Moonlight,’ ‘La La Land’ and What an Epic Oscars Fail Really Says

[Stephan Bobb]

Moonlight,’ ‘La La Land’ and What an Epic Oscars Fail Really Says

By MANOHLA DARGIS, WESLEY MORRIS and A.O. SCOTTFEB. 27, 2017

This is how audience members reacted when they learned “Moonlight” won best picture at the Oscars on Sunday. CreditMatt Sayles/Invision, via Associated Press

After Sunday night’s jaw-dropping mix-up when the presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong best picture, we asked the chief film critics of The New York Times, A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, and the Times critic at large, Wesley Morris, to share their reactions.

A. O. SCOTT Wow, that “Bonnie and Clyde” sequel was totally nuts.

But in its own way, last night’s spectacle — so relatively smooth, until all of a sudden it was anything but — represents a Hollywood watershed or, at least, like the original “Bonnie and Clyde,” the arrival of a new generation. The envelope mix-up was painful, but it brought to the stage two directors in their 30s with five features between them and reminded the audience that Damien Chazelle and Barry Jenkins are not enemies.

The grace with which the “La La Land” producers (Jordan Horowitz, in particular) handled the handoff — and the poise with which Mr. Jenkins and his producer, Adele Romanski, received the belated honor for “Moonlight” — should quell the facile polarization that followed the two movies throughout the awards season. And the messiness of the finale makes vivid what turned out to be the theme and the true political message of the night, which was inclusiveness.

The anti-Trumpist speeches were pointed at times but also muted, with the president’s name mostly unmentioned, and his policies opposed with high-minded, values-based appeals. What held it all together was the idea that in Hollywood there is room for everyone. Even Mel Gibson! The two “Hacksaw Ridge” wins strike me as a reminder of the ideological diversity that has always existed in this bastion of liberalism. And the evening, at its best, was both a demonstration of, and an argument for, the value of pluralism, for expansive humanism as an antidote to narrowness and intolerance.

MANOHLA DARGIS Most of the evening was weird and bad. (The stunt with the tourists was a cringe-worthy moment of Marie Antoinette obtuseness — ah, look, little people!) Then it turned weird and glorious. I shrieked when Mr. Horowitz announced that “Moonlight” had won (did you hear me?), but my heart also went out to the “La La Land” team. No matter how much I wanted “Moonlight” to win, I wouldn’t wish that kind of public spectacle on anyone, especially a group as pleasant as that behind “La La Land.” Some on Twitter mocked the “La La Landers” for having tears in their eyes, so it’s lovely that the filmmakers from both movies were so much more gracious.

 

 

By AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER 1:17

An Oscars With a Twist

It is the nightmare scenario of every awards show: “Moonlight” won the Oscar for best picture, but not before “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner.

 By AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER on Publish DateFebruary 27, 2017. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon for The New York Times.

Jimmy Kimmel could pick up some tips on manners and crisis management from Mr. Horowitz. More to the point, it would be great if the academy finally solved its host problem. Among other things, it would be nice if it found a host who both was actually interested in the art and didn’t mock the movies. (Make fun of the stars in the room — that’s what they’re there for.) At the very least, you would think the academy, which has made real if confusing strides toward inclusion, would understand that its well-intended efforts seem a little hollow when a straight, white male host jokes about no one’s seeing a movie from a black director about gay black men. Optics, people, optics!

As for Mr. Gibson, well, as the resident kooky conservative, he came off as a kind of proxy for President Trump.

WESLEY MORRIS Just to reiterate: THAT HAPPENED, an event that — wait, “event” is too mild. A fiasco? Nightmare? Accidental slip of the entertainment psyche? Act of justice? Honestly, I don’t know. Butsomething happened that seemed to simultaneously tell us who we were, are, believe ourselves to be. This is, what, the fourth time since November that the country has gathered for an evening of live television, only to be part of a rug-yanking ceremony. After Sunday night, the presidential election, the Super Bowl and, to a different but related extent, the Grammys, I’ve officially come down with outcome-oriented post-traumatic stress disorder — Ooptsd, as in upside my head.

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Trevante Rhodes of “Moonlight” taking part in a celebratory embrace when the film won best picture.CreditPatrick T. Fallon for The New York Times

What went down between the makers of “Moonlight” and “La La Land” was stunning and strange yet perversely, cosmically right for a night that began with Justin Timberlake’s telling Denzel Washington that surely he recognized the Bill Withers cover Mr. Timberlake was oozing his way through. That moment felt like a distillation of the politics surrounding Mr. Chazelle’s movie. That moment felt like the history of American entertainment distilled into an aside that I don’t even really blame Mr. Timberlake for.

