With eleven nominations each for Amadeus and A Passage to India, it seemed like a pretty even race going into the 1984 Academy Awards, but it came out a bit more lopsided, with Amadeus winning eight Oscars and A Passage to India just two.

Based on Peter Shaffer’s Tony winning Broadway play, Amadeus is a fictionalized account of the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart told in flashback by court composer Antonio Salieri, his alleged murderer. Hitherto unknown, and subsequently never in another major screen role, stage actor F. Murray Abraham won the Best Actor Oscar as Salieri while Tom Hulce was nominated as Mozart in the roles played on Broadway by Ian McKellen and Tim Curry. The film also won for Best Picture; Director (Milos Forman); Adapted Screenplay; Art Direction; Costume Design; Sound and Makeup. It had also been nominated for Best Cinematography and Editing.

Based on E.M. Forster’s famed novelabout cultural clashes in British colonial India, A Passage to India proved to be two time Oscar winner David Lean’s last film. Its Oscars were for Dame Peggy Ashcroft’s acclaimed performance as the inquisitive Mrs. Moore and for Maurice Jarre’s haunting score. It had also been nominated for Best Picture; Actress (Judy Davis); Director (Lean); Adapted Screenplay; Cinematography; Editing; Art Direction; Costume Design and Sound. Although Ashcroft’s Oscar was for Supporting Actress, there had been speculation prior to the nomination whether should would be nominated in that category for which she also won awards from the L.A. Film Critics and the Golden Globes, or in the more prestigious Best Actress category where she had been honored by the National Board of Review; the New York Film Critics and the BAFTAs.

Ashcroft’s designation in support left the way clear for Sally Field to win her second Best Actress Oscar for Places in the Heart, which had been nominated for seven Oscars. Director Robert Benton who had previously won Oscars for writing and directing Kramer vs. Kramer picked up another for his screenplay here. He had also been nominated for Best Director of the film about a struggling farm widow in the 1920s. The film’s other nominations were for Best Supporting Actor (John Malkovich); Supporting Actress (Lindsay Crouse) and Costume Design.

Malkovich also had a prominent role in The Killing Fields, which was nominated for seven Oscars and took home three for Best Supporting Actor Haing S. Ngor; Cinematography and Editing. The true story of Dirth Pran, the photographer trapped in Cambodia during Pol Pot’s bloody cleansing campaign, had also been nominated for Best Picture; Actor (Sam Waterston); Director (Roland Joffe) and Adapted Screenplay. Oscar winner Ngor’s own story was even more horrific than that of the character he played, having endured imprisonment and starvation in Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Even after his Oscar win, his life was not easy and he was murdered in a botched robbery in front of his Los Angeles home in 1996.

The fifth Best Picture nominee was A Soldier’s Story, which received additional nominations for Best Supporting Actor Adolph Caesar and Adapted Screenplay. Directed by Norman Jewison, the film starred Howard E. Rollins, Jr. as an African American officer investigating the murder of an African American Army sergeant in Louisiana in the 1940s. Denzel Washington had his first memorable screen role in support.

Other films that Oscar liked included Country; The River; The Bostonians; Starman; Under the Volcano; The Karate Kid; Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes; Swing Shift; The Natural; The Pope of Greenwich Village; Romancing the Stone; Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but not Once Upon a Time in America; Paris, Texas or Mass Appeal.

Sally Field’s character in Places in the Heart wasn’t the only farm woman in the Best Actress race. Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek who played similar characters in Country and The River were also in the running along with the previously mentioned Judy Davis in A Passage to India and Vanessa Redgrave as a suffragette in The Bostonians.

Amadeus’ Abraham and Hulce’s competition consisted of the aforementioned Sam Waterston as a reporter in The Killing Fields; Jeff Bridges as an extra-terrestrial in Starman and Albert Finney as a self-destructive alcoholic in John Huston’s critically acclaimed film of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano.

Two wise old men, Noriyuki “Pat” Mortia as the martial arts master in The Killing Fields and Sir Ralph Richardson, nominated posthumously, as Tarzan’s grandfather in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes joined the previously mentioned John Malkovich in Places in the Heart and Adolph Casearin A Soldier’s Story in losing to Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields.

Peggy Ashcroft’s splendid performance in A Passage to India was going to win the Supporting Actress Oscar no matter who they nominated against her, but she had perhaps the weakest competition in Oscar history. In addition to the previously mentioned Lindsay Crouse as Sally Field’s sister in Places in the Heart, there were Christine Lahti as Goldie Hawn’s friend in the generally disliked Swing Shift; Glenn Close backlit as if she were the Madonna in the interminable baseball movie, The Natural and Geraldine Page, who chews up the scenery in her one scene as the mother of a recently deceased policeman in The Pope of Greenwich Village.

Box office hits Romancing the Stone; Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom all received nominations in the technical categories, but only the latter went home with an Oscar, which it won for Best Visual Effects.

Sergio Leone’s epic gangster film, Once Upon a Time in America was cut to ribbons for American distribution, which hampered its Oscar chances, but not its Golden Globe or BAFTA chances. The Globes nominated it for two awards, while BAFTA nominated it for five and honored it with two wins.

The Globes and BAFTAs also recognized Wim Wenders’ acclaimed Paris, Texas, for which he won the BAFTA as the year’s Best Director.

By this point in his career Jack Lemmon had received eight Oscar nominations and two wins, some of them for questionable efforts, yet his strongest performance in years as a priest who hides behind his popularity in Mass Appeal, failed to bring him a nomination in a not very competitive year. Go figure.

All films discussed except Mass Appeal have been released on DVD in the U.S.

This week’s new DVD releases include the Blu-ray debuts of Blow Out and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.