Although his cinema often strives to create a contrary discourse, you don't have to be too smart to understand that Christopher Nolanis obsessed with time. This was demonstrated, empirically, in his only irrefutably failed film: “Tenet”. That failure, which had to face a pandemic premiere and spoke of a director full of himself, forced the British director to find himself again. He left the Warner Bros. studio.to which he had been faithful for decades and returned to his most immediate obsession, the book “American Prometheus”of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin centered on the figure of Robert Oppenheimer. That time, sacred for Nolan, he gave him space, just enough to compose himself and shape a film, “Oppenheimer”which ascended to the Hollywood Olympus last night winning up to seven Oscarsincluding Best film, Best Address, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
Nolan, perhaps prize eater As a devourer of worlds, he perceived himself as the creator of the most murderous bomb in the history of humanity. He was finally recognized by the Hollywood Academy as one of the great contemporary masters of cinema. Nobody doubted his ability to attract people to theaters, or his exquisite taste for telling stories through elegant brutalism, but it is true that The director of “Inception” and “Memento” was missing the Oscarto be able to look from you to you at the same timeto that history of cinema to which he referred in his speech: “Cinema has existed for just over a hundred years, imagine what painting or music were like at that time. I can't even imagine what the future will bring.“said the director, for the first time out of that unbreakable intellectual pose, with tears filling his eyes and who finished off the task with three more technical awards: Best Assembly, Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.
Ryan Gosling, unleashed, the best of the gala
In a night of validation, the same one that found a solid and playful Jimmy Kimmel who not only saved the ballot, but raised it from disastrous years, the Oscars also confirmed that their favorite actress for the next two decades has a first and last name: Emma Stone. After her incontestable victory for “La La Land”the performer won her second Oscar last night, this time for the daring and wild “Poor creatures”of Yorgos Lanthimos. Despite Lily Gladstone (“The Moon Killers”) had arrived at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles at the head of the race, Stone's charisma and, above all, Hollywood's desire to cement its “star-system” -with the good and the bad that this entails- they just put the statuette in his hands. “It's a gift for life,” the actress thanked her director, torn and clutching the back of her dress, which, jokingly, she said she had exploded after Ryan Gosling's performance of “I'm Just Ken”.
That same approval, that of a Gosling dedicated to the cause, in pink and in a madonnian bullfight for all time is the one he obtained “Barbie”, which took Billie Eilish's award for Best Song (“What Was I Made For?”) and gave meaning to everything: her prize, really, was being there. And the hundreds of millions of dollars amassed, we assume. Almost as many as she has grown Al Pacino in his career and that yesterday, we also understand, he changed for an extra drink when he starred in the most anticlimactic moment of the night: instead of reading what the envelope said and regaling us with the usual “…and the Oscar goes to”the interpreter decided to skip all protocols and say that, he believed, “here it says Oppenheimer”. Genius stuff.
Of worthy, of cowards and of igneous
However, and although it is appreciated the effort to cement the Nolan legend, the Academy is still Hollywood, white and American. That led to “The Snow Society”perceived as a collective effort of Ibero-American cinema beyond being signed in and by Spaniards, was left without the Oscar for Best International Film, which went to “The area of interest” and a shameful speech Jonathan Glazer, which equated the unfortunate episodes of last October 7 with the systematic bombings, including on the civilian population, that Israel is carrying out in the Gaza Strip and for which some actors wore badges of protest. The applause, timid and hypocritical, was the same one that took Alexei Navalnycited in the In Memoriam, pulling out of his sleeve a documentary that starred and, now with complete legitimacy, Mstylsav Chernov, director of “20 days in Mariupol” and perhaps the only one in the stalls with unsullied dignity.
It is difficult to determine whether the gala, which took place in the performance of Ryan Gosling its peak moment and in memory of the deceased, their worst face, became more dynamic due to the time advance or the good knowledge of the production, but it is true that limiting some film awards to cinema seems like such obvious advice that many prefer to ignore it. Luckily, or because of Kimmel, the Oscars validated Nolan, Robert Downey Jr. and a “proudly Irish” Cillian Murphywhich although it has already won our hearts, chilled it a little by dedicating “Oppenheimer” to all the men and women of peace in the world, without a single name, country or cause to cling to. Morality, perhaps, must be sought elsewherebut the prizes devoured them all Christopher Nolan and his masterpiece.