The Evening of the Little Gold Man

After spending the night before at the computer, then going to sleep in the late morning, I woke up just as the customarily painfully embarrassing Academy Awards red carpet interviews of the Pro7 channel ended. Then Papa and Mama gradually returned to the corner room and Gi. finished preparing a generous quantity of popcorn. On the television the coverage switched to its American counterpart, with the ex-supermodel Kathy Ireland (whose greyish dress was taller than most of the ambient humanity), an entertainment writer named Jess Cagle, and Sherri Shepherd of the talkshow The View. The actors who ventured within reach of their professional claws obligingly reeled off the clichés about being excited and feeling honoured "to be here" and wanting to enjoy each moment as it comes, and succeeded in pretending as if they feel happy when total strangers are clamouring for their attention like badly raised two-year-olds, and in this case demanding gracious responses to a shopworn set of officious questions. ("Who are you wearing?" = *groan*.)

Then the Academy Awards began as the nominees for best actor and actress took to the stage and stood there in the circus ring sight of the spotlights and cameras and auditorium hoi polloi. Once they had flocked back into their seats in the privileged front ring, Neil Patrick Harris emerged back centre stage and began a musical number most of whose lyrics I couldn't distinguish, whilst the ostrich feathers and (figurative) monkey suits of multitudinous dancers hearkened back to Old Hollywood showbusiness glamour. Then we were introduced to the hosts, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, who dutifully made reasonably polite and amusing jokes about or around the different acting nominees. They came across as relaxed and likeable, in my view, and it was nice not to have to wince either at a seriously off-colour or cruel joke, or at excessive attempts at ingratiating themselves with the audience.

The first pair of awards went to the best supporting actor and best supporting actress. Christoph Waltz won the first for Inglourious Basterds, and possibly his visible discomfort beforehand had sprung from the fact that being broadcast in the guise of a Nazi on a gigantic film screen is not anyone's idea of a shining moment. His speech was a jewel of succinctness and finely worked metaphor, and it wrapped up before the procrustean 45-second time limit so the orchestra music did not ignominiously cut him short. Mo'Nique, white flowers adorning her hair in hommage to her distant predecessor Hattie McDaniel, then won the best supporting actress award for playing a monstrous mother in Precious; this was equally expected. After her acceptance speech the cameras cut to Samuel L. Jackson, presumably to capture the "moved African-American" reaction, which he duly noted and rewarded with a mocking grimace into the camera. (Upon which my high opinion of him climbed another amused notch.)

After that came the techy awards, like screenplay and film editing and sound, and the awards for the little and foreign films. Avatar and The Hurt Locker divided the lion's share between them. I was happy whenever the latter won because of my one-sided feud against James Cameron and against Avatar. (Presumably I will call off said feud in due course, as has happened in the past with such entities as Tom Cruise and Richard Gere, but it is enjoyable to provisionally dislike people I've never met and films I've never seen.) The film's pop culture impact is obvious, but that doesn't prevent me from giggling when people describe it as "Pocahontas acted out by Smurfs."

Intermittently there was a tribute to John Hughes, a director who made films about teenagers in the 80s/90s and of whose oeuvre I have seen The Breakfast Club and Home Alone, whilst it is practically impossible to avoid hearing about Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pretty in Pink. There was also a montage in honour of the horror film, where every few seconds one of us would remark, more or less, "That's not a horror film. That's more of a thriller." (Like Jaws and Psycho.) I looked away for most of the time since the horror genre is not at all my cup of tea. There was also a resumé of honorary awards that were presented in a different ceremony, and one of the recipients was Lauren Bacall. The sight of her elegantly accepting the standing ovation that came the way of her and a fellow honoree was uplifting (especially since The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not and Murder on the Orient Express (1974) are much beloved in this household), even if the momentary doubt if many younger actresses are in her league was not so much so. As for the Na'vi skit that introduced the best makeup category, it went on too long in my view.

Finally we arrived at the mighty four awards for best actor, best actress, best director, and best film. Five actors assembled on the stage to pronounce a laudatio (as these things are called in Germany) for each best actor nominee: Michelle Pfeiffer for Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore for Colin Firth, Vera Farmiga for George Clooney, Colin Farrell for Jeremy Renner, and Tim Robbins for Morgan Freeman. It was terribly awkward at moments, for example when Vera Farmiga harped on Clooney's looks. But I liked the two last tributes, though I suspected that despite the film they both acted in Renner and Farrell (whom I rather like as far as his personality is discernible) don't know each other sufficiently to give the requisite profound insights into each other's artistic and personal merits. (Which was also a problem with Julianne Moore and Colin Firth.) Jeff Bridges won, of course, and it was amusing when this exponent of a showbiz family took the stage like a seasoned denizen of the West and cheerfully drawled unaffected thanks to all the relevant parties, interspersed with celebratory whoops and languid ", . . . maaan"s.

The formula was repeated with Michael Sheen speaking for Helen Mirren, Peter Sarsgaard for Carey Mulligan, Forest Whitaker for Sandra Bullock, Oprah for Gabourey Sidibe, and Stanley Tucci for Meryl Streep. I didn't recognize Forest Whitaker and was even more puzzled to find out that he had directed one of Sandra Bullock's romantic comedies, Hope Floats. Either way I had no idea who was going to win. Gabourey Sidibe or Carey Mulligan or Helen Mirren looked likeliest, since from what I've read Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child is an enjoyable gig rather than an impassioned dramatic role, and Sandra Bullock's films are popular but have neither artistic pretensions nor great range.

But . . . Sandra Bullock won, and her speech was so characteristically warm and normal and funny that my surprise that she was considered good enough even to be nominated was forgotten. In any case the films she has been in are consistently watchable — I've watched a lot of them, from Miss Congeniality through Two Weeks' Notice to The Net — though The Proposal and All About Steve sound borderline. (She won a Razzie award for All About Steve, also for "worst screen couple" with Bradley Cooper, which reverse accolade she gracefully accepted in a speech available, if only sporadically audible, on YouTube.) But I haven't seen her performance in The Blind Side and had only assumed based on one or two reviews that the film on the whole is nothing special. It was nice, too, that the family on whose experiences the film is based were in the audience and that she gave them a satisfying "shout out."

At last the evening ended as Kathryn Bigelow was declared Best Director and The Hurt Locker was crowned as Best Film with tremendous speed. Needless to say I was muchly pleased (and from the critics' film reviews I reread post facto the award was also pretty well deserved). So the whole thing did take about four hours but it was time well spent, and even if it hadn't been, all's well that ends well!