Oscars 2019: Five talking points, from Spike Lee storming off to Olivia Colman's touching speech
Green Book's Best Picture victory over Roma has proven controversial
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Your support makes all the difference.The Oscars ended with two major shocks on Sunday night in Los Angeles, as Olivia Colman took home Best Actress for The Favourite and Green Book won Best Picture.
Colman’s win in the Best Actress category brought Yorgos Lanthimos’s period piece back in the spotlight after being shut out for most of the evening, missing out on its two Best Supporting Actress nominations (for Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz), as well as nods in the Cinematography, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Production Design, and Writing (Original Screenplay) categories.
Green Book, meanwhile, took home the biggest award of the night despite an awards season marred by scandal, and even though it was up against mammoth contenders such as Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Roma and the extremely popular Black Panther – the first superhero movie to score a nomination in the Best Picture category.
Here are the five biggest talking points from the ceremony.
Green Book disappoints as Best Picture win
This year’s Academy Awards was a tale of two shocks: one pleasant, one dire. The latter arrived with the announcement that Green Book had beaten out the category’s frontrunner, Roma, to Best Picture. It was a dismal reminder that progress is a slow, tedious process. Had Roma prevailed it would have made history, becoming both the first foreign language film and the first film distributed by Netflix (or any other streaming service) to win Best Picture.
It would have been a win that actually felt like the Academy was looking towards the future, smashing through the strict confines that have so far determined what we deem awards worthy and allowing this yearly celebration of film to finally start reflecting how diverse (on every possible level) the art form actually is.
But alas, no. Instead the Academy chose a film that has faced widespread criticism for its use of the “white saviour” trope, since its story of a friendship between two real-life figures – black jazz musician Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his white driver Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) – depicted the experiences of black Americans in the segregated South almost entirely through a white perspective.
Crucially, it ignored the realities of racism in order to deliver a neat story about Tony’s redemption as a racist man who learns to become a more tolerant person. Green Book’s win tonight doesn’t feel like much of a victory. It’s more of a case of the same old, same old when it comes to the Oscars. Clarisse Loughrey
Olivia Colman’s Best Actress win is a joyful surprise
It’s a win that many hoped for, but one that not many genuinely expected. Colman beat frontrunner Glenn Close to Best Actress, delivering a delightful (and thoroughly English) acceptance speech to boot. “It’s genuinely quite stressful,” she said. “This is hilarious. I got an Oscar! Okay, I have to thank lots of people. If, by the way, I forget anybody, I’m going to find you later and give you all a massive snog.”
Granted, Close has been wildly overdue when it comes to the Oscars, having failed to win the past six times she’s been nominated – it seems particularly outrageous now that she wasn’t awarded either for 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons and 1987’s Fatal Attraction.
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Yet, Colman’s handling of Queen Anne’s various comedies and tragedies in The Favourite soars above any other film performance this year. A figure pathetic, fearsome, and desperate at all moments, Queen Anne is filled with endless conflicting layers, all effortless delivered by Colman. Thanks to Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara’s masterful screenplay, The Favourite was one of the greatest possible platforms for what a unique talent Colman is. Clarisse Loughrey
Richard E Grant wins hearts, even if he doesn't win awards
No one has enjoyed awards season more than Richard E Grant. The 62-year-old star of Can You Ever Forgive Me? was, in his own words, “granted temporary membership to the A-list fame club” after the role earned him an Oscar nomination. Given the adorable viral video he posted in reaction to the nod, the countless selfies with every Hollywood actor he comes across, and the interviews in which he’s grinning ear to ear, it’s clear Grant decided to grab the opportunity with both hands.
He didn’t grab the Oscar, though. That honour, predictably, went to Mahershala Ali for his role as jazz pianist Don Shirley in the somewhat controversial Green Book. Ali is brilliant, of course – just look at his previous Oscar-winning role in Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight – but wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Grant had managed to pull off a surprise victory? This was his first ever nomination, 32 years after he was snubbed for his iconic role in Withnail and I, and he plays Jack Hock – the playful, conniving, antagonistic friend to Melissa McCarthy’s Lee Israel – like no one else could. Alexandra Pollard
Although Green Book walked away with Best Picture, the film with the most wins of the night was Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s news that will also come as a significant disappointment to many. Alongside three wins in the technical categories – for Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Editing – Rami Malek also picked up Best Actor for his role as Freddie Mercury.
