The 92nd Academy Awards took place on 9th February 2020, suits were worn, statues were won, speeches and history was made.
Lets start with Joker which was nominated for the eleven awards in total, but won just two. Joker picked up Best Original Score award was picked up by Hildur Guðnadóttir, while Joaquin Phoenix picked up Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character, his first statuette despite being nominated on four other occasions, for Walk the Line (2006), The Master (2013), and Best Supporting Actor for Gladiator (2001).
Phoenix then used his win to give an impassioned acceptance speech…
"I’m full of so much gratitude now. I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room, because we share the same love – that’s the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know where I’d be without it.
But I think the greatest gift that it’s given me, and many people in [this industry] is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless. I’ve been thinking about some of the distressing issues that we’ve been facing collectively.
I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice.
We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity.
I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the centre of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable.
Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.
We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.
I have been a scoundrel all my life, I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. I think that’s when we’re at our best: when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for our past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow. When we educate each other; when we guide each other to redemption.
When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said: “run to the rescue with love and peace will follow”
The Best Actress award was awarded to Reene Zellweger for her portrayal of fellow Academy Award winner Judy Garland, and marking her second Oscar win after bagging Best Supporting Actress back in 2003 for Cold Mountain.
Best Supporting Actress was awarded to Laura Dern for Netflix movie Marriage Story, for which Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson were both nominated in the leading actor categories.
Best Supporting Actor went to Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his first win for acting, although he has previously won through his producing for 12 Years a Slave (2014). Pitt also took a shot at the recent Impeachment hearings of President Trump, adding to the increasing political leaning of this year’s ceremony.
The Last major award went to Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite which not only made history as the first foreign language film to win Best Picture, it also bagged three more of it’s six nominations, namely Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Film. The four statuettes mean that Bong Joon-Ho is the first person to win four Oscars since Walt Disney achieved the same feet back in 1954. Although Disney won for producing four separate projects, not for a single feature.
What did you make of this years ceremony? Who do you think should have grabbed the gold? Let me know in the comments below.