If we’ve learned nothing in the past 18 months, if not eight years, it’s that history is bigger than all of us and is always going to rat us out, forcing us to conform to its grip. But I’m with you guys about what gentlemen Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Horowitz were under the most bizarre of circumstances. That errant envelope deprived a proper reckoning of Mr. Jenkins’s achievement — and, of course — the academy’s. So let’s talk about that. “Moonlight” won best picture. That happened. Hollywood tried to wrest itself from history’s grip. And despite the bizarreness, that feels extraordinary, too.

SCOTT “Moonlight” won best picture. That is an outcome I must say I never allowed myself to contemplate, even though I fell for the movie early and hard. I didn’t think it needed the award as proof of its merit — no piece of art ever really needs a prize in that way — and, in any case, I figured the academy would give it the standard art-film treatment: a screenwriting and supporting actor prize with the expectation of gratitude for just being included in the festivities.

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From left, the “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz (holding the card announcing the best picture winner “Moonlight”) with the actor Warren Beatty and the host, Jimmy Kimmel, at the Oscars on Sunday. CreditKevin Winter/Getty Images

Which was exactly what seemed to be happening. And then (to echo Wesley), something else happened. We’re all still puzzling over what exactly it was. As Mr. Jenkins said: “But to hell with dreams. I’m done with it, because this is true.” However awkwardly and backwardly the truth was revealed, “Moonlight” won best picture. That fact is something to hold onto, whether it portends a new direction or turns out to be an outlier. Unpredictability, in any case, seems to be the new normal. Some of our most beloved institutions — or maybe let’s just say our most begrudgingly tolerated, our most paid-attention-to as a matter of professional obligation — no longer function according to established rules and patterns.

Or else they do (bad jokes, cheesy musical numbers, careful political statements, predictable winners), until all of a sudden they don’t. That kind of disruption can be upsetting, even horrifying. Last night showed that it can also be beautiful. “Moonlight” won best picture. I will never get tired of saying that.

DARGIS But that’s the Oscars, isn’t it? They’re terrible and totally meaningless until the academy picks a movie we love. (Hello, “The Hurt Locker”!) Still, while the academy did give “Moonlight” best picture, the fact that Mr. Chazelle won best director suggests that last night was a squeaker. It may be that the academy’s push to diversify itself by adding new members has paid off, but some of the ugliness that aired during the interminable slog up to Sunday night indicates that the academy remains deeply divided. (Sound familiar?) Some of this was the usual campaign nonsense, but more than one white person also suggested that I love “Moonlight” only because it’s a black film.

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Justin Timberlake performed at the Oscars on Sunday. CreditPatrick T. Fallon for The New York Times

So, yes, the academy got it right, and “Moonlight” is now the first best picture winner to have been directed by an African-American. To turn back to that other milestone movie: When Kathryn Bigelow won best director for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010, some hoped that her historic win would serve as a breakthrough for women, but it hasn’t, and the numbers for female filmmakers are worse now. I don’t want to harsh our mellow, but I also don’t want to overpraise the academy for occasionally getting it right when the industry continues to get it so wrong. “Moonlight,” after all, wasn’t made by one of the big studios, which are more interested in superhero fantasies; it was bankrolled by A24, a small, independent company.

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The members of a bus tour group who were led into the Oscars ceremony for an unexpected role.CreditPatrick T. Fallon for The New York Times

MORRIS There’s also that. While this was an important night for nonwhite and non-American filmmakers and actors, American movies continue to be appallingly bad for female filmmakers. Meanwhile, the major studios are out to lunch — or at the bank. A24 has the most exciting taste of any American studio, Goliath-size or David-size. That “Moonlight” won doesn’t excuse anything. What happens the next year, or the year after, when it’s #OscarSoWhiteAgain? Over and over on Sunday, writers and actors and producers made statements about the urgency for more vivid representation, that we in the audience hunger for it, whether we live in Liberty City (the Miami neighborhood where “Moonlight” is set) or Manchester by the Sea. The three of us spend a few weeks talking about the Academy Awards and the rest of the year out in the marketplace, just watching movies. The real dream would be to arrive at a place where we can watch a film and argue about who’s in it instead of who isn’t.

And can I also say, Manohla, that I really liked that moment with the tour group? If they’d been bused in against their will for our entertainment, I’d object. But those sights are, presumably, a version of what they paid that tour company to show them: the world through Jennifer Aniston’s sunglasses. When Mr. Kimmel asked that one woman, a bride-to-be, who her favorite star was, and she pointed to Mr. Washington, my heart melted. We’ve been talking about optics and history, and it felt meaningful to me that the bride, her groom and their complementary family-cookout personalities got to meet her favorite movie actor and that, in some way, Mr. Washington got to meet — and “marry” — them. For what it’s worth, he was nominated this year for playing an average guy. Sure, that tourist stunt culminated in three black people having a moment around a smartphone. But it was also a fantastical snapshot of a moviemaking-moviegoing ideal: weird, wedded bliss.