The world has fallen prey to a pandemic. Millions of people have died. Millions have become sick or lost their jobs. Hundreds of millions have stayed home and watched TV, forbidden to visit a cinema and trapped in shame by their self-administered haircuts. For the sake of universal morale, therefore, it was deemed to be of paramount importance that the ninety-third Academy Awards should go ahead on Sunday. And it was only right that the bulk of the ceremony should be staged at a railroad station—to be specific, Union Station, in Los Angeles. An obvious choice. If it was good enough for the climax of “Garfield: The Movie,” it’s good enough for the Oscars.
For Harrison Ford, who was presenting the award for Best Film Editing, the whole night must have felt like a flashback. Here he was, returning to the high-windowed place that had taken the role of a police station, in “Blade Runner,” the only difference being that he was now wearing a tuxedo instead of a dark-brown trench coat with the collar turned up. The years have done little to smooth away Ford’s grumpiness, and on Sunday he played it up in style, growling softly as he drew a crumpled scrap of paper from his pocket, like a cop with a clue, and read out some old studio notes on “Blade Runner.” The implication was clear: given the purgatorial slog of creating a film, we should count ourselves lucky that any coherent movies, let alone great ones, make it through the system at all.
For those of us whose hearts plummet, on an annual basis, at the very sound of the phrase “awards season,” there had been a faint but lingering hope that the Oscars, for once, might be scrapped. How about taking the year off? Why must the show go on? One reason, of course, is the money that the Academy earns from the telecast, although the pot is hardly brimming, since the number of viewers who sit through the ceremony has lurched and slipped. The 2020 audience was twenty per cent smaller than that of 2019, and it would be a real surprise if this year triggers an upswing. Be honest: Did you stick around for the lengthy excursus into the origins and duties of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, or did you take the opportunity to duck out and reheat the calzone?
The true stalwarts of the Oscars have nothing to do with the Academy. They are, of course, the commentators on E!, who bravely and knowledgeably steer us through the complexities of the red carpet. Sunday’s rug was a little sparser than usual; Viola Davis surveyed it regally and pronounced it “calm,” while Amanda Seyfried, who plays Marion Davies in “Mank,” and whose hairstyle was itself a moving tribute to the nineteen-forties, reported that the prevailing atmosphere was “ ‘Twilight Zone,’ in a good way.” What way?
Yet the eyes of the experts were as sharp as ever, and it wasn’t long before two outstanding trends had been identified: bare midriffs for the women, and jewelry for the men. Daniel Kaluuya, a round-the-clock mesmerizer both on and offscreen, and soon to be acclaimed as Best Supporting Actor for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” was sporting a necklace and a pinkie ring by Cartier. “Daniel has been loving his jewelry and his diamonds this season,” we were told, which raises the possibility that, come summer, he may have a change of heart and throw his pearls away. Among the nominees for Best Abs was Andra Day, a blinding vision in gold—courtesy of Vera Wang, according to Brad Goreski, the fashion magus of E! He added, “Vera actually worked with a welder to make this gown, because it’s totally made of metal.” For anyone who has spent the past year dozing in sweatpants, here was your wake-up call.
The Academy Awards, as a rule, are composed of two things: riches and embarrassment. Every year, the organizers like to tinker with the rubric, on the principle that, if it ain’t broke, try fixing it a little more and you will end up breaking it. The big tinker of 2021, apart from the hiring of a major transport hub as a venue, was the cute—and, needless to say, calamitous—notion of introducing the contenders with a brief résumé of what their movie-flavored habits used to be before they entered the business. We learned, for instance, that Aaron Sorkin once sold popcorn, and that Glenn Close enjoyed watching Disney films. Who’d have guessed? All in all, it’s fortunate that no one at the Academy had this bright idea back in 2003, when Roman Polanski was voted Best Director, for “The Pianist.” His backstory might have raised less of a smile.
