The Academy Awards 2010

The 82nd Academy Awards

The "Hurt Locker", a film based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq, won best picture Oscar during the 82nd Academy Awards, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win the directing award.

Although "Avatar" a film made by James Cameron - former husband of Kathryn Bigelow - had a vast budget and an enormous popularity, the war film won over the science fiction one.

“I would not be standing here if it wasn’t for Mark Boal, who risked his life for the words on the page and wrote such a courageous screenplay,” said Ms. Bigolow in accepting her award, which was presented to her by Barbara Streisand. "And I'd just like to dedicate this to the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. And may they come home safe. Thank you.”

Films that were also featured in the best film category include "Up in the Air", "The Blind Side", "Precious" and "District 9".

Among other winners, Christoph Waltz took best supporting actor for his performance in "Inglourious Bastards", where he played a Jew hunting Nazi officer. Mo’Nique took best supporting actress for her role as a dysfunctional and abusive mother in the film “Precious” based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire. Aside from her husband, Mo’Nique thanked Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, “because you touched it, the whole world."

Jeff Bridges, took best actor for his portrayal of a destitute country music singer-songwriter who tries to change his life after beginning a relationship with a young journalist. Although he had been nominated five times and grew up in a showbiz family, this was Jeff Bridges first Oscar. Bridges received a standing ovation. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his parents who had a great influence in his life. “Oh, my dad and my mom, they loved show biz so much. I remember my mom, getting all of us kids to entertain at her parties. You know, my dad sitting me on his bed and teaching me all of the basics of acting for a role in Sea Hunt.”

Sandra Bullock, won best actress for her performance as a loving surrogate mother in “The Blind Side.” Like Bridges, she was clearly one of the most popular ones in the auditorium, though she had never been nominated or received an Oscar before and had been best known for romantic dramas like “The Lake House “and the action film “Speed.”

"Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?" Bullock asked her cheerful audience.

The show had several Las Vegas style dance scenes and ended after three and a half hours. The highlight of the show was Ben Stiller who came dressed up head-to-toe as a Na’vi and spoke in Na’vi language to “Avatar” director James Cameron. The stage was bathed mostly in blue. During the In Memorian, Patrick Swayze, David Carradine and Michael Jackson, but not Farah Fawcett Majors was mentioned.

Where the tribute to Horror movies seemed too long, the tribute to Lauren Bacall, who received her Long-Time Achievement Award, seemed too short. The show also presented excerpts of nominated screen-plays that were projected onto a screen and read by an invisible narrator.

George Fletcher won his first Oscar for adapted screenplay and was so taken by it that he kept his acceptance speech short. "I don't know what to say. This is for everybody who works on a dream every day." In the category best documentary short subject, the Oscar went to Roger Ross Williams, who made a film about a physically disabled woman from Zimbabwe, who became part of an Afro Fusion band called Liyana, after her family had neglected her. Roger Ross William was cut off in the middle of his acceptance speech by Elinor Burkett. Since this seemed strange, he was invited by Larry King the following day to give his full speech.

The best documentary feature , presented by Matt Demon, went to Fisher Stevens and Louie Psihoyos for “The Cove”, which is a film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan. In his acceptance speech Stevens said: “I just want to say it was an honor to work on this film and to try to make an entertaining film that also tries to enlighten everybody.” Other than expected the best foreign language feature did not go to Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon" but to Argentinian filmmaker Juan José Campanella for “The Secret in Their Eyes” (“El Secreto de Sus Ojos”). “It is on behalf of a crew and cast that comprise mostly of people that I love and that are very close to my heart that I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language, first of all. And for letting us spend three great days in the company of incredible filmmakers.” The award was presented by Pedro Almodóvar and Quentin Tarantino.

Going into the evening the cameras kept on focusing on a somewhat grim looking George Clooney (Up In the Air) who had run along a fence and shaken hands with cheerful fans before he came into the Kodak Center. In addition, there was a short humerous film clip with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as they were sharing a bed together and being in each other's space.

The 3-D blockbuster science-fiction film "Avatar " received an award for best art direction and went to Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair. Stromberg gave a moving acceptance speech "You know, 13 years ago, the doctors told me I wasn't going to survive and I thought that this dream of standing here would never come true." The award was presented by Sigourney Weaver, who came to fame through the science-fiction film "Alien."

However, one of the most inspiring speeches in the evening came from Michael Giacchino, who received an award for Achievement in Music written for "Up", a feature which received an animation Oscar. "Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you."




