeShield’s role) for the first time in 1992, only the second time she staged “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” He has since played King in numerous Dodge productions, but for the first time has assumed the role of associate director and choreographer.

“Jim is a phenomenal performer and a sensitive director,” said Dodge. “And he’s very faithful to what we have.” She added, “I’m not apprehensive at all.”

 “It was a fortuitous accident…we were really lucky to be able to pull it together at Bay Street,” she said. “I always try to put myself in the audience’s shoes, and now I will do that,” said Dodge, who will be arriving in Sag Harbor for the first time this week, in time for previews. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

Weaver, who arrived with the rest of the cast last Wednesday, is equally excited.

“I love the size of the space,” he said, talking about the Bay Street Theatre. “The more intimate, the better, because the audience is really part of the show.” He admitted it was somewhat difficult to adapt the staging intended for a precenium for the more unconventional thrust at Bay Street. “It’s a challenge, but not a bad challenge.” He added, “An interesting challenge.”

According to Dodge, the show has been in high demand. “Every six months or so, we’ve got a new “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” She has a theory why it is still so popular.

“In our trying times, and we keep coming upon that, it’s a great escape,” she explained, exalting the beauty of the American songbook. “I love how it affects you, and how young people still respond.”

She continued, “It tells you like it is, it shoots from the hip….it deals with the heart in a very open way. It deals with bigotry, and teaches you to look inside yourself.”

“It’s a show that never fails, it always delivers,” she said. “I’m always happy to do it again and again and again.”