Here’s an intrigu­ing clip from ear­ly 1976: A cam­era rolls as a 29-year-old Steven Spiel­berg sits down with friends to watch the tele­vised announce­ment of the Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions for 1975. Spiel­berg’s film from that year, Jaws, was a mon­ster hit–the high­est-gross­ing movie in his­to­ry up until then–so he was feel­ing pret­ty cocky. “You’re about to see a sweep of the nom­i­na­tions,” he says as the broad­cast begins. But when the nom­i­nees for Best Direc­tor are named, his jaw drops:

• Fed­eri­co Felli­ni for Ama­cord
• Stan­ley Kubrick for Bar­ry Lyn­don
• Sid­ney Lumet for Dog Day After­noon
• Robert Alt­man for Nashville
• Milos For­man for One Flew Over the Cuck­oo’s Nest

“I got beat­en out by Felli­ni!” Spiel­berg says to his friends, the char­ac­ter actors Joe Spinell and Frank Pesce. And he’s right. When the list for Best Pic­ture is announced, the very same movies make it–all except for Fellini’s Ama­cord, which is replaced by Jaws.

Milos For­man and One Flew Over the Cuck­oo’s Nest went on to win the Oscars for Best Direc­tor and Best Pic­ture that year. Despite direct­ing a string of beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed block­busters–Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Ter­res­tri­al–Spiel­berg would not win an Acad­e­my Award for Best Direc­tor for anoth­er 18 years, with Schindler’s List.

The video of Spiel­berg’s defeat 36 years ago is fas­ci­nat­ing to watch. “What makes it so great,” writes Erik Davis at Movies.com, “is being able to watch a rare slice of his­to­ry in which a mas­ter of his craft actu­al­ly fails at some­thing. He fails at get­ting that direct­ing nod, and you can tell in his face that he want­ed it. He want­ed it bad.” H/T Metafil­ter

Relat­ed con­tent:

Steven Spiel­berg Admits Swal­low­ing a Tran­sis­tor to Andy Warhol and Bian­ca Jag­ger

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

When you watch a direc­tor’s work long enough, you pick up on his/her sig­na­ture tricks — the themes and cam­era work that appear again and again. Last month, a YouTu­ber who goes by the name “Kog­o­na­da” cre­at­ed Wes Ander­son // FROM ABOVE, a mon­tage cap­tur­ing Ander­son­’s pen­chant for the aer­i­al shot, a move that con­tributes to the light­ness, play­ful­ness and quirk­i­ness of his films.

Now “Kog­o­na­da” returns and looks at Quentin Taran­ti­no’s work from a new angle — from below. The view from below has two advan­tages. It puts the actor in a posi­tion of clear dom­i­nance, and it lets the view­er know that vio­lence has tak­en place, with­out actu­al­ly hav­ing to show the dam­age done. For some­one like Taran­ti­no, it’s a handy way to go… H/T @weba­cion

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Film­mak­ing Advice from Quentin Taran­ti­no and Sam Rai­mi (NSFW)

Tarantino’s Favorite Films Since 1992

Crack­ing Taran­ti­no (Award-win­ning Film From Brazil)

When The Artist won the top Oscar on Sun­day night, crit­ic Roger Ebert com­pared it to an episode of The Twi­light Zone. “The Acad­e­my Award for best pic­ture went to a silent film in black and white,” he wrote. “Its vic­to­ry will send Hol­ly­wood back to its think tanks.”

In this short film by Joe LaMat­ti­na of Last Call With Car­son Daly, the writer and direc­tor of The Artist, Michel Haz­anavi­cius, talks about the chal­lenge of hold­ing an audi­ence’s atten­tion with­out dia­logue, and the mag­ic that hap­pens when it’s done right. “There’s a very inter­est­ing process with silent movies,” Haz­anavi­cius says. “The black and white and the lack of sound cre­ates a mys­tery.”

