Sentimental values: Paul Thomas Anderson's satire became the "Best Film"

The 98th Oscar ceremony was marked by elegant jokes and deliberate avoidance of sharp topics: Leonardo DiCaprio with a mustache but without a statuette, like Timothy Chalamet, opera and ballet jokes, 20,000 children of Jesse Buckley and a hall sparkling with lanterns under Golden. Izvestia examines the main intrigues of the world's main film awards and hidden messages encrypted between the lines.

The "Battle" against the "Sinners"

Paul Thomas Anderson's absurdist-satirical action film "Battle after Battle" was an Oscar favorite from the very beginning, after its release. Izvestia wrote about this in a review of the film published in September. However, at that moment it seemed that, in addition to all the statuettes of the film, DiCaprio could also receive a prize. But more on that below.

Bookmakers confidently put "Battle after Battle" in the top forecasts, and the Producers Guild also gave the film its award. But there have been cases in history when, even after this Oscar, another movie won the Best feature film.

The big question is how artificially the intrigue was created, but many reputable media outlets, including Variety, and filmmakers, usually with insider information, bet on "Sinners," Ryan Coogler's musical parable about racism, suspiciously reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk till Dawn."

The arguments were not only 16 "Sinners" nominations, a record in the long-term history of the award, although it looked very solid. At the vote of the Actors Guild, the cast of the film was recognized as the best, and this is an application for the main Oscar. In addition, the racial issue in the film is articulated much more directly and harshly than the state of modern America in Paul Thomas Anderson, hidden behind the postmodern irony and the novelistic basis of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland.

Cinematographers from all over the world vote at the Oscars, but the American backbone of the Sinners Award could be closer. However, the final result turned out to be unimportant for Kugler: only four prizes, however, there was one crucial one among them. Let's move on to it.

How Timothy Chalamet didn't Win an Oscar

It seemed that Timothy Chalamet would definitely get an Oscar for his role in Josh Safdie's "Marty the Magnificent." He has already accumulated a whole collection of awards for this work, but the main prize eventually went to Michael B. Jordan, just for "Sinners".

Some believe that the reason was the interview that Chalamet gave Matthew McConaughey on February 24.: there he joked about opera and ballet in such a way that it provoked a powerful scandal in the media. Suddenly, it turned out that these two arts have so many witty fans that the Internet was filled with memes and various kinds of advertising integrations of this hype. Including Timothy Chalamet, they publicly offered to buy a ticket to the theater with a special discount.

Perhaps this was the last straw for some of the voters, since the deadline for Academy members was March 5, it was possible to have time to give their preferences to the same Jordan. But in fact, the throne under Chalamet was shaken even earlier, when he did not get the BAFTA award. Unexpectedly for everyone, Robert Aramayo received it for the film "I swear." Then the Actors Guild awarded Michael B. Jordan, and it became clear that Chalamet might not have an Oscar, as it happened.

It's another matter to what extent this has to do with the profession. The genius and adventurer Marty is a very complex character, superbly played, this is really the best role in the rather intense career of the young Chalamet. Michael B. Jordan is still an artist of a different caliber, and his dual role in "Sinners" objectively loses to both Chalamet and DiCaprio in their nominations.

It seems that some subjective factors played a role here. Someone was infuriated by the self-confident narcissist mask Chalamet had put on long before the McConaughey interview. Perhaps someone is just jealous — few people have managed to do as much as Timothy by the age of 30. But now Jordan has an Oscar, and Chalamet doesn't. Another controversial page in the history of the award is also a reason for malicious critics to gloat. It was already clear about DiCaprio that they wouldn't give him anything (partly also out of envy), so this time everyone was discussing only his mustache.

There was a lot less politics at the Oscars than usual

We can say that giving the main prize to the film "Battle after Battle" is the main political decision of the Oscars this year. But we are used to a different level of political intensity at the ceremony, which dropped sharply after the end of Joe Biden's presidency. However, the host of the ceremony, Conan O'Brien, tried in every possible way to stir up the audience and urge them to behave more decisively. For example, when starting the ceremony, he talked about possible attacks, but quickly said that they would be from opera and ballet lovers who were offended by Chalamet.

O'Brien also hinted at the impunity of the defendants in the "Epstein lists", the imperfection of the national health care system, and after the ceremony, a pre-recorded video was shown on the Oscar broadcast, where O'Brien was allegedly appointed the lifelong host of the ceremony, and then dealt with him in the same way as Sean Penn's character in "Battle after Battle."

