by DAVID WALSH
The night’s most rousing speech was delivered by John Legend (Lonnie Lynn aka Common is on the left) when the singer accepted the Oscar for best original song for Glory from the Martin Luther King biopic Selma.
“We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised right now in this country today.” “We say that Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now.” “We know that right now the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850.”
PHOTO/AP/The Independent
The Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night turned out to be one of the more intriguing ones in recent years. In a comment posted February 21, I observed that “Occurring at a time of unprecedented global tension and volatility, virtually no hint of the external world will be permitted entry into the self-absorbed proceedings.” This turned out to be an overly pessimistic prediction, although social realities inevitably found expression on Sunday in a manner that accords with the film world’s peculiarities and contradictions.
Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu’s darkly comic Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), about a once prominent actor attempting to get his life, family relations and career together, won the best picture, director, original screenplay and cinematography awards. Birdman has its moments (and Michael Keaton is a thoroughly engaging actor), but either Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel or Selma would have been a worthier choice.
Eddie Redmayne took the best actor award for The Theory of Everything, the dramatization of cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s life, while Julianne Moore, as expected, won best actress for her role in Still Alice, about an Alzheimer’s victim. Veteran J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette received the supporting performer awards, for Whiplash and Boyhood, respectively.
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The victory of Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ chilling documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in the best documentary category, was certainly a high point of the awards program and a slap in the face for the Obama administration and the American establishment. Poitras, who has not traveled to the US in recent years for fear of prosecution, accepted the award alongside journalist Glenn Greenwald and Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, as well as editor Mathilde Bonnefoy and producer Dirk Wilutzky.
In her acceptance speech, Poitras said: “The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control. Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers. And I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth.”
In response to the award, Snowden released a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union: “When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”
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