86th Academy Awards: Post-Ceremony Commentary

The 86th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2013, have come and gone.  There were no real surprises this year, or at least, certainly not in the major categories.  Not to brag or anything, but my predictions this year were all correct, although in five categories (Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film), I did not venture any guess, because I was not well enough informed in the nominations.  GRAVITY, by a very substantial margin of four awards, won the most with a grand total of seven.  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB and 12 YEARS A SLAVE were each tied as the runners-up, with three awards each, but it was 12 YEARS A SLAVE that took home the top prize of Best Picture.  However, unsurprisingly, 12 YEARS A SLAVE's Best Picture standing was somewhat mitigated by the big winner that was GRAVITY, taking the awards for Best Director and Best Film Editing, only rarely awarded to a film other than the Best Picture winner.  The dilemma was whether the most "worthy" film wins, that being 12 YEARS A SLAVE, or the "best" film wins, that being GRAVITY.  In the end, they appear to have gone with the most worthy, but then nullified the effect.  One of the big highlights of the night was seeing Broadway star Idina Menzel (John Travolta's misreading when announcing her has earned him an awful lot of ire already) perform the Academy Award-winning "Let It Go" from FROZEN, live.
Other notable occurrences in this year's proceedings include a total shut-out of AMERICAN HUSTLE in all ten of its nominations (it was tied with GRAVITY for most nominations), although that's one snub short of the record tied between 1977's THE TURNING POINT and 1985's THE COLOR PURPLE, each of which won none of their 11 nominations.  In fact, of the five films nominated in both the top categories of Best Picture and Best Director (every Best Picture/Best Director nominee also had nominations in the writing and acting categories, with the exception of GRAVITY, holding no nomination in writing), only two won any awards.  NEBRASKA, nominated for six awards, won nothing, and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, nominated for five awards, won nothing.  It wasn't exactly a "share the love" night, not that I'm complaining.  Overall, I think this was one of the better years for the biggest awards show in the entertainment industry.

The producers and cast of 12 YEARS A SLAVE, with producer/director Steve McQueen at the microphone, accepting their awards for Best Picture.

BEST PICTURE:  12 YEARS A SLAVE, produced by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas
Best Picture was a bit of a dilemma this year, because there were few who doubted that GRAVITY was the "best" film of 2013, but 12 YEARS A SLAVE was the most "important".  Unsurprisingly, the Academy settled on the most important (that's kind of the whole function of the Academy, to imbue the film industry with a sense of importance), but I can't deny that even while GRAVITY is better, 12 YEARS A SLAVE is nonetheless a film of Best Picture caliber.  I'm not complaining.

BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron for GRAVITY

Alfonso Cuaron- Winner of Best Director

This is where Best Director comes in as second Best Picture.  It's hard to argue that, with all the importance we place with directors in the role of creating a film, the best film of the year wasn't also the best directed, but it's not unheard of to split the categories, just unusual.  It happened just last year, in an even rarer occurrence, with the Best Picture winner even failing to garner the Best Director nomination.  Although this year, both frontrunners had nominations in both categories, the result was similar to last years, albeit on a grander scale, with the Best Director winner taking the lion's share of the awards.  Essentially, they're saying that GRAVITY was technically the "Best Picture", but 12 YEARS A SLAVE was too important to deny.  I'm not cynical about it; I can see where they're coming from.

BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey for DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
Aw dammit, McConaughey; he wasn't exactly the most deserving of the nominees (this year had some very surprising snubs in the nomination stage), but he gave one of the best acceptance speeches of the night and he's definitely evolved into an actor of definite Oscar-worthy quality.  Good on him, even if Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance was better.

Academy Award Winners Jared Leto (Best Supporting Actor) and Matthew McConaughey (Best Actor) in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB.

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett for BLUE JASMINE
This was no surprise, with Blanchett sweeping acting awards at every turn for her spectacular but depressing character study performance in Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE, and it was kind of fun how Blanchett threw in a little bit of a slight to the awards process while accepting it.  This is her second Oscar after winning Best Supporting Actress for playing actress Kate Hepburn in Martin Scorcese's THE AVIATOR.  I wouldn't say it was my favorite actress performance of the year (that'd be Sandra Bullock for GRAVITY), but it was definitely the best.  It's kind of funny, I saw BLUE JASMINE the day it opened in wide release, but I actually had only first heard of it a couple days before, knew nothing about what it was about and was just filling some time between seeing one movie and seeing another movie later.  Maybe that's more common for some people, but I almost always have enough information about a movie that I could sell someone else on it without having seen it yet.  That was a novel experience for me.

