I’ve read this 2.22 Jessica Barbanel/Fox News story twice and I’m still not understanding how the Best Picture ascension of No Country for Old Men was primarily due to marketing. I mean, I don’t buy this line for a second.
NCFOM was well promoted, yes, by producer Scott Rudin, 42 West Oscar strategist Cynthia Swartz and Miramax publicity, but nothing would have happened if it didn’t have the soul and the pedigree of a major art film that also worked as a first-rate thriller/suspenser/chaser. (Until the last 20 or 25 minutes, that is, which is when the thrills stopped and thematic payoff kicked in.)
If the press hasn’t pointed this out over and over, and if audiences hadn’t continued to see NCFOM and make it into a bona fide hit, Rudin and Schwartz and Miramax publicity could have marketed the film until they were blue in the face and nothing — repeat, nothing — would have happened.