Like Mauritians going to a dodo festival in the spring of 1650, the good people of Hollywood flocked to the ninety-fifth Academy Awards on Sunday night. Any fears that motion pictures, in their current form, might be slouching toward extinction were artfully and cheerfully concealed. The only touch of the moribund was provided by Jonathan Majors, who arrived, in style, as a Victorian undertaker: frock coat, high collar, black tie. He must have left his top hat in the limo.
The details of the Oscar ceremony are tinkered with on an annual basis, to keep us on our toes. The most daring and the dumbest change to the order of things, in 2023, concerned the red carpet, which was no longer red. And, by the end, not much of a carpet, either: more of a long doormat, scuffed and scored by hundreds of celebrity heels. The chosen color was referred to as “champagne,” but suspicions remain that a Starbucks truck had backed up to the entrance of the Dolby Theatre and hosed the place with Oat Milk Chai Tea Latte. Clearly alerted, in advance, to the blahness of the backdrop, enterprising female guests had arranged to pop with hot hues or to emit a metallic shine—or to do both, in the fabulous case of Salma Hayek, whose dress appeared to have been made from solar flares. Equally gleaming in silver and gold were Sigourney Weaver, Kate Hudson, and the president of the Academy, Janet Yang. If the evening came with a message to the world, it was this: do not microwave.
Our host was Jimmy Kimmel, who descended to the stage on a parachute, the gag being that he had just ejected from a fighter plane piloted by Tom Cruise. (A fun conceit, but not as much fun as its predecessor: Queen Elizabeth II seemingly skydiving out of a chopper at the start of the London Olympics, in 2012.) That was pretty much it for “Top Gun: Maverick,” which won the prize for Best Sound but nothing else. Not that Cruise went unmentioned. Indeed, what was most notable about Kimmel’s monologue, and pricked the smooth surface of its bonhomie, was the way in which he went after both Cruise and James Cameron—who, together, are widely credited with riding to the rescue of the movie business in the past year. “The two guys who insisted we go to the theatre didn’t come to the theatre,” Kimmel said. Was there a dash of genuine grievance? People who, even now, keep faith in the Academy Awards, and in their power to sprinkle blessings upon a noble vocation, are pained not by controversy, grandstanding, political interference, ardent arguments over diversity, or fond lampoons. No, what truly hurts them is indifference. How could Cruise stay away? What gun is topper than the Oscars?
It was disrespect of a yet more visible variety that landed Hugh Grant in trouble on Sunday afternoon. Interviewed by Ashley Graham, on the latte carpet, Grant simply refused to play the game. Asked to name who had clad him in finery, he declined. (“My tailor” was the sum of his confession.) Given every opportunity to announce that this was, as for every other person on the premises, the most soul-shakingly wondrous happening on record, he was neither lofty nor hostile; nonetheless, he gave the distinct impression that he would have been equally happy to stay home with a bowl of fusilli and an improving book. And, invited to characterize what was unfolding around him, he replied, reasonably enough, “Vanity Fair.” Since the words fell from his lips, the world has split in two. On one side, we have Team Magazine, who believes, like Graham, that Grant meant the Vanity Fair party that traditionally follows (and, for jollity, is said to surpass) the doling out of the Oscars. On the other side, we have Team Novel, which holds that Grant was nodding to William Makepeace Thackeray’s all-encompassing satire of 1848.
At the risk of complicating an already bitter conflict, may I enter a plea for a third option? Any takers for Team Bunyan? Thackeray, after all, did not invent the phrase “Vanity Fair,” but it did reportedly spring to mind, as the ultimate trouvaille, as he lay in bed. He stole his title from “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” by the Puritan author John Bunyan, in which there really is a town called Vanity. The merchandise available at the local fair includes baubles such “as houses, honors, kingdoms; lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts—as bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, and what not. And moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be deceivers, cheats, games, fools, knaves, and rogues and that of every kind.” If that is what Grant was actually thinking of, as he scanned the room, then Graham did well to summon her most courageous smile and move on to the next guest.
Once the proceedings got under way, under Kimmel’s captaincy, there was no room for broadsides or blasphemy. Winners and losers alike were almost drearily well behaved, and the rhetoric, as custom demands, was one of remorseless uplift. “Dreams are something you have to believe in,” Ke Huy Quan declared. He pointed at the camera and added, “Please keep your dreams alive.” Not to be outdone, Michelle Yeoh urged us to “dream big, and dreams do come true.” (Flooding, forest fires, and dream-storms—the climate is never not nuts in California.) It’s taking nothing away from such skilled, popular, and affable actors to point out that, at the peak of their joy, like so many victors before them, they couldn’t help lapsing into fluent Disney. “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true,” we were firmly informed in “Pinocchio”—not Guillermo del Toro’s dark and gnarly version, which won this year’s award for Best Animated Feature, but the original from 1940.
The extraordinary strength of these sunlit illusions is such that they cast their glow over everything, everywhere, all at once. Thus, when “Navalny” was crowned as Best Documentary Feature, and when Alexei Navalny’s wife, Yulia, used the occasion to address her husband directly (“Stay strong, my love”), we found ourselves hymning a Hollywood moment. The hard facts of the case—the leader of a political party, imprisoned on the flimsiest of charges, in a nation state gravely threatened by the collapse of democratic norms—were somehow bathed and dissolved in televised goodwill. So what was the effect of the award: Did it shed valuable light on an outrage that cries out to be corrected, or does the spotlight cheapen the cause?
Another conundrum: Does an emotion, publicly vented, feel more or less sincere when you learn that it’s the glorious end point of an orchestrated campaign? On March 8th, the Times ran a nicely horrifying piece, by Irina Aleksander, about professional Oscar strategists, who spend months, at vast expense, crafting the most efficient means whereby Oscar hopefuls can jack up the likelihood of conquest. The battle has two phases; if you’re a nominee, according to one tactician, “Phase 2 is all about honing your narrative and defining yourself in the race.” What we observe on TV, therefore, is the point of maximum hone. And there was I, thinking it was all about the movies. The cardinal error of Andrea Riseborough, this year, was to skip the phase wranglers, and to have her performance, in “To Leslie,” recommended by—God preserve us—friends. Whoever thought that was a good plan?
To the dismay of chaos chasers, the night passed without undue incident. The arena was graced by a small and placid donkey, and then by somebody inside a furry suit, demonstrating the virtues of “Cocaine Bear.” A promising combination, and yet, as far as we know, the first beast did not take advantage of the second’s stash. David Byrne, performing one of the nominated songs, was a vision in purest white, from neck to toe; it was as if the angel Gabriel had decided to retrain as a dentist. Gradually, it became evident that the Academy Awards ceremony, after a catalogue of calamities, was settling into old habits. There would be shifts in the cultural scenery, for sure, but no tales of the unexpected. Listen to Deepika Padukone, a star of colossal wattage in the firmament of Indian film, introducing the hectic—and, as it turned out, triumphant—musical number from “RRR.” In addition to “illustrating the film’s anti-colonialist themes,” Padukone said, “it’s also a total banger.” If memory serves, that was exactly how “Gandhi” was described when it won Best Picture, in 1983. Some things never change. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
