Awards season went to Oppenheimer and his director, Christopher Nolan. On stage, with the Oscar for best actor, Cillian Murphy pointed out what it was like to play the creator of the atomic bomb. “For better or worse, we all live in Oppenheimer's world and so I want to dedicate this to all those seeking peace around the world.” The film won seven statuettes of the 13 for which it was nominated. Nolan thanked his wife, Emma Thomas, “producer of all our films.”
Towards the closing of the ceremony, after Ryan Gosling's presentation accompanied by guitar, Slash is there to perform 'I'm Just Ken'; Emma Stone won her second Oscar for Poor Creatures. The category did not have a favorite, since Lily Gladstone had won the Golden Globe for The Moon Killers. “Lily, I share this with you, I admire you very much and it has been an honor to do all this together. I hope we can do things together,” said the actress who also has credits as a producer for Poor Creatures.
As the favorite for best supporting actress, Da'Vine Joy Randolph won the Oscar for The Holdovers. The actress had won the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, Bafta and the SAG Awards. “I didn't think this would be my career, since I started as a singer. And my mother told me, 'Cross that street to that theater, there's something for you there,'” she said at the beginning of her emotional speech, in which she was grateful for having been seen. “I am very grateful, but… for a long time I wanted to be different and now I realize that I just need to be myself and I thank you for seeing me. When I was the only black girl in that class, when she saw me and told me I was enough.'”
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One of the awards in which there was no favorite was the Oscar for best original screenplay, and it went to a French film Anatomy of a Fall, the winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival. “It would help me in my midlife crisis… This is a very crazy year, a lot of glamor tonight, a lot of contrasts in how we started,” Oscar-nominated filmmaker Justine Triet began her speech. She took the stage with her partner, Arthur Harari, with whom she co-wrote the story. about the trial for the death of the husband of a famous writer. “We have two children at home, we were in confinement. And we watched cartoons to have peace, there was no line between work and diapers.”
Harari added that the producers gave them the freedom to make the story they wanted. “It was like playing ping-pong, there was nothing above us, there was total independence and freedom, it was the only way we could make this film. So thank you for that.”
Perhaps one of the most frontal speeches about the industry was given by the director of American Fiction, Cord Jefferson. “I've been talking a lot about how many people didn't want to get involved in this movie and I'm worried that it seems like I'm taking revenge,” he said upon receiving the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. “I'm not taking revenge, I've worked hard not to be vengeful. But I'm asking you to recognize that there are many people out there who want the opportunity that I was given. Instead of making one expensive movie, make 10 cheap ones, 15 or 50 $4 million ones,” he continued. “I feel very happy to be here and I felt very happy to make this film and I want other people to also experience this. I promise you the next Scorsese is out there, Greta, the next Chris Nolan is out there, they're just waiting for a chance. This changed my life. Thank you for trusting a 40-year-old black man who had never directed anything.”
