As widely predicted, “The Artist” was crowned Best Picture at the 84th Oscars yesterday evening, completing its domination of the 2011-12 awards season. Its director Michel Hazanavicius, who singled out the influence of Billy Wilder, and lead actor Jean Dujardin, who obliquely acknowledged his debt to Douglas Fairbanks, were also winners. So was Mark Bridges, the film’s costume designer, and Ludovic Bource, its composer.
Dujardin adds the Oscar to his Golden Globe, Spirit Award, BAFTA Award, and SAG Award, among others. Yet he was denied a César in Paris on Saturday. (“The Artist” ended up with six Césars and four Spirits, the latter presented in Santa Monica, also on Saturday.)
Meryl Streep won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “The Iron Lady”; the record holder for acting nominations with 17, she had previously won Best Actress for “Sophie’s Choice” and Best Supporting Actress for “Kramer vs. Kramer.” Streep chose not to talk about her "Iron Lady" character, Margaret Thatcher, but gave one of those mercurial acceptance speeches with which she grapples with the humility issues that come with being repeatedly nominated for awards. “When they called my name I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, 'Oh no, oh come on, why her again?' You know? But, whatever.”
“The Help”’s Octavia Spencer, genuinely overcome, tearfully accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. “Beginners”’ Christopher Plummer, voted Best Supporting Actor, became, at 82, the oldest man to win in either of the male acting categories.
Angelina Jolie jutted a long bare leg out of the split in her dress to present the writing words, though it wasn’t clear whether she was striking a glamour pose or spoofing herself, presumably the latter. The Best Adaptation Oscar went to the director Alexander Payne and his co-writers on “The Descendants.” Woody Allen won his third Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “Midnight in Paris.” Had Allen been present, Jolie would have probably terrified him.
Iran’s “A Separation” won the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Its writer-director, Asghar Farhadi, giving the most eloquent and pointed speech of the evening, said he imagined "the Iranian people would be happy not just because of an important award or a film or filmmaker, but because at the time when talk of war, intimidation and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country Iran is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people who respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment."
Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” matched “The Artist”’s haul of five, its wins all coming in technical categories: cinematography, art direction, sound editing, sound mixing, and visual effects. Valentines to silent cinema that in different ways address the passion for making and watching movies, the two films set the tone for the show’s calculated indulging of nostalgia.
The elements of this included the host Billy Crystal’s good-natured Borscht Belt shtick (rarely did he unleash a dart and then nothing as piercing as a Ricky Gervais-ism), the art deco movie theater set in which he first appeared, and a mock MGM focus group response to “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939 featuring the Christopher Guest stock company. The celebration-of-movies idea was hammered home by clips of actors extolling what makes certain films special; the best contributions were made by Edward Norton (who commented on how the odds are stacked against such movies being made) and Sasha Baron Cohen (“I just want to watch really sick stuff”).
Low on schmaltz and bombast compared with previous years and seemingly brisker than usual, the ceremony got off to a hectic start with Tom Hanks breathlessly announcing the first two wins for “Hugo.” This followed Crystal’s filmed montage spoofing the nine Best Picture nominees and his song-and-dance number saluting them. The routines seemed fresher for their seven-year absence.
The montage contained a faux “Mission Impossible” scene with Tom Cruise that culminated with Crystal leaping from the floor of a skyscraper as he chased an escaping film reel. The scene was bizarrely reminiscent of a World Trade Center death plunge -- not least because the 9/11 movie “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was one of the nominees. The similarity, which was self-evidently unintended, was marked enough to make anyone who noticed it flinch.
The only live incident of note occurred on the red carpet prior to the ceremony at the Hollywood and Highland Center (formerly the Kodak Theater). Cohen, who was in the end permitted to attend the Oscars in the beard and uniform of the Middle Eastern tyrant he plays in his upcoming satire “The Dictator,” showed up attended by two Amazons as guards and brandishing an urn supposedly containing the ashes of Kim Jong Il. These Cohen spilled over E! Live’s Ryan Seacrest who, visibly shaken, had to be consoled by Jennifer Lopez in a subsequent interview. Cohen, who was jostled by a bouncer, tipped the rest of the "ashes" onto the carpet. (See the video below.)
Lopez did her best to create a low-level tabloid scandal by showing a hint of left-side areola when she presented the costume and makeup Oscars with Cameron Diaz.
If there was a bona fide scandal it was that the In Memoriam segment neglected to include two masters of modern cinema who began directing in the sixties: the Chilean Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011) and the Greek Theo Angelopoulos (1935-2012). Otherwise, the segment, which concluded with a shot of Elizabeth Taylor in her "Cleopatra" costume winking at a camera, was as moving as always. Crystal paid special homage to Gil Cates, the 14-time producer of the Oscar telecast who originally recruited Crystal to host it in 1990. In an earlier aside, following the clip of Meg Ryan noisily orgasming in Katz’s Delicatessen in his film “When Harry Met Sally,” Crystal acknowledged Estelle Reiner, Rob Reiner’s mother, the woman who says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The presenters were hit and miss with their bits of business. Robert Downey Jr. archly pretended to make a documentary of himself presenting the Best Documentary award with Gwyneth Paltrow. Introducing Best Visual Effects, Emma Stone was delightful as a giddy Oscar-show newbie telling a jaded Ben Stiller that they ought to put on a performance. “Perky gets old fast,” Stiller kvetched. Tina Fey, partnering Bradley Cooper for the Editing Award, played it straight. Of “The Bridesmaids” women, split into three pairs for the live-action short, documentary short, and best animated short presentations, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph deadpanned on the merits of “short” and “long.”
Michael Douglas, presenting Best Director and starting with an anecdote about the director Leo McCarey, looked fit and well, the silveriest fox in the room.
The night though belonged to “The Artist" gang, which crowded around the producer Thomas Langmann after he accepted the Best Picture Oscar from Tom Cruise; Uggie was inevitably led out from backstage for the climax. Not for the first time this awards season, Langmann mentioned his late father, Claud Berri, an Oscar-winner himself for his first short film in 1962 and a prolific producer who was best known outside France for directing “Jean de Florette” and “Manon des Sources.” Therefore, like Fairbanks and Wilder, Berri was there in spirit as les artistes cleaned up.
Related: Hoberman: The Wrong “Margaret” Won
WINNERS
Best Picture The Artist — Thomas Langmann
Best Directing Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Actress Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Adapted Screenplay The Descendants — Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash
Best Original Screenplay Midnight in Paris — Woody Allen
Best Animated Feature Rango — Gore Verbinski
Best Documentary Feature Undefeated — Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin, and Rich Middlemas
Best Foreign Language Film A Separation (Iran) — Asghar Farhadi
Best Cinematography Hugo — Robert Richardson
Best Film Editing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
Best Art Direction Hugo — Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo
Best Costume Design The Artist — Mark Bridges
Best Makeup The Iron Lady — Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland
Best Original Score The Artist — Ludovic Bource
Best Original Song “Man or Muppet,” The Muppets — Bret McKenzie
Best Sound Mixing Hugo — Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
Best Sound Editing Hugo — Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
Best Visual Effects Hugo — Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning
Best Animated Short Film The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore — William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
Best Documentary Short Subject Saving Face — Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Best Live-Action Short Film The Shore — Terry George and Oorlagh George