The 2019 Oscars threw in a couple surprises and snubs in what was expected to be a very predictable year. This year’s Oscars started in a flurry of controversy and unease. With the Academy having made so many questionable decisions that they quickly U-turned on, and the lack of a host remaining a major elephant in the room, many worried that the evening would be a disaster in waiting.
So, it was surprising for many people that the Oscars 2019 ceremony managed to be both enjoyable and efficient. It did not justify the bad choices of the Academy (the event still featured the Best Original Song performances and no awards were handed out in the breaks), but a host-free show was not the mess most had thought it would be. Indeed, for the most part, the Oscars was very entertaining without one.
This was an Oscars in flux, a show caught between tradition and innovation, and it was evident throughout the evening. However, that doesn’t mean that the Oscars didn’t feature their own fair share of twists and turns, with some people and movies winning in categories that most people didn’t expect - or thought was too good to be true.
Bohemian Rhapsody Wins Best Editing
Watching Bohemian Rhapsody become an Oscars front-runner was one of the more surreal aspects of this awards season. The Queen biopic made a lot of money but it was still the recipient of much controversy and bad reviews over its re-writing of history, its questionable craft, and the ever present Bryan Singer problem. Yet it went on to win no fewer than four awards, the biggest surprise of which was its Oscar for Best Editing.
John Ottman, Singer’s long-time collaborator, was nowhere near the best reviewed editor of the year, but it was tough to avoid what his win meant. It was a reward for an editor who had to work under difficult circumstances and piece together a narrative built from a tumultuous shoot, not to mention sequences from two different directors. It has often been said that the Oscars like to reward the most work over the best work, and no editor had to do more this year than Ottman.
Mahershala Ali’s Conflicted Win For Best Supporting Actor
Watching Mahershala Ali win his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor was hardly a surprise. Indeed, he had been the front-runner for the award pretty much since Green Book premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. His closest competition was Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but even then, Grant’s chances were slim compared to Ali. It was a deserving win for one of the generation’s most charismatic actors, but it was tough to escape how genuinely uncomfortable Ali seemed by the win.
Ali became the second black actor in history to win two acting Oscars (the first being Denzel Washington) but seemed solemn and awkward from the moment his name was announced. Green Book has been mired in controversy since its premiere, with various questions asked over its historical accuracy, the various misdeeds of its director and screenwriter, and its depiction of Dr. Don Shirley. Nobody seemed to bear that weight more this awards season than Ali. He should certainly be proud of his ground-breaking achievement, but he also seemed to be keenly aware of how badly this win is likely to age in the future.
Women Held the Winner’s Spotlight
It remains an industry-wide shame that this year’s Oscars saw zero women once again nominated for Best Director. No women helmed films were nominated for Best Picture either. There’s still a massive amount of progress that needs to be made but one of the surprising glimmers of hope for the industry came from how many women won Oscars across the board.
It was an especially exciting night for women of color. Ruth E. Carter, the legendary costume designer, deservedly won for her work on Black Panther. Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton brought one of the evening’s best speeches when their film Period. End of Sentence. won Best Documentary Short. Pixar’s Bao, by Domee Shi and Becky Neiman-Cobb, took home Best Animated Short Film. Free Solo was the Best Documentary Feature of the year, helmed in part by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.
Kate Biscoe and Patricia Dehaney were two-thirds of the make-up and hairstyling team that won Vice its Oscar. Hannah Beachler of Black Panther made history as the first African-American to be nominated - and win - the Academy Award for Best Production Design. It was an important moment to see accomplished women across the spectrum of the film industry getting their dues, particularly in fields where they remain vastly outnumbered by men.
First Man Wins for Best Visual Effects
Before its premiere, Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man was considered the front-runner of awards season. Yet, despite being loved by the critics, it never found an audience and sank out of the narrative. However, the Academy still saw fit to reward it where it deserved it the most: in its astounding visual effects. In comparison to its flashier blockbuster competition, First Man’s effects are relatively restrained, especially when put up against nominees like Avengers: Infinity War and Ready Player One. It was refreshing to see Oscar voters come out in favor of the film, one that truly deserved better this season.
Page 2 of 2: Even More Oscars 2019 Snubs & Surprises
Good and Bad Screenplay Winners
Green Book’s Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay was made all the more awkward by Ali’s earlier apprehensive victory, and not at all helped by Samuel L. Jackson’s obvious disappointment with the win when he opened the envelope. In a category with incredible competition like Roma, The Favourite, and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Green Book’s win here felt very old-school in a way the Academy has stressed it’s keen to avoid in the future.
Yet one of the 2019 Oscars’ low points was immediately contrasted with one of its high points, as BlacKkKlansman won for Best Adapted Screenplay and the legendary Spike Lee finally took home an Oscar. Lee gave one of the best speeches of the night, and his victory felt like justice for many. The back-to-back wins also spoke to the Academy’s wider problems: one win with its foot firmly in the past and the other looking forward to the future.
Olivia Colman Beats Glenn Close For Best Actress
It was Glenn Close’s year, so everyone said. The actress with the most nominations without a win was sorely overdue, and while The Wife was not her strongest film, her performance was universally beloved. She’d won the Golden Globe as well as the Independent Spirit Award, and she seemed like the sure fire winner. Then Olivia Colman won for The Favourite.
Colman’s performance as Queen Anne was beloved and this was one of the closer races, but the shock in the room was palpable to viewers once her name was announced. As she has been all season, Colman was immensely charming in her speech and seemed genuinely surprised to have won (and there remains contention over whether Colman is, indeed, the lead of The Favourite). If Close had to lose to someone, this was the option that felt right.
Green Book Wins Best Picture
Best Picture, the top award at the Oscars, despite all predictions to the contrary, went to Green Book. The shock in the room was evident, as the race was assumed to have been a two-way battle between Black Panther and Roma. Green Book’s win symbolizes much: Hollywood’s preference for “tradition”, its adherence to ideas of “Oscar bait”, its unwillingness to embrace innovation, be it from corporate giants like Disney and Netflix or indie darlings like Yorgos Lanthimos. But mostly, Green Book’s big win was confirmation that, for all of their talk of moving forward, the Oscars cannot help but cling to the past.
The Oscars Ceremony Didn’t Suck
That the Oscars was overall entertaining, tightly put together, and devoid of a lot of the expected awkwardness was the first major surprise of the night. It was clear the Academy and ABC still felt the pressure to keep the show as close to a three-hour running time as possible, but the zippy nature only added to the enthusiasm of the evening.
People were prepared for their speeches, the actors giving out awards were looser and less awkward, and the show was for the most part lacking of the excruciating forced banter that has sunk many awards ceremonies. One never got the impression that this version of the Oscars was the back-up option. The upside of this format was that it put front and center the entire point of the Oscars: the award winners themselves. If the Academy chose to go host-free for the foreseeable future, going by this year’s show, it wouldn’t be the worst idea they’ve ever had.
