’12 Years a Slave’ also dominates Hollywood’s biggest night.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: What was touted as one of the more unpredictable Academy Award races in recent years went largely as expected – and at least 30 minutes too long – as technical powerhouse Gravity and historical slavery epic 12 Years a Slave dominated Hollywood’s biggest night.
Gravity, a sci-fi survival story set in outer space, was the highest-grossing film of all the Best Picture nominees, and ultimately walked away with seven Oscars on Sunday night, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron. Despite the large award tally, however, Best Picture ultimately went to 12 Years a Slave, the brutally moving story of Solomon Northrup, a free black man in the 1800s who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.
In addition to the top prize, 12 Years a Slave also picked up awards for Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) and Best Supporting Actress, which was given to newcomer Lupita Nyong’o in one of the night’s closer races. Gravity took home awards for Best Cinematography, Editing, Visual Effects, Sound, Sound Editing, and Original Score.
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Cate Blanchett took home the award for Best Actress, winning for her performance in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, a film which ran into trouble with India’s Censor Board and was ultimately pulled from screening in the country at the filmmaker’s wishes. Blanchett also gave a shout-out to friend and fellow nominee Judi Dench, who is currently in India shooting the sequel to her surprise 2011 hit comedy, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Best Actor went to Matthew McConaughey, for his portrayal of real-life AIDS victim Ron Woodruff in the film Dallas Buyers Club. The film also won awards for Best Supporting Actor (Jared Leto), and Best Make-up and Hairstyling, and was nominated for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and Editing as well.
Best Original Screenplay went to Her, which was written and directed by Spike Jonze, and examines how modern technology and society are changing the ways we perceive love by showing a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his computer’s Siri-like operating system.
The technical awards were largely dominated by Gravity, which is the first film since 2004’s The Aviator to win the most awards of the night but not win Best Picture. The Great Gatsby took home awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. Best Documentary Film went to 20 Feet from Stardom, Best Foreign Film went to Italy’s The Great Beauty (India submitted the Gujarati film The Good Road, but it was not nominated), and Best Animated Film went to Disney’s Frozen, which also won Best Song.
In the short film categories, Best Documentary Short went to The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, a film about one of the oldest women alive. The Best Live-Action Short Film Oscar went to Helium, and the Best Animated Short award was given to Mr. Hublot.
This is the second year in a row that Best Picture and Best Director have gone to two separate films; last year, Life of Pi won Best Director for Ang Lee, while Best Picture went to Argo. There were no major Indian-related nominees or winners at this year’s Oscars.
The full list of winners at the 86th Annual Academy Awards can be read below:
Best Picture | 12 Years a Slave |
Best Actor in a Leading Role | Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) |
Best Actress in a Leading Role | Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) |
Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) |
Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) |
Best Animated Feature | Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho) |
Best Cinematography | Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki) |
Best Costume Design | The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin) |
Best Directing | Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón) |
Best Documentary Feature | 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen, Caitrin Rogers) |
Best Documentary Short | The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Malcolm Clarke, Nicholas Reed) |
Best Film Editing | Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger) |
Best Foreign Language Film | The Great Beauty (Italy) |
Best Makeup and Hairstyling | Dallas Buyers Club (Adruitha Lee, Robin Mathews) |
Best Original Score | Gravity (Steven Price) |
Best Original Song | Let It Go – Frozen |
Best Production Design | The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin, Beverley Dunn) |
Best Animated Short Film | Mr. Hublot (Laurent Witz, Alexandre Espigares) |
Best Live Action Short Film | Helium (Anders Walter, Kim Magnusson) |
Best Sound Editing | Gravity (Glenn Freemantle) |
Best Sound Mixing | Gravity (Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, Chris Munro) |
Best Visual Effects | Gravity (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould) |
Best Adapted Screenplay | 12 Years a Slave (John Ridley) |
Best Original Screenplay | Her (Spike Jonze) |
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com