At least an interesting variety of films won Academy Awards
By N.B.
THE buzzword in the run-up to this year's Oscar ceremony was "diversity". When the nominations were announced on January 14th—which feels like years ago—commentators were quick to complain about the absence of black actors on the short lists, and the general paucity of ethnic minorities in any category. This politically charged atmosphere carried over into the ceremony itself. But there was plenty of diversity there of a different kind.
The politics were there from the first second of Chris Rock's opening monologue. He delivered a mischievous, in-depth, and, crucially, very funny stand-up routine on race and film, commenting that the evening's "In Memoriam" montage would consist of "black people who were shot by cops on the way to the movies". Later, Leonardo DiCaprio pleaded for climate-change awareness, Sam Smith dedicated his Best Song victory to the gay and transgender community, and Lady Gaga was joined on stage by survivors of sexual abuse.
The other type of diversity on show at the Oscars may not be quite as momentous, but this was, after all, a film-awards ceremony, so it was pleasing to see such a diverse range of films being honoured. This wasn't one of those nights when one prestige movie steamrollers everything in its path, despite predictions that "The Revenant" would do just that. It's true that George Miller's wildly individual post-apocalyptic spectacular, "Mad Max: Fury Road", was a winner in six technical categories: editing, sound editing, sound mixing, make-up & hairstyling, costume design and production design. And deservedly so. But the higher profile awards were shared among a wealth of recipients.
"The Revenant" got three, for Best Director, Cinematographer and Actor, making Alejandro Iñárritu the first person in 66 years to have been crowned Best Director two years running. And although it may not be much of a consolation to those who were incensed by the lack of black nominees, Latino and Asian artists are also badly underrepresented, so it is worth mentioning that Mr Iñárritu is Mexican, one of those Donald Trump would strand on the far side of a wall if he is elected president in November.
Emmanuel Lubezki won Best Cinematographer for "The Revenant", making that three consecutive Academy Awards (following "Birdman" and "Gravity"). Overkill? Maybe, but remembering how the camera floats like a ghost through the chaos of "The Revenant"'s astonishing ambush scene, and how sublime the mountain vistas are, it seems crazy that the Oscar could ever have gone to anyone else.
Leonardo DiCaprio's Best Actor win (pictured) was the least shocking event in the history of the Academy Awards. Some sniffing critics felt that he was rewarded for crawling through forests, swimming in icy rivers, eating raw bison liver and generally having a miserable time, rather than for the quality of the performance itself. But everyone knows that Oscars are sometimes a kind of ersatz lifetime-achievement award, and it's hard to imagine anyone too upset that Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon and last year's winner, Eddie Redmayne, didn't get the trophy.
Brie Larson's win for playing the traumatised but determined young mother in "Room" was more exciting, even if it was just as predictable. The 26-year-old had already won a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award, so she was as close as they come to being a dead cert. But it was right and proper that such a powerful performance should win, and gratifying that such a daring independent drama as "Room" should have been recognised. Her win marks the birth of a major new star—one of three on the evening. Mark Rylance, one of the great stage actors of his generation, took Best Supporting Actor for his nuanced, playful scene-stealing in "Bridge of Spies". And Alicia Vikander won Best Supporting Actress for bringing some vulnerable humanity to the stiflingly tasteful "The Danish Girl". Her award was even more richly deserved due to her excellence in so many films last year, including "Ex Machina", the winner of the Best Visual Effects award that was expected to go to "Star Wars".
Three other feature films had been touted as award-winners since they debuted at Cannes last May. Inevitably, the Best Animated Feature was Pixar's "Inside Out", a cartoon so acclaimed that it really should have been on the main Best Picture list rather than in the Animation ghetto. The Best Foreign Language Feature was "Son of Saul", a Hungarian concentration-camp drama with the compressed time-frame and frenetic pace of a ticking-clock thriller. And the Best Documentary was "Amy", Asif Kapadia's deft, if hardly revelatory splicing of Amy Winehouse's home movies.
That leaves Ennio Morricone, who won for his soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight", and "The Big Short", which won a Best Adapted Screenplay prize for its gimmicky fourth wall-breaking script. Oh—and then there was "Spotlight", which took Best Picture and Best Screenplay, making it one of the only Best Picture winners to have won in just one other category. It's not actually so much of a surprise that it didn't too well anywhere else. A well-meaning newsroom docudrama that pays tribute to dogged journalism, "Spotlight" details an investigation by the "Boston Globe" into the child-abuse committed by Massachusetts priests. It's thoughtful and restrained, but it is also slightly dull. Not many people can have left the cinema saying, "Now that is the best film of the year."
But when so many different films won so many different awards, it would be to churlish to grumble. The Oscars celebrated an invigorating range of movies this year. If they can just learn to celebrate a range of races and cultures, everyone will be happy.
