For an Oscar year in which several big awards were foregone conclusions, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences soiree last Sunday, Feb. 24, included its share of surprises.
It also featured an equable, perhaps accidental, distribution of the prizes among a range of movies. When we consider how set the Hollywood community appeared to be on anointing the sixth-best nominee as Best Picture, it’s gratifying that 2012 won’t go down in Oscar history as a sweep year.
Yes, as predicted just about everywhere, “Argo” copped the big one. But it won only two others, tying with the execrable “Les Misérables” and running one behind “Life of Pi.” Scoring two each on the tote board were “Lincoln,” “Skyfall” and “Django Unchained.”
It was “Django” that drew first blood, with the second Best Supporting Actor win by Christoph Waltz in a Quentin Tarantino movie. As in “Inglourious Basterds” (2009), Waltz was really a costar rather than supporting player. And once again, Waltz gave an impeccably gracious acceptance speech, naming and literally bowing to his esteemed fellow nominees and praising his writer-director through artful repurposing of Tarantino’s own words.
Few surprises
The next two awards were presented as if they belonged together, and you had to wonder how securely those PricewaterhouseCoopers envelopes had been sealed. Both Cinematography and Visual Effects awards went to “Life of Pi,” a movie that, like 2009 winner “Avatar,” probably had more visual effects than cinematography. “Life of Pi” looks amazing, but what is it and who did it? Don’t expect an answer from cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who gave the most incoherent Oscar speech I can recall. Meanwhile, the great Roger Deakins (“Skyfall”), who actually photographs his movies, is now 0 for 10 at the Oscars.
Jennifer Aniston and Channing Tatum traded body-waxing jokes, then announced “Anna Karenina” for Best Costume Design. “Les Misérables” won makeup-and-hairstyling; as Entertainment Weekly noted, “it takes a lot of work to make Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman look as ugly as they do.”
I’m sure there are any number of reasons to regret that the triumphantly feel-good “Searching for Sugar Man” took Best Documentary over a field of topical films, but others will need to find them. Characteristically, Sixto Rodriguez, the marvelous singer-songwriter and exemplary human being who is its subject, stayed away from the Oscar ceremony so as to not to deflect attention from the filmmakers.
“Les Miz” won for Sound Mixing. Then sound-editing presenter Mark Wahlberg found himself officiating at a moment of Oscar history, a tie (“This is not a gag,” he had to assure the audience): The teams from “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Skyfall” both won. It would be “ZD30”’s only victory — half a victory, at that.
No presses were stopped for the news that Anne Hathaway got Best Supporting Actress for dreaming that dream in “Les Misérables.”
The film-editing award is traditionally a harbinger of Best Picture, so William Goldenberg was called to receive “Argo”’s first of three. (He was also a nominee for “ZD30.”) After losing a lot of the 12 categories in which it was nominated, “Lincoln” won for art direction/production design, and surely deserved to.
Mychael Danna was the predicted winner of Best Original Score for his ecumenical stylings on “Life of Pi,” and his speech was one of the evening’s most eloquent. Original Song followed, with hurried renderings of the nominees serving as sacrificial victims till Adele’s “Skyfall,” previously showcased, could be declared the winner.
“Argo” screenwriter Chris Terrio claimed Adapted Screenplay and almost acknowledged that he didn’t belong in the company of Tony Kushner, winner of most critics-group awards for “Lincoln.”
Academy voters stayed ballsy for Quentin, picking “Django Unchained” for Best Original Screenplay — N-words and all. (I loved presenter Dustin Hoffman’s announcing simply, “Mr. Tarantino.”) Instead of the usual gush, QT saluted the high quality of all the screenplay nominees — “This is the year of the writer” — and congratulated both his cast and his casting because “a writer needs the right actor to make his character live and last.”
Sometimes, magic happens
With Ben Affleck notoriously omitted from the directorial nominees (make that infamously omitted in Kathryn “ZD30” Bigelow’s case), the Best Director category was as adrift as poor Pi’s lifeboat. There were a lot of late predictions that it would be Steven Spielberg, mainly because he and his much-nominated “Lincoln” were so there.
I wish it had been Spielberg, but I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear Ang Lee’s name called; “Life of Pi” was meticulously directed, even if I could scarcely have been less moved by it. “Thank you, movie god,” the sweet man said — again, ecumenical.
“Silver Linings Playbook” had run wild at Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards, but only Jennifer Lawrence repeated her win as Best Actress. Still running, she tripped and slant-fell on her way up the Oscar steps, then attributed the standing ovation to sympathy for her embarrassment. What’s not to love?
Another magical moment: arguably the movies’ greatest actor and greatest actress embracing after Meryl Streep announced Daniel Day-Lewis as winner for “Lincoln.” Classy of her to get the envelope-opening over with as the nominee clips were running, so that she could simply announce the name everyone knew would be announced. DD-L, the first three-time winner of the Best Actor Oscar, was pretty classy himself, never more so than when cherishing a key collaborator: “the mysteriously beautiful mind, body and spirit of Abraham Lincoln.”
RICHARD T. JAMESON, a former editor of the Queen Anne/Magnolia News, is a member of the National Society of Film Critics. To comment on this story, write to QAMagNews@nwlink.com.