The South Korean black comedy Parasite snatches victory from the war film 1917 and sets a record. Joaquin Phoenix is also awarded for his extraordinary Joker, and Renée Zellweger for her twilight portrayal of Judy Garland.
It was an edition full of twists, but also of confirmations, as the Oscar 2020 ceremony took place tonight at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The biggest surprise was the triumph of the black comedy Parasite by Bong Joon Ho, the South Korean film that took home the most important awards: best picture, best director, best screenplay and best international feature film. And so this small gem rightfully enters the history of cinema — not only for its artistic merits, but also because it is the first non-English-language film to win in the most "prestigious" Oscar category: best picture. A satisfaction foreshadowed the previous year by another record: Parasite had also been the first South Korean film to win the Palme d'Or at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.
The great disappointment of this 92nd Academy Awards ceremony was instead the pre-ceremony frontrunner, 1917. The war film by Sam Mendes, favoured for both best picture and best director, took home "only" 3 statuettes from its 10 nominations, all in technical categories.
Widely predicted, however, were the Oscars for best lead actors, which went to Joaquin Phoenix for Joker, and to Renée Zellweger for Judy. The same went for the best supporting actors: Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, and Laura Dern for Marriage Story.
The best adapted screenplay award went to the dark fable about Nazism Jojo Rabbit (nominated for 6 Oscars), based on the novel Il cielo in gabbia by Christine Leunens.
The 2020 Oscars will also be remembered for the personal record number of nominations received by Netflix: as many as 24 (even though the statuettes it ultimately won numbered only a couple). The streaming giant thus surpassed, at least in nominations, all the other major studios, marking a genuine "epochal clash" between traditional cinema and productions born on streaming platforms. Of its 24 nominations, 10 went to The Irishman, the gangster film that crowned Martin Scorsese "the most-nominated director in Oscar history." And even though the Italian-American director went home empty-handed last night (as predicted), he received a standing ovation from the audience when Bong Joon Ho, stepping up to collect his Oscar, mentioned him and called him "a role model."
Awards for best film editing and best sound editing went to Le Mans '66 – La grande sfida (Ford v Ferrari), with which James Mangold tells the true story of a rivalry that changed the world of motor racing for ever.
Elton John was also awarded for the best original song from Rocketman, (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again, which the singer performed on the Oscar 2020 stage, seated at a red piano.
Also as expected were the victories of Toy Story 4 as best animated feature and American Factory as best documentary feature.
Many had been hoping for a stunning coup from Parasite at this apparently "already scripted" Oscar ceremony. The frontrunner 1917 had already triumphed at the Golden Globes, which are often seen as a "gateway" to the Oscars. Instead, the Academy chose to recognise the merit of this film — the true revelation of the season, already widely acclaimed by international critics. The Academy acknowledged this, first by giving it 6 nominations and then by awarding it in the most coveted categories.
Currently showing in our cinemas, Parasite is a film not to be missed. A thriller full of surprises, it transcends genres with an indisputable technical mastery. At its centre is the class struggle, embodied in the encounter between two families: the Kims, who belong to the lowest social stratum, and the Parks, wealthy bourgeois living in a luxurious villa. Described as a story built through "stratified layers between rich and poor," Parasite comes to life between the squalid neighbourhood where the Kims live and the Parks' lavish villa, recounting the insidious way the former infiltrate the comfortable life of the latter. A film that has — in effect — already entered history, thanks to a director who has been called the master of a new kind of cinema.
And, as a curiosity, there is also a touch of Italy in the winning film: its soundtrack includes the celebrated song by Gianni Morandi, In ginocchio da te.
Recently crowned at the Baftas (the British "Oscars"), Joaquin Phoenix and Renée Zellweger also triumphed at the 92nd Academy Awards, for their respective performances in Joker and Judy.
Physical transformations are a trump card at the Oscars. Once again the Academy confirmed this, awarding the prize to the extraordinary Joker of Joaquin Phoenix, who thus took home his first golden statuette. During the award presentation, the actor, a committed environmentalist and vegan, spoke about rights that should be guaranteed to all, and about mankind's domination over nature and animals. "The greatest gift that cinema has given me," he said, "is the ability to give a voice to those who have no voice. The time has come to start making ourselves advocates for other causes." And further: "We always talk about one race wanting to dominate others; I think we have become so disconnected from nature and we believe we are at the centre of everything."
With Joker, director Todd Phillips (known for his comedies and in particular for the Hangover trilogy) surprised everyone, delivering an auteur comic-book film and reinventing one of the most celebrated villains in comics. An achievement that earned him the highest number of nominations at this 92nd edition (as many as 11), that sent it to the top of international box offices (it surpassed one billion dollars in revenue), and that also made it something of a cultural phenomenon (with Joker masks and the Bronx staircase besieged by fans). Also awarded at the 76th Venice Film Festival, it must also be said (in all fairness) that Joker sparked some controversy for portraying a character like this in an overly sympathetic light, even veering into what some saw as an implicit incitement to violence.
What critics particularly appreciated about the film was also the choice to focus on a hyperrealism never seen before in this genre. To tell the story of Batman's nemesis, Phillips sets him in a Gotham-New York of the 1980s, tracing the arc of a man who, before becoming an executioner, is also the victim of an alienating society that marginalises him without mercy. The film's winning move is to make us empathise with him, allowing us to understand his point of view. Credit goes to the direction, yes, but above all to Joaquin Phoenix's masterful performance.
The first 10 minutes of the film can be watched on the Warner Bros. Italia YouTube channel.
