In the latest “What’s wrong with The Weinstein Company?” piece from the New York Times (Michael Cieply penned the previous installment of the saga, six months back), David Carr begins with the thesis, “For the second year in a row, Harvey and Bob have had some significant misses at the box office and probably won’t be major players at the Oscars.” He then offers a pack of typically hyperbolic denials from Harvey Weinstein. Among them is Harvey contention that his studio does, in fact, have a hand to play at the Oscars–behind Denzel Washington’s latest directorial effort, The Great Debaters, and the John Cusack war widower drama Grace is Gone.

But nowhere in the story does Weinstein mention I’m Not There, the film featuring the performance which prompted Weinstein to bellow just two months ago, “If Cate Blanchett doesn’t get nominated, I’ll shoot myself.”

Sure, it’s possible that Weinstein *did* flog Todd Haynes divisive Dylan film in his interview with the Times‘ David Carr, and the quote just didn’t make it into the final draft. It’s also possible that Carr, satisfied with the mogul’s name-checking of two barely-buzzing star vehicles, neglected to push the issue. But it could also be a sign that, despite his earlier bravado, Harvey’s been burned too much, too often of late to really stand behind a semi-difficult sell.

Robert Sullivan’s recent, epic NYT Magazine piece on I’m Not There offers an invaluable peek into the Weinstein/Haynes relationship. First, Sullivan reminds us that the Weinstein-led Miramax failed to support Haynes’ third feature, Velvet Goldmine, in its Oscar race:

Weinstein intended to market it as a Cannes winner, but the film didn’t win any major prizes at the festival. Haynes and his allies maintain that Weinstein abandoned the film after that. Their relationship strained further during the awards process, when Weinstein upset Haynes by not campaigning for the film’s costume designers in the Oscar competition. ”When Velvet Goldmine came out, Miramax was behind it in only the most perfunctory way,” Christine Vachon wrote in her book, A Killer Life, named after her production company, Killer Films. ”In Harvey’s mind there was a commercial movie in there, but Todd refused to unearth it.”

To some extent, with I’m Not There, it looks like history repeated:

In the early spring, Harvey Weinstein would see the cut for the first time, in New York. When it was over, Weinstein had a lot of problems. Basically, he didn’t seem to get the film. According to Haynes, Weinstein did not think the Billy the Kid Dylan, played by Richard Gere, worked — in fact, most people told Haynes that — and said that the movie was confusing in general. Rumors circulated that Weinstein planned to drop the movie altogether. ”I think that in this movie there are scenes and episodes that are amongst the best filmmaking that has taken place in American film — I mean you can go that singular on it,” Weinstein told me recently. ”That’s how accomplished Todd is as a director. I think there are sections of this that flow easily. There are other sections that are going to be a little bit bumpy.” But at that moment, Haynes says, Weinstein wanted a lot of those sections changed or, as in the case of the Richard Gere parts, cut.

But by the time of the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival, after Haynes had whittled the film down to its current form, Weinstein was apparently more optimistic:

Harvey Weinstein was excited; he had already announced that he would get Blanchett an Oscar nomination or kill himself. And he had already come up with a distribution plan that would start in small art houses and expand slowly. He was hoping to have Greil Marcus write liner notes to be distributed at viewings. He was still sounding a little nervous. ”Whatever people are going to say about this, they’re going to have say that it’s daring,” Weinstein told me just before Venice. ”Nothing’s ever been attempted like this before.”

The Weinstein Company will probably win an Oscar this year for Sicko, for the sheer fact that it will almost certainly end the year as the most seen documentary film. Harvey knows this, which means that his strategy going forward has probably been colored by the idea going into this year’s race with one almost-sure thing under his arm. Is he afraid to screw up a winning year by rolling the dice on a splashy campaign for a far-less accessible choice? Considering that early reviews of I’m Not There have been kind to Blanchett even when unkind to the film as a whole, I’m not so sure. It’s possible that Harvey has lost either confidence or passion in his quest to get Blanchett a nomination. But it’s also possible that he knows Universal is going to campaign hard behind their Blanchett performance, the actress’ solid lead in the otherwise laughable Elizabeth: The Golden Age (one could argue that their campaign began last Friday, with this equally laughable Elizabeth fawn job in The Hollywood Reporter). In a climate where ever mark in the loss column counts, it’s possible that The New Harvey isn’t willing to put a lot of money, time and effort into a fight that could very well end in a split decision.