The fight between the good and the best

Oscar goes to the Coen brothers

This year the competition was strong, like it hasn’t been for a long time. Of the five contenders for the main prize, two films - Andersen's There Will Be Blood and the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men - stood out in particular, and it became very interesting to guess what exactly the Academy would prefer. Moreover, among the three remaining were the youth comedy “Juno”, which was extremely successful at the box office, the very refined and highly appreciated in Europe British psychological drama “Atonement” and the classic legal thriller “Michael Clayton” with everyone’s favorite George Clooney in the title role -- that is, the films are worthy and have every chance of winning if none of the leaders gets a majority. However, this time at the Oscar races there was one favorite who took all the main prizes: at the finale of the ceremony, the Coen brothers did not have time to leave the stage, Oscars literally fell into their hands - for best film adaptation, for best director and for best film at the end after all... Academicians, who seemed to have been given up on for a long time - well, you never know who they reward, this year demonstrated excellent taste and common sense. Finally, the country recognized its heroes, and most importantly, a feeling of deep moral satisfaction arises precisely from the fact that this recognition did not come after the fact, but for truly the best film made by these directors.

Interestingly, no one doubted that Daniel Day Lewis, who played in the film There Will Be Blood, would certainly receive the award for Best Actor, as had already happened to him at many pre-Oscar awards. And again, absolutely fair. Because the whole film - one of the deepest and most significant in recent years - is built on the main character, an adventurer and an ambitious man, a man with a very strange psyche, who does not know the limits of his pride... The whole film essentially serves only as a background to this portrait , created by Andersen and embodied by Day Lewis with such complete immersion that you can’t help but think: Stanislavsky lived with them, and not with us.

The second Oscar that went to Oil went to cinematographer Robert Elswit, although there were eight nominations. And this is the case when it is a pity that there are too few figurines.

As for "Juno" - despite the obvious pleasantness of this girl's version of "The Catcher in the Rye", even the prize for the leading female role, which many predicted for Ellen Page, who played an independent teenager with ease and precision, went to someone else. Best Performer went to Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose, a film that had no claim to the top spot on the list.

But thanks to the fact that this year's best films were based on novels, that is, they were film adaptations, Juno was able to grab an Oscar for the original screenplay, written by a former stripper named Diablo Cody.

And finally, Tilda Swinton, who played the villain in “Michael Clayton,” was awarded for Best Supporting Actress, a job that, in my opinion, is not outstanding, but worthy. It must be admitted that it was not a year for women, male actors turned out to be head and shoulders above actresses, and if the dignity of a role was measured by the weight of a statuette, then the Oscars of Day Lewis and Javier would have been half a ton heavier than the female ones.

The one who didn’t receive anything at all was “Atonement” - a film based on the very popular novel by Ian McEwan, awarded the Golden Globe and in Britain surpassing both the Coens and the Coens in both the number of nominations and the number and quality of awards. Andersen. Perhaps it was the British victory that led to academics not voting for the European favorite. But, to be honest, despite the beautiful shooting, the excellent performance of the girl Saoirse Ronan, a lot of melodrama in the aesthetic interiors and the intricate plot, the academics, in my opinion, are absolutely right in preferring the Coens’ deep, meaningful and masterfully made film to this story stylized as ladies’ prose. ..

When a decision seems completely justified, somehow no thought arises about what actually guided the academicians, who in many other cases made a choice that, frankly speaking, was far from the best. Still, the effect of recognizing good art as good has some real therapeutic power. I immediately want to believe in justice and the victory of good, in the power of progress, in the presence of a correct cultural hierarchy and other magnificent things that have somehow shrunk lately and no longer inspire confidence.

Although the film “No Country for Old Men” absolutely does not fall under any of the usual requirements for winners. Virtue does not triumph in it, there is no happy ending or morality, it is not very accessible to schoolchildren, and even it was filmed in such a terrible dialect that most people in America do not understand. Moreover, at the box office it collected only 60 million dollars (and “Juno” - 130). And the genre is something like a crime black comedy with thriller elements, that is, not at all an epic saga about the real American dream, but, one might say, a form of mockery of it. Has sarcasm become common among the Hollywood majority?

Alena Solntseva