The film, however, has been argued by many to be nothing but a karaoke-style paean to Queen, with many critics picking up on how the film downplays the AIDS crisis of the 1980s - Mercury was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and died of AIDS-related bronchopneumonia in 1991 - and Mercury’s sexuality. Indeed, the film focuses solely on Mercury’s relationship with Mary Austin (played in the film by Lucy Boynton), leaving his relationship with Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker), who was with Mercury until his death, as an epilogue untold, leading to accusations that the project “straight-washes” or “de-queers” its subject.
It should be mentioned, crucially, that Academy voters made their decision in the light of the allegations facing Bohemian Rhapsody’s director, Bryan Singer. Last month, The Atlantic published multiple accusations that Singer had sexually abused underage boys. The director denies all allegations. That the Academy sees fit to reward the film in any way has, inevitably, made a statement about how the film industry reckons with the work of alleged abusers. Clarisse Loughrey
The Academy takes two steps forward for diversity, one step back
Four years on from the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and two years since the Academy took steps to rectify its predominantly white, male demographic by inviting 774 new members, it’s clear that progress has been made. Regina King won Best Supporting Actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, BlackKklansman director Spike Lee finally won an Oscar after decades of snubs, and Black Panther’s costume designer Ruth Carter, and its production designer Hannah Beachler, both became the first ever African American winners in their categories.
Still, the fact that there are still firsts like these in 2019 is a pretty sorry state of affairs – and the fact that the night ended with Green Book, with all its problematic racial politics, winning Best Picture shows there is still work to be done. Alexandra Pollard
See all the action as it happened below.
You can find a full list of winners here.
While film fans may be relieved that Kevin Hart won't be hosting the Oscars after his homophobia controversy, it's likely that they – and music fans – will be gutted over the fact that Kendrick Lamar and SZA aren't performing their Oscar-nominated single "All the Stars" tonight.
It's being blamed on scheduling/timing issues, but you do wonder if Kendrick has given up on awards ceremonies altogether after being snubbed so many times by institutions (*cough, Grammys, cough*) that consistently favourite white winners over artists of colour.
Check out film writer Jacob Stolworthy's fantastic interview with If Beale Street Could Talk star Regina King
Presenting the Oscars is a tricky job; success as a comedian, as a TV presenter or as an actor in no way guarantees a successful turn at the ceremonies. And a bad host can tarnish the night, for viewers and for the Academy.
On the other hand, a great host can elevate an awards night beyond simply its winners and losers. Frequent hosts Bob Hope and Billy Crystal became renowned for their ability as comperes, defining, for many viewers, their respective eras of Oscar history.
Whether this year’s alternative format is any better remains to be seen. The 1989 ceremony was one of the most recent to forego a host. A dreadful opening number in which an off-key Rob Lowe sings a lavish medley with Snow White (played by Eileen Bowman) was enough to end the Hollywood career of its bombastic producer, Allan Carr, single-handed.
As a reminder of exactly what we’ll be missing out on this year, here are five of the best Oscar hosts of all time...
There have been some truly appalling acceptance speeches at the Oscars. Who can forget the moment Sam Smith accepted his award for Best Original Song “Writing’s On the Wall”, which he co-wrote with Jimmy Napes for the Bond flick in 2016?
Smith later admitted he was drunk when he made the erroneous claim that “no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar” before him. The crooner had misinterpreted a fact given to him by Sir Ian McKellen, who was referring specifically to the acting categories. In fact, the Best Song category alone features both Elton John and Stephen Sondheim as prior winners. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Milk in 2009, quickly called him out on his blunder. The pop singer later apologised.
Here are nine other of the worst Oscars acceptance speeches
It might sound obvious, but a film getting nominated for an Oscar doesn't automatically make it good.
In fact, there have been numerous deserving films over the years that were somehow overlooked by the Academy.
Sure, it's easy to assume that certain films don't get nominated because they're not what Oscar voters would usually go for, but there have been some surprises in the past.
For most actors, winning an Oscar is seen as the absolute pinnacle of a Hollywood career. For a select group of performers, though, one simply isn’t enough.
There have been 41 different actors to have won multiple awards, the first coming in 1937 when Luise Rainer became the original two-time Oscar darling.
Some manage to win every time they are nominated. Others, such as the inimitable Meryl Streep, have careers peppered with nominations, winning only when the so-called narrative dictates.
This year, five actors – Mahershala Ali, Christian Bale, Sam Rockwell, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz – stand a chance of winning a second Academy Award.
Should any of them do so, they will join this esteemed collection of other performers who have managed to blow voters away more than once.
“I think almost every other film I’ve done has been in relation to a man,” says Rachel Weisz. "It’s unbelievably refreshing and invigorating for me to have now done two films opposite women.”
Read our interview with the Oscar-nominated star of The Favourite
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