A beautiful compilation of the history of Best Picture Winners from Nelson Carvajal, via Andrew Sullivan by way of David Haglund.
Seeing Clark Gable fly by in It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, and (in spirit) in Gone with the Wind reminded me of the strong girlhood crush I had on him. Which is connected to one of the earliest instances of understanding that the world doesn't really makes sense, when I learned that Robert Donat's Mr. Chip's beat out his Rhett Butler for Best Actor in 1939. Sigh.
And tonight. One can argue craft, but to me Best Picture is a contest of sensibilities pitted against each other: the heroism of Lincoln & Argo; the fantasy side of life in Les Miz, Life of Pi, & Beasts of the Southern Wilds; the dark underside of life in Django Unchained & Zero Dark Thirty; the difficult ordinariness of the human condition of Amour & Silver Linings Playbook.
My tipple. Oddly, I'm drawn to Les Miz. And tonight we'll see what sensibility the academy was drawn to more often than the others.
I didn't write about all the films except for Lincoln. And Skyfall, which I hope wins best score. I am looking forward to the James Bond at 50 homage.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing my video! Though, I have to say, I was pretty disappointed with their Bond montage.
-Nelson Carvajal
Thanks for stopping by Nelson. I totally agree about the Bond montage, and the whole tribute was poor.
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