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I recently asked The New Yorker editor David Remnick whether he would ever return to the Oscars, which he has attended only once. He famously remarked, often attributed to Voltaire, in refusing to participate in the orgy again: “Once a philosopher, twice a pervert.”
It got me thinking, as someone who has attended the Oscars six times. This Sunday was my seventh visit to the orgy. One of the pleasures I find in attending the Academy Awards is that they always retain the same look: the controlled madness on the red carpet; the “Jesus Saves” protesters picketing limos on Highland Avenue; the breathless actress thanking her “team”; the statue-shaped chocolates served at the Governors Ball. I also love that each time, it’s different. New faces appear, thrilled that fate has brought them to the Oscars. New films write themselves into Academy Awards history. Every now and then, the unexpected happens: a switched envelope, a slap in the face. And if you squint, you can see the more subtle changes that remind you that Hollywood, like the world, keeps moving forward.
The 97th Academy Awards ceremony was the final one in a run fraught with controversy and chaos, sparked by tweets from one Carla Sofia Gascon and other incidents. Los Angeles was suffering from devastating wildfires. But the night itself, when it finally arrived, was a drama-free celebration of Anora, Sean Baker’s darkly comedic adventure about a resilient Brighton Beach lap dancer. It was a triumph for independent filmmakers at a time when the big Hollywood studios were content with production design wins for Oz and Arrakis. The Academy had expanded its scope considerably over the past decade, and this year’s ceremony felt more like a World Cup, with winners representing Brazil, Latvia, and Iran. Outside the Dolby Theatre, the world was in disarray; Inside, people in kilts, kimonos and keffiyehs waited to see who would win the Best Actress award. What better reason could there be to return to this “orgy”?
My Oscar adventure began with a man who may have had the most unusual road to the red carpet. Clarence (Godeye) MacLean spent seventeen years in a maximum-security prison for robbery. He ended up in a theater program run by Rehabilitation Through the Arts, and then played a version of himself in Sing Sing, a documentary about his experiences. He was one of four co-writers nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
“I’ve been on the Oscar trail for 18 months,” he confided when I met him in his suite at the Beverly Wilshire. McLean was wearing tuxedo pants, a cummerbund, and a bow tie—with a snap, he admitted. (“I’m not ambidextrous.”) His girlfriend, Lisa Evans, whom he met at a juicer opening in White Plains, was adjusting her bustier in the mirror.
MacLean was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y. “I was always into art. I liked drawing, painting, making things with my hands. But, as you can imagine, it didn’t mesh well with the street kids,” he said, putting on his shoes. “So I shut down the artist in me to fit in. I didn’t get back into art until I went to prison.” He was 29 when he went to Sing Sing, “a typical street kid,” he said. Through the theater program, he appeared in about a dozen plays. “I was in Oedipus Rex. I was in Jitney. I was in Twelve Angry Men. And some plays we wrote,” he said. He was released in 2012 but remained involved with RTA. Directors Greg Kvedar and Clint Bentley approached him and his castmates, including John (Divine G) Whitfield, to direct the film, and they wrote the script over six years. Whitfield is played by Colman Domingo, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor.
The awards trail was exciting for McLean. At a star-studded event at the Academy Museum, Sheryl Lee Ralph told him, “Shut your mouth. You belong here.” She then introduced him to Tyler Perry and Kim Kardashian. While attending events, he became close with Jeff Goldblum, who was on the “Wicked” trail, and
Sourse: newyorker.com
