Hollywood (United States) (AFP)
"1917", the daring war film by Briton Sam Mendes, looks set to lead the charge on Sunday at the 92nd Academy Awards, the culmination of the film awards season in Hollywood.
Will the precious golden statuette of the best film be given to Quentin Tarantino, who plays at home with "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood", or to the highly respected Martin Scorsese for "The Irishman"? Unless "Parasite", by South Korean Bong Joon-ho, becomes embedded to become the first work in a foreign language ever awarded in this flagship category?
The envelopes have been sealed for a long time and it will be necessary to wait 5:00 p.m. local time (Monday 1:00 a.m. GMT) to start discovering the choices of the approximately 8,500 members of the Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences called to vote this year.
The ceremony, organized in the heart of Hollywood, at the Dolby Theater, will also be an opportunity to salute the memory of Kirk Douglas, one of the last sacred monsters of the golden age of cinema, who died Wednesday at the age of 103 years.
Despite his aura and a hundred films to his credit, the legendary actor has never won an Oscar in competition, unlike basketball star Kobe Bryant, to whom the Academy will also pay tribute. The former Lakers star, who died in late January with his daughter and seven other people in a helicopter accident near Los Angeles, was awarded in 2018 for an animated short film devoted to his career.
- Preferential ballot with multiple rounds -
Despite entering the campaign late, experts give "1917" a favorite in several prestigious categories.
The feature film depicts the desperate team of two young soldiers during the First World War, constructed as a two-hour long shot. And he flew from victory to victory, from the Golden Globes to the British Bafta.
"It comes under the traditional rubric for Hollywood, that's what the Oscars appreciate," said Tim Gray, specialist in film awards for Variety magazine. "It's great, it's epic, but it doesn't use old recipes (...) Cinema at its best," he believes.
The big favorite, however, is never guaranteed to win when it comes to the Oscar for best film, awarded via a strange and unique "preferential" multi-turn ballot which sometimes elects an outsider.
The lucky winner could therefore be "Parasite".
Already a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival, this hybrid of crazy family comedy and thriller won over many professionals voting for the Oscars.
"For all the other films, people say + I liked but ... + With Parasite, it's + I like Parasite +, period," said AFP Mark Malkin, journalist at Variety and veteran of l entertainment industry.
If he fails in the queen category, "Parasite" has every chance of winning in that of the best foreign film, where he will notably face "Les Misérables" by Frenchman Ladj Ly.
- "Joker" and "Judy"? -
Neither "1917" nor "Parasite" align international stars to the casting, which leaves the field open to other films for the prizes awarded to the actors.
For the critics, the games are already made: it is Joaquin Phoenix who must win the statuette of the best actor for "Joker", while Renée Zellweger will be awarded for "Judy".
As for supporting roles, like the Golden Globes and the Bafta, the forecasts give winners Brad Pitt in quiet stuntman ("Once Upon a Time ...") and Laura Dern as ruthless and manipulative lawyer ("Marriage Story").
"I don't see a scenario in which one of them loses," sums up Pete Hammond, an expert on the specialized site Deadline, who echoes most of the experts interviewed by AFP.
The Oscars for the script and the technical categories promise to be more contested, between the satire of Hitler's Germany "Jojo Rabbit", the feminist re-reading of the period film "The Daughters of Doctor March" and the superheroes of "Avengers: Endgame".
The selection of the Oscars 2020 was once again criticized for neglecting cultural and ethnic diversity, a recurring criticism. Apart from the British Cynthia Erivo ("Harriet"), all the actors and actresses competing this year are white and no women have been selected from the directors.
The Academy of Oscars has however highlighted the fact that women have never been so present in the nominations: 65 out of 209 candidates in total.
Perhaps to make people forget the controversy, the Oscars evening, produced by two women, chose a large number of international stars of various origins to present the prizes, including the Spanish Penelope Cruz, the Mexican Salma Hayek and the Israeli Gal Gadot.
© 2020 AFP