Oscars Analysis: How has The Artist Triumphed so Utterly?

A few months ago, The Artist's success was unimaginable. How has it come to pass?

It has become easy over the last few months, as The Artist has been celebrated by every single awards ceremony in existence, to forget quite how extraordinary its success is. To remind us of that fact, let’s put it in plain terms. A black and white,almost completely silent film has just won the Oscar for Best Picture. Had someone predicted this 12 months ago, they would have been laughed out of Tinseltown.

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.

Oscar Predictions

Here's a full list of my Oscar predictions, excluding the short film categories, and it looks like it's going to be a very good night for The Artist

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Best Actress: Viola Davis – The Help

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer – The Help

Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Best Animated Feature: Rango

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation

Best Cinematography: The Artist

Best Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Art Direction: The Artist

Best Costume Design: The Artist

Best Makeup: The Iron Lady

Best Original Score: The Artist

Best Original Song: The Muppets – “Man or Muppet”

Best Sound Mixing: Hugo

Best Sound Editing: Hugo

Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Documentary Feature: Pina

The Best Picture Nominees Ranked and Reviewed

The Best Picture Nominees Reviewed Ahead of Tonight's Oscars

9. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Truly one of the worst Best Picture nominees ever, Stephen Daldry’s cold and irritating post-9/11 dirge is boring, manipulative and features the most annoying child character for quite some time. To get on this year’s list, 5% of Academy voters had to put the film as their first choice. How they could do that for this tripe and not for films such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or We Need to Talk About Kevin is just beyond the comprehension of the sane and rational.

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.

Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Most Undeserving Best Picture Nominee for a Very Long Time

Well, I didn’t hate it. Not the most encouraging start to a review and I reckon that it’s probably the high point, because Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of the most baffling and disappointing Best Picture nominees ever. Often irritating and constantly unmoving, this is a film which completely fails to do justice to the dreadful event of 9/11 which it invokes.

The story is simple enough. A boy, who may have Asperger’s, loses his father in 9/11 and a year later he finds a key amongst his father’s possessions in an envelope simply marked “Black”. Determined that this was left by his dad deliberately, the boy, Oskar (Thomas Horn), goes about New York seeking the lock that the key fits.

Hands up if you're Bored by the Awards Season

The Oscars have their thunder stolen every year, but maybe that's about to change

This year has featured one of the more interesting awards seasons of recent times. It has still become very boring before the real event. We all know that The Artist is going to win big at the Oscars in a fortnight’s time, and, after the endless awards ceremonies, it is becoming increasingly hard to care.

Can anything stop The Artist?

Michel Hazanvicius continues The Artist's winning streak at DGAs

The Artist’s seemingly inexorable march toward numerous Oscar gongs continued last night when Michel Hazanavicius was named as “Director of the Year” by the Director’s Guild of America, a reliable indicator of Oscar success. This goes with its victory at the Producer’s Guild Awards last week, all of which seem to indicate that the French, black-and-white silent film is going to do extremely well when the Academy hands out its awards in just under a month.

Comment: Oscar Nominations

Oscar gets all nostalgic and plucky Brits do well in a surprising list of nominations

I really must apologise to the neighbours, because when Gary Oldman’s name was read out as an Oscar nominee for Best Actor I gave an almighty cry of “Yes!”. After weeks of being snubbed by awards bodies in the States, though the BAFTAs were far more appreciative of one of the finest films of last year, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finally got some recognition. Okay: three nominations is not enough in my estimation, but it is more than I was hoping for.

Hugo and The Artist Lead the Charge at the Oscars

There's also good news for Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman

For once, there were surprises and shocks when the Oscar nominations were announced at lunchtime on Tuesday. There were many hoots and gasps, but there were also many nominations which came as expected, with The Artist doing well, and Meryl Streep collecting her 17 Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

The Artist, of course, is the big front-runner of the awards season, and it has collected a bevy of nominations. It has received 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Jean Dujardin, Best Supporting Actress for Berenice Bejo and Original Screenplay. This is triumphant for such an unconventional film, demonstrating a great deal of affection for Michel Hazanavicius’ black and white silent film. It remains the big favourite for Best Picture.

The Serkis Phenomenon

Andy Serkis performing as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The time has come to honour Andy Serkis

 

In a small room somewhere, about 12 years ago, an unknown British actor did something which changed cinema forever. He was auditioning to be the voice of a very big role - one of the most famous literary characters ever – but he didn’t just do the voice but gave an entire performance, changing himself physically and working through the scene as any actor playing a normal part would.