Cate Blanchett, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, in BLUE JASMINE.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto for DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
I realize it sounds like the eye-rollingly obvious role that wins Oscars, but Jared Leto as the transgender woman Rayon, fighting the imminently fatal AIDS virus, was highly deserving.  Fully immersed in the role, playing with just the right portions of comic sass, mortal desperation and tragedy without an ounce of cheapness or sentimentality, Leto was the correct pick.  I thought Barkhad Abdi, as the Somalian pirate in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, was stellar, but I'm skeptical that it may be a case of great casting.  Hopefully, Abdi proves he has the suitable versatility in future work, but he got a BAFTA this time around, so that's nice for him.

Lupita Nyong'o- Best Supporting Actress

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:  Lupita Nyong'o for 12 YEARS A SLAVE
Although for a moment there it looked like Jennifer Lawrence was going to get her second Oscar in two years, newcomer Lupita Nyong'o pulled through in the end to win the award in her feature debut.  The charming Mexican-born Kenyan actress well deserved the award for her performance as the tragic slave Patsey in 12 YEARS A SLAVE.

BEST WRITING- ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: HER by Spike Jonze
This is one of the most deserved awards of the night, especially having known ahead of time that HER was unlikely to win more than one of its five nominations, but it would have been a crime to give to anything else.  HER is an excellent movie on multiple levels, but most of its heart is in its ingenious script.  It's both fantastic and relatable, intimate and ambitious.  This by the man who teamed up with Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine to create the infamous stunt reality show "Jackass" and its film versions.

BEST WRITING- ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:  12 YEARS A SLAVE by John Ridley
 There was no way that the Academy would award a film with Best Picture without also giving it an award for writing, even if it was giving Best Director and Best Film Editing to another film.  The screenplay for 12 YEARS A SLAVE was written by John Ridley, writer of the films RED TAILS (dreadful) and UNDERCOVER BROTHER (umm.. not bad), and yep, it's a perfectly good script.  I would have like to see THE WOLF OF WALL STREET get it though, while knowing fully well that it wouldn't, but I suspect time will look favorably on that film.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:  FROZEN, presented to directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee and producer Peter Del Vecho

FROZEN won the award for Best Animated Feature.

Can you believe that this is the first time that Walt Disney Animation Studios, the first American studio to even make an animated feature film, has only just barely won their first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?  Of course, the award was only just introduced in 2001, when it went to SHREK, but after a ten-year streak of great films from 1989-1999, Disney's quality significantly lessend, while Pixar stole the spotlight, until about 2009, when Disney started putting out more Oscar-worthy product, but still outpaced by Pixar.  Disney could have, and should have, won last year with WRECK-IT RALPH, but in what I cynically assume was the Academy leaping at the chance to award an animated princess film with feminist values and its female co-director (Brenda Chapman, who was ousted from the project and ultimately left Pixar, but became the first female recepient of the award), Best Animated Feature went to BRAVE, a disappointingly impersonal but well-produced film.  But heck, if they had just waited one more year, they would have gotten the same opportunity, but a far more deserving one in FROZEN, which they have awarded justly.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: THE GREAT BEAUTY, presented to director Paolo Sorrentino
The only nominee in this category that I've seen was Denmark's THE HUNT, and I thought that would have been deserving, but I can't compare, so I don't have an opinion on this.  It is the first time an Italian film has won the award since Roberto Benigni famously climbed on and over the audience seats in outrageous excitement over his film LA VITA E BELLA (LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL) won fifteen years ago.

BEST DOCUMENTARY- FEATURE:  20 FEET FROM STARDOM, presented to director Morgan Neville and producers Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers
I haven't seen the winner, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM; actually, the only nominee I saw in this category was the critics' favorite, THE ACT OF KILLING, which was undoubtedly the "important" one.  The thing is that documentaries are typically judged on a sense of importance, and while there's definitely some that have surprised me, I rarely find myself drawn to documentaries that aren't involved with something that I'm already interested in, so I have a hard time comparing them even if I have seen them.  This decision by the Academy voters has been subject to some disdain though, with them awarding a film about "under-appreciated" people working in Hollywood over a film that encouraged a country to face their dark legacy of genocide, in an apparent display of stereotypical Hollywood vanity.