The Artist has taught audi­ences in the 21st cen­tu­ry that silent films can be a delight. If you would like to explore some of the great films from the gold­en age of silent cin­e­ma, vis­it our col­lec­tion of 100 Free Silent Films: The Great Clas­sics, which includes works by Char­lie Chap­lin, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, F.W. Mur­nau, G.W. Pab­st and many more. They’re all part of our big­ger meta col­lec­tion of Free Movies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Gen­er­al, “Per­haps the Great­est Film Ever Made,” and 20 Oth­er Buster Keaton Clas­sics Free Online

65 Free Char­lie Chap­lin Films Online

Watch 10 of the Great­est Silent Films of All Time, All Free Online

You might know Errol Mor­ris from his doc­u­men­taries like Fast, Cheap, and Out of Con­trol, on emer­gent sys­tems in top­i­ary gar­dens and naked mole-rat colonies; The Fog of War, on the shad­owy career of Robert McNa­ma­ra; and Gates of Heav­en, on com­pet­ing pet ceme­ter­ies (which no less a crit­i­cal author­i­ty than Roger Ebert has called one of the great­est films of all time). You might remem­ber Mor­ris’ inter­view-dri­ven tele­vi­sion series First Per­son with fond­ness — and, giv­en its episodes on ser­i­al-killer groupies, cry­on­ic head-freez­ers, and pro­fes­sion­al high-school stu­dents, per­haps a dash of dis­be­lief. If noth­ing else, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly seen Mor­ris’ com­mer­cials for the likes of PBS, Volk­swa­gen, and Miller High Life. In the last few years, he’s put out a new film, Tabloid, a book on the rela­tion­ship of pho­tog­ra­phy to real­i­ty, Believ­ing is See­ing, and many a post on his New York Times blog. For Errol Mor­ris fans, these are hearty times indeed.

As the newest addi­tion to this Moriss­ian abun­dance, the ten-minute doc­u­men­tary El Wingador pro­files five-time Philadel­phia Wing Bowl cham­pi­on eater Bill “El Wingador” Sim­mons. To win the Wing Bowl, you must sim­ply eat as many chick­en wings as pos­si­ble in the short­est amount of time. Such a man­date stretch­es the def­i­n­i­tion of “eat” to its break­ing point; the trick, as Sim­mons tells Mor­ris, is to train your jaw and esoph­a­gus not to chew, per se, but to bite and swal­low, bite and swal­low, bite and swal­low — “don’t wor­ry about chok­ing.” For a man like El Wingador, eat­ing, like any every­day activ­i­ty tak­en to the lev­el of elite com­pe­ti­tion, makes demands that would strike out­siders as grotesque: con­sum­ing eleven pounds of food per day, putting in hours-long ses­sions with base­ball-sized wads of Toot­sie Rolls, shov­el­ing down hand­fuls of sear­ing-hot piz­za cheese, gnaw­ing on rawhide bones meant for Ger­man Shep­herds. And some­times even insid­ers seem flum­moxed by it all: asked if he would real­ly con­sid­er his reg­i­men an eat­ing dis­or­der, Sim­mons replies, “It’s got­ta be a dis­or­der, ‘cause it’s crazy, man.”

As a seem­ing­ly mar­gin­al sub­cul­ture with its own rules, cus­toms, hier­ar­chies, and per­son­al­i­ties, com­pet­i­tive eat­ing would seem to com­fort­ably inhab­it Mor­ris’ wheel­house; it wouldn’t have sur­prised me if he’d opt­ed to make a fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about it. But even in the brief min­utes with Sim­mons El Wingador offers us, we glimpse enough of this world and its lead­ing lights — the young hot­shot Joey Chest­nut, the eeri­ly skin­ny Sonya Thomas and Takeru Kobayashi — to sus­pect that the sub­stan­tive dif­fer­ences between com­pet­i­tive eat­ing and “real” ath­let­ics may amount to less than we’d assumed. One might make a solemn point here about star­va­tion in the devel­op­ing world even as the Philadel­phia Wing Bowl puts deca­dent ancient Rome to shame. But it gives me just as much pause to pon­der the unset­tling lack of dif­fer­ences between cram­ming chick­en wings down your throat in the cen­ter of a roar­ing sta­di­um and most oth­er forms of human endeav­or.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Watch Errol Mor­ris’ Trib­ute to Stephen Hawk­ing, A Brief His­to­ry of Time

Errol Mor­ris: Two Essen­tial Truths About Pho­tog­ra­phy

“They Were There” — Errol Mor­ris Final­ly Directs a Film for IBM

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.