Best Picture nominee Quiz Show (1994) was released 25 years ago. Here's Anna with a look back...
The year is 1958 (it should be 1956; Redford condensed the three-year scandal into one). Households across America tune in to watch Twenty-One. Everyone is fascinated by the wisdom from reigning champion Herb Stempel (John Turturro). Well, almost everyone; producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria) as well as the show’s sponsor think it’s high time for some new talent on the show. Enter Columbia University instructor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), who had auditioned for their other show Tic-Tac-Dough. And this is when Enright tells Herb to take the fall, which he reluctantly does. But how long until keeping the truth becomes too much for Charles?
Another source of tension for Charles in Quiz Show is that from his father Mark (Paul Scofield). There’s a small moment where Charles is at his parents’ home, looking a wall of his father’s achievements. You can see on his face the guilt sinking in, how he’s realizing his success is all a show just for some lousy TV ratings. (Later in the scene, Mark remarks that his wife called Charles “the actor in the family”.) You can tell in later scenes that constantly being in the public eye is starting to suffocate Charles. (For the record, Jeffrey Hart, a friend of Van Doren, called this friction between father and son far from the truth.)
If anything, Quiz Show isn’t just about the scandal playing out before millions of unsuspecting TV audiences. Redford makes it about the class struggle as well. At one point, Herb rants to Congressional lawyer Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) that Jewish contestants of Twenty-One earn less money than the Gentiles they lose to. (Goodwin later finds this to be true.) And both Enright and Freedman (and eventually the American public) find educated WASP Charles a much more bankable and appealing figure than – in Freedman’s words – “a fat, annoying Jewish guy with a sidewall haircut”.
Of course, making a film about real-life events can be complicated if the subjects are still alive whilst the film’s in production, especially if they want no part in the matter. After turning down the offer of being a consultant for Quiz Show, Van Doren – who died this past April – broke his silence in 2008 by writing a piece for The New Yorker that recalled the events that led to his notoriety and agreeing with many of the film’s elements (but not all of them, mind you).
As for Stempel, he was reluctant to talk about what he was a part of all those years ago but relented for PBS when they covered the various quiz show scandals of the era for American Experience in 1992. He even makes a cameo in the film proper (he wasn’t thrilled with how he was portrayed in the film but he embraced the renewed public interest after its release).
Strangely, despite its four Oscar nominations (losing to Forrest Gump or Ed Wood in those races), Quiz Show didn’t receive Oscar nominations for either Turturro (who was nominated by the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Chicago Film Critics Association) or Fiennes (who had been nominated the year before with Schindler’s List). Obviously, Fiennes is, well, a fine actor but how is it Turturro still doesn't have any one nomination to his name?
Nowadays – especially in light of the various sexual harassment claims against various public figures – something like a rigged game show seems almost harmless in hindsight. But this was the 1950s, mind you; this was the era of McCarthyism, where a once-respected image could be thoroughly eviscerated following the revelations of lies told. Van Doren and Stempel laid low for years after their testimonies. After all, how would you feel if the only thing people knew about you was that you effectively lied to millions of people on television for weeks on end?
Do you have any strong memories of Quiz Show?
Who would you have voted for in its four Oscar categories?
| Picture | Director | Supporting Actor | Adapted Screenplay |
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| Forrest Gump | Woody Allen, Bullets Over Broadway | Samuel L Jackson, Pulp Fiction | Forrest Gump, Eric Roth |
| Four Weddings and a Funeral | Krzysztof Kieslowski, Three Colors: Red | Martin Landau, Ed Wood | Madness of King George, Alan Bennett |
| Pulp Fiction | Robert Redford, Quiz Show | Chazz Palminterri, Bullets Over Broadway | Nobody's Fool, Robert Benton |
| Quiz Show | Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction | Paul Scofield, Quiz Show | Quiz Show, Paul Attansio |
| Shawshank Redemption | Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump | Gary Sinise, Forrest Gump | Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont |