Vladimir Rakhmanin | Deputy Online editor
The Academy Awards remain the most prestigious awards in mainstream cinema.
Argo, a film about the Iranian hostage crisis, took the award for Best Picture at last night’s 85th Academy Awards, in what was a fairly predictable ceremony. Having already been showered with multiple accolades, including a BAFTA for Best Picture, the film was favorite to win by a substantial margin. Argo was up against some other strong contestants, including Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.
Daniel Day-Lewis received his third Oscar win last night for his portrayal of American president Abraham Lincoln, the first actor in history to win three such awards. His previous wins were received for his roles as Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. This historic feat will no doubt secure his place as one of the greatest actors of all time.
In the ‘Actress in a Leading Role’ category, Jennifer Lawrence took the award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook, a comedy drama about a man struggling with bi-polar syndrome. This category also featured the largest ever age gap between nominees in the history of the Academy Awards – between the 86-year-old Emmanuelle Riva and the 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis.
Anne Hathaway received her first Oscar for best actress in a supporting role in Les Miserables. Hathaway had presented at the Awards before in 2010, in what was a notoriously bad show, but had never before received the honour herself. Christopher Waltz won in the male counterpart of this category – however, many are still unhappy about Leonardo DiCaprio’s snub at the Awards, as he, arguably, gave a better performance in Django Unchained, as the outrageously evil slave owner.
In what was one of the only big surprises at the show, Life of Pi succeeded in winning three awards, for best Original Score, Best Cinematography and, most controversially, Best Director, beating out the Academy’s favorite Steven Spielberg in the same category. The film, based on the Booker-winning novel, was said to be unfilmable – nevertheless, Ang Lee’s attempt wowed critics, and, more crucially, the Academy’s voters.
The Academy also played it safe with the animated category, giving the award to Brave – Pixar have always been extremely successful at the show, meaning the pick was not a huge surprise. Finally, Amour took the award for best foreign language film. The picture had already seen great success at Cannes, so there was a very high chance of it winning some awards in the States, too.
Overall, a very conservative ceremony this year – most of the predictions of the press were correct. We’ll have to see if next year will hold the same phenomenon, or if the Academy decides to finally shock us.
