Alberto Rey

Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-9:28 p.m.

Al Pacino

handed the Oscar for best picture to

Oppenheimer

like someone asking for time at the fishmonger.

Or like someone who greets the neighbor on the fifth floor on the street.

For the legendary actor, giving an Oscar is

like taking a walk.

Before opening the envelope he did not even name the 10 candidates for the award.

But Pacino is not only a legend of cinema: he

is also an 83-year-old man

and 83-year-old men are sometimes not around for ceremonies and other times they cannot (or do not want to) always be aware of the news.

Christopher

Nolan

was given the Oscar by a man who was already working in Hollywood when he was not yet born.

A man who

would most likely not care about

Oppenheimer .

But not Scorsese.

Who doubts that Pacino would have been more excited to award The

Moon Killers

?

Its director spent the 2024 Oscar gala as he has spent a few before: sitting in his seat and watching how, one by one,

he lost all the awards for which he was a candidate.

The Oscar for best direction of 2024 also went to Christopher Nolan.

Spielberg

gave it to him

and the two men embraced on stage with

an emotion

that seemed real at all times.

My theory is that at that moment, a few minutes before the end of the ceremony, Al Pacino had not yet been told that the final award would be given to him.

Or he didn't remember.

But not for being older but

for going through everything.

My theories always lean in favor of a Hollywood more similar to

Babylon

or a Robert Altman film than the increasingly impersonal industry it has become.

The Oscar galas

are pantomimes arranged and designed

as entertainment in themselves.

Also three hours in which

the unexpected can happen

and hey, Bayona wins her second Oscar.

It didn't happen.

But Al Pacino still doesn't know.

According to my theory,

he arrived at the auditorium five minutes before

the end of the event, got lost

backstage

before going out on stage, and when he finally got to the stage, he was so sick of wandering around and so tired of everything that he

grabbed the envelope, which He opened it, read it and holy Easter.

It is not a coherent theory with the above because it is impossible for Pacino to know that Martin Scorsese had not won anything or for him to see his face from the stage because, of course,

he did not put on his glasses.

But it is consistent with something that is not a theory, but reality: Al Pacino is Al Pacino and

we are just Ken.