Written by Simone Kussatz
Photo: by Simone Kussatz

Mark Johnson and Michael Haneke the day before the Oscars

After a short welcome by Bruce Davis, Academy Executive Director, Mark Johnson, Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee Chair, took over the 82nd Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium on Saturday, March 6, 2010, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The symposium started with the screening of excerpts from the films “Ajami,” “The Milk of Sorrow,” “A Prophet,” “The Secret in Their Eyes,” and “The White Ribbon.” All directors of the films were present, including Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Claudia Llosa, Jacques Audiard, Juan José Campanella, and Michael Haneke. At the beginning of his introductory speech, Johnson stressed that those five nominated films were carefully selected by a committee that consisted of about 300 members. He also defended the Academy against accusations of prejudice. “In talking earlier this week to Claudia Llosa and Juan José Campanella, the directors of the nominated films from Peru and Argentina, they expressed to me their surprise and delight that the Academy would nominate two movies from South America. When I asked why, one of them told me that’s what many film festivals would never do and that never before had two films from South America been Oscar-nominated. I was both surprised and somewhat defensive, because they might have thought we sat in a conference room upstairs in this building, and pointed at a map and picked our nominees. We’re not strategic enough and, quite frankly, not that smart enough to really care about where our nominated films come. I firmly believe that all of our selections are based purely and simply on the value of submitted films, regardless of the country. We really don’t care where a good film comes from, just that it’s good.” Furthermore, Johnson stressed that, due to the inability of Americans to embrace subtitled films, the Academy would try to do whatever it could to draw attention to these movies that are worth the effort. He also said that the nominations can have a huge significance, “not just in the pride that brings to the films of the filmmakers, but often to the filmmaking community of that country itself. Often, the nomination of a movie will ignite governmental support for its national cinema.” Johnson, who almost forgot to introduce German director Michael Haneke, said that this would be his favorite category of the Academy Awards and that this had been the strongest year since he had been the chair of that committee. Director Michael Haneke came to the Academy with three of his producers of the film “The White Ribbon,” including Stefan Arndt. Main actor Burghart Klaussner, as well as Haneke’s son and grandson, were there. Mark Johnson: All of your films have been so highly praised and given so much acclaim throughout the world, and have won film festivals and your equivalent of the Oscars and so on. To what degree is any of that meaningful to you as filmmakers, or is it really something more for the producers or the distribution companies? Michael Haneke: Ich kann nur anschliessen an das, was die anderen vorher gesagt haben. Man macht ja Filme um zu kommunizieren und jede Art von Anerkennung, seien es Besucherzahlen, seien es Preise, ist natürlich ein Zeichen, dass irgendetwas an dieser Kommunikation funktioniert. Das ist sozusagen der emotionale Teil, dann gibt es aber einen praktischen Teil. Wir sind alle in dieser Branche, immer so gut wie unser letzter Erfolg, und da sind natürlich Preise unglaublich wichtig für die zukünftigen Projekte. Well, I can only agree with what has been said up till now. You don’t make films to win prizes, you make films to communicate, and so every kind of recognition is an aspect of that, whether it’s prizes or whether it’s success in terms of box office, and that shows that the film has worked in terms of communication. That’s the emotional aspect of the prizes. The practical aspect is that in this branch, you’re always as good as your last film, and so the prizes are incredibly important for future projects. Mark Johnson: Michael, I see that your film is a screenplay that you wrote, but there is a credit to the famous writer Jean Claude Carrière. How did that come about? Michael Haneke: Der Film, also das Drehbuch, wie es ursprünglich geschrieben war, war über dreieinhalb Stunden lang und die Produzenten sagten natürlich, dass man dreieinhalb Stunden Filme nicht verkaufen und auch nicht produzieren kann, zumindest nicht bei uns, und deswegen könnten wir den Film nur machen, wenn wir eine Stunde rausschneiden. Dann hab ich das versucht und das 20 Minuten geschafft und dann gesagt, mehr ist nicht drin. Und dann hatte ich die Idee, den Carrière zu fragen, ob er mir beim Kürzen helfen kann. Dann haben wir uns getroffen und das Skript gelesen. Er hat ein paar Wochen Zeit gebraucht, dann ist er gekommen, wir haben zwei Tage gearbeitet und dann war der Film auf der Länge, die er jetzt hat. The original screenplay, as I wrote it, was three and a half hours long, and of course, the producers told me that there was no way that they could get financing and produce this film, at least not in Germany. Therefore, I