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.