Cinema wins, Oscars lose | Oscar Awards | Cinema

From the very moment of the nominations, a sigh ran through Hollywood: what if for the first time the acting Oscars went to four non-Caucasian actors? With the statuettes for the best supporting roles quite clear (Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the black messiah and Youn Yuh-jung for Minari), All that remained was the finale of the protagonists. On the one hand, Anthony Hopkins—thanks to his Homeric performance in The father— against the late Chadwick Boseman, who finished his career with The mother of the blues before dying in August of last year from cancer. On the other, Frances McDormand against everyone. And Steven Soderbergh and his fellow producers of the gala were so clear about it (as was the rest of the movie-loving planet), that they brought forward the Oscar for best film and the ceremony closed with the two main acting awards. The move turned into failure.

Because McDormand won. Her fine, subtle recreation of a nomad forced by the crisis, an outcast in the richest country on the planet, prevailed over the works of Viola Davis and Andra Day. Irreproachable. And because Hopkins also won, leaving everyone who was waiting for the posthumous tribute to Boseman speechless and distraught, which would have been the message to the new generations and the African-American public that the Academy intended to send. What has happened? Well, the weight of the voter from outside the United States has been confirmed. If he won last year parasites, from Bong Joon-ho, it was because of them. If neither Davis nor Boseman (who had won at the Screen Actors Guild Awards) won the Oscars this year, it is because of them. An image for history was slipping through the Academy’s fingers due to voters more attentive to voting for good cinema than to social messages. Even Hopkins expected that result. Based in Los Angeles, he stayed in his native Wales after the Baftas and dedicated Sunday to visiting the cemetery where his father is buried.

Good cast

And yet, it was a gala full of historic moments. There was a woman who won a statuette at the age of 90 and with impeccable work (Ann Roth, costume designer for The mother of the blues). It was also a boring, stuffy gala, in which Soderbergh’s hand was only seen in the opening sequence shot, in which no one dared to cut the speeches (hence the planned three-hour duration was far exceeded), and that got off to a good start, with actress and director Regina King declaring herself relieved by the outcome of the trial of the police officer who murdered George Floyd before giving newcomer Emerald Fennell the Oscar for best original screenplay for the disturbing A promising young woman. Nomadland It won the awards it deserved, it became the movie of the night.

They also received a well-deserved reward. Judas and the Black Messiah, The Father, Sound of Music... until mank scratched something in a well-articulated track record, in which Chloé Zhao (second woman in the history of the Oscars to win in best director, there is that sad record) and McDormand, who was the one who created the project, bought the journalistic essay in the one on which the script is based and sought out Zhao after seeing The Rider, his previous film. Result? Becoming the first actress to win the award as a producer.

Soderberg said that this time the thread would be cinema, that the ceremony would be a great movie. That didn’t happen

Gone are the years when the main Oscar was in the hands of crash either Shakespeare in love. There is not all the great cinema that it should (nor First Cow neither Never, almost never, sometimes, always were nominated), but let’s not ask for anything. How few people know the candidates of this edition? Well, Hollywood cinema has mostly moved away from quality, and even without the pandemic there wouldn’t have been much difference. Are the Oscars losing audience? Sure, and they gain prestige. In that dichotomy, the Academy Awards are going to suffer a lot: it’s nice to see Bong Joon-ho announce an Oscar from Seoul, but viewers would flee en masse from a guy who only spoke Korean next to an interpreter inside a movie theater in Asia. Or that a Dane (Thomas Vinterberg with the Oscar for another round) will talk about his dead daughter in a beautiful tribute.

Finally, the fact of not having a presenter as such was a big factor in the stiffness of the gala. Suddenly, the image of Antonio Banderas at the Goya with a video wall Behind him, with all the nominees of Spanish cinema, he revalued himself. An iron presence would have unified the common thread. Soderberg said that this time the thread would be cinema, that the ceremony would be a great movie. That did not happen: there was cinema at the awards, not on the television screen.