was told it would be essential for me to cut the film by at least an hour. So I spent a long time working on it and managed to cut 20 minutes, and then said, “I can’t do more than that”. But then I had the idea to bring Jean Claude Carrière in and ask him to help me shorten the film. We met, we read the script, Jean Claude needed a few weeks, he came back, we worked together for two days, and as a result, the film came to its present length. Mark Johnson: That’s fascinating. So they ended up working just the two days together, and then it was a finished script. Michael Haneke: Man muss nur an der richtigen Stelle streichen. It’s just a question of recognizing the right spot to cut out. Mark Johnson: Michael, you’ve worked with some of the best actors in the world. I think of your film with Isabelle Huppert in “The Piano Teacher.” Obviously, in “The White Ribbon”, there were a number of professional actors, people I’ve seen before, but then the real stars of the film, the most significant characters, were the children. There were so many children in the film. They were spectacular. They have some of the most beautiful faces you’ve ever seen, and yet in the context, they are quite terrifying. That must have taken you a very long time to cast those children? Michael Haneke: Ja, das war meine grosse Sorge, den Film zu starten und dann festzustellen, dass diese vielen Kinder, die eine entscheidende Rolle spielen, dass ich dafür die richtigen Leute gefunden hab. Deswegen haben wir schon ein halbes Jahr vorher mit dem Casting begonnen und haben über 7000 Kinder gecastet, was relativ viel ist, und alle Kinder waren die ganze Zeit während des Drehs da und wurden betreut und vorbereitet. Es war natürlich auch in dem Drehplan eingeplant, dass die Arbeit mit Kindern, vor allem mit kleineren Kindern, mehr Zeit braucht. Wir hatten das gleiche Problem mit den Statisten, also sie haben ja da ein paar Gesichter in der Kirche gesehen. Der Film spielt zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts auf dem Lande. Die Leute damals kennen wir von Fotos, wir wissen, wie sie in dieser Zeit aussahen. Die Bauern, die heute in Norddeutschland leben, haben ihren klimatisierten Traktor und sehen aus wie jemand, der aus der Stadt kommt. Wir haben also über 200 Statisten aus dem Norden von Rumänien per Bus kommen lassen, um diese Gesichter eben zu finden. Und beim Casting der Kinder war natürlich erstmal das Talent entscheidend, aber in zweiter Linie schon auch die Gesichter, die halt Gesichter sind, die man sich in dieser Zeit vorstellen kann. That was my greatest concern, of course: that we would start with the pre-production of the film and that I would have to call my producer one day and say, I’m sorry, we have to stop. I haven’t been able to find the right faces, the right actors for their parts. This is why we started with the casting half a year before we started shooting the film. We met with over 7,000 children for the roles. They were all present during the shoot. We prepared them, we worked with them before the shoot, they had people looking after them, and we also planned this in our shooting schedule. We knew that working with children would require more time, especially with the youngest children, so we allowed them more time during the shooting. We had the same concern with extras. You’ve seen the faces in the scene in the church. The film takes place at the beginning of the 20th century. The people we know from that time, we’ve only seen in photographs. However, the farmers you find working in Germany today, real farmers, spend all day sitting in air-conditioned tractors, and they don’t look at all like farmers from that time. And for that reason, we traveled to northern Romania and chose 200 extras there, who came to us by bus. Our main concern in casting the children was, of course, that they would be talented, but secondly, that we’d find the right children who looked like the faces we’d come to know from photographs from that period. Mark Johnson: These are really remarkable faces and a fascinating detail, that you needed the faces with the lines and the sort of weather-beaten qualities that perhaps you can’t find today. Mark Johnson: Michael, you’ve done your film in black and white. Michael Haneke: Ja, ich hab das von Anfang an entschieden. Ich hab gesagt, wenn ich den Film mache, möchte ich ihn in schwarz weiss machen. Da bin ich anfangs auf eine grosse Gegenliebe gestossen, sowohl bei den Produzenten als auch bei den Verleihern. Und weil ich ein sturer Mensch bin, hab ich’s durchgesetzt und jetzt sind wir alle glücklich. I decided that from the very beginning. I said, if I make the film, I want to make it in black and white. At first, I was met with great enthusiasm from both the producers and the distributors. But since I’m a rather stubborn individual, I got my way, and now we’re all happy. Simone Kussatz: Mr. Haneke, I felt intrigued by your character Karli, the little boy with Down syndrome. What made you decide to have a child with a disability in your cast? Michael Haneke: I just wanted to resemble how village people looked, and in earlier times, there were sometimes several mentally disabled children living there. Article with Interview by Simone Kussatz