BEST DOCUMENTARY- SHORT SUBJECT:  THE LADY IN NUMBER 6: MUSIC SAVED MY LIFE, presented to producer/director Malcolm Clarke and producer Nicholas Reed
Again, haven't seen it.  Haven't seen any of these nominees, actually; they aren't widely seen by most.  I do know that this is about a Holocaust survivor whose passion for music gave her the hope to survive, which troubles me a bit, because although it makes us feel good, it suggests that if you believe hard enough, you can survive the Holocaust.  But what does that say about those who didn't survive?  Eh, but like I said, I haven't seen it.


BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:  HELIUM, presented to director/producer Anders Walter and producer Kim Magnusson
Like the other short film categories, if you don't go to the big film festivals or really go out of your way to, it's difficult to see these films, so I haven't seen a one.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM:  MR. HUBLOT, presented to director/producer Laurent Witz and producer Alexandre Espigares
One last category for which I didn't see most of the nominees and didn't have an opinion about which won, especially because the one that I did see, Disney's GET A HORSE!, was mildly amusing, but hardly remarkable.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:  GRAVITY, composed by Steven Price
Of the nominations for Best Original Score, GRAVITY was the one for which music played the most significant part, plus while it was emotionally motivating, it was never intrusive.  It was the right pick.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:  "Let It Go" from FROZEN, by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Disney has a legacy of great music and of winning awards for their great music, even prompting the Academy to split the Original Score category into two from 1995 through 1998 because it kept going to the same Disney composers.  "Let It Go" happens to be the best song from a Disney animated film since THE LION KING two decades ago, and deserves the award more than most of the past dozen winners.

Broadway star Idina Menzel, voice of Elsa in Disney's FROZEN, sings the Best Original Song, "Let It Go" at the 86th Academy Awards.

BEST SOUND EDITING: GRAVITY, presented to sound editor Glenn Freemantle
As I understand it, the category for sound editing involves the managing of recording sound while in production, in which case it may have been ideal to give the award to a more on-location production, but these kinds of awards tend to end up in clusters, and GRAVITY made a full sweep of the technical categories.

BEST SOUND MIXING: GRAVITY, presented to sound mixing team Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
As I understand it, the category for sound mixing involves the assembling of the recorded sounds for a final product, in which case, GRAVITY is the undoubted choice.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:  THE GREAT GATSBY, presented to production designer Catherine Martin and Set Decorator Beverley Dunn
HER deserved it more, but the best traits of its genius production design were probably too subtle for the tastes of the Academy, and there were no flashier productions this year than THE GREAT GATSBY.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:  GRAVITY, presented to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
GRAVITY was the most beautiful film of the year, and thus fittingly, wins Best Cinematography.  Emmanuel Lubezki, who has put together some very beautiful shots for SLEEPY HOLLOW, THE TREE OF LIFE and CHILDREN OF MEN, and in GRAVITY, before the visual effects team came in to fill them in, Lubezki set up the astounding framings.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSYLING:  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, presented to hairstylist Adruitha Lee and makeup artist Robin Mathews
As fun as it would have been to refer to JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA as an Academy Award-winner, it was not at all surprising that DALLAS BUYERS CLUB won, considering that it was the only real respectable candidate.  It's surprising, however, that AMERICAN HUSTLE, with all of its stunning seventies styles, failed to garner a nomination.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: THE GREAT GATSBY, presented to costume designer Catherine Martin
I liked the costumes in AMERICAN HUSTLE better, but I guess GATSBY is more fun, with flashy Roaring Twenties styles in every possibility of excess.  Glitzy, glamorous excess.

BEST FILM EDITING: GRAVITY, presented to co-film editors Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sangers
It's probable that the Academy awarded Best Film Editing, a typical prerequisite to winning Best Picture, to GRAVITY as a way to emphasize the unimportance of its later lack of a Best Picture recognition, but there are more significant reasons for GRAVITY to deserve the award.  On multiple viewing, while paying close attention to the structure of the film and the prolonged singular shots, the editing itself tells another level of the story, a life cycle in parallel to the character story.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:  GRAVITY, presented to visual effects team supervisors Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould
This was quite possibly the most obvious award of the night, considering that there is practically no dispute that GRAVITY was a visually splendorous advance in film technologies, even if it was hard to imagine that what it was doing hadn't been done before.  GRAVITY was intended to be a quick production until it was realized that visual effects technologies were just not advanced enough, so over the course of four and a half years, the technology was invented for the film.  That kind of thing wins Oscars.