Oscar Day 2023 is behind us. I realize to some it is just another night, but in our household Oscar Sunday is like the Super Bowl.
I was raised on the movies and my fascination started at a young age. As a child of course I was taken to the obligatory Disney movies, my first being Snow White. But my mother also took me to see more grown up fare. My first recollection of a movie that was not a cartoon was Gigi and I was around 4 or 5. I had no clue to the storyline, but I sat wide-eyed at the lavish costumes and scenery.
My mother always watched the Academy Awards and from my bedroom, next to the living room , which had only an accordion door that did not fully shut, I could position myself on the bed and through the tiny crack, catch flickering images of the magic of Oscar night .
By the time I was 11, I was allowed to stay up for the broadcast which on the East Coast could go well past 11 pm. My first Oscar night was 1965 when Julie Andrews won Best Actress for Mary Poppins ; Rex Harrison, Best Actor for My Fair Lady and that film also won Best Picture. Since our tv was black and white, I could only guess at the colors of the glittering gowns of Debbie Reynolds, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, Angela Lansbury and Joan Crawford, who were among the presenters. But even in black and white the glamour and the excitement of the evening was magical.
That excitement and fascination has never left me. Even now I am agog at the the designer gowns and the sparkling jewels on the Red Carpet . But most of all, I love Oscar night as it is a celebration of movies , their joy and their power.
And movies do have power.
The first time I felt this power was when I saw Dr. Zhivago and had to leave the theater sobbing as Omar Sharif collapses running after Lara.
And most recently in the current crop of Oscars movies, I felt it watching The Banshees of Inisherin. It is a testimony to the power of movies, that although I liked very little about this story, it still shook me to the core. The movie was billed as a black comedy but I found nothing in it comical. Seeing the utter devastation on Colin Farrell’s character, Pádraic’s face when his long time friend announced he no longer wanted to be friends with him, packed a powerful punch and hit too close to home. I had lived the feelings in the movie. This past year my husband and I had friends who we have known for over 20 years tell us in an email that they no longer wanted to be our friends . We got a bit more of an explanation than Pádraic got in the movie, but our faces were every bit as distraught as his as we read the email. Our friends summarized their reasons , but each of the ill-conceived notions could have easily been discussed and talked out if they valued the friendship, which obviously they did not. None of the email made sense and we knew there had to be more that was not being said.
I read a quote recently that said “ Friendships heal by making the unsaid said and they die from the unsaid never being said. “ Our one time friends’ unspoken words were truly a poison that killed what we had considered a thriving, close, dear friendship. Like Colin Farrell’s Pádraic, we were left wondering how this could possibly happen and we were not given a chance to address whatever the reasons were for detonating the relationship. The saying goes that “Art imitates life” but the topic of friends not wanting to be your friends anymore is not a subject generally explored in film. You can find many movies that depict romantic breakups but few to none with someone saying they no longer want to be your friend. It sounds like something you’d hear on the playground between two 10 year olds.
We watched Banshees of Inisherin , a movie we did not even like and relived the hurt of our friends’ stinging words. And when Oscar night came, although I was in awe of Austin Butler’s Elvis, I found myself half wanting Colin Farrell to win the best actor award! His anguished face in that film spoke to what was in our hearts and I so identified with his character that I was rooting for him in a film I didn’t even like! Oh, the power of movies!
Colin Farrell did not win the award nor did Austin Butler. Brendan Fraser did for a movie we did not see, The Whale. I am sure , from the clips we’ve seen, his award is well deserved . I am sure his performance was as compelling as all the other nominees and stirred emotions in its audiences. And that is what movies do.
It is that power of movies to capture our hearts and speak to us personally that we celebrate on Oscar night. It is a celebration of that power and also it is the power of dreams. Whether I have seen all the nominated movies or very few , the excitement on the faces of those that get to hold the gold prize captivates me. And it is a joy to watch the power of dreams coming true.
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