Did you watch the Academy Awards last night? I did. I set myself up at the table in the dining room where I could see my big screen in the living room and worked on my laptop, taking notes and writing down my observations as I sat down for one of the largest dog and pony shows in Hollywood.
I grew up watching Awards shows as a child. In the 70s and 80s, there didn’t seem to be such a flood of personal data on every star in existence. So the awards show was a time to get to see the stars. It was a thrill to see them up close and personal, but the shows ran longer and longer; three hours of programming have translated into five or six hours some times.
I can’t count the number of times I fell asleep watching the awards. It wasn’t until Billy Crystal started hosting them in the 90s that I fell back in love with Oscar and last night, I watched the Oscars with my daughter. It was a nice circle fulfilled. I watched the Oscars with my grandmother and my mother and now my daughter watches the Oscars with me.
For those who didn’t know, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in 1927. There was a committee of seven that created the Awards presentation and the first awards show was held on May 16, 1929. Two hundred and fifty people attended the black tie, quiet affair. Since it was the first time Hollywood honored itself, it didn’t have nearly the anxiety and bang as related to the Oscars today. In fact, the winners already knew they’d won since they were announced months beforehand.
Douglas Fairbanks was the president of the Academy in those days and he and William C. deMille handed out the statuettes to the winners. Last night was fraught with anticipation, though many predicted their winners early and sat down with score cards to tally how many they won.
Hosted by Jon Stewart and his mixture of irreverent humor, there was definitely a feeling of politics in the air mixed in with pageantry and a great respect for life. Mentions went to Hurricane Katrina survivors and the rebuilding of New Orleans (did you know that currently six films and their crews are on location there and in their own way, the film industry is trying to give back to the devastated region?) George Clooney remarked that Hollywood’s disconnection from the so-called ‘real world’ was not a bad thing. After all, in 1939 they gave an Oscar to Hattie McDaniel when the real world still required her to sit at the back of the bus.
There were actual surprises such as Crash winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, the controversial film that seemed the favorite. A seven-month pregnant Rachel Weisz (known for her staring roles in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns) took home Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Constant Gardner. Another of my favorite actresses took home Best Actress as Reese Witherspoon won for her fabulous turn as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.
All told, it was a fabulous three and half hours filled with montages, tributes, hilarious moments, touching moments and moments that were just utterly Hollywood. After a couple of disappointing years, Oscar is back and does he look fabulous or what?
Other Winners for the 2006 Oscars:
Best Actor – Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Best Supporting Actor – George Clooney
Best Director – Ang Lee