Jolly good gongs, wot?
And the award for best awards show goes to… THE BAFTAS!
Again.
The truth is that, on some level, I enjoy all awards shows—even the ones I complain about vociferously and even the ones I consider pretty darn illegitimate. (I’m talking about you, Golden Globes.) That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Once you accept that all of them are exercises in ego and marketing—despite some being more meaningful than others—you just get on with it and enjoy them as some of the many inexplicable social rituals we go through collectively.
I have to say, the BAFTAs always make me happy in a way that other awards shows don’t.
This is in spite of the fact that I don’t really have a firm grasp on exactly what the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards actually honor. Yeah, I know, the name is self-explaining, so last night’s BAFTA Film Awards were honoring British films. Things get more complicated, though, when you try to define “British film.”
Let’s look at some of the nominees. Contestants for Best Film included Poor Things (directed by a Greek and starring Americans Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo), Killers of the Flower Moon (again, American director and stars), Anatomy of a Fall (directed by a French woman, starring a German woman, filmed in France), The Holdovers (American director and stars), and Oppenheimer, which was the winner. Okay, that last one was directed by a Brit, but it was about American characters, set and filmed in the U.S. (and Switzerland) and starred an Irishman.
So, the BAFTAs are basically another awards show, honoring movies in general no matter where they are from, which just happens to take place in London. Okay.
To make this even clearer, there is a category for Outstanding British Film of the Year, which this year had ten nominees which mostly seemed to be directed by Brits, though it did include Poor Things directed by that Greek guy, Yorgos Lanthimos, but at least it was filmed partly in Scotland (as well as Hungary). The winner was, by the way, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, which was filmed in Poland with actors speaking German (and Polish and Yiddish). It also won in two other categories, one of which was for Best Sound. In addition, the winner of Outstanding British Film of the Year also won in the category of Best Film Not in the English Language. Go figure.
Awards show categories, especially ones of a national nature, just do my head in. But that’s not even what I want to be talking about. I just want to talk about how much I enjoyed the telecast. For one thing, it was in my time zone, so I didn’t have to stay up all night or watch an edited version the following evening. Moreover, it was only two hours long. I don’t know how they do that because they seem to be editing it in real time on a time delay and every so often they run a clip of people who won previously in the evening with just snippets of the acceptance speeches. And here’s the best part. It’s on the BBC so there are no commercials. No having to fast-forward. If you need a toilet break, you just have to pause it (assuming you are recording it) or else just miss something. The way television was always meant to be.
There are danger signs for this show’s future, however. They had one of those dreaded red-carpet segments at the beginning, and someone actually said that, with all the glitz, glamor and photography, the BAFTAs were getting more American. Gulp.
Okay, here’s the best part of this year’s film BAFTAs. The host was David Tennant! We love David Tennant. The BAFTAs always have great hosts, like Stephen Fry or Richard E. Grant. Okay, they all seem to be white men, but I’m sure they’ll diversify at some point, and when they do, I’m sure she or they will be great too.
There was some grumbling (mainly in the Irish press as far as I can tell) that Tennant wasn’t funny enough, but compared to what? Did they even see the Golden Globes? Okay, there was a lot of time spent on a comic opening segment reprising the Covid-era series that Tennant and Michael Sheen did about David having to dog-sit Michael’s pooch, but it paid off handsomely when David announced that the dog (named Bark Ruffalo) was played by motion-capture supremo Andy Serkis, who gamely went along with the gag when he showed up to present an award.
There was not a single mention of Doctor Who, though Tennant is the absolute best Time Lord of all time. There was even a couple of brief Doctor Who reunions, which went unacknowledged. At one point Tennant, walking down an aisle in the audience, said hello in passing to Carey Mulligan (nominated for Maestro). Only us Who aficionados were immediately reminded that she appeared with Tennant in one of the all-time best episodes of the series ever—something she has seemed strangely uninterested in talking about since.
The other brief reunion was when Tennant introduced Adjoa Andoh (best known these days for playing Lady Danbury on Bridgerton) to present a special award to film archivist June Givanni for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. On Doctor Who Andoh memorably played the mother of Martha Jones, arguably the best TARDIS companion ever. A wink or a nod or a special knowing smile would have been nice, but oh well.
I have to say, all the acceptance speeches were pretty good, especially those of Da’Vine Joy Randolph (for her supporting role in The Holdovers) for her sincere gratitude and appreciation, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari (co-writers of Anatomy of a Fall) for jokingly suggesting their husband-tumbles-out-high-window screenplay might be a case of life about to imitate art, and Samantha Morton who was genuinely overcome by receiving an Academy Fellowship. Special kudos to big-prize presenters Hugh Grant, for making the straight-faced most of an Oompa-Loompa ditty inspired by his turn in Wonka, and Michael J. Fox (subject of a nominated documentary) just for showing up and inspiring a huge audience reaction.
Some people were put off by Robert Downey Jr.’s acceptance speech for his deserved Supporting Actor award for Oppenheimer. They thought it was full of ego and bitterness. I thought it was self-deprecating and funny. You can get away with a lot in my book if you can just be funny.
As a resident of Ireland, I am legally required to mention how great the Irish did. The Irish did great! Cillian Murphy surprised no one by picking up the Best Actor prize, although I still think Paul Giamatti is probably more deserving. Also, the Irish got five other BAFTA awards because you remember that movie I mentioned, Poor Things, which was nominated for Outstanding British Picture of the Year? The one with the Greek director and American stars? Who knew? It’s actually an Irish movie.
-S.L., 19 February 2024
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