Can this year’s Academy Awards be interpreted as a slap in the face to American cinema? According to columnist Renato Silveira of Brazil’s Cinematorio, the fact that True Grit went away empty handed and ‘The Social Network’ nearly so to the benefit of The King’s Speech was nearly inexplicable.
For Brazil’s Cinematorio, Renato Silveira writes in part:
The Academy sent American cinema to the gallows at the 83rd Academy Awards. Amongst the ten major nominees, we can name at least two that aren’t only great, but are genuinely representative of American film: True Grit, an old-fashioned Western, practically a homage to the most American of genres, and The Social Network, which is on a very current topic and deconstructs the protagonist of a typical American story. And they were films directed by exponents of a generation of American filmmakers: David Fincher and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.
But the Academy decided to pass over Fincher and the Coen brothers and awarded The King’s Speech, an English film that only deserved the Best Actor Oscar for Colin Firth – about a chapter in British history clumsily directed by a distinguished unknown, Tom Hooper. The Oscars, which is always considered the grand celebration of American Cinema, opted to work the political field once again.
Further proof that the Academy had snubbed the quality of movies made at home: Francis Ford Coppola was honored with what is called Career Achievement Award, but the director of Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and The Conversation was put in the back of the audience at the Kodak Theater. Even worse, he wasn’t given the chance to give a speech when he appeared on stage alongside Eli Wallach and Kevin Brownlow, who were also honored (Jean-Luc Godard didn’t waste his time and preferred to stay home). Their live living presence gave a little more emphasis to the tribute, which last year came down to a clip of the dinner for the honor. But it ended up sounding disrespectful anyway.
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