Re: Victory ???
The 7th Academy Award ceremony was held without any surprises. Expectedly, the main triumph was “Birdman”, presented in nine nominations and received four main figurines: the best film, director (Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu), cameraman (Emmanuel Lübecki), best original script.
Inarritu, the master of frivolous social dramas with a non-linear narrative, radically changed the genre and tore off the bank. “Birdman”, a funny and at the same time tragic story of an aged actor of the same role, Birdman's superhero, who is struggling to reanimate his career and restore meaning to life, has conquered both critics and spectators. The action is built around a Broadway production, and in the film itself imitates the theatrical aesthetics of the unity of action, time and place. There has not been such an immersion in the screen world in world cinema since the time of the "Russian Ark" by Alexander Sokurov.
The effect is enhanced by the fact that a real biography of the leading actor Michael Keaton, the first Batman performer from the productions of Tim Burton, can be seen through the fiction. Birdman continues the fruitful tradition of films on the subject of Hollywood about Hollywood (such as Sunset Boulevard and Angry and Beautiful), where, through the specific problems of the corporation, there is access to universal human problems.
With the same result (four victories out of nine possible), but in less important nominations, Wes Anderson's Hotel “Grand Budapest” came to the finish: costumes, makeup and hairstyles, soundtrack, work of the art director.
In the remaining major nominations, the alignment is also quite predictable. The best adapted script - Graham Moore for a neat retelling for the mass audience of a rather complex and controversial biography of mathematician Alan Turing ("The Simulation Game"). The best actor is Eddie Redmayne, who embodied with frightening credibility physicist Stephen Hawking, who lost mobility due to amyotrophic sclerosis ("Stephen Hawking Universe"). Best Actress - Julianne Moore for her role as another professor, but with Alzheimer's (Still Alice). In a word, this year there are no frankly controversial decisions of the academy. Almost all the important films of the year, if they did not receive the statuette, at least fell into the nomination.
However, in addition to recording the achievements of the current moment, Oscar is forced from year to year to correct previous errors and omissions. This moment always plays a role (sometimes very significant) in the distribution of awards. So, it is obvious that on the fifth attempt Julianne Moore received an award in many respects for her many and undoubted past achievements. How many people will remember Oscar-winning film “Still Alice” in a couple of years? It is unlikely that more people remember the “Crazy Heart” today, for which, in 2010, they finally received the Jeff Bridges figurine. “Big Lebowski”, where they play together, probably remember everything.
Based on this logic, the main film of the ceremony could have become, but did not become “Adolescence” by Richard Linklater, America’s most unknown director who is worth knowing. In many respects, the film academy is also guilty, which ignored Linklater’s films with startling constancy (just two comforting scenario nominations “Before Midnight” and “Before Sunset” for a 30-year career).
Adolescence is Linklater’s first film seen by the Academy, and probably the best. Chamber epic, the story of growing up 12 years old - and filmed the same 12 years. In feature films, this is actually the first realized project of this kind. Something like that was once started, but Lars von Trier threw it. One way or another, this experiment did not melt the hearts of academics. Of the 6 nominations - only one victory (the best supporting actress - Patricia Arquette).
No less sad plot of the current ceremony is the defeat of the Russian “Leviathan” in the battle with the Polish “Ida” in the nomination for the best foreign film. There are many reasons for this. Most likely, academics preferred a simpler picture, closer to American ideas about European “aesthetic cinema,” while “Leviathan” fell into a split in perception - either a drama about social injustice, or a biblical parable carried over to modern realities. Perhaps the ambiguity was not enough, or, for example, the name of the Russian director, which foreigners stubbornly did not pronounce, prevented. Or maybe we somewhat overestimated the interest of the West in Russia.
Source: [DLMURL] https://izvestia.ru/news/583334#ixzz3SZtteuC0 [/ DLMURL]
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