Glittery trash, but entertainment at its best

“THE Oscar goes to ...” Veteran stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the name, La La Land. The producers and those involved in the film rose from their seats, congratulated each other and rushed onstage.

Victory speeches were made. After all, La la Land was the favourite to win Best Picture award. It garnered 14 nominations, making it a tie with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997).

On that fateful night, the wrong film was announced. It wasn’t La La Land that won, it was a dark horse, Moonlight. The producer of La La Land, Jordon Horowitz, realised the mistake and announced, “I’m sorry, there’s a mistake. Moonlight – you guys won the Best Picture.”

Red faces on the part of the producers, but Horowitz and gang gracefully passed the Oscar to the rightful winners. Like any show business, the show went on.

It was the biggest mistake in the 89-year history of the Academy Awards. It was not unlike the mistake of announcing the wrong girl as Miss Universe! Only worse!

The Oscar Night is still one of the most-watched TV events in the history of mankind. Despite worries about dwindling audiences, it is still the most glamorous TV happening.

For three hours Hollywood manifests its true self, warts and all. And it reminds us of the time when Hollywood was Hollywood.

So many things have changed in Hollywood – the studios, the star system, the kind of movies made, the film stars and economics of filmmaking, but the Academy Awards has not.

It is still as boisterous, noisy and exciting an event as when it started eight decades ago. Call it glittery trash, but it is entertainment at its best. Whoever wins will end up in any newspaper in the world, however much the people in that country hate the Americans.

Remember this, Hollywood is home to dream merchants extraordinaire. Hollywood is still the master of the entertainment universe.

The Oscar Night itself is never perfect. Great movies were ignored. (Think Orson Welles’ masterpiece, Citizen Cane in 1941). Great performers were ingloriously marginalised. (Think Charlie Chaplin, Gary Grant, Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole).

Some of the choices made by its members can be perplexing. But within those imperfections, the Oscars are still dazzling, year after year.

They have the suspense, the intrigue and most of all, the trappings of glamour, a funfair and feel-good event.

We are celebrating the best in the world of movies. In a turbulent world and the atmosphere of hate out there, the Oscars are probably one reason “for positive, considerate conversation”.

The host Jimmy Kimmel was right: “It is time to bring everyone together.” He has the United States of America in mind, but it is relevant to the people of the world.

So, Moonlight won. Like many of the contenders for the best picture award, it was less watched.

Of the nine films nominated only Arrival, Lion and La La Land have commercial appeal. The rest have limited screenings. Pray hard you’ll get to see Fences, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge and Manchester by the Sea in a theatre near you.

Like La La Land, Moonlight is a work of passion. The fact that Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor award speaks volume of its quality.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregation website, the best marker for acceptance for any movie, it won an approval rating of 97%, based on 270 reviews. La La Land, directed by Harvard University alumni, Damien Chazelle, gets a 93% approval rating based on 323 reviews.

But then again, the Oscars are celebrating high-brow fare to augment its commercial appeal. The last 10 years, for example, it has given the Best Picture to only three commercially successful films, namely The King’s Speech (2011), The Hurt Locker (2010) and Slumdog Millionaire (2009).

No Country for Old Men (2008), The Artist (2012), Argo (2013) and 12 Years A Slave (2014) were artistic feats. The last three winners will enter entertainment history as the least-watched winners, Birdman (2015), Spotlight (2016) and this year’s Moonlight.

Perhaps it is true, the quality of a movie is inversely proportional to the number of its audiences. You can say that is true in the last decade of the Oscars.

It is not easy to balance the commercial and artistic equilibrium of movies. Prior to that, popularity and box office receipts ruled.

How can one justify the win of The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) compared to High Noon or The Quiet Man in the same year? Or Sylvester Stallone’s feel-good Rocky winning over a more classy Network and All The President’s Men in 1976?

And then there is Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the Oscars with 20 nominations for her work in more than 50 films. President Donald Trump called her “an overrated star”. The world begs to differ.

For a few hours last week, all about the “All White Oscars” has been largely forgotten. Or the divisive policies of Trump’s White House.

For us, the Oscars are always special!

Johan Jaaffar was a journalist, editor and for some years chairman of a media company, and is passionate about all things literature and the arts. The views expressed here are entirely his own.