Sixteen years after her first Oscar (the supporting actress award for Cold Mountain), Renée Zellweger doubles up, winning this time in a leading role. Her portrayal of a Judy Garland at the twilight of her career garnered acclaim throughout the award season.
Set in 1968, Judy tells the story of the final chapter in the life of the celebrated child prodigy from The Wizard of Oz, revealing the truth hidden behind "the rainbow" of the famous song Over the Rainbow.
Judy is by now a diva in decline, who no longer even has a home to live in. Worn down by drugs and alcohol and in the grip of depression, she is forced to look for work in London. Through flashbacks, British director Rupert Goold also reveals the "behind the scenes" of the protagonist's childhood, marked by deprivation and the demands of an adult world and a ruthless star system in which the dark shadow of abuse already existed.
For Brad Pitt and Laura Dern too, the Golden Globes proved to be only an auspicious appetiser. The ultimate consecration for their performances in the supporting roles of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (10 nominations) and Marriage Story (6 nominations) arrived at the Dolby Theatre last night.
And so the star Brad took home his first Oscar as an actor (he had won one before, but as a producer on 12 Years a Slave), while Laura Dern claimed her first ever (after 3 nominations).
One of the films most tipped for the win (alongside 1917 and Parasite) was Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino's ninth (and perhaps penultimate) film took home 2 Oscars from 10 nominations: in addition to Pitt's, also the award for best production design, which recognised a meticulous and "affectionate" reconstruction of the Hollywood of those years.
For what, according to the director's own statements, would be his penultimate film, Tarantino delivers a somewhat nostalgic and ironic film that celebrates the seventh art and with which he has chosen to "come home". Specifically, to the Los Angeles of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. This time the year is 1969 and the protagonists are a fading television star, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his loyal stuntman, a phenomenal Brad Pitt thanks to a role tailor-made for him. A formidable duo, in a film that thrilled a large part of the critics. But Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is not only a story about the ruthless mechanisms of the star system; it is also a revisited account of one of the most brutal crimes of those years: the murder of Sharon Tate. A tragic event that, in Tarantino's hands, takes on new dimensions. Because, as Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained teach us, with him not even History is ever to be taken for granted.
Regarded by some as the heir to Woody Allen, New York director Noah Baumbach returns to exploring the delicate dynamics of the end of a love affair (after The Squid and the Whale) with the film Marriage Story (another Netflix production). Through the dual perspective of a husband and a wife, the film manages to blend drama and humour with great naturalness, exploring the dynamics that are set in motion during a separation. Holding together pain, melancholy, guilt and anger are irony and realism, artfully woven by the director into an exceptionally strong screenplay and thanks to an extraordinary cast. Above all, the two leads Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver (who were hot on the heels of Oscar favourites Phoenix and Zellweger).
Much credit, as the prize tallies show, must also go to the distinguished supporting cast, entrusted with the most humorous and sharp-witted part of the film. Above all, winner Laura Dern who, in the role of the ruthless and shrewd divorce lawyer representing the wife, embodies (alongside Ray Liotta) the merciless American legal system.
If 1917 takes us back into the midst of the First World War to speak to us even today about the futility of a war from the past, Jojo Rabbit, directed by New Zealander Taika Waititi (director of Thor: Ragnarok), takes us back to the Second World War to put us on guard against political fanaticism.
Part wildly humorous satire, part coming-of-age story, Jojo Rabbit is a dark fable and at the same time a political comedy, with which the director holds right-wing extremist ideologies up to ridicule, demystifying them until he transforms their chief exponent, Adolf Hitler, into a caricature.
The Führer here is the eccentric imaginary friend of the young protagonist, Jojo Betzler (the excellent Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year-old boy naively captivated by Nazi ideology who is preparing to join the Hitler Youth.
In this way the film allows us to see Nazism through the innocent eyes of a boy on the threshold of adolescence, who finds himself having to decipher a reality that is very different from how it appears. Especially when he discovers that his mother (Scarlett Johansson, also nominated here in a supporting role) is hiding a Jewish girl in their home. A bittersweet comedy that catches you off guard, putting on trial the never-dormant (and more than ever lurking) diseases of racism, nationalism and denialism.
As mentioned, the great disappointment of this edition was 1917. Awarded both at the Golden Globes and the Baftas, Sam Mendes's film had been given by bookmakers as the overwhelming favourite, but it took home "only" 3 technical Oscars: cinematography, sound and special effects.
A result that should not, however, overshadow the many accolades received by the film, which, thanks to its extraordinary technical level, represents – in a certain sense – "cinema raised to the highest power". A war film in which the wartime setting becomes merely the backdrop for an action and adventure film, and in which the desolation of the landscapes becomes a metaphor for the desolation of the soul. The story, inspired by the tales of director Sam Mendes's grandfather, is set on the British front in northern France, where two young lance corporals dream of the end of the Great War, when they are entrusted with a new – near-impossible – mission: to reach the German front in order to deliver an important message to the commanding officer of another battalion and save the lives of thousands of men, including the brother of one of the two. But the film's strength lies not so much in the plot itself as in direction of the highest technical level, which keeps the viewer riveted to the screen, drawing them along through spectacular long takes, with a breathtaking sense of "live footage". The film's originality has also been identified in its choice to strip war of all epic quality, becoming a masterful and highly topical indictment of every violent conflict. The futility of war emerges through a minimalist narrative and two "anonymous" protagonists, who become the silent spokespeople for the many unknown soldiers swallowed up by time.
Best picture