As for other political speeches, here everything was limited to Javier Bardem's slogan "No war and freedom for Palestine!" and the sad irony about freedom of speech in the speech of comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

No one has ever mentioned the war in Iran, and Iranian director Jafar Panahi's film "A Simple Accident" did not win an Oscar in the Best International Film category. Joachim Trier's family drama "Sentimental Value," which was pleasant in all respects, triumphed there. Adrian Brody, who made a long political speech last year when receiving an Oscar, this time came out with a pile of sheets and crumpled them up to the laughter of the audience, joking about himself. There was a feeling that the guests were asked to hold their tongues so that they would not have to artificially restrict freedom of speech.

What other surprises happened at the Oscars

For the first time in the history of the award, a female cameraman won a prize. She became Autumn Durald Arkapow, she worked on "Sinners". Strictly speaking, Adolfo Veloso ("Train Dreams"), Michael Bauman ("Battle after Battle") and Darius Hongyi ("Marty the Magnificent") deserved the Oscar to a greater extent, but encouraging a woman with a prestigious award seemed to be a matter of principle for the voters. I would even like to joke that the voting ended three days before March 8 and the mood of the academics was appropriate.

For the first time in the history of the award, a prize was awarded in the "Best Casting" category. It was awarded to Cassandra Kulukundis, who selected the artists for "Battle after Battle." Which, by the way, is curious — given that the Actors Guild considered the ensemble of "Sinners" to be the best, it was logical to expect that he would receive this prize.

"K-pop Demon Hunters" beat the animated blockbusters "Zootopia 2" and "Elio", and the title song Golden from the cartoon also won an Oscar. And before that, it was performed live, and the whole hall, as in the picture, shone with beautiful lanterns, which were probably specially distributed to the guests before that. So Netflix has surpassed Pixar and Disney in this category, which traditionally get the Oscar.

Russia was rooting for Konstantin Bronzit's "Three Sisters" in the short animation, but there weren't many chances from the very beginning. Despite the festival's trail and the director's reputation as the world's leading animator, the chamber author's film did not have a strong promotion in the American market, as did the classic French animation Florence Miel's "Butterfly". Unlike "The Girl Who Cried Pearls," there was a steady path to the Oscars, starting with a high—profile premiere in Toronto.

Perhaps no one doubted that Jesse Buckley would receive an Oscar for the drama Hamnet, but it was impossible to predict what the actress would say in her speech. And she unexpectedly thanked the Irish government for paying for the trip to the Oscars for all members of her extended family, and then suddenly told her husband sitting in the audience that she would gladly give birth to 20 thousand children from him. In the meantime, he really wants to return home to their daughter, who has not yet turned one year old.

Kieran Culkin was supposed to present the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor to Sean Penn for his enchanting role in "Battle after Battle." But the actor did not attend the award ceremony. "Couldn't or wouldn't," Culkin quipped.

The prize for the best feature short film was shared by two films — "Singers" (based on Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev) and "Two People exchange saliva." This happens very rarely, the last time it happened was in 2013, when "007: Skyfall Coordinates" and "Target Number One" shared the award in the Sound Editing category.

The most touching and scary moment of the ceremony will be a short speech by Gloria Casares, the mother of 9—year-old Jackie, who died during the Texas school shooting in 2022. Gloria became one of the heroines of the film "All the Empty Rooms", which became the best short film.

"My daughter Jackie was nine years old when she was killed in Yuvalda,— she said. "Ever since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time. Jackie is not just a headline in the news. She is our light and our life. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death for children and teenagers in America. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we would live in another country.

It was the only moment when the glossy reality of the ceremony in Los Angeles suddenly disappeared without a trace. It was replaced by a sense of genuine tragedy, which nothing could erase in the entire five-hour celebration of the winners. It was important that this woman came to the Oscars, found the strength to speak, and the whole world heard her. Although the film was not at all among the viewing leaders, it was in the top 10 in many countries immediately after the ceremony. This means that many people stopped watching congratulations during the Oscars and turned on this half-hour movie.

The results of the Oscar will be discussed for a long time, many people are not satisfied with them, the Academy will be harshly criticized, maybe quite rightly. But this is the voice of 11 thousand of the best cinematographers alive today, representing almost all countries of the world, including Russia.