Right from the earliest award of the evening—Regina King for Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk—the Oscars this year have been all about marking several firsts. In King’s case it was her maiden academy nomination and win. The award was presented to her by Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler after they delivered the night’s opening monologue in the absence of an official host; another first for the awards in the last 30 years. The last time, the Oscars went host-free was in 1989. This year Kevin Hart backed out after public outrage over his old homophobic jokes.
Women power“I am an example of what it looks like when support and love is poured into someone,” King said in her speech. Soon after, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, one of the directors of Free Solo, the best documentary feature, made another inspirational statement: “This is for everyone who believes in the impossible.” Olivia Colman called her first Best Actress win for The Favourite “hilarious” and “stressful”. She confessed dreaming of receiving the award while working as a cleaner: “Any little girl who's practising their speech on the telly, you never know… I used to work as a cleaner and I loved that job but I did spend quite a lot of time imagining.”Lady Gaga, after winning her first Oscar for Best Original song for ‘Shallow’ in A Star Is Born had everyone tearing up with her emotional speech: “It’s not about winning. But what it’s about is not giving up. If you have a dream, fight for it. There’s a discipline for passion, and it’s not about how many times you get rejected or you fall down, or you’re beaten. It’s about how many times you stand up, and are brave, and you keep going.” Her performance of the song, with Bradley Cooper, would arguably be the most romantic moment in the Academy Awards in recent times. It was left for winners like them and the presenters then to keep the audience engaged.
Significant milestones
As is wont to happen every year, many contentious contemporary issues were ticked—from race relations to diversity to Trump’s hate politics—in several fabulous acceptance speeches. Ruth E Carter took her first Oscar for costume design for Black Panther, the first African American woman to have won in the category. “This has been a long time coming,” she said, adding, “Marvel may have made the first black superhero but through Costume Design we turned him into an African King.” Hannah Beachler followed it up with another first for an African American woman in Production Design.
Mahershala Ali won the Best Supporting Actor trophy, his second after Moonlight and Spike Lee got his first Oscar ever for adapted screenplay for BlacKkKlansman that he shared with Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott. All of it making for a remarkably significant presence of “colour” at the Oscars.
Diversity presented itself in other ways. Mexico got its first Best Foreign Film Oscar after nine nominations with Roma that also made Alfonso Cuaron the first Best Director winner to have also bagged a trophy for cinematography. It’s the Mexicans—Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu—who have bagged five of the direction awards in the last six years.
No wonder Javier Bardem said while introducing the foreign film category: “There are no borders or walls that can restrain ingenuity and talent.” Cuaron on winning the award forRrrrromaaa (the correct pronunciation as per Bardem) put a witty word forward by invoking Citizen Kane, Jaws and The Godfather as “foreign films”.
Fiercely political
Earlier, while introducing Roma, Diego Luna said: “It’s possible to speak Spanish at the Oscars now. They finally opened the door for us and we are not going anywhere.” Cuaron quoted filmmaker Claude Chabrol, “There are no waves, only the ocean,” asserting that all the fellow nominees in the category belonged to the same ocean. “One of the 70 million domestic workers in the world without work rights, she’s a character that has historically been relegated in the background. As artists it is our job to look where others don't. This responsibility becomes much more important in times when we are being encouraged to look away,” he said.
The most direct and politically charged speech came from Lee. “Let’s do the right thing… The 2020 election is around the corner – let’s all mobilise and be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate,” said he taking a dig at Agent “Trump” Orange. Barbara Streisand was as strident in introducing Lee’s “unfliching look at race relations in America.” She described BlacKkKlansman as real, funny and horrifying because “truth is specially precious these days”. Something that holds true across the globe in the post Whatsapp forwards world. Meanwhile, Trump hit back at Lee on Twitter saying that it would “be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres!”
The lows
The most hotly debated, were the technical awards for Bohemian Rhapsody—for sound mixing, sound editing and editing. Rami Malek may not have been everybody’s favourite for the Best Actor award but made many warm up to him by invoking his immigrant roots, back in Egypt. The one award that left most of us cringing was the big one—Best Picture for the “White saviour” race relations drama Green Book that many trashed as the worst best film ever since Crash. There was hardly any person of colour on stage for receiving the award, leaving a bad aftertaste, despite the Academy, taking many steps forward this year when it came to diversity and representation.
There were rumours about Lee trying to walk out in anger. Later in the press room he spoke about how “every time somebody drives somebody else I lose”. In 1990, Driving Miss Daisy knocked out his Do The Right Thing out of the reckoning. “This film [BlacKkKlansman], whether we won Best Picture or not, will stand the test of time for being on the right side of history.”
Memorable moments
To move on to lighter things, the most entertaining act of the evening came from Melissa McCarthy (in her The Favourite inspired bunny-strewn gown) and Brian Tyree Henry who presented the award for Best Costume Design.
Many significant, and not so significant things, were discussed threadbare on the sidelines. From Billy Porter’s gender-defying tuxedo gown to Keegan Michael-Key’s Mary Poppins umbrella; from two Mexicans—del Toro and Cuaron—and filmmaker friends sharing each other’s happiness and holding each other’s hands – to Yorgos Lanthimos’ free flowing tears at Colman’s win. There were questions, on why Mrinal Sen and Stanely Donen didn’t make it to the ‘In Memorium’ section and curiosity about the forthcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Then, there was Rishi Kapoor’s celebratory tweet on Greg Cannom’s win for make-up in Vice. Cannom had worked on the actor’s prosthetics for the 2016 film, Kapoor and Sons.