The 97th Academy Awards took place last night (Sunday 2 March) and the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles welcomed the big screen’s biggest names and most talented creatives to celebrate cinema.
Sean Baker’s Anora was the big winner of the night scooping five Oscars, including Best Picture. Four of the film’s Oscars were awarded to Baker himself in a rare quadruple win for a single film – Baker wrote, directed, produced and edited it.
Star Wars legend Mark Hamill presented the Oscar for Best Original Score, with British composer Daniel Blumberg taking home the prize for his thrillingly original music for The Brutalist. It follows Blumberg’s BAFTA win for his score, which serves as a moving and occasionally volatile foundation for Brady Corbet’s masterpiece. Cinematographer Lol Crawley also repeated his BAFTA success for his work on the film, as did lead actor Adrien Brody.
Blumberg’s visceral music is a worthy winner, though it faced some stiff competition in the shape of Volker Bertelmann’s razor-sharp underscore for Conclave. Bertelmann was in line for a second Original Score Oscar, following his win two years ago for All Quiet on the Western Front. Kris Bowers’s beautiful and emotional contribution to The Wild Robot was perhaps the most musically conventional of this year’s nominees (something of a rarity these days), while John Powell and Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked represents an epic musical canvas and a gravity defying (aheam) feat of musical engineering.
Camille and Clément Ducol were also nominated for their scoring of Emilia Pérez, the heady, unconventional cartel musical featuring barnstorming performances by Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldaña. While the pair did not take home the scoring Oscar, they did share the Oscar for Best Original Song. ‘El Mal’ was in fact one of two songs from the film nominated, so they beat themselves. Given the film featured a clutch of original songs it was perhaps a safe bet that Emilia Pérez would win in this category, though many were hoping legendary movie songwriter Diane Warren might win. Warren received her 16th Oscar nomination for her song ‘The Journey’ from The Six Triple Eight… and is yet to win in a category she has dominated.
Highlights of the show – including an incredible opening performance by Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande – can be found on the Academy’s YouTube page, while viewers in the UK can catch the entire show on itvX.