There were warmer hints of history, if you kept your ears open and knew where to look. Laura Dern paid tribute to Giulietta Masina, in Fellini’s “La Strada,” and Chloé Zhao, having collected her award for directing “Nomadland,” offered a tip: if making a movie seems like a heap of trouble, simply ask yourself, “What would Werner Herzog do?” (In practice, you’ll almost certainly treble the size of the heap by following Herzog’s example, but, still, what larks!) Around the podium, the physical layout of the evening was also a nod to the past; the nominees, arranged not in serried ranks, as they are at the Dolby Theatre, but in dining booths, bore some resemblance to the guests at the inaugural Academy Awards, in 1929, who sat at tables, at the Roosevelt Hotel. The one drawback, for modern nominees, was the COVID-driven lack of alcohol, plus the unhelpful fact that some of them had to crane round the edge of their velvet banquettes to accept the praises of a presenter, like normal mortals asking a waiter for more ketchup.
It was broadly agreed, in the wake of the Golden Globes and other recent fiascos, that, if a train wreck was to be avoided at Union Station, there had to be zero Zoom. Quite right, too, although no Oscar night would be complete without its hiccups, and those in charge of Sunday’s entertainment made sure to budget for some technical awkwardness of their own. Hence the “international” additions, with nominees calling in from far-flung outposts, and a short but wince-inducing lag between the announcement of the results in Hollywood and the reaction from overseas. When it came to the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, which went to “The Father,” a double difficulty arose. Florian Zeller gave thanks in Paris while his fellow-winner, Christopher Hampton, positioned at the British Film Institute, in London, had to stand up, smile in gentle gratitude, and sit down. Suddenly, and against all expectation, I felt nostalgic for Gwyneth Paltrow, crying in real time.
And what of the glittering prizes? “So cold,” Emerald Fennell exclaimed. Despite being English to an extreme degree, she was referring not to the weather but to the shining statuette that, thanks to “Promising Young Woman,” she now bore in her grasp. She was part of a fairly strong British contingent of victors, what with Kaluuya, Hampton, and Anthony Hopkins. (Riz Ahmed, too, made quite an impact; even as a presenter, he radiated his trademark blend of the intense and the laid-back. Place your bets on him now, for a future win.) Hopkins was hailed as Best Actor for “The Father,” a choice that evidently came as something of a shock to the showrunners, who may have read the runes and banked on a posthumous triumph for Chadwick Boseman. Had speeches been prepared on his behalf? Is that why the festivities then hurried to so hasty a close? A blow for Boseman’s fans, no doubt, although, to be fair, Hopkins is functioning at gale force in “The Father.” It’s not as if the Oscar was handed to “La La Land” by mistake.
The Academy Awards are designed to be forgotten. They have all the staying power of cotton candy. Trying to recall who won what, and when, and for which film, is a futile exercise. Already, the strangeness of Sunday night is beginning to fade; soon enough, trained metal workers will have succeeded in removing the struts and joists from Andra Day’s outfit, and the memory of the on-set cameramen, scurrying to and fro between the tables and struggling to stay out of the frame, will be no more. If anything survives, it may be the connection that was forged with larger and graver circumstances; it took Regina King no more than a few seconds, at the outset of the broadcast, to remind us of events in Minneapolis. Had the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial gone the other way, she declared, she would have traded her presenter’s heels for marching boots. As openings go, it was a trumpet blast.
Next year, unquestionably, other causes will be raised; or, more likely, we will hear the voicing of the same cause. (The details will change, though not necessarily for the better.) By then, let us pray, the pandemic will have done its worst, exhausted its rage, and gone into retreat. Movies will be showing again, in cinemas, with audience members seated side by side—or, at any rate, within popcorn-tossing distance from each other. And, if the ninety-fourth Academy Awards will no longer exult in the period luxury of Union Station, perhaps another grand arena can be found. How about LAX? Picture the scene. The happy winners can be announced, like flight arrivals, over the loudspeaker. Rather than hanging around on a dais and spending five long minutes lauding their relatives and studio executives, they can be placed on the baggage carousel, emerge through the flaps, pick up their Oscar, and make a quick speech as they wheel round and disappear from sight. Maybe, like Chloé Zhao, they can be played off, inexplicably, to the strains of “Live and Let Die.” I can’t wait.
