The Artist Takes the Oscars

Silent Movie Wins Five Awards; Hugo also wins five

As widely expected, it was The Artist’s night at The 84^th Annual Academy Awards, as it won five awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Jean Dujardin. However, the Academy also showed its affection for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which also won five awards in technical categories. Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer won the other acting awards.

Potential Oscar Shocks

The Oscars seem predictable this year, but are there some surprises on the horizon?

The awards season finally comes to an end this weekend with the 84^th Academy Awards, the Oscars, taking place on Sunday evening in Hollywood.  What originally held some promise to be one of the most keenly contested races for quite some time, has, like so many races before, become a procession in favour of one film.

There is no real doubt that The Artist will be dominating the world’s press for the last time on Monday morning, but Oscar has shocked us before and there is the slim possibility that it may do so this year. So, in the most probably vain hope of surprise, let’s go looking for some potential Oscar shocks.

The Artist Triumphs at the BAFTAs

Seven awards for The Artist confirms that it is unstoppable in its march towards Oscar success

The Artist swept all before it at Sunday night’s BAFTAs, winning seven awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy won for Best British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay, tying with Hugo, The Iron Lady and Senna on two awards each.

The BAFTAs had threatened to buck the trend of the French silent-movie winning all of the major awards it was up for, with the adaptation of Le Carré’s spy thriller looking like a strong contender as the flag-bearer for British film this year. However, BAFTA demonstrated its admiration of The Artist by awarding it the most awards of the night by far, including a surprise win for Jean Dujardin in the Best Actor category, an award which Tinker Tailor’s Gary Oldman had been expected to win.

BAFTA Preview: Best Actress

There are contenders other than Dame Meryl

A few months ago, the Best Actress category was looking pretty simple. No matter which awards body it was, they were going to vote for Meryl Streep’s incredible, engrossing and moving portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. However, queries have been raised since then about how inevitable Streep’s victory is.

BAFTA Preview: Best Actor

In the first part of Reel 6's week-long preview of the BAFTAs, it's Oldman vs. Fassbender for Best Actor

The BAFTAs are the awards body which gets the nominations right. On the whole, that is. Though they occasionally over reward the British contingent when the awards are handed out, they do at least recognise more of the very best in film than Oscar actually does. No category represents this better this year than Best Actor.

BAFTA is in line with everyone else in appreciating the excellence of George Clooney (The Descendants) and Jean Dujardin (The Artist), who appear to be the two battling it out for the Oscar. They have also been charmed by Brad Pitt (Moneyball), but it is two Brits (well, a Brit and an Irishman) who seem to be in pole position for the BAFTA.

Review: The Artist

The silent film which makes the most almighty noise

Director & Screenwriter: Michel Hazanavicius

Cast: Jean Dujardin (George Valentin), Bérénice Bejo (Peppy Miller), John Goodman (Al Zimmer), James Cromwell (Clifton), Uggie (The Dog)

Plot: George Valentin is the biggest silent movie star in 1927, but the advent of sound sees his downfall and the rise of Peppy Miller.

Running Time: 100m 23s

Certificate: PG – Contains scene of mild threat

Without a doubt, Michel Hazanavicius’ black and white, silent film has to be one of the most unlikely awards season frontrunners ever. This is a film whose basic content is so anathema to the conventions and expectations of the mainstream that one cinema in Liverpool has seen fit to refund customers who were bemused to discover that the film has no dialogue (almost), is in black-and-white (which we all know is obsolete and of absolutely no worth) and only uses a portion of the screen made available to it (the film was shot in the classic Academy ratio to cement its nostalgic feel).

Certainly, its wider success has shown that large audiences are attracted to its deliberately anachronistic charms. This does not show a reawakening of a forgotten love for silent film. It shows that there can be great results, both critical and commercial, when someone has the courage, as Hazanavicius did, to use old techniques, which seemingly have long since lost their commercial appeal, to tell a story in the best way possible.